The Act Commentary on Sections Section 51: Applications for certificates
200.Subsection (1) enables a person proposing to undertake public charitable collections (other than exempt local short-term collections) to apply to the Charity Commission for a public collections certificate. That would be the first stage in the process. The second stage of the process, once a public collections certificate had been issued, would involve either the submission of an application to the local authority for a permit for a collection in a public place (section 58) or, for a door to door collection, notification to the local authority about the collection (section 49).
201.Subsection (2) provides for the time period for the application to be specified in regulations, but enables the Charity Commission to allow individual applications at shorter notice, for example applications related to an urgent disaster appeal.
202.Subsection (3) provides for the information which must be submitted as part of the application process, and enables the applicant to seek in the application a period for which the certificate would be in force of up to five years. Subsections (5) and (6) set out how the Commission may make regulations for the purposes of this section.