Post pandemic meetings – is your charity getting it right?

On 7 April 2020, the Charity Commission released temporary guidance permitting all charities to hold virtual meetings, regardless of the terms of their constitution. This guidance was withdrawn on 21 June 2022 (but still contains some useful material). On 19 July 2024, the Charity Commission updated its Charity Meetings guidance CC48 to clarify the rules on virtual meetings.

Can we still hold virtual meetings?

For all forms of charity, virtual and hybrid meetings are permitted only if their constitution expressly permits them.

The first thing to do is to check your constitution, and any associated rules or bye laws. If your constitution gives you all the powers you need for the way you want to run your charity now, that’s great. However, the default is that meetings must be held, and decisions must be made, in person. Any deviation from that, including decisions made via Whatsapp trustee groups, will require express constitutional provision.

What if we don’t have the right powers?

It is time to update your constitution to give your charity the ability to run flexibly and effectively into the future. Virtual meetings can be enormously helpful where:

• Trustees are geographically widespread;
• Disability makes travelling difficult; and
• An emergency requires a rapid response.

These changes do not generally require Charity Commission consent. The Charity Commission model constitutions have provisions you can copy. We’d be happy to help with any questions or more complex constitutions.

What about decisions we’ve made since June 2022?

In the situation where there is no constitutional power, decisions made virtually since this date will not be valid. The trustees should review any decisions made in this way and ratify them in accordance with the constitution – this can be virtually if the constitution has been updated.

If you have any questions, please contact Neil Burton [email protected]