25/06/12
The undercover investigation by the Sunday Telegraph on 24/6/12 uncovered potentially serious breaches of the Institute of Fundraising code of practice, the PFRA Rule Book on street face-to-face fundraising and the Charities Act 2006, by fundraisers working for Tag Campaigns.
The Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) has announced that it will open an investigation and work with Tag and Marie Curie. The PFRA welcomes this investigation and will co-operate fully with the FRSB.
During the trial of our new penalties and sanctions regime, which will go live on August 20, spot checks by PFRA’s compliance officer had highlighted a standards issue with Tag fundraisers. We informed Tag of this issue, as a result of which Tag invited PFRA to address its team leaders about adhering to best practice rules.
When the penalties and sanctions regime goes live, PFRA will provide regular updates to our members on the number of penalty points accrued by fundraising organisations, both agency and in-house teams. The exact reporting mechanism is still being developed.
Our new penalties and sanctions regime, including new Rule Books for both street and doorstep fundraising, has been developed with the specific aim of improving best practice standards among all types of face-to-face fundraising, including Direct Debits on the street and door, SMS giving of the type conducted by Tag Campaigns, and prospecting (data capture).
We welcome the news that Tag staff are to be retrained and recommend that some thought is paid to retraining team leaders. Tag has been in contact with PFRA to discuss working together to improve training and standards and we understand that Tag has proactively contacted the Fundraising Standards Board as well.
Tag Campaigns has also issued its own statement. Click on the link on the right.
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