
Supreme Court publishes key decision for those working in the UK’s gig economy.
All full members are members under Company Law. We have twelve branches. Each branch elects one of their members to be on the board of the national charity. One branch is demanding to see the minutes of all board meetings and say it is their right. Another branch is demanding that we publish to the members the way individual trustees vote whenever the board makes a significant decision.
What are members’ rights to information of this kind?
Yours sincerely
A Frustrated Trustee
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Frustrated Trustee
I am sorry to hear that you are having a challenging time with the members of the charity.
The position with access to information is relatively straightforward:
The minutes of trustees’ meetings must be made available to all the trustees and, where appropriate, to the charity’s auditors and other professional advisers. However, the minutes are not open documents and do not have to be made available to the charity’s members or the wider public, unless the charity’s articles of association say so. If minutes are shared more widely you will need to put in place appropriate arrangements to ensure you do not unlawfully disclose confidential information or personal data. This may involve producing separate confidential minutes for selected sections of board meetings.
Similarly, there is no general obligation to publish the way in which individual trustees have voted at board meetings. Moreover, publishing the voting records of the trustees is likely to undermine the board’s ability to make decisions by consensus and to establish a proper sense of cabinet responsibility. While it is positive for your board to have lively discussion of important issues, once a decision has been properly made the trustees must all abide by that decision. It will be harder to achieve that if the trustees know their voting records will be shared with the charity’s members.
The publication of voting records may also exacerbate a more difficult challenge that you appear to face. You do not say so explicitly but your question suggests that your charity trustees face pressure from the branches that elect them to act as branch representatives, exercising their votes as trustees in the best interests of the branch rather than the charity as a whole. This is a common difficulty for membership charities and you may need to remind both the trustees and the branches of the legal responsibilities of the trustees to act in the interests of the charity, not just the branch by which she was appointed. It may also help to review the role of the branches and the way in which they are constituted.
Yours sincerely,
Trustee, The Cyclists’ Defence Fund
Charity Lawyer, Anthony Collins Solicitors
Supreme Court publishes key decision for those working in the UK’s gig economy.
From 6 April 2021, it will be the responsibility of medium and large private sector organisations to assess whether contractors working through an intermediary come within the ambit of IR35.
The 'Chocolate Snowman Appeal' is an amazing initiative that Anthony Collins Solicitors' (ACS) employees take part in every year.
The Building Safety Bill (the Bill) is said to be the most significant and wide-ranging change to the regulatory environment for higher risk building (HRBs) for over 45 years.
On 4 November 2020, the Restriction of Public Exit Payments Regulations 2020 (the Regulations) came into force; exit payments for the public sector were capped at £95,000.
The case was brought by the Official Receiver who sought disqualification orders under section 6 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (CDDA 1986) against the seven trustees of Kids Company and its CEO. It illustrates well the tension between the role of a fulltime paid CEO of a large charity and the role of its board as voluntary trustees/directors.
At the end of 2020, The Charity Governance Code was updated or 'refreshed' as it is termed on its website.
Anthony Collins Solicitors is today (Thursday 11 February) revealing the scale of its social impact during 2020.
In their first podcast of this series, current and future trainees will discuss their journey and route to securing a training contract at Anthony Collins Solicitors.
A recent prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive ("HSE") demonstrates the importance of organisations regularly inspecting, maintaining, and if necessary, repairing or replacing street furnitur
To receive invitations to our events, as well as information and articles on legal issues and sector developments that are of interest to you, please sign up to Newsroom.