Cabinet Office
Last updated: 18/12/2006
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.
In 2002 the Prime Ministers 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 statementwas made on the 27th 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 accompanies 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.
We are responsible for administering 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 40 national exemption order holders.
Under current legislation there is a right of appeal to the Home Secretary 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 will launch to the public early 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..