Five months on from introducing its fining system for face-to-face charities, the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association is still not ready to release any results.

Despite revealing in August last year that charities had already incurred penalty points under the system within its first week of operation, the self-regulatory body is not yet ready to disclose its findings.

“We’re still looking into how best to make the information public, and we have to make sure we get it right,” Ian MacQuillin, PFRA's head of communications, told civilsociety.co.uk. “We want to get this information out but we want to make sure it’s as robust as possible and in the best possible form."

The penalty system sees PFRA member organisations accumulate points for breaching rules, such as failing to make solicitation statements, standing within three metres of a business's doorway or leaving bags on public pathways.
 
“The problem,” MacQuillin continued, “is that the organisation which has incurred the most penalty points is inevitably the one that is doing the most face-to-face fundraising. This does not necessarily mean that they are the worst offender.

“So we first need to develop a system that gives a fair representation, perhaps weighting breaches of the rules with the reports of mystery shoppers.”

MacQuillin also stressed the importance of gathering enough information to build up a benchmark. “This could take a year, although that doesn’t mean it will be a whole year before we can release any details. 

“Face-to-face fundraising rarely gets a fair representation in the media, so we need to make sure we get this absolutely right.”