Treasure Of Trusteeship
David Holdsworth delivers speech at Trustee Exchange 2025.
Good afternoon.
I’m delighted to join so many of you here today at the annual Trustee Exchange.
This is the event in the calendar dedicated to promoting and developing trustees, and I’d like to extend my thanks to Civil Society for once again bringing us all together.
Because, put simply, without you, there would be no charity sector.
What you achieve – individually and collectively – for society, is nothing short of staggering.
A figure used a lot is £94 billion.
That’s the annual turnover of the charity sector in England and Wales.
It’s a huge figure – so huge that it’s hard to really imagine what that means, on the ground, in people’s lives.
Well – it means game-changing medical trials – like the one recently funded by the charity Spinal Research – a paralysed woman regaining the use of her hands so that she can now brush her young daughter’s hair.
It means that the osprey – that magnificent bird of prey – which was once driven to near extinction in the UK – is now thriving, with over 250 nesting pairs living in Britain today.
It means that 30 million more people across the world now have access to a safe, working toilet.
It means that families with seriously ill children in hospital can stay close by in free, purpose-built accommodation.
And it means that, on average, two lives are saved at sea every single day by RNLI volunteers.
These a just a few examples of what has been made possible by the charity sector, and the steadfast custodianship of its trustees.
So please, take a moment to reflect on your own contribution to the countless and varied achievements of charities across the years.
I can assure you, your work does not go unnoticed by us or the public.
So ensuring the Commission supports you as trustees in maximising your charities’ impact is vital – and that’s what I want to discuss today.
It won’t come as news to you that the entire charitable sector is scaffolded by the enthusiasm, generosity, and capability of its trustees.
So making trusteeship an attractive prospect – both for current trustees, and for new recruits – is absolutely vital for us.
I’ve been in post at the Charity Commission now for nine months, and in this time have had the pleasure of visiting a great range of charities in England and Wales.
I don’t need to tell anyone here today that times remain challenging for the sector as a whole.
Charities are on the front line, dealing with the fall out from unpredictable global politics and shifting world orders.
From providing aid in warzones such as Ukraine and the Middle East, to running vital services here in the UK, the sector consistently steps in to meet need – wherever it finds it.
All the while, charities continue to grapple with higher running costs, a challenging environment for fundraising and increasing demand for their services.
In the face of these challenges, many trustees are being forced to make difficult decisions about the future of their charity.
Against this backdrop, you might assume morale among the charities I’ve visited would be low.
But I’ve found the opposite to be true.
The trustees I’ve spoken to are realistic about the challenges they face, but overwhelmingly optimistic about the resilience of their charity to weather them.
They are the embodiment of public spirit.
Trustee research
Just today we have published the results our new research with ProBono Economics into the experience of trustees in England and Wales.
It found that the vast majority of trustees are immensely positive about their experience. Something that you and most of us who are or have been trustees of course already knew.
They reported multiple benefits from their role, ranging from professional benefits to a greater sense of personal connection, purpose and fulfilment.
Eight in ten trustees would be likely to recommend the role to others.
Most trustees feel positive about board dynamics, and their relationships with staff.
Most report feeling that they are having a positive impact on the world, and that they’re more connected to their community as a result.
One in three said that their role expanded their social circle.
And the benefits don’t stop there.
Trustees who are still of working age found that the role supported their career development, while two thirds of trustees said they enjoyed the opportunity to use their skills in a new context.
More than half have served on their boards for four years or more, underlining the loyalty and dedication of many trustees.
The full report – which I’d encourage you to read on our website – gives us a detailed snapshot of the sector and includes useful information about the demographics of trusteeship.
We are seeing positive movement towards gender parity, with 43% of trustees now being female.
This represents a welcome shift from our last research in 2017, when just 36% were women. So more to do, but progress.
Over half of all trustees are retired, with the average age being 65.
Although there are proportionately fewer younger people involved in trusteeship, for those who do, there seem to be multiple benefits.
Over half of trustees under 30 said that their role supported their career development.
White people are overrepresented on charity boards compared to their proportion of the overall population, and by that same measure, there are fewer trustees from ethnic minorities as compared with the national average.
This is a challenge we need to collectively address, but again, as with the gender breakdown, there are some positives to take away from the new research.
For example, there are proportionally more Black trustees aged under 60 than in the general under age 60 population (7% compared to 5%), indicating that we are seeing the green shoots of a move towards greater ethnic parity among trustees.
Which is not to say there isn’t active work the sector needs to undertake to address the challenge!
Reassuringly, of the trustees we spoke to, the vast majority reported feeling confident in their role.
More than nine in ten reported understanding their roles and responsibilities (95%) and feeling qualified to fulfil them (93%).
However, the findings suggest some boards could benefit from more people with certain skills or expertise.
A quarter of respondents reported accessing legal expertise externally, suggesting a possible lack of relevant skills at board level.
While most trustees report their board had significant finance skills and experience, this was also the skillset with the second greatest reliance on external sources.
Elsewhere, only a quarter of boards reported any significant experience in marketing, campaigning and anti-fraud skills.
Collectively, these findings demonstrate the importance of helping charities to recruit people with a broader range of skills, backgrounds and experience – ultimately strengthening their charity’s governance.
While we must always work collectively on ensuring the pipeline of trustees remains flowing, I don’t accept there is any kind of ‘crisis’ in trusteeship.
Of the 60 million people in England and Wales, more than 800,000 are trustees.
And this figure has remained broadly stable over time.
So, as the old saying goes, you really are never more than 6 feet away from a charity trustee.
And, casting the Commission as Pied Piper – in this analogy that I’m beginning to regret – we want to lead trustees on the path to good governance.
Because, although trustees are plentiful, our work at the Commission does indicate that there are charities on the register with a smaller number of trustees on their board – around 11% of charities have fewer than three trustees, according to our 2023 Annual Returns.
Although this does not necessarily mean they are inquorate, very small trustee boards can have the potential to increase risk factors relating to dominance, lack of independence and conflicts of interest.
This, along with the skills gaps within existing boards, demonstrates the continued need for widening the base of trustees.
Along with the sector, it’s vital that we respond to these findings and help inspire a pipeline of people willing to serve as volunteer trustees into the future.
The big question, then, is how?
Widening access to trusteeship
In this space, it would be remiss of me not to mention the sad demise of Getting on Board last year.
For twenty years, the organisation played a vital role in encouraging new talent into trusteeship and its contribution will be sorely missed in the sector.
We must all take up this mantle, and work proactively to encourage others to become trustees.
Because, in fact, the very best advert for trusteeship is you.
Most of you tend to be quite shy about the amazing work you do – after all, it’s simply not very British to shout our achievements from the rooftops is it?
But one of the best ways to encourage trusteeship is by being a walking, talking advert for the role.
By being more open – talking more – and celebrating the amazing work you do, you can publicly demonstrate the opportunities trusteeship presents.
Don’t underestimate the power of your own story.
We also know that there is work to be done on improving trustee recruitment practices, so that new wells of talent can be tapped.
The new data from PBE suggests that most charities rely strongly on their existing networks to recruit trustees.
One in three charity trustees was asked to join the board directly by the Chair, while only 6% of trustee recruitment came from advertising.
Of course, informal networking and personal recommendations can be invaluable, especially when charities are stretched for time.
But this may come at the expense of casting the net wider, to recruit trustees who could bring different skills and perspectives to the board.
Looking beyond existing supporter bases, with fair and open recruitment practices, will help the sector engage a broader pool of trustee talent.
To help charities with this endeavour, we’ll be publishing refreshed guidance on finding new trustees – CC30 – in the coming months.
We’ll be providing updated advice around the recruitment process and how to recruit further afield. Reach Volunteering’s digital platform being a great tool, for example, especially as its services are offered free of charge for smaller charities.
Please, do take five minutes to read it and think about the ways in which you can apply the guidance in your own charity.
The Voluntary Principle
I know that for some, one solution to recruitment difficulties would be to pay trustees for their service, thereby attracting a wider range of candidates to roles.
In fact, our director of policy and communications, Paul Latham, took part in a panel discussion on the matter here at Trustee Exchange this morning.
One argument for paying for trustees is that it would broaden the role’s appeal, particularly amongst currently underrepresented groups.
But, according to research from the volunteer recruitment charity Reach, the data shows that for age, ethnicity, gender and sexuality this does not hold true.
Voluntary service has proven to be no barrier to diversity when it comes to trustee recruitment.
At this point, I would like to be clear, however, that no one should feel as though they can’t afford to participate in trusteeship.
And that is one reason we’ve also published a new, separate guide on trustee expenses.
The Commission is clear that expenses do not constitute trustee ‘payments’ and that trustees are entitled to have their reasonable expenses reimbursed by the charity.
This can include childcare, travel costs and meals when acting on behalf of their charity.
In this way, trustees can undertake their voluntary duties without worrying that that it will put them out of pocket.
But while we heard some cogent arguments in favour of paying trustees at the panel today, to my mind, none can truly stand up to what’s at stake here.
Which is why I want to be very clear – it’s the Commission’s belief that voluntary trusteeship underpins the public’s trust in charity.
And public trust is particularly important when you consider the fact that charities in England and Wales rely on public donations of almost 60 billion every year.
The research consistently backs this up.
Charity trust is currently at a 10-year high – and time and again we are told that what matters most to people is knowing how their donation is spent.
Rightly or wrongly, the public’s positive perception of charity is intrinsically linked with the concept of voluntary service, of doing good for others, not to gain financially, but in return for the personal rewards I mentioned earlier.
In our research into public trust in charities in 2023, most people said they were more inclined to trust a charity run by volunteers, than one run by paid professionals.
Put simply, voluntary trusteeship is the lynchpin of the public’s trust in charity – and we must guard it fiercely.
We already know that the vast majority of trustees undertake their duties voluntarily.
There are an incredible 800,000 trustees on our register, filling almost a million trustee positions. Of those, only a very small proportion receive any kind of payment.
Last year, fewer than one in ten charities declared they were paying trustees, and in most of these cases, it was for providing goods or services.
But some charities will be faced with decisions about whether to pay one or more trustee, whether for the role itself or as payment for goods and services. It is vital that charities get these decisions right, and boards fulfil legal duties and responsibilities carefully.
We’ve recently refreshed and revised our guidance on the topic – CC11 – with the aim of making it easier for trustees to know what is expected of them when making this decision.
Conclusion
But as I draw to a close, I want to return my focus to the present – and to the three quarters of a million-strong community of trustees that we currently have on our register.
As our research released today has shown, it’s a role like no other – one that asks a lot of its incumbent – but also one that repays this effort with interest.
What you all have built, in your individual organisations, and as civic society – is truly remarkable.
It must be nurtured, cherished and defended.
And with your dedication, commitment and public spirit, I can’t think of a better group to do so.
Thank you.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-treasure-of-trusteeship