What is a managing trustee?
If you are a member of your Local Church Council, Circuit Meeting or any of the other Methodist bodies of Managing Trustees, then you are a charity trustee. This means that there are a number of duties placed on you under charity law. In England and Wales, the key piece of legislation is the Charities Act 2011.
Each Local Church, Circuit, District etc. is a charity in its own right. There are still some Local Churches and Circuits that are not registered with the Charity Commission because their annual income does not exceed £100,000. Such Methodist charities are excepted from registration by virtue of the Charities (Exception from Registration) Regulations 1996 until 31 March 2031. However, even as an excepted charity the Local Church or Circuit is a charity and must comply with charity law.
What are managing trustees responsible for and what resources are there to support managing trustees carrying out their responsibilities?
There are a number of areas of responsibility that managing trustees are required to fulfil. On this page you will find links to further guidance and information for managing trustees in relation to:
- Charity Commission guidance about being a charity trustee
- Data Protection and Retention
- Insurance, risk assessment and security
- Finance
- Governance
- Property
- Online suite of applications – annual returns – including a checklist for local churches, property consents, statistics for mission and web profiles and gift aid submissions
Guidance for Managing Trustees
Charity Commission Guidance about being a charity trustee
On this page you'll find all the documents and information you need as a Methodist Trustee.
Charity trustee welcome page - GOV.UK
The five golden rules of being a trustee (PDF) – last updated January 2023
Managing Faith Charities as trustees – Charity Commission guidance
Guidance for charities with connection to a non-charity - last updated 2019
Managing conflicts of interest (PDF) - last updated 2022
Rules for automatic disqualification of trustees and senior managers (PDF) - last updated 2018
Implementing the Charity Governance Code: guidance for Micro Charities - last updated July 2022
Charity Commission quiz to test your knowledge: charity-commission.involve.me/trustee-quiz-5-minute-guides
Data protection and retention
Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes (TMCP) is the custodian trustee of all property held on Model Trusts of the Methodist Church Act 1976.
TMCP is therefore the data controller of Model Trust Property and provides further guidance to managing trustees on data protection which you can find on their website here: Data protection guidance and toolkit (external link)
Insurance, risk assessment, security
Trustees have a duty to avoid undue risk, please read and familiarise yourself with: Charities and risk management (CC26)
Detailed risk assessment documents for fire risk, asbestos risk and more can be found on this page of the property section of the Church's website.
Methodist Insurance have a range of resources for churches, covering various aspects of property management:
Risk Management Articles | Methodist Insurance (link) [JL1]
Developing a Church Health and Safety Policy (link)
Finance
Managing Trustees and Methodist Money - last updated 2010; page under review
Standard Form of Accounts (link)
Prepare a Charity Annual Return: Charity Commission guidance (link)
If you need any further information, please contact the Conference Office.
*Please note that the Guidance for Closed Churches and the Replacement Project Criteria have now been moved to A-Z Property Guidance.
More Finance
Further guidance and information on banking, accounts, charity commission returns and more see our Finance section.
Online Suite of Applications
Annual returns, Property consents, Statistics for mission & web profiles, and Gift aid submissions.
Annual returns
We have made some significant changes to the Annual Returns update to help make it more efficient and relevant to the current needs of the wider Church. One of the most significant changes users will notice is the drastic reduction in the number of questions. The feedback from managing trustees over the years has been consistent: there were too many questions being asked on the portal. The questions now focus on Action for Hope and the mission of churches and circuits. These questions will be fed in to the work that the Connexional Team does and help assess the impact of these initiatives.
However, the questions that were previously on the return have not entirely gone away. They now form The Managing Trustee Annual Returns Checklist (Word) or (pdf version). This makes it easier for us to adapt the questions as the needs of the church change over time, but also make it easier for you to submit the information to your circuits and districts, but also store them for your own records.
The Managing Trustee Annual Returns Checklist contains questions that used to appear within the annual returns checklist. However, although they been removed, they may still assist you in fulfilling your obligations as a managing trustee. Please note that this is not a complete list, merely guidance to ensure that you keep in mind certain areas of responsibility on an annual basis. It is suggested that reference should be made to specific District or Circuit requirements.