The Etherington Review of fundraising self-regulation has today published a list of questions for charities which wish to respond, and has set a date of 14 August to receive replies.
Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of NCVO, was tasked by Rob Wilson, minister for civil society with reviewing fundraising self-regulation earlier in July.
He will today send eight questions to all those individuals and charities who have expressed an interest in taking part.
Due to the “very short timescale” allowed for the review - Etherington is due to report back to the office of civil society by mid-September - interested parties are called upon to submit responses by August 14.
With the consultation questions, Etherington has encouraged respondents to give “their views on as many or as few [of the questions] as appropriate”.
Once the responses have been collected, Etherington and the rest of the review panel, will publish a “summary of consultation responses” as opposed to publishing each response individually.
All respondents are being encouraged to include a contact name and details with their responses and can publish their own responses "should they wish to".
The consultation questions are:
- What do you consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of the current self-regulatory set up? Do you believe self-regulation continues to be an appropriate approach to regulating fundraising?
- What do you consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of the bodies currently involved in self-regulation?
- What changes, if any, do you believe should be made to the current self-regulatory structure?
- What do you consider the most effective ways to ensure coverage of and compliance with a self-regulatory regime?
- How could it best be ensured that a future self-regulatory system is adequately resourced?
- Which charities should be covered by self-regulation? Should there be a threshold for fundraised income before membership of a self-regulatory body is expected? If so, where would you set this threshold?
- Should additional measures be put in place to monitor or regulate operational fundraising agencies, such as call centres? If so, what should these be?
- Do you have views on how to ensure charities adhere to high standards in public fundraising, other than through formal regulatory structures?
