Trustees - their duties and responsibilities

Church trustees must be aware of the official purpose of the church and ensure all its activities further or support that purpose.

In addition to the responsibility of driving the goals of the church or charity forward, trustees are legally responsible for management and administration. This may include managing finances and resources, maintenance of the property, or health and safety at the premises. You may also be actively involved in developing a ministry and communications with external parties. Even if trustees aren’t personally in charge of these areas, they are still held accountable if something goes wrong.

Most church trustees will not have a legal background, but their responsibilities put them personally at risk of lawsuits and official investigations. Seemingly small decisions made on behalf of a church or a charity, can have much larger implications than expected. It is therefore essential that trustees seek further guidance from reliable resources such as the Government website or obtain  legal advice particularly if uncertain about their responsibilities. Some churches may have an administrator and there may already be support and resources in place.

It is very important that a church can identify its trustees. The church’s governing document sets out the organisation’s rules, it could be a constitution, a trust deed, or another document. This will identify the body that is responsible for managing and governing the church. If someone is an appointed member of this body, they are legally considered a trustee and share equal responsibility for the church with the other trustees. 

It is also important to note that to be a trustee, the individual must be officially appointed. If someone acts as a trustee without being properly appointed, this could cause legal issues and the decisions they make may be invalid. However, even if they were not properly appointed as a trustee, they could still be held liable for the actions they took while acting as a trustee. 

A church trustee does not necessarily have to be a spiritual leader like a pastor or vicar, a church trustee may be an entirely separate individual. Some churches choose to separate the roles so that their pastors or vicars can focus completely on their religious responsibilities. Trustees may be known as directors, board members, governors, or committee members in some places of worship, but if they are involved in the governance of the church in any way then they will legally be classed as a trustee.

Church bodies should take care when selecting trustees. Proportionate due diligence checks should always be carried out. This might include proof of work history and professional qualifications, credit rating, as well as undertaking the appropriate DBS checks before confirming appointments.