09/11/11

By Andrew Holt

The Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) has welcomed the appointment of Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts as an independent reviewer of the Charities Act 2006, as announced by the Office for Civil Society.

The FRSB runs the self-regulatory scheme for fundraising, which was introduced as a direct recommendation of the Act and will be reviewed as part of this independent process.

Colin Lloyd, chair of the Fundraising Standards Board, said: “We have been working closely with the team at the Office for Civil Society, as well as Government in Scotland and Wales to ensure that they are happy with our progress to date.

"Over the past few years, our priority has been building and developing strong and effective self-regulation that is appropriate for fundraising organisations across the board.

"We have welcomed charities of all causes and sizes into membership, as well as a large number of suppliers. Membership grows at around 25 organisations per month and more organisations than ever before are using the tick logo on their appeals.

“In the build up to our fifth anniversary (in February 2012), this is an ideal time to step back and review what is working well and what could be improved. I am looking forward to working openly with the reviewer and gaining their feedback about what could be done to enhance the self-regulatory scheme for fundraising.”

On February 2006 6th, Paul Goggins MP (the then Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Home Department) presented a Ministerial Statement to the House of Commons, setting out the core objective for self-regulation: “The main aim of the self-regulation scheme is to maintain and build on the high levels of public trust and confidence in the voluntary sector’s fundraising activities. The scheme will help the sector guard against future threats to these high levels of public confidence. It will promote best practice and enable the sector to respond to criticism.”

Having launched to the public one year later (February 2007), the FRSB now represents a membership of around 1,350 fundraising organisations.

Together these organisation account for 41% of all fundraising income in the UK and include most of the top 100 charities by voluntary income.

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