Who is disqualified from being a charity trustee?

England and Wales: This page sets out the position in full. Scotland: covered in full — a separate thirteen-ground regime, longer than either of the other two nations’ lists, with its own waiver power — see below. Northern Ireland: covered in full — its own eight-ground regime, plus a third screening layer CCNI adds through its own declaration wording — see below.

The disqualification grounds in England and Wales

In England and Wales, charity trustee disqualification runs from Case A to Case K under the Charities Act 2011, s.178, as amended. Founders in Scotland and Northern Ireland check against their own lists. The Scotland and Northern Ireland sections give those lists.

This page assumes you have recruited your founding trustees and have names to check. The wider question of who may serve is in who can be a charity trustee. Trustees who join later are checked as in check every trustee’s eligibility.

The cases cover automatic bankruptcy-type grounds and company director disqualification. They also cover removal by the Commission or the Court for misconduct or mismanagement. The newer cases added in 2018 are contempt of court, disobedience to a Commission order, terrorism-sanctions designation, and the sex offenders register. A person disqualified on any one of them is disqualified whether anyone at the charity has noticed.

Checking only for bankruptcy and dishonesty convictions is the mistake this page exists to correct. Those two are the ones everyone knows. They were most of the old list.

The current list goes much further. It covers sex-offender notification requirements, terrorism designation, contempt of court for a false statement of truth, and debt relief orders. A founder screening from memory is unlikely to think of any of them.

One point needs correcting plainly. Much of the sector’s own published material gets it wrong. The expanded regime came from the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016, not the Charities Act 2022. The 2022 Act did other things. Widening the disqualification grounds was not one of them.

Disqualification from senior management roles

Disqualification also bars the person from any employment or office in the charity with senior management functions, not only from the board. The rule is called trustee disqualification, so it reads as board-only. It is not.

In a small charity, that usually catches the chief executive and whoever controls the money. Neither of them may sit on the board at all. If you check the trustees but not the senior staff, you close only half the gap the rule is meant to close.

The research behind this page left two things unsettled. You should not quietly assume either of them. First, the scope of the dishonesty-conviction ground depends on a separate list of specified offences. We have not checked that list in detail here. Second, a person caught by one of the grounds is not necessarily shut out forever.

A waiver power exists. This page does not describe when it is granted. If a real question comes up, treat disqualification as a starting check, not the end of the conversation.

Scotland: the longest of the three lists

Scotland’s list runs to 13 grounds. That is longer than either England and Wales or Northern Ireland. It sits under the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, ss.69, 69A and 70. The Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023 amended those sections.

Most of the 2023 Act’s changes to this regime came into force on 30 June and 31 August 2025. The extra grounds are not cosmetic. They add recognition of orders made in the other nations. A person removed by a relevant order in England and Wales or Northern Ireland is also disqualified in Scotland.

So is a person disqualified by the Charity Commission for England and Wales under s.181A. This includes a disqualification limited to one organisation or type.

Scotland recognises that on the same limited basis, not as a full disqualification. A founder may check a would-be Scottish trustee only against the England and Wales grounds. That founder can then accept someone the Scottish regime would exclude.

Two further points matter. Spent convictions under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 do not disqualify.

OSCR may waive a disqualification, wholly or for one organisation. But it must refuse the waiver if granting it would undermine the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986. So the waiver is not a route around a live director ban.

Northern Ireland: the statutory grounds, and CCNI’s extra layer

Northern Ireland runs its own 8-ground regime under the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008, s.86 . It is the smallest of the three lists. Unlike England and Wales and Scotland, it does not extend to senior management functions on its face.

CCNI’s own recommended eligibility declaration goes further than the statute in one way. Its template declaration for would-be trustees covers the s.86 grounds. It also asks whether the person is barred from acting as a trustee under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups (Northern Ireland) Order 2007. So a Northern Irish charity that follows CCNI’s process screens for three separate things at once:

• the statutory disqualification grounds
• company-director disqualification folded into those grounds
• safeguarding-order barring

Yet only the first is a formal “ground” in the Act’s own terms.

Clearing the grounds is not a safeguarding check. The criminal record checks are in run the check in England and Wales and run the check in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Why the trustee declaration carries criminal liability

In England and Wales, the declaration every trustee must sign is a criminal-liability document, not a courtesy form. Every trustee must be named, checked and must sign it.

Knowingly or recklessly making a false or misleading statement in it is a criminal offence under the Charities Act 2011, s.60. The offence is triable either way.

It carries imprisonment of up to 2 years on indictment, or an unlimited fine. The section has no “reasonable steps” defence. Signing the declaration quickly, without reading it, is exactly the state of mind the offence is aimed at.

Electronic signatures are not accepted on the trustee declaration form. Every trustee must wet-sign. The forms then have to be scanned. For a founding board spread across the country, that takes real time to arrange. Build it into the timeline to assemble your evidence pack rather than finding out late.

Disqualification and HMRC’s fit-and-proper test

Clearing the disqualification grounds above answers the charity-law question. It does not answer a separate one. That is whether the people with general control and management of the charity are, in HMRC’s own terms, fit and proper persons for tax purposes. This is the management condition behind Gift Aid and the other charity tax reliefs.

The two tests overlap in practice. But they are separate in law, run by different bodies and asked at different points. Apply to HMRC for charity recognition covers the fit-and-proper test in full.

With every trustee checked, the next step is to draft your governing document.

Common mistake: checking only for bankruptcy and dishonesty convictions

Those are the two grounds everyone knows. They were most of the old list. The current list runs from Case A to Case K. It includes sex-offender notification requirements, terrorism designation, contempt of court for a false statement of truth, and debt relief orders.

Common mistake: checking the board but not senior staff

The rule is called trustee disqualification, so it sounds board-only. Disqualification also bars the person from any employment or office in the charity with senior management functions. In a small charity, that usually catches the chief executive and whoever controls the money.

Common mistake: sending electronic signatures on the declaration form

Every other part of the process is digital. The Commission does not accept electronic signatures on the trustee declaration. Finding this out late costs weeks with a board spread across the country.

Worked example

A would-be trustee is subject to a debt relief order. That is an automatic disqualification ground, not a matter of judgement. It is caught before you apply, not by the regulator later.