Can charity trustees be paid?

The answer

This page covers paying charity trustees in England and Wales, where the Charity Commission oversees it, and in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In England and Wales the statutory power is Charities Act 2011 s.185. It covers a trustee, or someone connected to a trustee, providing goods or services. s.185(3), word for word: “This section does not apply to any remuneration for services provided by a person in the person’s capacity as a charity trustee or trustee for a charity or under a contract of employment.”

So a trustee who is a plumber can be paid to fix the charity’s boiler. A trustee cannot be paid for turning up and being a trustee, and cannot be employed, under s.185 at all.

Paying someone for being a trustee needs authority from one of these other sources:

• express provision in the governing document
• an order of the court or the Commission
• another statute

s.185(3A) confirms the statutory entitlement sits alongside those routes rather than replacing them. The Commission’s position is that such payment is exceptional and normally temporary — Being a trustee is generally a voluntary role. There is no general statutory power to pay a trustee for acting AS a trustee — the trustees must have an express power in the governing document or authority from the Charity Commission, and the Commission expects such payment only in exceptional circumstances and for a temporary period. A separate statutory power (Charities Act 2011 s. 185) allows payment for GOODS OR SERVICES provided to the charity, subject to four conditions, but s. 185(3) expressly excludes services provided in the person's capacity as a trustee and excludes employment..

Paying expenses is not a trustee payment or benefit at all, and none of this applies to it. How to pay them is on set up expenses and reimbursement.

Scotland: a prohibition, not a power

Scotland starts from a ban on paying trustees, lifted only when conditions are met. England and Wales starts from a power. It is the clearest single example on this site of why Scottish content cannot be adapted from English content.

Section 67 of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 starts from a ban. s.67(1), word for word: “A charity trustee may not be remunerated for services provided to the charity (including services provided in the capacity as a charity trustee or under a contract of employment) unless subsection (2) entitles the trustee to be so remunerated.”

Read that alongside s.185(3). The two provisions do the opposite thing with the same two items:

	England and Wales, s.185	Scotland, s.67
Shape of the provision	A power that arises when conditions are met	A prohibition, disapplied when conditions are met
Paying someone to act as a trustee	Expressly outside the section	Expressly inside the prohibition
Employing a trustee	Expressly outside the section	Expressly inside the prohibition
Goods	Covered since the Charities Act 2022 extended s.185 from “services” to “goods or services”	Not extended — services only
Recovery of an unauthorised payment	No equivalent mechanism on the face of the section	s.67(7): the charity may recover, and “proceedings for its recovery must be taken if OSCR so directs”

So a trustee-employee arrangement that falls outside the English statutory scheme sits squarely inside the Scottish prohibition. It must satisfy the conditions or an exception. The 2022 extension to goods was an England and Wales amendment. So a Scottish trustee selling goods to their charity has no equivalent statutory route.

Can a Scottish charity authorise pay in its constitution?

Not if it was formed after a fixed historic date. That route is closed in Scotland. In England and Wales, amending the governing document is the ordinary way to authorise payment for acting as a trustee. In Scotland that route is closed to any charity formed after a fixed historic date.

s.67(5)(a) preserves remuneration authorised by “any authorising provision of the charity’s constitution which was in force on” a specified date — [no fact — not established]. That is a fixed cut-off, not a rolling one. A charity created today cannot write itself an authorising provision and rely on it.

The only routes left are the s.67(2)–(3) conditions, an order of the Court of Session, or another enactment. s.67(6) adds that such a provision must refer specifically to remuneration. A general powers clause will not do.

If you have taken advice written for England and Wales, this is the paragraph in it that will be wrong.

Conditions A to D, and the one boards actually breach

In England and Wales every one of the conditions in s.185(2) must be met. In summary, the conditions are:

• a written agreement stating the amount or maximum, which does not exceed what is reasonable
• a decision taken before the agreement that it is in the charity’s best interests
• the paid trustees together with anyone connected to them remaining a minority of those holding office immediately afterwards
• no express prohibition in the trusts

Condition C is the one that fails. Each arrangement looks reasonable on its own, and founding boards are often assembled from people with useful skills to sell.

But the test counts paid trustees and connected persons together. It also counts every agreement whose obligations remain undischarged, so past arrangements still bite. On a small board, paying two trustees can breach it outright.

Two procedural duties are easy to miss, and both belong in the minute:

• s.185(4) requires the trustees to have regard to Commission guidance before entering the agreement
• s.185(5) applies the Trustee Act 2000 s.1(1) duty of care to the Condition B decision

The Condition B decision is not a casual judgement.

Scotland’s minority test is worded differently — “less than half of the total number of charity trustees” fall within s.67(4). It will usually give the same answer, but it is arithmetically explicit where the English formulation is not.

Reading the operative text alone will not reveal one point. s.185 is modified for Church of England bodies and excluded altogether by the Cathedrals Measure 2021. A researcher reading only the section would conclude it applies to cathedrals. It does not.

Which connected-person definition applies?

Condition C turns on who is connected to the paid trustee. The definition that applies here is Charities Act 2011 s.188. It applies for the purposes of ss.185 and 186 only.

Do not reach for the definition you used last time. The conflicts of interest register sets both lists side by side. The same Act contains a different connected-person list at s.118, for land disposals, and the two do not match.

s.118 includes the donor of land to the charity, and the charity’s officers, agents and employees. s.188 includes neither. The trustee themself is on the s.118 list, but s.188 lists only people connected with a trustee.

A charity applying one definition to the other’s subject matter gets the wrong answer. Any payment to a trustee is also a related party transaction for the accounts. The Commission has measured how often this goes wrong in practice.

At least a third definition is in play: the Charities SORP’s own “related parties” test, used for the accounts. Treat “connected person” as a question to be asked afresh for each regime.

Where this page applies, and what is not established

England and Wales: this page sets out the s.185 power in full. One thing it does not answer: how a trustee may lawfully be an employee. s.185(3) establishes only that s.185 is not the route. s.185(3A) points to three other possible sources of authority without saying which is used in practice.

If you are thinking about employing a trustee in England or Wales, this page stops here and you need advice.

Scotland: the same duty, but a prohibition rather than a power, as the section on Scotland’s prohibition explains. s.67 itself was read in full. One thing next to it was not: OSCR’s own remuneration guidance. The s.68 definition of “connected person” is set out where you build your conflicts of interest register.

Chapter 9 of the 2005 Act was also retitled “Charity trustees and senior managers” in 2025. That signals a senior-manager dimension that is not established here. That dimension may reach beyond s.67.

Northern Ireland: covered. Northern Ireland has its own four-condition route, Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008 ss.88–90. It is a close structural mirror of the England and Wales conditions before their 2022 extension:

• a written agreement setting a reasonable amount
• a prior best-interests decision
• paid trustees (and anyone connected to them) kept in the minority afterwards
• no express prohibition in the charity’s trusts

As in England and Wales, payment for acting as a trustee or under a contract of employment falls outside s.88. It needs another legal basis: the charity’s trusts, a Court or Commission order, or another statutory provision.

One real difference: “services” for NI purposes already includes goods supplied in connection with those services, by statute. Northern Ireland never needed England and Wales’ 2022 extension to reach that ground.

Any trustee who stands to be paid is disqualified from taking part in the decision to pay them (s.90). But the act itself stays valid if they do take part.

What to do about it

Settle this before anyone is recruited on a false premise, and before any money moves.

If you are forming the charity: recruit your founding trustees. Being clear from the start that trustees are not paid for being trustees is part of that step. It is far easier than unwinding a misunderstanding later.

If the charity already exists and you are looking at a specific arrangement: map your governing document. Condition D turns on whether your own document contains an express prohibition. That clause is usually buried inside a general “benefits” clause rather than headed “payment”. The map surfaces it before the board votes, not afterwards.

The conflict the payment creates is handled under your conflicts of interest policy.