A recent edition of Third Sector magazine included a discussion between Emma Burrows of Trowers & Hamlin Solicitors and Rodney Buse, Chair designate of the Guide Dogs for the Blind. The article was entitled “Board Talk: Should you have the right to time off to be a trustee?” and covered a number of issues including the headline topic.

The comparison was made between the role of Trustee and that of School Governer or Magistrate and being a Charitable Trustee (which in some cases will be the same as being a director of a not for profit Limited Company). Current legislation states that employers must permit reasonable time off for public duties for such people as magistrates and school governors but says nothing about the role of Trustees. The discussion between Mr Buse and Ms Burrows is well worth a read if you have a couple of moments to spare. For the record my own view is that the role of Trustee is as worthy as being governer of any School. I don’t think a direct comparison with the magistracy is entirely helpful but clearly there are parallels in terms of the sense of these people representing the local community.

At the end of the discussion Emma Burrows throws in as her last comment, that she: “would like to see the Charity Commission become more flexible about charities paying some board members. Some charities are competing against private sector organisations and some are competing in small geographical regions against public sector organisations – my experience as their solicitor is that they find it very difficult to attract board members who haven’t already been engaged by other organisations that pay.”

The response from Rodney Buse is a lot less positive: “There is no evidence that I have seen that says governance is improved by paying trustees. Until there is hard evidence, I simply do not see the need to pay trustees in the voluntary sector.”

On this matter I am firmly with Emma. I have personally been a Trustee of a large local charity which demanded a great deal of my time. Whilst I did not have any problems in releasing myself from my own self-employment, my role as a Trustee came at the expense of earning money which made the commitment a very challenging one to make. Nearly all of my fellow Trustees were retired and as Chair, the time commitment demanded a great deal more time of me than many of these men and women were willing to give. I know that the other Trustees and executive team were willing to consider paying the Chair a modest honorarium but the regulatory barrier in the end prevented this happening.

It is clear that small local charities should not usually need to pay any of their Trustees, even where the resources to do so exist. It may well be the case that large national charities such as Guide Dogs for the Blind will never run short of suitable candidates that can support themselves (although William Castell was paid £137,000 in 2011 as the Chair of the Wellcome Trust). However in the middle I believe there is a strong case for the flexibility to make payments with certain safeguards, that should not depend on a regulatory endorsement, any more than the charity needs to obtain consent for the level of payment to its staff. The safeguards should include the proviso that the payments are not excessive in terms of other paid staff at a senior level and that only a small number of Trustees are remunerated.

William Buse makes a good point regarding evidence (although convincing him personally seems a bit unnecessary, despite his impressive CV). Let us gather evidence and look at the barriers faced by a wide range of people from serving as Trustees on some of the boards that are currently struggling to attract board members. Then lets make the necessary changes as soon as possible.