Opinion

My support is woefully inadequate

Governance | 1 Sep 2006

Phillip Kirkpatrick replies to a chair of trustees who is woefully lacking in support and thirsty for advice on what to do.

Dear editor,

Being chair of trustees takes up a great deal of my time and generates a significant amount of administration and secretarial work such as responding to invitations, organising meetings, making travel arrangements for visits on behalf of the charity, typing up speeches, etc. Apart from carrying out my duties as chair, the charity also uses my extensive network to help develop its work and uses my expertise to develop new initiatives. I frequently entertain on behalf of the charity in my home in order to bring crucial people together and to get them to give their time, expertise or money to the charity.

My board allocates to me, and pays for, three hours per week of secretarial help in my home. This is woefully inadequate. Can I ask for at least one day per week of secretarial and administrative help in my home, or must I ask for an office and secretarial help in the charity's offices where there is very little spare room?

Can I ask the charity to pay a contribution towards the entertaining I do on behalf of the charity or towards some of my office costs? Would either of these be counted as a trustee payment or benefit and will the charity need to approach the Charity Commission for a relevant power? Or, should the charity try to persuade the Commission to allow the charity to remunerate me? I certainly cannot continue as things stand.

Yours,
A chair at the end of her tether

Dear chair,

Unless your governing document prohibits it (highly unlikely), expenses properly incurred in carrying out your trustee duties can be reimbursed by the charity. So you can receive administrative support and contributions towards your entertaining expenses. These do not count as trustee benefits and you do not need extra powers or consent from the Charity Commission.

I think you should address the following with your fellow trustees:

What level of administrative support is reasonable considering the resources available and what the board as a whole is asking you to do?

Is your assistant working solely on the charity's affairs?

Who decides what entertaining to do in aid of the charity, how it should be conducted and how much should be spent on it? You should operate within the budgeting and other parameters agreed by the board.

If the expenditure is significant and VAT is being paid to suppliers, is the charity registered for VAT and would it not be better for it to incur the expenses directly so that some of the VAT can be reclaimed?

Would it be better from the point of view of visible leadership, engagement with staff and transparency, for example, to operate from the charity's premises even if inconvenient? Might the administrative resource be better applied there, where additional functions can be performed when time allows? Can you use technology better to overcome some of the inconvenience?

Are your fellow trustees sufficiently engaged and can some of your duties be taken up by others? Effective delegation can be hugely liberating.

Don't use remuneration to deal with this problem, even if you are able to do so. There is a world of difference (in law and public perception) between fees and expenses.

Phillip Kirkpatrick is a trustee of the Death Penalty Project and a partner at Bates Wells & Braithwaite.

 

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