Press Release

PFRA response to the statement issued by Wandsworth council about fundraising in Tooting

August 18 2009

The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association – the self-regulatory body for street fundraising ¬– is dismayed that Wandsworth Council should issue a press release about fundraisers in Tooting Broadway that contains several inaccuracies, which are so inaccurate we suspect they are malicious.

Our dismay is compounded because we have been trying to arrange a meeting with the council for the more than a month to discuss this situation but have kept receiving the cold shoulder.

1) The situation with fundraising on Tooting Broadway

The PFRA runs a diary system to allocate time and space to charities wishing to fundraise at 140 sites across London. In 2002, Audrey Helps, the Tooting Town Centre Manager, contacted PFRA about the volume of fundraising on Tooting Broadway. We agreed then to suspend fundraising pending a meeting with Ms Helps to agree a 'site management agreement'.

A meeting was arranged between PFRA and Tooting Town Centre Management Board, which was attended by Ms Helps, in September 2002 and as a result of those discussions, the PFRA sent proposals for a site management agreement (available on request).

However, Ms Helps never responded, and the agreement was never ratified. Fundraisers have visited Tooting Broadway only sporadically between 2002 and summer 2009, on their own initiative outside of our diary system. (Contrary to the council's assertion that residents have been regularly 'pestered' by fundraisers, our members have found residents and visitors to Tooting Broadway to be more generous than the London average.)

On July 16, 2009, PFRA took a phone call from Ms Helps complaining about the amount of fundraising in Tooting Broadway.

We referred Ms Helps to the historic situation and requested that she attend a meeting to agree a site management agreement with Wandsworth Council in which we would mutually agree how many fundraisers could visit and on how many days a week. We have also informed her that, as we intend to formally begin allocating Tooting Broadway to individual members as part of our diary from September 21, we would welcome her input prior to that.

However, Ms Helps has prevaricated and failed to commit to meeting us. Our latest communication from Ms Helps is dated 13th August. This 'apologises' to us for not being able to arrange a meeting because the holiday period has made it hard to talk to all her stakeholders. As this is dated just two working days before the issue of the press release, it would appear that Ms Helps' latest email was just a stalling tactic and that Wandsworth Council had no intention of meeting us. Email stream between Ms Helps and PFRA available on request.

There are further malicious statements in Wandsworth Council's press release.

2) Metropolitan Police 'misgivings' about street fundraising.

It is categorically not the case that the Metropolitan Police has misgivings about street fundraising.

Fundraising throughout Greater London is licensed by the Metropolitan Police and the guidance from the Met is that no licence is required to carry out street fundraising for direct debits. Letter from the Metropolitan Police available on request.

We have received no complaints or concerns from the Met about fundraising anywhere in Greater London.

3) The press release states that street fundraising is uncontrolled.

This is not true: it is controlled by the PFRA and we have highly productive relationships with many local authorities, not just in Greater London (for example, Bromley, Sutton and Hillingdon) but also throughout the United Kingdom, codifying access for fundraisers to their town centres.

4) Charities Act 2006

The Charities Act 2006 will bring direct debit street fundraising into the licensing regime but will also require all local authorities to make sites available for street fundraising. The Office of the Third Sector is currently consulting on how to implement the new licensing regime contained in the Act but it expressly will not allow any local authority to 'ban' the activity.

5) Probity of street fundraising

The press release states that direct debit fundraising on the street is "regarded as risky and undesirable". If so, then this is only Wandsworth Council's opinion. It is not the opinion of the other local authorities with whom PFRA has site management agreements, nor has this type of fundraising ever been criticised on data protection grounds by consumer protection agencies. There has never been a single instance of fraud or identity theft from street fundraising.

6) Safety of pedestrians in Tooting

We are more than a little surprised that the council should imply that Tooting Broadway is such a dangerous place that pedestrians should not stop to talk to fundraisers in case they have their pockets picked. [The press release states: "There are worries that distracting people and encouraging them to remain stationary at such a busy location makes them easier targets for pickpockets and bag snatchers."]

None of the PFRA staff has actually visited Tooting Broadway recently, but we can't believe it's so crime-ridden that, if we did, the council would advise us not to stand still, to look in a shop window for instance, in case we got robbed.

7) Allegations of malpractice

The release uses pejorative language that expressly states that fundraisers use 'manipulative tactics' and 'take unfair advantage of vulnerable people'. These unsupported accusations are contemptible and we will not respond to them here. However, any journalist should feel free to contact the PFRA to discuss any aspect of street fundraising, including the code of practice and our quality control and compliance measures.

The bottom line is that Wandsworth Council has had seven years to arrange a site management agreement over Tooting Broadway but has deliberately and cynically declined to engage with the PFRA to do so.