Being a Trustee is a rewarding and enriching experience, and everyone has something to offer. However, it’s important that, as an individual, you know what becoming a trustee means for you and what your responsibilities are.
Fortunately, there’s a lot of guidance out there, and this article will summarise your key responsibilities and how the Charity Commission website will support you.
What are the legal responsibilities of Trustees?
Charity Trustees have six key legal duties:
- Ensuring the charity is carrying out its purposes for the public benefit.
- Complying with the charity’s governing document and the law.
- Acting in the charity’s best interests.
- Managing the charity’s resources responsibly.
- Acting with reasonable care and skill.
- Ensuring the charity is accountable.
Charity Commission Guidance
The Charity Commission has issued guidance CC3 – The Essential Trustee: What you need to know, what you need to do, this lays out the detail behind each of these responsibilities and should be considered essential reading for all new Trustees, and good reference material to be shared as part of the new Trustee induction.
In order to support charity Trustees, the Charity Commission has issued 5-minute guides. These are bitesize guidance documents, a Trustee quiz and a specific Trustee finance toolkit. All these resources can be found here https://beingacharitytrustee.campaign.gov.uk/
How can BHP help?
Every year we run our Trustee training programme, this comprises two webinars – one for newer Trustees or those considering Trusteeship and an advanced session for more experienced Trustees.
These sessions look at key legal and financial responsibilities, including key topical issues and challenges, to really help you understand your responsibilities and how to manage the challenges facing Trustees.
Access to recordings of our 2025 Trustee training sessions can be found here Charity Trustee Training 2025 – BHP, Chartered Accountants
