Part 4: Charity Trustees Section 31: Remuneration etc of charity trustees etc
The court has an inherent jurisdiction, in exceptional circumstances, to order the payment of remuneration to a trustee (or the retention of an unauthorised benefit received by the trustee) in connection with work that has been undertaken by the trustee for the benefit of the trust ("an equitable allowance"). 13 The court’s power applies to payments to charity trustees in respect of work that they have done for the charity. Section 31, which inserts section 186A into the CA 2011, confers on the Charity Commission a power to order a charity to remunerate a trustee (or to authorise a trustee to retain a benefit already received) where:
the trustee has done work for the charity; and
it would be inequitable for the trustee not to be remunerated for that work (or not to retain the benefit received in connection with that work).
	The Charity Commission’s power will prevent the need for an application to court to authorise the payment of an equitable allowance. The need to authorise remuneration or the retention of a benefit only arises in the case of a trustee in breach of fiduciary duty, so an equitable allowance will only ever be awarded to a trustee. The provisions do not therefore apply to connected persons as connected persons will not themselves be in breach of fiduciary duty by profiting from their position as a connected person to a trustee.
	In deciding whether to exercise the power, the Charity Commission is required to have regard to the matters in section 186A(4) of the CA 2011. One such factor is the existence of any express provision in the charity’s governing document concerning remuneration. The governing documents of most charities will contain provisions prohibiting the remuneration of trustees (or setting out the circumstances in which they may be remunerated). Such express provisions would be a relevant consideration for the Charity Commission in deciding whether to exercise the new power, but as one of many considerations it would not be decisive.