The charity laws in Scotland that concern street and door-to-door fundraising collections currently consist of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 and the Public Charitable Collections (Scotland) Regulations 1984, which are due to be replaced by the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (still awaiting implementation).
The Charities and Benevolent Fundraising (Scotland) Regulations 2009 mean that arrangements between benevolent bodies and professional fundraisers and/or commercial participators must be governed by a written agreement. Statements must also be made which indicate how much of supporters' money will reach the intended organisation.
All these statutes allow for significantly different licensing regimes and ‘disclosure’ procedures than in England & Wales – the Institute of Fundraising has produced an extremely useful guide to the main differences between Scottish and English charity law as it affects public fundraising. There is also a separate statutory regulator – the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR).
The Civic Government (Scotland) Act requires collections of “money” to be licensed and so contains the same ambiguity as the Police, Factories etc (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1916 in England and Wales. As with the Charities Act 2006 in England, the Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (Part 2) is likely to give councils the power to licence F2F (ss84-90), and more detail is expected when the Scottish government publishes regulations on implementing the relevant sections on public charitable collections. However, this section of the Act is not yet in force.
PFRA reports that Scottish councils have shown a significantly more flexible attitude to street F2F than in England and Wales generally, allowing charities to fundraisers with informal agreements rather than more formal site management agreements.