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Charitable collections:
Licensing - monitoring and enforcement

Headings on this page :

Related pages:  You're looking at one of the following closely-related pages :

• The law on house-to-house collections
• Licensing - applications
• Licensing - registers
• Licensing - monitoring and enforcement  =this page

Please see the other pages to get the full picture.
 

Scope:  On this page, we're only dealing with :

• house-to-house collections (not street collections)
• charitable collections (not commercial collections)
• collections in England and Wales

Monitoring of collections

On the licence applications page we describe how councils process applications for collection licences under the House to House Collections Act 1939.  Some councils see this as their only duty under the 1939 Act.  However, they've misunderstood the Act.  Licensing doesn't just involve administering an application process.  Councils also have a legal duty to :

• take adequate steps to monitor charitable collections taking place in their area
• take appropriate action against unlicensed collections - including enforcement action and prosecution.

Monitoring involves :

• gathering intelligence
• visiting streets from time to time to find out about collections

There's two aspects to the work :

• passive - reacting to information received - eg from trading standards, the police, the public, other collectors or charities
• pro-active - 'looking for problems' - actively investigating.

Councils monitor two types of charitable collections :

1. Licensed collections - Councils need to take reasonable steps to ensure that the collectors are complying with the conditions of the licence.
2. Unlicensed collections - These are illegal but widespread.  See more on this below.

Dealing with unlicensed charitable collections
(investigation, enforcement and prosecution)

Urgency:  Bear in mind that - if a council contemplates intercepting and prosecuting a collector - there's a gap of only about 1 to 2 days between being alerted by the delivery of the leaflets/bags and the day of the collection.  So, it's crucial the council acts swiftly.

Plans:  Good councils draw up plans to deal with unlicensed collections - establishing arrangements in advance (in conjunction with the police and trading standards) - so that all parties can react quickly and appropriately when needed.  Indeed, a failure to do this could be seen as maladministration by the local government ombudsman.

Investigation

Questions to be answered

Is it licensed?:  If licensing staff in a local council are alerted about a questionable charitable collection, they can say immediately if the collection is licensed (ie authorised).  The collection is licensed if it's :

• in the council's register of licensed collections, or
• on the list of national Exemption Orders (produced by the Office of the Third Sector) - in other words, it's exempt.

Does it need a licence?:  This involves asking the question:  Is the collection "purporting to be charitable, philanthropic or benevolent"? (see the wording in the 1939 Act).  If the answer is 'yes', then it needs a licence.

• Sometimes, deciding this is easy - eg if the words 'charity' or 'donate' are used.  
• But it can be difficult - for instance if vague phrases are used like :
  
  - "third world clothing collection", or
  - "urgent - please help us . . . thank you for your kindness".
  
  The website of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)   comes in useful here - see their adjudications on potentially misleading clothing collection leaflets.

Should you prosecute?:  If a collection (1) needs a licence, and (2) hasn't got one - then it's illegal (a criminal offence).  However, most councils don't prosecute automatically - they want to know more information about the collection first.  For example is it :

• a bona fide collector working with a genuine charity - where they've innocently forgotten to get a licence this time?
• . . . or is it a scam - operating fraudulently?
   

Getting more information

Should you contact the collector (or charity)?:  No!  - Because it would alert them to the investigation - and it's likely the collector wouldn't carry out the collection.  Then the council wouldn't be able to prosecute.

1.  First, the council needs to examine the collection leaflet or bag in some detail :

• Who's collecting?
• On behalf of which good cause (charity etc)?
• What are they collecting?
• When are they coming?
• Is it charitable or commercial?
• What contact details are given? (names, addresses, telephone numbers, websites, email addresses, registered numbers)
• . . .  etc.

2.  The next task is to check online sources :

• the Companies House website   - for details of the collector (if they're a company)
• the Charity Commission's website   - for details of any charity allegedly involved
• any websites of the collector and/or charity
• the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) website   - for any adjudications relating to the collector
• Google for anything on the collections - eg newspaper articles, press releases by other councils, comments in blogs and forums

Often at this point it will still be unclear whether to prosecute.

3.  There are a couple of national alerting services and forums for licensing staff.  These may help.  However, we understand they're of limited use at present in this context.  We wish they could be improved.  (Trading standards have better systems.)

4.  Information from other councils:  Ideally the council wants to know whether the licensing departments of other councils have come across this collector.  Crucial questions include :

Concerning applications for collection licences :

1. Have they ever applied for a collection licence anywhere in the country?
2. If so, what was the outcome?

Concerning unlicensed collections :

1. Has the collector been collecting without a licence elsewhere?
2. Did the council consider it needed a licence? (ie was it judged to be 'charitable'?)
3. Has any council warned the collector about collecting without a licence?
4. Has the collector been prosecuted for conducting unlicensed collections?

At present, councils can't easily find answers to any of these questions.  They can contact a few nearby authorities, but it would take days to contact all the 300 or so licensing authorities in England and Wales.

For a start, councils need to be able to access the registers of other licensing departments - but they can't do this at the moment.

This problem is seriously hampering enforcement.  So charities are losing £ millions due to misleading and bogus clothing collections which councils are reluctant to stop.

For suggested solutions, please see the related page called:

• Registers - council registers of applications for collection licences

Intercepting the collection

If the council decides to take action against a collection, it's got to be intercepted on the collection day.

By whom?

• by the licensing department (as the 'lead' agency)
• usually in conjunction with the police
• trading standards are sometimes involved too.

Day and time - Collection leaflets/bags specify the day of collection.  However, they don't tell you the time they're coming - they just say (for example) 'between 8am and 5pm'.

Council staff - To intercept a collection, council staff have to be prepared to be on the collection route all day.  On average, though, the collector will arrive around lunchtime - so the typical wait will be 4-5 hours.

Police - Ideally the police would be present throughout.  However, we've come across a compromise where the police were briefed in advance, and they agreed to attend immediately when they were called by council staff (by mobile phone) - once the collector was spotted.  Collection vans drive slowly (eg 10mph) and stand out easily.

Help from the public - In one case, there was an arrangement where a member of the public (involved with the local Neighbourhood Watch / Home Watch scheme) offered to sit by her front window all day - and to ring the council (and police) when the collector passed.  This resulted in the collector being apprehended.

Radio transmitters - In one innovative case, a miniature radio transmitter was placed in a collection bag in the street.  As soon as the bag was collected, enforcement officers were able to locate the collector's van and follow it.

Stopping the van - The 1939 Act (section 6) gives the police powers to require a collector to give them his personal details.

Interviews - Using powers under the Theft Act etc, the police can interview the collectors on the spot and/or take them to a local police station for interview under caution.  They can then be charged if appropriate.

In certain circumstances, the van and/or clothes can be seized.

Other offences

Other offences may come to light whilst investigating the collectors.

In two cases, the collectors were found to be illegal immigrants (from Eastern Europe) and they were deported.

In other cases, there were vehicle offences - eg driving without insurance.

In South Yorkshire  , the police stopped a van - as part of an operation targeting drivers that were flouting legislation in relation to the carriage of waste materials and those that deal in scrap metals.  The van was found to contain numerous stolen charity clothing-collection bags as well.

Prosecution

For examples (which used the 1939 Act) - see :

• Prosecution of bogus house-to-house charity collectors by South Northants Council Licensing Department
• E&C Export Ltd - prosecution by Cardiff Council (2009) - £750 fine

Normally, the prosecution is brought by the legal department of the council, using in-house lawyers.  The case is heard in the local magistrates court.  See the 1939 Act (as amended) for levels of fines (and imprisonment in extreme cases).

Costs - These can be claimed off the collectors.

Publicity - See the section below.

Prosecution statistics - only 0.01%

%

At present, over 50% of clothing collections in the UK are misleading or bogus.

Yet, prosecutions (under the 1939 Act) are extremely rare.  It's been estimated recently that fewer than 1 in 10,000 illegal clothing collections in the UK is subject to enforcement action/prosecution by the local council - in other words less than 0.01%.

This is an appallingly low figure and a sad reflection on the present regime.  Genuine charities (such as the Children's Society, Salvation Army and Cancer Research UK) are losing out badly because of this situation.  So, people who are disabled, sick or terminally ill are failing to get the help they need - because of this inaction by many local councils.

It's especially sad because prosecution under the 1939 Act is relatively straightforward, inexpensive and the costs can be claimed off the collectors.

Furthermore, a successful prosecution is excellent publicity/public relations for a council - given the widespread public concern about misleading clothing collections.  A prosecution is almost guaranteed to get glowing front-page coverage in a local newspaper.  For example see the page on clothing collections in the media - eg stories in the Daily Mirror.

There's a marked contrast between the approaches to enforcement and prosecution by council trading standards and council licensing departments :

• Most council trading standards departments are 'geared up' to do prosecutions - 'it's in their blood'.
• Council licensing departments can be reluctant to attempt enforcement, have little experience of it - or even don't realise they're supposed to do it.

See also the following pages :

• The regulators
• Problems with regulators (eg how to contact ombudsmen)

 

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