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Press Release

Statement on Wolverhampton City Council

23 September 2011

The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association – the self-regulatory body for F2F fundraising – is advising its members to ignore threats from Wolverhampton City Council.

The Council wrote to the PFRA on 12 September to inform us that it intends to enforce a bylaw that prevents people from advertising or soliciting for any service or gather information for use in the supply of goods or services.

The council asked PFRA to inform our members that any charities working in Wolverhampton would receive a £500 on prosecution.

The bylaw cited by the council refers to trading and soliciting goods and services. Fundraisers do not sell or solicit goods or services and we have confirmation from the Office of Fair Trading that fundraising is not trading.

We are entirely confident that any prosecution the council chooses to bring under this bylaw will fail.

PFRA met with representatives of Wolverhampton City Council late last year to discuss a site access agreement that would set controls on fundraising visits to the city, in much the same way as we have agreements with cities such as Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Norwich.

The discussions went well and PFRA drafted a site agreement, which we sent to the council for approval. The council however sent PFRA an email with a requested start date for the agreement but withdrew from the process in the spring of this year and has not been in contact with the PFRA since.

There is an established self-regulatory regime for street face-to-face fundraising that many local authorities have joined. The simplest solution to regulating face-to-face fundraising in Wolverhampton is for the city council to work in partnership with the PFRA, a solution that will have no cost implications for Wolverhampton's council taxpayers.

PFRA has written to Wolverhampton City Council to inform them of our position.



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Public Fundraising Regulatory Association

Public Fundraising Regulatory Association

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