Part 4: Charity Trustees Section 30: Remuneration of charity trustees etc providing goods or services to charity
Charity trustees are not permitted to make any gain from their position as trustees. The starting point, therefore, is that trustees – and persons connected with them – cannot be paid for the provision of services (such as building, cleaning, accountancy or legal services) or for the provision of goods (such as building supplies or stationery). Section 185 of the CA 2011 provides charities with a default power to pay charity trustees, or persons connected with them, for the provision of services to the charity, if no other power is available to them.
	Section 30 amends that provision in two ways. First, section 30(a) to (c) extends section 185 of the CA 2011to the provision of goods, whether that is solely the provision of goods, or the provision of goods and services together. Accordingly, charities will be able to pay a trustee, for example (1) to decorate the charity’s premises, (2) to supply paint that can be used to decorate the charity’s premises, or (3) to do both. Charities will no longer be required to seek Charity Commission authorisation for such payments. The same safeguards in section 185 that apply to payments for the provision of services will apply to payments for the provision of goods.
	Second, section 30(d), through its insertion of section 185(3A) of the CA 2011, provides that the statutory power to pay for the provision of goods or services applies in addition to any other power that the charity might have to make such a payment. Charities can therefore choose whether to use the statutory power to make the payment or an express power (if available), but they will no longer be prevented from using the statutory power simply because the payment could be made under an express provision in the charity’s governing document (that is, the "trusts" of the charity: see the definition in section 353(1) of the CA 2011). Charities will not, therefore, need to scrutinise their governing document to assess whether the proposed payment can be made under an express provision. Rather, they can rely on the default statutory power (and the guidance issued by the Charity Commission concerning the exercise of the power), provided the proposed payment is not expressly prohibited by the charity’s governing document.
	Section 185 does not permit trustees to be paid for the provision of services as a trustee, nor to be paid as an employee of the charity. That position is not changed by section 30 of the Act.