Shelter Scotland has apologised after its face-to-face fundraisers boarded an Edinburgh commuter bus to ask for donations.

The charity received several complaints from passengers on the First Bus from East Lothian to Edinburgh after they were approached by the Shelter fundraisers and asked to sign up to a direct debit. 

One passenger told the Edinburgh Evening News: "I couldn't believe it. I know it's fairly common on the street to be accosted by charities asking you for money, but public transport is taking it to a new level."

Responding to the event Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland said: "All our fundraisers are given strict guidelines within which they must operate and therefore we deeply regret this has happened.

"We offer our sincerest apologies to anyone who was approached in this way and give our assurances that we have already taken the appropriate steps to stop this from happening again."

A spokesman for Shelter Scotland told civilsociety.co.uk the fundraisers involved were "immediately pulled from the area" and that the contract with the agency that employed the street fundraisers was cancelled. The charity advised it could not yet confirm which agency this was.

Face-to-face in Scotland

It is estimated that there are around 30 to 40 face-to-face fundraisers in Scotland. While all fundraisers in the UK are tied to the Institute of Fundraising codes of conduct, Scottish regulation of street fundraising is "significantly more flexible" according to the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA), as the country allows more informal agreements and no licences are required to undertake the fundraising method.

In March 2011 Labour MSP George Foulkes called for stronger regulation of street fundraising in Scotland, saying its "discourteous methods" put "undue pressure" on passers-by, but there has since been no movement on the issue.

After erroneous reports in April 2011, the PFRA advised that a code-of-conduct for Edinburgh street fundraisers had not yet been implemented following discussions with Edinburgh's city centre management company Essential Edinburgh. Ian MacQuillin, head of communications at the PFRA, advised that the regulator was "still in discussion" with Essential Edinburgh over implementing a site agreement, but that this would have had no effect on the outcome of these events:

"The fundraisers were not a street team but a doorstep face-to-face team who approached people either at the end of, or on their way to their shift, or going between locations. However, the fact that there was no site agreement is beside the point.

"The IoF code says that fundraisers need permission to work and as this would essentially have been fundraising on a private site, would have needed the permission of the bus company to do this. If they didn't have that, they're in breach of the code of practice."