SECTION 5: DUTIES OF A TRUSTEE
All members of Presbytery are trustees. The primary duties of trustees are outlined below. Members should ensure that they are fully aware of their duties and responsibilities.
A charity trustee must:
• Act in the interests of the charity: trustees should put the interests of their charity before their own interests or those of any other person or organisation.
• Operate in a manner consistent with the charity’s purposes: trustees should carry out their duties in accordance with the governing document.
• Act with due care and diligence: trustees should take such care of their charity’s affairs as is reasonable to expect of someone who is managing the affairs of another person.
• Ensure that the charity complies with the provisions of the 2005 Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act and other relevant legislation.
Additional duties for charity trustees include:
• Updating your charity’s details: trustees must make sure that OSCR holds the latest information about their charity on the Scottish Charity Register. This is carried out by Presbytery staff for Presbytery as a registered charity.
• Reporting to OSCR: complying with the statutory duty to supply certain information to OSCR, including annual monitoring, charity accounting, making changes to the charity. For Presbytery, its officials are primarily responsible for ensuring this is done.
• Fundraising: trustees are responsible for taking control of how their charity raises funds.
• Providing information to the public: trustees must make sure that their charity meets the statutory provisions when referring to their charitable status, e.g. in advertisements, and in their duty to provide information about their charity to the public.
• Financial record keeping and reporting: Charities must keep proper accounting records, prepare a statement of account, including a report on its activities at the end of each financial year, have the statement of account independently examined or audited, send a copy of the accounts, along with the annual return to OSCR, and retain accounting records for a minimum of six years from the end of the financial year in which they were made. Presbytery staff, along with professional advisers, are primarily responsible for preparing and presenting these documents to Presbytery each year.