The quality of street fundraising is improving, according to PFRA data

05 Jun 2014 News

The quality of street fundraising is improving, but there are concerns about the behaviour of some private site fundraisers, the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association’s head of standards and allocations has said.

The quality of street fundraising is improving, but there are concerns about the behaviour of some private site fundraisers, the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association’s head of standards and allocations has said.

Speaking at the PFRA’s AGM in London yesterday, Nick Henry, who heads up the regulator’s compliance regime of site visits and mystery shopping exercises, said he was pleased with the standard of street fundraising seen over the past year.  

The PFRA’s figures show that of out of 1,009 site inspections carried out, 30 per cent of visits saw fundraisers incur penalty points in 2013/14, which is down three percentage points on the previous year.

The average number of penalty points given per visit was also down to 39, compared to 44 in 2012/13.

However, the number of mystery shops to incur penalties was 58 per cent, up ten percentage points on the previous year.

Charities and agencies have been receiving penalty points of 20, 50 or 100 for breaching street fundraising regulations since the launch of the sanctions regime in August 2012. If an organisation receives more than 1,000 points in a financial year, it is fined £1 per point.

In the year to August 2013, a total of almost 60,000 points were issued, according to PFRA figures published last November.

Asked for his impressions of current standards of street fundraising at yesterday’s AGM, Henry said: “I’m actually quite pleased. I’ve taken the opportunity at these meetings before to bemoan the quality of fundraising on the street but I have to report it’s showing signs of improvement.
 
“It definitely seems to be attracting a more mature, a more thoughtful type of candidate.”

He said that from the regulator’s conversations with councils most of the issues raised were about where fundraisers were operating rather than behavioural.

The PFRA will now be looking at private site fundraising and the possibility of carrying out mystery shopping checks on fundraising in shops and shopping centres, he said.

“Some members have been dismayed that supermarkets are beginning to shut them out and concerned it is the beginning of a trend,” Henry said. “I’ve also heard that the behaviour of private site fundraisers does occasionally leave something to be desired.”  

Henry today told Civil Society News that supermarkets, including Tesco and Asda, had recently notified agencies that policies had changed and they did not allow fundraising for Direct Debit sign-ups in their stores. The supermarket did not explain why, he said.