p people in the street to ask for direct debit pledges.
A powerful code of conduct will ban collectors from stepping in front of pedestrians to force them to stop.
In addition, a new licensing regime will allow councils to bar charities from certain streets at particular times to stop overcrowding. The collectors will also be forced to tell would-be donors exactly how much from each gift goes to charity, and how much to the professional firm running the operation.
Ministers are closing a loophole which allows chuggers to operate without regulation because they do not collect cash.
The measures were unveiled as the Home Office published its draft Charities Bill to update the way the voluntary sector is regulated. The code of conduct will be voluntary at first, but will be made legally binding if widely ignored.
Voluntary at first? Yeah, that’ll work.
Update: Well yes, voluntarily might work in fact, now I think about it. After all, the charities must be aware that this sort of hard sell is damaging to their image, and if that image gets tarnished they’re in trouble. Also the numbers of these “chuggers” seems much reduced recently, though maybe it’s a seasonal thing and they’ll come out in force again in the warm weather.
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