If you want to do a street or house to house collection for charity it should be licensed. You don't need a licence if it is on private land, such as at a supermarket or shopping centre.

Organising a collection

You should be sure that:

• You have written authority to collect money from the public
• You make sure the person doing the collection has written authorisation
• No one collecting is under 16
• Every collector carries a collecting tin
• Every tin is sealed and numbered and clearly shows the name of the charity that is benefiting from the collection and the name of the organisation if different from the charity.

If you are doing a collection on behalf of a charity you need to provide a written proof of agreement from the charity to benefit.

You can download an application for a street collection permit, house-to-house collection permit or view the street collection regulations from the bottom of the page.

After the collection

You should:

• collecting tins should be opened in the presence of a promoter and a witness, or if unopened, delivered to a bank to be opened and counted by the bank
• if opened, the contents of each tin should be listed and certified by each person present
  a return must be made to the council showing the total amount of money collected from each tin, along with a list of the collectors
• if more than £400 was collected a notice must go in the local paper giving details of the collection, including the date and location, charity and amount collected
• 85% of funds collected must be donated to the named charity - a maximum of 15% can go to expenses.

Anyone associated with the collection cannot receive payment unless approved by the council. 

Monitoring collections

We will make any enquiries we feel necessary to check the integrity of the collection as there are an increasing number of bogus collectors. 

If you've never done a collection before

Any organisation that is new to collections needs to provide us with the following details:

• The purpose of your charity as stated by the Charity Commission and the registered charity number (if registered)
• Details of the charity aims as published in any literature
• Details of the trustees, organisers, directors
• Accounts and information about the history of the organisation

Refusing a licence

We can revoke a licence for any of the following reasons:

• to limit the number of collections
• if too much of the money is to be spent on expenses
• if details provided on the licence application is wrong
• if the promoter or any other person involved has a criminal conviction or offence, such as burglary, fraud or blackmail.

Date Updated: 05/06/08