Trustee board officers and members

All members of trustee boards are charity trustees which hold important legal responsibilities and requirements. It is important that your board members are aware of their responsibilities.

The Charity Commission for England & Wales outlines the main responsibilities and duties of charity trustees as follows:

• Ensure your charity is carrying out its purposes for the public benefit
• Comply with your charities’ governing document (in the scouts this is POR) and the law
• Act in your charity’s best interests
• Ensure your charity is accountable
• Manage your charity’s resources responsibly
• Act with reasonable care and skill

Why trustee diversity is important
(Published The National Council for Voluntary Organisations)

It’s important for boards to understand why they should actively consider and create the right cultural environment for individuals from marginalised and minoritised backgrounds to become trustees.

Often boards strive to be more inclusive and representative in their decisions, and because of this, there is the incorrect assumption that diversifying your board won’t achieve much change.

However, there are many valuable reasons why you should increase diversity on your board:

• Many charities risk a disconnect between board members and service users. It's important your board reflects the communities you work with. By having trustees with relevant lived experiences, your decision making will be more informed and supportive of service users. For some charities, this may involve looking at your board's gender split, age groups and ethnicity. For other organisations, it might mean making sure they have LGBTQ+ representation on the board, for example.
• A more diverse range of trustees helps to make sure a charity is fair and open in all its dealings, for example in giving grants or delivering services.
• Having a range of perspectives and lived experiences on the board, helps the board to remain innovative, relatable and agile to adapt to changing environments.
• A diverse board contains a broader mix of skills, knowledge and experience which should give it greater flexibility to overcome challenges.

To prevent the revolving door effect of skilled individuals leaving the organisation due to a culture that isn’t centred on inclusion and equality, organisations need to work on reflecting, learning and improving on their practices..

All charities have a public sector legal duty to promote equality, as per the Equality Act 2010, if they’re delivering public services on behalf of the government.

NCVO worked with Impact Culture to create this guidance.

Because of their status as charity trustees, only people aged 18 and over may be full voting members of the trustee boards.

Someone people will be disqualified from being a charity trustee. This is detailed in the Charities Acts. If they are disqualified, they are not able to be a member of your trustee board.

POR sets out who may not act as a charity trustee. Subject to regulatory waiver provisions this includes anyone who:

• has an unspent conviction for an offence involving dishonesty, deception, offences of misconduct in a public office, for bribery, money laundering, perjury or perverting the course of justice or terrorism
• is found guilty of attempting, aiding or abetting the above offences
• has been found in contempt of court
• is designated under terrorist asset-freezing legislation
• is on the sex offenders’ register
• is currently declared bankrupt (or is subject to bankruptcy restrictions or an interim order or sequestration in Scotland) or has an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) with creditors
• is disqualified from being a company director
• has previously been removed as a trustee from any charity by any charity regulator in the UK (or a court) due to misconduct or mismanagement
• is disqualified from being a trustee by an order of the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator or the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland