New rules for street fundraising were introduced in August 2011 in the PFRA Rule Book (Street F2F), which provides enhanced guidance of the Institute of Fundraising’s code of practice. The new rules introduced in the Rule Book are binding only on PFRA members.
Many of the terms and concepts used in the code of practice, such as ‘obstruction’, ‘bringing a charity into disrepute’ and ‘immediately terminating an engagement’ are not closely defined.
This Rule Book therefore provides enhanced guidance on those terms. For example, while the code of practice says only that fundraisers must never “deliberately confuse or obstruct the public”, the Rule Book defines obstruction as: “Any deliberate action that causes a person to involuntarily stop or suddenly change direction in order to get past the fundraiser and continue their journey.”
The Rule Book does not replace or supplant the Institute of Fundraising’s code of practice and PFRA members should always read in conjunction with the IoF code of practice as they will not be able to gain a full understanding of their responsibilities from reading the Rule Book alone. PFRA members must be fully cognisant with the underlying IoF code of practice.
There will be a wide-ranging review of the Rule Book after six months during which all stakeholders – PFRA members, local authorities and partner organisations such as the Institute of Fundraising and Fundraising Standards Board – will be able to comment on how the regime is working.
The Rule Book also introduces a penalty points regime for transgressions of the rules, which is explained in the relevant section of the website.