Conflict Of Interest Policy

Trustee Conflict of Interest

The trustee board will make decisions based only on what’s best for the charity.  We do not allow personal interests, or the interests of people or organisations connected to board members, to influence these decisions.

There are 2 common types of conflict of interest: 

Financial conflicts – when a trustee, or person or organisation connected to them, could get money or something else of value from a trustee decision. This does not include the payment of expenses.

Loyalty conflicts – other reasons, a board member might not be able to make decisions that are best for the charity.

Generally, a potential conflict of interest will occur when a board member has a connection to another organisation or person that we have a financial, or other working arrangement with, either as:

Family – his or her partner, child etc or:

Organisation – as a trustee, board member, member of staff or similar.

Identifying Trustee Conflicts Of Interest

Conflict of interest is a standing item on all trustee board and committee agendas; the chairman will remind trustees at the start of each meeting that any interests must be declared.

A record of any professional or personal interest that may make it difficult for a trustee to fulfil their duties impartially, or may create an appearance of impropriety, with any item on the agenda for that day’s meeting is to be noted in the minutes of the meeting.

Specifically:

If a trustee is in any way, directly or indirectly, interested in a proposed transaction or arrangement with the organisation, They must declare the nature and extent of that interest to the other trustees

If a declaration of interest proves to be or becomes inaccurate or incomplete, a further declaration must be made

Any required declaration of interest must be made before the charity enters into the transaction or arrangement

A declaration is not required in relation to an interest of which the trustee is not aware or where the trustee is not aware of the transaction or arrangement in question. For this purpose a trustee is treated as being aware of matters of which they ought reasonably to be aware.

If a trustee states a conflict of interest they will normally be requested to leave the meeting or have no in put while the relevant agenda item is discussed. 

Potential Trustee Conflict of Interest

A charity may pay and offer other material benefits, to one or more of its trustees to provide services to the charity, where the trustee board reasonably believes it to be in the charity’s best interests to do so.  The services in question must be ones which the charity trustee provides in addition to carrying out normal trustee duties.  Any such proposal would be treated on a case for case basis and would only be approved subject to compliance with the Articles of Association and Charity Commission guidance.

Where an individual is not part of the decision making process, there is no direct conflict of interest.  However, where they have a relationship with the organisation, or individual trustee/director, the perception could arise that the trustees haven’t acted in the organisation’s best interests, because of this. 

Managing Trustee Conflict of Interest

To manage these issues, the Board will ask themselves these kinds of questions: 

Is this the best use we might make of our limited resources?

If so, might anyone else be able to provide this service?

If there are others, in terms of cost, quality, availability etc, who would be the best provider?

Recording Charity Trustee Decisions

Conflicts of interest will be recorded in the minutes, together with the key points and decision(s) made, in sufficient detail to enable a reader to understand the issue and the basis on which the decision was made.