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Charity helplines 'need regulation to restore the public trust'
By Kaye Wiggins, Third Sector Online, 26 February 2010
The Helplines Association calls for compulsory accreditation after bullying furore
The Helplines Association is calling for compulsory regulation of charity helplines in the wake of the furore over the apparent breach of confidentiality by the National Bullying Helpline last week.
The helpline's founder, Christine Pratt, attracted widespread criticism for saying staff at No 10 Downing Street had contacted it for support. The Charity Commission has started a formal inquiry and banned the charity from revealing any further information about callers.
Rekha Wadhwani, chief executive of THA, which has 500 members, said accreditation and regulation by an external body was necessary to restore public trust in charity helplines.
She estimated that 500 helplines, most of them run by charities, were not members of The Helplines Association. "All of our charity members have been brought into disrepute because of Christine Pratt's decision to disclose to the media confidential information held by the National Bullying Helpline," she said.
"Some are saying their volunteers no longer want to work for them. Trust is a fragile thing, and to restore it we need a system that reassures the public about confidentiality."
Wadhwani said one possibility might be to deny charitable status to organisations with helplines that did not conform to certain quality standards. She said she was seeking a meeting with the Charity Commission to discuss the idea.
A commission spokeswoman said it would be a matter for trustees to decide whether a charity should join an organisation that required helplines to conform to codes of practice. Many charities were members of such professional or umbrella bodies, and this could improve the quality of service they provided, she said.
Clara Mackay, director of operations and marketing communications at the Prostate Cancer Charity, which runs a helpline, said she agreed that tighter regulation was needed.
"Many helplines are naive about confidentiality, perhaps because they aren't aware of the voluntary codes of practice they could sign up to," she said. "As long as it wasn't too costly or restricting, a compulsory system of regulation for helplines would help the sector to adhere to high standards."
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Francis Fallan, 1 March 2010, 12:24
Given the really serious breach of confidentiality by Catherine Pratt when disclosing the supposed helpline contact from 10 Downing Street, it makes it imperative that should be cumpulsory registerred so that they are monitored to ensure that the highest standards of confidentiality are applied, given the number of staff operating within 10 Downing Street it wouldn`t need an Oxford Graduate to slim down the numbers and pinpoint the staff member who actually made such a call, assuming was made, then again whoever the unfortunate person was I feel very strongly that they might have a case for damages against Ms Pratt and/or her organisation for breach of promise in disclosing the fact that the caller made such a call seeking advice with respects to a serious problem such as Bullying, again I would intersted to know what advice the organisation actually gave the caller on how to handle this problem within 10 Downing Street.
Francis Fallan
Shotts
North Lanarkshire
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charlie marshall, 1 March 2010, 13:40
In the last two weeks, several people have commented that the small number of staff on site would make identification of helpline callers easy. I don't claim any inside knowledge but I assume large numbers of the bloated government bureaucracy are employed part or full time including PM's staff, Strategy Unit, Cabinet office staff, advisers etc.
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carl allen, 1 March 2010, 14:26
Unfortunately identification is likely even in large organisations.
The helpline made a promise and may be considered to have broken the promise. There can be civil consequences which fall on the charity and the person itself as company protection may not be applicable.
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Mandy Williams, 1 March 2010, 14:26
Mandy Williams
I am the CEO of a small national health related charity that runs a helpline. We are confident that we run a quality and confidential service. We would love to apply for accreditation but we have few resources and are finding it difficult to prepare and collect the evidence we need without this impinging on the quality of what we do day to day. For small charities the cost is prohibitive too.
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