Chief executives of some of the UK's largest charities told a Parliamentary inquiry this morning that they failed to properly monitor their telephone fundraising agencies and said fundraising regulation needs a statutory underpinning.

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee this morning took evidence as part of its inquiry into fundraising regulation, which it launched after a series of Daily Mail articles exposing failings at telephone fundraising agencies.

In its first evidence session it heard from Peter Wanless, chief executive of NSPCC; Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam; David Canavan, acting chief executive of the RSPCA, and Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children UK.

The chief executives  called for stronger sanctions for rule breakers, and said that any fundraising regulator should be able to report persistent misbehaviour to the Charity Commission.

They agreed that the practices highlight over the summer were unacceptable, with Forsyth going so far as to say that the Daily Mail “did a public service”.

Wanless (pictured) said he thought the problem came about because: “There has been an imbalance between the desire to raise money and the importance of valuing relationships with donors.”

Goldring added that: “We got into the situation by placing too much reliance on agencies with too little supervision. We did not supervise those agencies strongly enough.”

All four large charities had similar methods for monitoring their agency partners, in that they listened to phone calls, carried out mystery shopping activity and visited the call centres, but they failed to spot problems.

Forsyth said: “We were looking but not hard enough.”

At NSPCC trustees decided to stop street fundraising after discovering issues with it, but Wanless said that “we didn’t have the evidence about telephone fundraising”.

‘We need a stronger regulator’

All four were among the 17 signatories to the Institute of Fundraising’s open letter calling for tighter regulation that was published at the weekend.

Forsyth called for a “hybrid” between statutory regulation and self-regulation, similar to the Advertising Standards Authority.

He suggested that there should be “statutory underpinning” of the rules so that the Charity Commission could take action against charities which repeatedly broke the rules.

Rather than fines he suggested banning charities from certain types of fundraising.

Telephone fundraising is economical

While they all emphasised that telephone fundraising was a relatively small part of their overall activity, they said they do it because it raises money.

Goldring said: “Over time we have found it economical to have a balance between what we do in house and what we do with agencies.”

Canavan said: “We have to manage funds in the most effective way possible. These companies can provide a professional service at a cost that is effective.”

Wanless said that NSPCC spends £1.2m per year on telemarketing and expects a return of about three times that amount. Its total spend on fundraising activity is £28.5m and its voluntary income is £118m.

“It is effective but it is in decline. It was a much more valuable and effective method to have in the past than it is now,” he said.

Taking action to protect the vulnerable

All four charities said they would renegotiate their relationships with fundraising agencies with a view to protecting vulnerable people.

Goldring said that Oxfam was going beyond the IoF standard and now insists that if its callers get an inkling that the person on the other end of the phone is vulnerable they say “I think it’s better that we send you something in the post” and end the call.

He also told MPs that Oxfam has stopped calling people who have made a general agreement to be contacted via lifestyle surveys.

This morning the committee also took evidence from Alistair Mclean and Andrew Hind of the FRSB, Paul Stallard and Peter Hills-Jones of the PFRA and Peter Lewis and Richard Taylor from the Insitute of Fundraising. Click here to read that report.

 

Clarification: This article has been ammended to clarify that NSPCC stopped street fundraising not door-to-door.