Charity Commission updates decision making guidance for trustees

The Charity Commission launched revised guidance for trustees on 9 September 2024 designed to encourage a greater take-up of trustees accessing and applying its principles.

Samantha Pritchard, partner in our charities team, summarises the changes.

Why has the guidance been revised?

The “Decision-making for charity trustees” CC27 guidance has been available to trustees for 11 years but the Charity Commission’s recent research found that only 26% of trustees were accessing and regularly using it, owing to its length and complexity.

What does the new guidance aim to achieve?

The revised guidance is half the length of the original but still focuses on key principles of trustee decision-making established by the courts, reminding trustees they must:

• manage conflicts of interest
• act within their powers
• ·be sufficiently informed
• take account of all relevant factors
• ignore irrelevant factors that should not influence a decision
• act in good faith and only in the interests of the charity
• ensure their decisions are within the range that a reasonable body of trustees would make

The guidance reminds trustees that the Commission will not step in and make decisions for trustees, and that trustees need to have good quality reports and minutes that demonstrate that they have used these decision-making principles, particularly for tricky or significant decisions.

A charity’s governing document may also prescribe the way in which decision-making is done by both trustees and, for some types of charities, members.

Ensuring you are clear as to the difference in these roles, and when decisions must be referred to the members is key to ensuring you comply with your governing document. This also applies to the delegation of decisions to committees or staff members.

Clarity as to the boundaries of that delegation, and reporting requirements should be set out in writing.

The guidance, which can be found here, also provides links to related guidance, including how to deal with disagreements and disputes and managing conflicts of interest.

Need advice? 

We regularly advise trustees on how to take effective decisions that comply with the law and good governance requirements.  

If you are making a novel, complex or significant decision, we would recommend you seeking advice at an early stage to ensure your trustees are protected and have discharged their legal duties.

For further information on the guidance, or if you have any charity law queries in general, contact Samantha using [email protected] or 0191 211 7905.