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Last updated: 23 November 2008
Part III of the Charities Act 1992 set out a new regime for the licensing of collections covering both house-to-house and street collections. However, it has never been brought into force because concerns were raised about whether it would work in practice. It will be replaced by the provisions of the Charities Act 2006, when they are brought into force.
The OTS has published a draft guidance document to explain to charities, professional fund-raisers and commercial participators involved in fund-raising ventures, what changes have been made to the requirements of Part 2 of the 1992 Act. The guidance highlights key provisions that came into force on 1 April 2008 and provides some examples of fund-raising statements that in our view would satisfy the new requirements.
The OTS would like to thank those who submitted comments on the guidance, the deadline for receipt of which has now closed. We are now in the process of reviewing the responses and will publish updated guidance in the coming months.
The 2006 Act also amends the 1992 Act to require certain employees or officers of a charitable institution, or a company connected to a charitable institution and certain trustees of charitable institutions to make a simple statement while making appeals, when fund-raising in a public place or door-to-door as a collector in that capacity. These provisions also came into force on 1 April 2008. We have published a guidance document to help employees and paid officers or a trustee of a charity to comply with the legislation:
In 2002 the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit recommended that a new integrated licensing scheme should be applied to public collections for charitable purposes in order to address the main problems which arise with the current system.
The Government's consultation paper on proposals for a new local authority licensing scheme, ‘Public Collections for Charitable, Philanthropic and Benevolent Purposes’, was published on 9 September 2003, with a closing date for responses of 2 December 2003.
A written ministerial statement was made on 27 May 2004 detailing the outcome of the consultation and how the proposals would be taken forward. The public charitable collections proposals were further developed following recommendations of the Joint Committee on the Draft Charities Bill. Details of the proposals for public charitable collections, and their impact on charities and local authorities, can be found in the Regulatory Impact Assessment which accompanied the Charities Bill.
Public charitable collections in the street are currently regulated under the Police, Factories Etc Act 1916 (Miscellaneous Provisions), and a model of local regulations is contained in the Charitable Collections Order 1974 (Transitional Provisions), though local authorities are not obliged to introduce such a system of licensing in their area.
Public charitable collections conducted house-to-house are currently regulated by the House to House Collections Act 1939 and the House to House Collections Regulations 1947, which established a central licensing regime for such collections.
The Local Government Act 1972 transferred responsibility for both forms of licensing to local authorities from the police, except in London where responsibility remains with the Metropolitan Police and the Common Council of the City of London.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office is responsible for the national exemption order scheme for house-to-house collections under the current law. National exemption orders are generally available to organisations which have obtained house to house collection licences in at least 70-100 local authority licensing areas for the two preceding years. There are currently 43 national exemption order holders.
Under current legislation there is a right of appeal to the Minister for the Cabinet Office against the decision of a local authority to refuse an organisation a licence to hold a house to house collection or to revoke such a licence. We process this type of appeal. There is currently no equivalent right of appeal in the case of street collections.
Self-regulation of fundraising was a recommendation of the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit review of the charitable and wider not-for-profit sector. The Government accepted the Strategy Unit recommendation for self-regulation of fundraising, and has made provision in the Charities Act 2006 for statutory regulation should self-regulation fail.
The Fundraising Standards Board is open for membership, and launched to the public in 2007. All charities involved in public fundraising are encouraged to support the scheme. Further details are available from the Fundraising Standards Board [external website].
The main aim of the scheme is to maintain and build on the high levels of public trust and confidence in the voluntary sector's fundraising activities. The scheme operates UK-wide, and membership is open to all organisations involved in public fundraising. The Office of the Third Sector and Scottish Executive are providing financial support to establish the scheme and support it during its first years. The aim is for the scheme to become self-funding through membership subscriptions.
In March 2005 the Home Office published a consultation paper on the criteria which would be used to assess the success of the Regulation of Fundraising Scheme, and in determining whether the Home Secretary would need to make use of his powers to bring in statutory regulations. A written ministerial statement gives more details.
We are grateful to those who responded to the consultation, and have produced a summary of consultation responses. On 6 February 2006 Paul Goggins MP set out the Government's position following the consultation on assessing the success of self-regulation in a written ministerial statement.
Following Machinery of Government changes, responsibility now rests with the Minister for the Cabinet Office, and the Office of the Third Sector.