Charity Commission CC3 The Essential Trustee Guidance - Trustee 6 Main Duties and Responsibilities

I've used the Charity Commission CC3 The Essential Trustee guidance and 25 years of being a charity trustee, chairman and board mentor to create this practical guidance on CC3 and the 6 main duties and responsibilities of trustees of charities. There are 4 sections - Charity Commission CC3, trustee resources, support for trustees and charity trustee duties FAQs.

CHARITY COMISSION CC3 - THE ESSENTIAL TRUSTEE

What Charity Commission CC3 The Essential Trustee guidance is about, and the role and 6 main duties and responsibilities of a charity trustee.

CC3 - Charity Trustee Role

Trustees have overall control of a charity and are responsible for making sure it’s doing what it was set up to do. They may be known by other names, such as directors, board members, governors or committee members.  The Board acts collectively and can delegate authority to others, such as staff or volunteers, but cannot delegate responsibility.  The trustees are ultimately responsible for everything.

CC3 - Trustee 6 Main Duties and Responsibilities

I think the Charity Commission trustee guidance can be a bit opaque at times, but their CC3 The Essential Trustee is is a useful introduction to your main duties and responsibilities in your role as a trustee.

Charity Commission CC3 (The Essential Trustee: What's Involved) is key guidance that all charity trustees must be aware of.  Charity trustees have 6 main duties:

1. Ensure your charity is carrying out its purposes for the public benefit.
   1. There's no legal definition of public benefit, but generally your purposes must be charitable, beneficial and benefit the public or a sufficient section of it.
2. Comply with your charity’s governing document and the law.
3. Act in your charity’s best interests.
4. Manage your charity’s resources responsibly.
5. Act with reasonable care and skill.
6. Ensure your charity is accountable.

I would recommend that Charity Commission CC3 be given to all trustees on appointment.

CC3 - What Do Charity Trustees Need To Know?

What you need to know will vary depending on your charity's size, role and what role you might play as a trustee but these are a good place to start.

1. Your charity's objects (its purpose), powers and procedures are detailed in your governing document (constitution).  Trustees must understand and comply with these.  The Charity Commission 5 min guides covers the key issues you need to be aware of.
2. The Charity Commission recognises the Charity Governance Code, but it's not part of its rules and regulations.  However, it is best practice for good governance, so trustees should have a reasonable understanding.  This Charity Excellence resource gives you an introduction to the Code.
3. You can't possibly know all the detailed laws and regulations that apply, but you must take reasonable steps to ensure your charity complies with these, including seeking professional advice, if necessary.  If you have staff, it might not be your job to do it, but it is always your responsibility to ensure it is done.  You can delegate authority but not your responsibility.

CC3 - How Might Trustees Do That?

No one would reasonably expect a charity trustee to have the expertise of a finance professional or lawyer (unless you are one), but anyone can (and should) ask, is the budget on track, what are the key risks or are we confident we're meeting our legal obligations and keeping people safe?  If the answer is no, or we're not sure, then ask, what are we as the charity trustees going to do about that?

Charity Excellence enables trustee boards to ask all the question they need to, including the ones you don't yet know about, and connects you to the relevant guidance, resources and people to help you.  Listed below are a selection I've made available on the website but you'll find far more within the system and everything is free.

CHARITY TRUSTEE GUIDANCE AND RESOURCES

There’s a lot more to your charity responsibilities than Charity Commission CC3 but their guidance can be pretty opaque, so I've listed below some resources I've put online to support charity trustees.

The Charity Governance Code

This article explains what good charity governance is, how trustees should use the UK Charity Governance Code and gives you key questions to use as a checklist for your trustee board's governance.

Free Support For Charity Trustees

Better still, just register with Charity Excellence and you can assess your governance online in 30 mins and be connected to a huge range of resources; everything is free.

Or click the AI Bunny icon in the bottom right of your screen and ask it absolutely anything about running a charity, using short questions, including key words.

Charity Commission Trustee Guidance - Annual Return, Report & Accounts

The Charity Commission trustee guidance includes specific regulations on filing your online annual return, report and accounts. Here's what you need to know and do to prepare and submit yours, with links to all the resources you'll need, including the Charity Commission login.

Charity Commission Trustee Guidance - Audit & Independent Inspection

A practical guide to charity independent examination and audit reports of charity annual accounts, including thresholds, the difference between audit and independent examination, and how to find an auditor or independent examiner, with links to all the resources and Charity Commission guidance you'll need.

Charity Trustee Policies, Including Conflict Of Interest & Reserves

There are various charity policies required by UK law and the Commission. This resource provides guidance and links to free sample policies you can use to create yours. It covers key charity policies, including financial reserves, conflict of interest, fundraising, data protection, safeguarding, whistle blowing, risk management and volunteering.

The Charity Commission takes conflict of interest very seriously. This is a sample policy template and guidance for charity trustee boards, with links to other related Charity Commission and Charity Excellence resources.

This resource provides an example reserves policy template, explains why a reserves policy is important, what you should include, the different types of financial reserves, questions to ask yourself and links to resources to help you. It is a simple guide to the Charity Commission CC19 guidance on reserves and is aimed primarily at small charities.

You can download these and many more policies in Word format. Register, login, click the in-system AI Bunny icon, then the Policies button and tell it what policy template you want.

Trustee Recruitment And Diversity

How to find and recruit charity trustees for a charity board can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. This practical guide gives you everything you need, including links to organisations who will help you find and recruit trustees for free.

We faces huge challenges and need to appoint the best amongst us to lead. To do that, we need to recruit from the biggest possible pool of trustee candidates - the whole community. As a sector, we don't, but how can any charity board claim to represent its community, if it isn't representative of it? This practical guide explains what the issues are and how to address these.

Charity Commission Trustee Guidance - CC20 (Fundraising)

This resource enables charity trustees to understand the Fundraising Regulator and Charity Commission CC20 regulations and guidance on fundraising and donations, as well as other laws, legislation and regulations.

Many charity trustees find fundraising a challenge and others are simply not able to make a significant financial donation. However, there are lots of opportunities for them to support your work, many that are easy and anyone can do.  Here are 20+ of my own.

Plus, use Funding Finder, to find a huge range of grants and Help Finder to find lots of free fundraising support and also companies that make product/financial donations. There's a fundraising online health check, with 100+downloadable funder lists, and huge resource base of policies and templates. Quick, simple and everything is free.

To find the funding and free help you need - Register Now

Trustee Strategy And Planning Tools And Checklists

A practical, 3 step strategic plan template and guide to create your charity's strategy, including how to carry out your PESTLE and SWOT analysis, with examples.

A simple to use charity fundraising strategy template that gives you a simple 4 step process and examples to create your fundraising strategic plan that anyone can use.

This practical, planning template (with examples) enables anyone to create a great charity annual business, or project plan, including how to set objectives and targets, reporting, communications and a simple checklist to enable you to ensure it will be a success.

For the financial planning toolkits and resources, see the Finance Index.

Trustee Board Reports

We need effective charity trustee board and management fundraising, finance and other reporting for good decision making, but writing reports is often very time consuming and all too often these are not acted upon, or sometimes even read. Here are 12 ways in which to ensure that your reports are effective and have impact and take less time to write.

A practical step-by-step guide to impact reporting for charities. The real value in having an impact report, what impact is, measurement, evaluation, what to include, how to make impact reports really effective and how to create and publish a great charity impact report. Not least for your funders. This resource provides a simple example template that anyone can use.

Trustee And Management Terms

This resource provides simple plain English explanations of a whole range of charity and management terms that are often used, but not always understood.  It's a less extensive version of the list in-system.

CHARITY TRUSTEE MAIN DUTIES FAQs

This section provides charity trustee FAQs that answer the most common questions asked about being a charity trustee.

Trustee Main Duties and Responsibilities FAQs

• What is the role charity trustees?  Charity trustees are the people who share ultimate responsibility for governing a charity and directing how it is managed and run.  Charity Commission CC3 (The Essential Trustee) is the guidance that charity trustees must be aware of and details their responsibilities.
• What are the charity trustee duties and responsibilities? The 6 main responsibilities of a charity trustee are to ensure your charity carries out its purposes for the public benefit, comply with your charity’s governing document and the law, act in its best interests, manage your charity’s resources responsibly, act with reasonable care and skill and ensure your charity is accountable.
• What is the difference between a charity trustee and a director?  Charities have trustee boards that are responsible for the governance of their charity. Companies, including charitable companies, have directors with similar responsibilities. Sometimes executives employed by a charity may be called directors, such as finance director, but it is not a board appointment.
• Can trustees be held personally liable?  Trustees of incorporated charities (charitable companies and CIOs) have limited liability protection but can still be liable in certain circumstances, such as wrongful trading.  Trustees of charitable trusts and unincorporated associations (unregistered charities) have no limited liability protection.
• Can a trustees of charities resign? Yes, a charity trustee can resign at any time.
• How can I remove a charity trustee? If you need to dismiss a trustee, the board and the charity must follow the rules set out in your governing document. Trustees may be dismissed through a no-confidence process, as long as this is part of your rules.
• Can trustees of charities be paid? Generally, charity trustees are unpaid volunteers who may be paid expenses.  It is possible to pay trustees for services provided but usually requires Commission approval and it would be unusual to pay a trustee for simply being a trustee.
• What does trustee conflict of interest mean?  There are 2 common types of conflict of interest: Financial conflicts - when a trustee, or person or organisation connected to them, could get money or something else of value from a trustee decision. Loyalty conflicts - other reasons, a board member might not be able to make decisions that are best for the charity.
• How can we manage a trustee conflict of interest?  To manage a conflict of interest you must follow your governing document but usually, the individual should be excluded from all discussions and this and the discussion details recorded in the minutes.

Charity Commission CC3 The Essential Trustee FAQs

• What does Public Benefit mean? The public benefit requirement (PB1) is that a charity’s purposes must be exclusively charitable, beneficial, available to all or a reasonable section of the public and any personal benefit or harm must be no more than incidental.  PB2 is running a charity and PB3 reporting.
• What does acting in the charity’s best interests mean? In the best interests of the charity means in the best interests of carrying out its objects, now and in the future. It does not mean the interests of the charity itself, because charities do not exist in order to perpetuate themselves, nor does it mean the personal interests of its trustees, staff or members.
• What is meant by a reasonable person? A reasonable person is a test based on what the courts would expect an informed and responsible person to do in a situation. To act ‘reasonably’ means to act in this way.
• What does trustees acting in good faith mean? ‘Good faith’ means genuine, honest intention or motives; trying to do the right thing, in the interests of the charity. In contrast, the opposite would be bad faith. Bad faith could include acting in a way that the trustees didn’t honestly believe was in the interests of the charity, intentionally benefiting someone in a way that is not in the charity’s interests or deliberately using a power for a purpose for which it was not intended.

Charity Trustee Finance Role and Responsibilities FAQs

• What are the duties of a treasurer in a charity? The role of treasurer may vary, depending on the size and activities of your charity. In small charities, the treasurer may have day-to-day responsibility for managing your charity’s money and he or she will report to the trustee body. In larger charities, the treasurer may work with the finance officer or a finance sub-committee.
• What are the duties and responsibilities of a charity finance committee? The duties of a finance committee depend on the size of a charity and its activities.  Its responsibilities usually include carrying out more detailed oversight of the finances, such as preparation of the draft annual budget and financial risk plan, monitoring of management accounts, and review of the draft annual accounts and finance policies and, if applicable, audit and investment.
• Who is responsible for managing a charity’s finances? Charity trustees may delegate authority to a committee and/or officers but not responsibility.  They must all, always be aware of the charity’s financial situation and risks because they remain collectively ultimately responsible for all decisions and should make all key financial decisions.
• What are charity trustee financial duties? Trustees’ financial duties include safeguarding the charity’s assets, administering the finances and assets in a way that identifies and manages risk and ensuring the quality of financial reporting, by keeping adequate accounting records and preparing timely and relevant financial information.
• What financial information do charity trustees need? Finance should be a standing agenda item at charity trustee meetings and an up-to-date finance report and accounts sent to each trustee before the meeting. These should be understandable and, as a minimum, identify the key issues and variances, and explain these and the action being taken in response.

Charity Trustee Governance FAQs

• What are the governance requirements for charities?  Charity governance is the trustees’ responsibilities in setting the strategic direction and culture of the organisation and ensuring it is well led and managed, to achieve its charitable objectives.
• Is the Charity Governance Code mandatory? The Charity Governance Code is a practical tool that sets the principles and recommended practice. It is applicable to all charities but is aspirational and is neither a legal nor regulatory obligation.
• What are the principles of charity governance? The Governance Code has 7 principles: Organisational Purpose; Integrity; Decision-making, risk and control; Board effectiveness; Equality Diversity and Inclusion and Openness and Accountability.
• How do you apply the Governance Code for charities? Trustees should apply the Charity Governance Code by either applying each area of the code, or being able to explain what is being done instead to meet the principle, or why it is not applicable.
• How often should trustees review governance? The Governance code recommends that charity trustees should review their governance every 3 years.
• What is the Scottish Governance Code for the Third Sector?  The Scottish Governance Code was developed by Scotland’s Third Sector Governance Forum. It sets out the core principles of good governance for the boards of charities, voluntary organisations, and social enterprises in Scotland.
• What is the Code of Sports Governance?  The Code for Sports Governance sets out the levels of transparency, diversity and inclusion, accountability and integrity that are required from those organisations who seek – and are in receipt of – UK Government and National Lottery funding from Sport England and/or UK Sport.

This Guide to Charity Commission CC3 Is Not Professional Advice

This guide to Charity Commission CC3 and charity trustee duties is for general interest only and does not constitute professional legal or financial advice.  I'm neither a lawyer, nor an accountant, so not able to provide this, and I cannot write guidance that covers every charity or eventuality.  I have included links to relevant regulatory guidance, which you must check to ensure that whatever you create reflects correctly your charity’s needs and your obligations.  In using this resource, you accept that I have no responsibility whatsoever from any harm, loss or other detriment that may arise from your use of my work.  If you need professional advice, you must seek this from someone else. To do so, register, then login and use the Help Finder directory to find pro bono support. Everything is free.