Managing faith charities as trustees: Charity Commission’s guidance updated

Our Charities and Ecclesiastical teams, takes a look at the Charity Commission’s refreshed guidance for trustees managing faith-based charities.

The Charity Commission has recently published refreshed guidance aimed specifically at charities established to advance religion. The new content, called Managing faith charities as trustees, replaces the previous ‘Faith in good governance’ guidance, and will be of relevance to faith-based charities whose main focus is religious worship and related activities.

This update will be welcome for many faith-based organisations, as they deal with the ongoing impact of Brexit (in particular relating to volunteers and employees) and the pandemic (which has had a catastrophic effect on such charities’ income streams and ability to undertake usual activities including worship and missional outreach), alongside the ongoing high profile investigations into safeguarding concerns for religious groups.

The guidance sets out advice in dealing with key current issues for faith charities and places of worship, including safeguarding and financial management. It highlights the core areas for legal compliance, and provides signposts to how such organisations can achieve best practice in good governance.

The content is comprehensive, and covers the following:

Registration with the Charity Commission

When this is appropriate, and/ or necessary, and how to go about this

Benefits of registration

The legal structures of charities

Unincorporated (trusts, associations)

Incorporated (charitable companies and charitable incorporated organisations (CIOs))

Converting from an unincorporated to incorporated structure

Holding trustees for land including the Official Custodian for Charities

Being a trustee of a faith-based charity

Identifying who these are and making appointments

Managing disputes and disagreements

Legal duties of trustees

Induction of new trustees

Religious or spiritual leaders as trustees

Conflicts and benefits

Managing conflicts of interest

Paying trustees who are also charity employees for services

Ongoing obligations

Reporting serious incidents

Other regulatory requirements

Safeguarding – working with children and adults at risk

Particular safeguarding risks for faith charities

Signposts to organisations able to give further advice

Handling and reporting incidents and concerns

Checks on trustees, staff and volunteers

Managing charity finances

Internal financial controls

Cash collections and electronic payments and banking

Checking bank statements (‘reconciling’)

Protecting against fraud

Sending money internationally (including overseas donations)

Annual returns and accounts

Paying trustees for services

Other issues to consider

Controversial invited external speakers

Employing people (including those from outside the UK)

Health and safety

GDPR and data protection

Birketts is one of the country’s leading practices in ecclesiastical law, and, together with our experienced charities team, is extremely well-placed to advise any person or body thinking of setting up a religious charity, or wishing to discuss governance and management matters relating to existing charities with faith-based purposes. We also have a strong charity property team, well-versed in the specific issues pertaining to churches and other religious buildings.

If you would like to discuss any of the issues highlighted in this article further, please feel free to get in touch with a member member of the Charities Team or Ecclesiastical Team.