The Institute of Fundraising and PFRA have said that existing requirements around the way agency fundraisers explain their fees are “effective”, and they do not believe further changes are needed.
Evidence submitted by the representative bodies to Parliament on Monday said that existing laws around fundraising agency fees introduced into the Charities Act 2006 and bought into force in April 2008 mean that “UK now has some of the world’s most transparent rules on how charities work with agencies”.
The membership bodies, which are in the process of merging into a single entity, said that the existing requirements – which mean that all professional fundraisers must inform donors of how much they are paid by an organisation – “are effective” and don't need to be amended.
“All professional fundraisers working on behalf of a charity must now inform a donor of how much their organisation will be paid; how this fee was calculated; and importantly, how much the charity hopes to raise in total,” wrote the IoF/PFRA.
“We fully support this level of transparency which allows potential donors to make informed decisions. The PFRA and its local authority partners (107 councils in total) monitor compliance with these rules, conducting over 700 inspections a year, and issue financial penalties for non-compliance.”
“The IoF and PFRA believe that the existing requirements are effective and do not believe there is evidence that further changes would improve donor confidence or strengthen compliance.”
The IoF and the PFRA were responding to a question over the transparency of existing solicitation statements found in section 162A of the Bill, raised during the second reading by a backbencher, according to a spokesman from the IoF.
Rob Wilson, civil society minister, said that while no amendments to the Bill in that regard are planned, it would be something he would be happy to discuss in future.
Reserve powers
In its written evidence, the IoF and PFRA also said that it understands the government’s reasons for introducing reserve powers into the Bill but said they “hope that ultimately the reserve powers being introduced will not be needed”.
The government will be seeking to amend the Bill to introduced reserve powers to compel charities to sign up to the new fundraising regulator if necessary and to mandate the Charity Commission to take over responsibility for regulating fundraising should the sector “fail in making the new self-regulatory structure work”.
The IoF and PFRA said “we will continue to work to support the new system” in order to “ensure its success, without the need for the reserve powers to be used”.
The committee is next set to meet on 5 January 2016.
