Expenses and Remuneration

Whatever the structure your community group has – whether it is incorporated or not – and irrespective of its charitable status, your committee members (or Board of Directors) will be volunteers. In general, they will not receive payment for their duties.

Committee members may, however, receive out of pocket expenses and there are some cases where it is permissible for charity trustees to receive direct or indirect remuneration.

Charity Trustee Remuneration

Charity remuneration is defined in the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 as payment or benefit in kind (cash, goods, services etc) received either directly or indirectly by a charity trustee for:-

being a charity trustee
being an employee of the charity
other services to or on behalf of the charity

Direct Remuneration

Payment made to, or benefit given directly to, the charity trustee in person.

Indirect Charity Trustee Remuneration

Payment made to another person (such as members of a charity trustee’s family or business with whom the charity is connected) and from whom the charity trustee might derive benefit.

When is indirect remuneration allowed?

To make sure that the Charity Trustees are complying with all legal requirements under the current charity legislation for Scotland, indirect remuneration is only permissible:-

with a written agreement between the charity and the service provider, setting out the agreed maximum amount of remuneration
with the agreement of all the trustees
when the agreement will benefit less than half the total number of trustees

and

the charity’s constitution (or governing document) does not expressly prohibit remuneration

Further sources of information

Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)