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Charitable clothing collections:
Problems and solutions

Headings on this page :

Notes

The main regulatory agencies to which we refer below are :

• local authority licensing departments
• local authority trading standards departments (TSDs)
• the police
• the Charity Commission
• the Home Office - responsible for charity policy until May 2006
• the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) - responsible for charity policy from May 2006
• the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

In researching the issues associated with charity collections, we've found most staff of regulatory agencies to be friendly, helpful and efficient. Our comments below are meant as constructive, positive suggestions.

 Monitoring and enforcement

There needs to be more monitoring of charity collections and enforcement of the rules on charity collections, and a more pro-active approach.

This would be helped by an increase in resources given to the regulatory agencies. The evidence we've seen shows it would be very cost-effective.

Example 1 - In one council's area a local resident had records showing that an average of six house-to-house charity clothing collections were carried out annually. She contacted the licensing department - they had licensed only two of the collections. The others were illegal and mostly bogus. The council appeared unaware of the unlicensed collections and seemed to have no procedures in place to monitor them. The council said that, if they were tipped off that an unlicensed collection was about to occur, they had no arrangements in place to intervene and they would not involve the police. We feel that this may amount to maladministration by the council and could be seen as a failure to carry out their statutory duties.

Example 2 - By contrast, some councils have made commendable efforts to stop bogus collections - such as South Northamptonshire (achieving a successful prosecution), Leeds, Stockport and Middlesbrough.

Co-ordination and communication

There needs to be much more co-ordination and communication between the regulatory agencies. At present they are often not co-operating and liaising effectively with each other. This problem has several dimensions :

• interaction between different types of agency - eg between licensing departments and trading standards departments
• interaction between examples of the same type of agency - eg between licensing departments of different local authorities.
• interaction between different levels of government - especially between central and local government.

Training

There needs to be more (and better) training of staff in the regulatory agencies regarding the rules on charity collections and the various organisations involved in controlling them.

Example 1 - We spoke to several (well-meaning) professional trading standards officers who were unaware that charity collections require licences at all! Accordingly their press releases warning of bogus collections made no reference to local authority licensing departments, the Home Office or the police.

Example 2 - We've spoken to police officers who had no idea of the rules or agencies involved, and (incorrectly) thought that it was a civil (not criminal) matter.

Example 3 - Some local authority licensing officers showed a crucial lack of knowledge of the rules - one (helpful) officer assured us that collections of money were his responsibility but collections of goods (clothing etc) came under Home Office control (see Law for the correct rules). When we pointed out his error, he conceded that he been giving his incorrect advice to people for several years. To his credit, he promised to speak to his council's solicitors urgently and change his department's policy.

Example 4 - A number of licensing officers insisted (incorrectly) that only collections of money required licensing - clothes etc were not covered by any regulator, they said.

Example 5 - There is a widespread misunderstanding concerning the national Exemption Orders granted to certain charities (by the Home Office until 2006, and subsequently by the Office of the Third Sector). Some councils we spoke to didn't have copies (or up-to-date copies) of the List of charities with national Exemption Orders and had been unsuccessful in finding out how to get hold of a copy. See also the section on the Exemption Orders List below.

The need for a single lead organisation

There is a need for a single lead organisation to provide a focus for the issues, share information, carry out research, disseminate it and co-ordinate action. This could be either an existing regulatory body or a new one.

This approach has been followed in other fields - for instance police forces co-operate via the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and Police National Computer (PNC).

We are pleased to hear that the Charity Commission has appointed an officer to investigate charitable clothing collections. This should help. See also the Charity Commission's report on door-to-door clothing collections.

See the Regulators page for details of the numerous organisations currently involved in controlling house-to-house collections.

Public awareness

There is an urgent need to increase public awareness of the issues to do with charity collections - especially bogus and poor-value collections.

Leaflets - It would help if (free) leaflets, posters etc were produced on the subject, and distributed via government offices, public libraries, citizens advice bureaux (CABs) and so on. This is done for many other consumer protection issues. For example, see the websites of the OFT, ConsumerDirect and Trading Standards Central (details in the 'Consumer issues' section of the Useful links page).

The media has been helpful in publicising the issue - including newspapers and the BBC Watchdog programme - see the examples on the site - eg bogus collections.

Some local authorities have issued press releases, warning of bogus collections and/or put information on their website, such as Wolverhampton City Council.

One of the crucial recommendations in the Charity Commission's report on charitable door-to-door collections (paragraph 30) is the need to increase public awareness concerning fraudulent collections. This is part of the Commission's Safer Giving campaign.

One of the main aims of the CharityBags website is to increase public awareness.

Poor-value charity collections

Most monitoring and enforcement efforts have gone into stopping bogus collections (such as those by "Gotham"). However, we feel that poor-value charity collections need to be scrutinised much more closely. These involve questionable charity/commercial partnerships, in which :

• the charity gets a "royalty" of only about £30 per tonne
• the commercial collection company sells on the goods (clothes etc) commercially and keeps the profit.

For details see Donations and collections and examples of poor-value collections.

Licensing authorities appear to have widely varying views on the legality of these collections. Some authorities seem wholly unaware of the economics of these collections - especially when compared with collections where the goods go to charity shops and earn as much as 100 times more income for the charities.

Some authorities seem to be licensing poor-value collections simply because large, well-known charities are involved. We feel they may be forgetting the licensing rule which requires a substantial proportion of proceeds to go to the charity, not to the commercial partner. Why should this rule be applied only to collections of money - and not clothes etc?

Reform of the law

• The legislation controlling charities needs to be reformed.
• The legislation controlling charitable house-to-house collections needs to be reformed. The rules need to be consolidated, modernised, clarified and made more effective.

See the Charity law reforms page for information on the Government's plans, including the Charities Act 2006.

 

 

Good news :
Publicising the List of charities with national Exemption Orders

The National Exemption Orders List consists of the 43 or so charities which are exempt from licensing under the 1939 House to House Collections Act. Knowing which charities are on the List is crucial when anyone tries to find out whether a 'charitable' clothing collection is authorised. ('Authorised' here means that it has either a local authority licence or a national Exemption.)

In 2002 we tried to get a copy of the List from the Whitehall department responsible (the Home Office). Initially they told us they were unable to send it to us because it was 'confidential'. We questioned this (referring to freedom of information rules) and the department agreed that the Exemption Orders List is a public register (and sent us a copy).

We asked why the List was not available on the web, and explained the advantages to everyone of having it online. There were many precedents - such as the Register of Charities and the Register of Companies. Having the List on the web would be an easy and extremely cheap way of disseminating the information. Indeed it would save costs, by largely eliminating the need to send out copies (paper or email) on request to individual enquirers.

The Home Office declined to do this. However, they kindly agreed to us placing a copy of the List on the CharityBags website.

Good news

Around 2006 the Exemption Orders List at last appeared on a government website - the Office of the Third Sector (the Office had taken over responsibility for charities from the Home Office). The appearance of the List on the web was a welcome improvement. Accordingly we deleted the Exemption Orders List from the CharityBags website.

Good news :
Acts and Regulations on the Internet

In 2003 we pointed out that it would help if the Government published more Acts and Regulations on the Internet. At the time, only laws passed after about 1988 were available on the Government's HMSO / OPSI website. Yet almost all legislation relating to charitable collections was passed before this date.

To help matters, we placed a copy of the 1939 Act on our website, together with a summary of the 1947 Regulations.

Good news

The UK Statute Law Database   website was launched around 2006. This includes the 1939 Act, fully searchable. See our introductory page on the 1939 Act for details.

 

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