Minister for civil society Nick Hurd has dismissed suggestions from a fellow Tory MP that more regulation of charity collections is needed to stop bogus collectors from ruining the fundraising mechanism.
Hurd was speaking at a Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday, hosted by Conservative minister Tracey Crouch, when he suggested that most education and enforcement, rather than regulation, will be more effective in combating bogus collections.
Crouch cited estimates that up to half of all collections are bogus and called for Hurd to push to implement the secondary legislation in the 2006 Charities Act “at the earliest opportunity”. She suggested that “the current level of deterrence is laughable, and bogus collectors continue to act with impunity”.
While committing to reviewing the full implementation of the collections regime included in the Charities Act next year, as the government is obliged to do, Hurd said he was not convinced that transferring licensing authority to the Charity Commission is the answer to the problem.
“If I thought that the full implementation of that measure would transform the landscape and make a huge difference, I would have carried that out some time ago,” said the minister.
He said that evidence he has been presented suggests that the impact of implementing the changes “could be marginally deregulatory, in the sense that it would effectively replace the requirement to get a local authority licence to operate in a specific area with a requirement to get a certification from the Charity Commission to operate anywhere.
“I am not entirely persuaded that that would solve the problem,” he said, but added research is underway on the topic.
Increased fines
One measure Hurd was more eager to consider was the increasing of fines for bogus collections, which currently stand at £1,000 when international rates for second hand textiles are reaching up to £900 a tonne.
“There seems to be a mismatch between [the fine] and the price of a tone of textiles, so I shall write to the Ministry of Justice to explore its appetite for a review of the levels of fines and deterrence.”
It was at the same debate that Hurd suggested the creation of a round table on charity collections.
Public irritated
Hurd said that there are three kinds of collection activity would stand to damage the sector’s reputation: outright fraud; commercial collections which suggest that charities will benefit from the donation; and theft of bags left out for collection.
Hurd underlined that the issue was one that MPs often ran up against in their areas and referred to FRSB reports that complaints about collections have doubled in the past year. “Well all know, even just from walking the streets of our constituencies and knocking on the doors, that the public are more and more exposed to leaflets, bags and requests for information, and that is irritating them.”
