Agenda item

The licensing enforcement officer introduced a report to seek members’ approval of the amendment to include Morecambe in the Site Management Agreement between the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA) and Lancaster City Council.

The committee was advised that face-to-face fundraising was the personal solicitation (almost always by a professional fundraiser) of a regular charity donation via a direct debit. Unlike cash street collections which were regulated by the committee under the powers contained in the Police .Factories, etc (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1916, there were no provisions currently to regulate face to face (direct debit) fundraisers.

Members were reminded that following complaints from members’ of the public about face to face collectors, at the LRC meeting held on 9 June 2011 a site management agreement between the PFRA and Lancaster City Council had been approved in relation to face to face collectors in Lancaster.

It was advised that the PFRA was the charity-led self-regulatory membership body for all types of face-to-face fundraising. The PFRA had a dual role as a regulator in being the bridge between councils and charities practicing face to face fundraising: maintaining professional standards and ensuring fair allocation of fundraising on the ground.

The PFRA maintained and improved professional standards in the face to face fundraising sector by enforcing the Institute of Fundraising’s Face-to-Face Activity Code of Fundraising Practice, running a mystery shopping programme, and ensuring that their members completed an accreditation process. They also had a complaints process that could be initiated by anyone who felt a fundraiser had transgressed the code of practice. A major part of the PFRA’s role was to ensure the sustainability of face to face fundraising and ensure that it was practiced in a controlled way. They ran a fair and equitable site allocation programme and worked with local councils to negotiate ‘site management agreements’ (SMAs) that contained guarantees about the locations and times that fundraising could take place. 

The aim of a Site Management Agreement (SMA) was to facilitate face-to-face fundraising in a given location with the full agreement of the council.

It was advised that the Site Management Agreement would:

• delineate the location in which fundraisers may work. This was very specific.
• Specify which days of the week fundraisers may attend. The SMA, for instance would preclude fundraisers from working on market days. The SMA allowed fundraisers to attend four times a week in 2 locations.
• Specify how many fundraisers may attend.
• Include various other criteria and stipulations, such as distances that must be maintained from shop doorways and frontages

The PFRA would then run a diary that ensured only one charity turned up at any one time, operated according to the terms of the SMA and complied with the Institute of Fundraising Face-to-Face Activity Code of Fundraising Practice.

Since the SMA had been in place it had minimised the administration for all concerned, having provided just one channel for information, as licensing officers or town centre managers only had to deal with one organisation, the PFRA, instead of dealing with each individual charity and fundraising organisation separately.

It was advised that should PFRA members breach the terms of the SMA – for instance by straying outside the delineated areas or sending too many fundraisers – PFRA offered a single point of contact for the local authority to rectify this, and they had stated that they could usually ensure SMA breaches were put right within the hour.

The PFRA had agreed, along with licensing officers, to regularly review the agreement to ensure that it remained relevant. It had been proposed that Morecambe should be included in the agreement to ensure that the same procedures applied to those carrying out face to face collections there as to those in Lancaster. Members were recommended to approve the proposed amendment to the Site Management Agreement to include Morecambe.

Members discussed the proposal and asked appropriate questions of the licensing enforcement officer.

It was proposed by Councillor Greenall and seconded by Councillor Burns:-

“That the proposed amendment to the Site Management Agreement to include Morecambe be approved.”

Upon being put to the vote members voted unanimously in favour of the proposition, whereupon the chairman declared the proposition to be carried.

Resolved:

That the proposed amendment to the Site Management Agreement to include Morecambe be approved.