The FRSB has said it should be given more powers to respond more robustly to poor fundraising
The remit of the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) should be expanded to include mandatory regulatory checks on charities with incomes over £1 million.
Giving evidence to Westminster's Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee (PACAC) , the FRSB said that fundamental reform of the current self-regulatory framework is essential.
It recommended the creation of an independent Standards Committee (housed outside the Institute of Fundraising), with the FRSB being able to require changes to the Code of Fundraising Practice based on its investigations into complaints from the public.
The FRSB should also be able to take a harder-edged approach to breaches of the code and formalise a closer regulatory partnership with relevant UK statutory charity regulators, to whom the most serious cases of continuing poor practice would be referred.
Self-regulation must also no longer rely on complaint monitoring alone to identify sub-standard practice, but incorporate a system of independent compliance checks by the FRSB and a rolling programme of audit for all large charities.
This would require a significant increase in funding for the FRSB.
There needs to be fundamental reform to the regulatory structure, more rigorous fundraising standards and a genuine cultural shift among charities to ensure that the public is never pressured to give and that vulnerable people are protected
Andrew Hind, incoming chair of the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB), said: “The primary responsibility for rebuilding pubic trust in fundraising must rest with charities themselves, in particular their fundraising directors, chief executives and trustees. They must live up to the promises they have been making in recent days.
“However, it is also clear that self-regulation in its current form is not working adequately. There needs to be fundamental reform to the regulatory structure, more rigorous fundraising standards and a genuine cultural shift among charities to ensure that the public is never pressured to give and that vulnerable people are protected.
“Aspects of the Code of Fundraising Practice are too weak and it has failed to outlaw practices quickly enough which the public have said they find unacceptable. These issues must be addressed with a thorough review of standards and those standards need to be developed and maintained by a body that is completely independent of the Institute of Fundraising.
“The Fundraising Standards Board was established to deliver a system of regulation that is largely based on complaint management and public feedback. In future, the FRSB must be enabled to take a more proactive approach, with stronger action taken against those that fail to uphold the standards required of them.”
