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Trustee
Section 97(1) of the Charities Act 1993 defines charity trustees as "… the persons having the general control and management of the administration of a charity" and in their booklet, The essential trustee (CC3), the CC describes them as, "… the people who serve on the governing body of a charity. They may be known as Trustee, Directors, Board Members, Governors or Committee Members. Charity Trustees are responsible for controlling the management and administration of the charity." In general terms trustees are responsible for the proper administration of the charity in accordance with the law, and its trusts as set out in the governing document. Their overriding duty is to pursue the objects of the charity and they must apply the income and property of the charity exclusively for these objects. Their general duties are set out in the common law and statute.
It is important to be clear about who the charity’s trustees are as confusion can often arise when looking at the reality of a charity’s administration. This is not helped by the plethora of titles used to describe the trustee body as described above. Generally there is a clearly defined group of individuals which exercises control over the administration of the charity, but sometimes there are a number of bodies that exercise similar degrees of control regardless of what their titles are. For example, a working group may have metamorphosed over time to exercise more general powers of management such that its members may be classed as trustees in accordance with the above definitions. This may also happen where a chief executive comes to exercise control over the trustee body – in a charitable company this person would be classed as a Shadow Director in accordance with the Companies Act 1985, section 714(2).
