Student members of most university’s governing bodies are legally a charity trustee.
Your university, as an exempt charity, operates under charity law even though it doesn’t register with the Charity Commission. This means you share the same fundamental legal responsibilities as trustees of any charity, with some specific considerations for exempt status.
Being a trustee represents a significant responsibility that extends far beyond representing student interests. You must act in the university’s best interests as a charitable institution, which means focusing on its educational purposes and public benefit rather than narrow constituency concerns. This dual role can create tension, but understanding your primary duty to the institution helps navigate these challenges effectively.
The role brings substantial personal development opportunities alongside meaningful influence over your institution’s direction. Most trustees are volunteers who sometimes make honest mistakes – you’re expected to do your best to comply with your duties, not to be perfect. Charity law generally protects trustees who have acted honestly and reasonably.
The six core duties of trustees
1. Ensure your university fulfils its charitable purposes
Universities exist for the advancement of education and research – these are their charitable purposes. Every decision you make as a trustee must be evaluated against whether it supports these fundamental aims. Understanding your university’s specific mission and objects as stated in its charter or statutes forms the foundation of effective trusteeship. These documents aren’t just historical artifacts – they’re the legal framework that defines what your institution can and cannot do.
This duty requires you to question whether new initiatives, programmes, or expenditures genuinely advance educational goals. Student services, research activities, and teaching must all contribute to the university’s charitable mission. When reviewing proposals, you should be able to explain how each activity benefits the public through education, not just how it benefits current students or staff.
The challenge for student governors lies in evaluating proposals through the lens of public benefit rather than immediate student satisfaction. A new student facility might be popular, but if it doesn’t advance education or research, it may not be an appropriate use of charitable funds. Your role is to ensure every pound spent furthers the university’s charitable purposes.
2. Comply with governing documents and law
Universities operate within complex regulatory frameworks that extend well beyond charity law. Your institution must follow its own rules – including charter, statutes, and ordinances – as well as complying with higher education legislation, employment law, data protection requirements, and equality obligations. This creates a web of compliance requirements that trustees must understand and monitor.
As an exempt charity, your university faces different reporting requirements from ordinary charities but remains subject to charity law principles. In England the Office for Students likely serves as your principal regulator rather than the Charity Commission, though the Commission retains powers to intervene in serious cases. This regulatory complexity means trustees need to stay informed about changing requirements across multiple areas.
Every trustee should have an up-to-date copy of the university’s governing documents and refer to them regularly. If governing documents become outdated or no longer serve the institution’s needs, trustees have a responsibility to review and update them through proper procedures. This legal foundation underpins everything the university does.
3. Act in the university’s best interests
This represents perhaps the most challenging duty for student trustees, as it requires thinking institutionally rather than as a student representative. Your duty is to the university as a charitable institution, not to current students as a constituency. When these interests align, decision-making becomes straightforward.
Acting in the university’s best interests means making decisions based on what best enables the institution to fulfil its educational mission over the long term. This requires considering sustainability, reputation, and effectiveness alongside immediate needs. Sometimes this means making difficult decisions that current students might not appreciate but which strengthen the institution for future generations.
You must avoid conflicts between personal interests and the university’s interests, including situations where your status as a student creates competing loyalties. This doesn’t mean you cannot contribute valuable student insights – rather, you must frame these contributions within the context of institutional benefit rather than personal or constituency advantage.
4. Manage resources responsibly
Universities handle substantial public and private funds, making financial stewardship a critical trustee responsibility. Resources must be used only for charitable purposes – advancing education and research – with appropriate controls to prevent fraud, waste, or misuse. This includes scrutinising how student fees are deployed to ensure they genuinely support educational objectives rather than non-charitable activities.
Appropriate financial controls must be in place to ensure more than one person is involved in receiving income and authorising expenditure. These controls should cover all payment methods and be regularly reviewed for effectiveness. Universities face particular risks around research funding, international partnerships, and large capital projects that require careful oversight.
Investment decisions must align with the university’s values and legal requirements whilst supporting long-term financial sustainability. Buildings and assets represent major resources that must be properly maintained and used effectively to support educational activities. Poor asset management can expose the institution to significant financial risk.
Risk management extends beyond financial matters to encompass reputational, operational, and strategic risks. Trustees/governors have a duty to avoid exposing the charity to undue risk, though this doesn’t mean being risk-averse. Effective risk management involves identifying, assessing, and managing risks proportionately rather than avoiding them entirely.
5. Exercise reasonable care and skill
The duty of care requires trustees to bring appropriate attention and competence to their role. You must use reasonable care and skill, making use of your skills and experience whilst taking advice when necessary. This means preparing thoroughly for governing body meetings, reading papers in advance, and participating actively in discussions.
What constitutes reasonable care depends partly on your experience and expertise. Student trustees often bring valuable perspectives on digital innovation, contemporary educational needs, and evolving student expectations. However, you’re also expected to develop governance skills over time and seek advice when facing issues beyond your expertise.
Regular attendance at meetings represents a fundamental expectation, as does asking questions when you don’t understand financial reports or strategic proposals. Your role involves challenging assumptions and ensuring decisions are properly scrutinised, not simply accepting management recommendations without proper consideration.
The duty extends to continuing professional development – attending governance training, learning to interpret financial statements, and understanding higher education policy developments. Trustees who act in a professional capacity or receive payment are held to higher standards than unpaid volunteers, but all trustees must demonstrate reasonable competence.
6. Ensure accountability and transparency
Universities must be accountable to various stakeholders whilst maintaining appropriate transparency about their activities and performance. This includes submitting required returns to regulators, maintaining transparent decision-making processes, and providing clear information about educational outcomes and financial performance. Though exempt charities don’t register with the Charity Commission, they remain subject to accountability requirements through their principal regulator.
Accountability involves ensuring proper systems exist for handling complaints, reporting serious incidents to appropriate authorities, and maintaining accurate records of decisions and their rationale. All governors share responsibility for ensuring the institution is legally compliant, well-run, and effective in carrying out its purposes.
Delegation is common and appropriate, but trustees cannot delegate their overall responsibility. When authority is delegated to committees, staff, or individual trustees, clear reporting procedures must be in place to ensure delegated authority is exercised properly. High-risk and unusual decisions should never be delegated entirely away from the governing body.
Managing conflicts of interest effectively
Recognising inevitable conflicts
As a student governor, conflicts of interest are unavoidable rather than exceptional. Common conflicts include decisions affecting tuition fees, student services, academic policies, disciplinary matters involving students, or resource allocation between student services and other university functions. The key lies in recognising and managing these conflicts properly rather than avoiding them entirely.
Being conflicted doesn’t disqualify you from trusteeship – failing to manage conflicts properly does. Conflicts of interest are more common than people often think, and acknowledging them demonstrates integrity rather than calling your character into question. The goal is to prevent conflicts from affecting decision-making, not to eliminate trustees who might have conflicts.
Practical conflict management
Declaring conflicts at the start of meetings has become standard practice, but effective management goes beyond simple declaration. You must withdraw from discussions and decisions where you have a material personal interest, focus on institutional rather than personal benefits when contributing to debates, and seek guidance from the chair or secretary when uncertain about potential conflicts.
The seriousness of conflicts varies considerably. Minor conflicts might require only declaration and careful consideration of your contributions, whilst serious conflicts involving direct personal benefit require complete withdrawal from decision-making. Directors of charitable companies must have specific authority in their articles to permit conflicted trustees to participate in any discussions.
Exempt charity status: understanding the differences
What exemption means in practice
Your university’s exempt status means it isn’t on the public register of charities and doesn’t submit annual returns to the Charity Commission. Instead, your principal regulator is likely the Office for Students, with different reporting requirements and oversight arrangements. However, the Charity Commission retains powers to intervene in serious cases and your trustee duties remain identical to those of any charity trustee.
Exemption doesn’t reduce your responsibilities – you have the same legal obligations regarding acting in the charity’s best interests, managing resources responsibly, ensuring compliance with charity law, and maintaining proper governance. The regulatory framework may be different, but the fundamental duties are unchanged.
Understanding your regulatory environment helps ensure compliance whilst avoiding unnecessary burden. Exempt charities often have complex regulatory frameworks beyond charity law, including oversight from sector-specific bodies and compliance with higher education legislation.
Effective decision-making and risk management
Understanding university-specific risks
Universities face distinctive risks that trustees must understand and manage appropriately. Regulatory compliance risks arise from changing higher education policy and funding arrangements, whilst reputational damage can result from research misconduct, governance failures, or student welfare incidents. Financial sustainability challenges stem from the evolving higher education landscape, demographic changes, and funding pressures.
Cyber security and data protection breaches present increasing threats, particularly given universities’ research activities and international partnerships. Health and safety incidents, safeguarding issues, and the complexity of managing large, diverse communities create operational risks requiring careful attention.
Risk management involves identifying, assessing, and managing risks proportionately rather than avoiding them entirely. This includes establishing risk policies, evaluating likelihood and impact, deciding on appropriate responses, and regularly reviewing arrangements. Some universities work in areas involving greater exposure to risks such as fraud, financial crime, or extremism, requiring enhanced due diligence procedures.
Making effective decisions
Base decisions on evidence and proper consultation whilst considering both immediate and long-term consequences. Ensure decisions fall within the university’s powers, document reasoning for significant decisions, and challenge assumptions through probing questions. Collective decision-making represents one of the most important aspects of trusteeship, with individual trustees contributing to group decisions rather than making unilateral determinations.
You have a duty to critically and objectively review proposals rather than simply accepting management recommendations. This doesn’t mean being obstructive, but ensuring proper scrutiny and consideration. Trustees who defer entirely to others aren’t fulfilling their duties, just as those who ignore expert advice act irresponsibly.
Balancing student advocacy and institutional duties
The fundamental tension
Your primary duty is to the institution’s charitable purposes rather than to current students as a constituency. This creates inevitable tension when student interests and institutional needs diverge, but understanding this hierarchy helps navigate difficult decisions. Student interests usually align with institutional health over the long term, though short-term conflicts can arise.
You can advocate for students within your trustee role, but institutional duties take precedence when conflicts emerge. This means framing student concerns in terms of how they relate to educational effectiveness, institutional reputation, or long-term sustainability rather than simply as student demands. Think “we” not “you”.
Practical approaches
Hats – Separate your trustee role from any student union or representative positions you might hold, being transparent about these different roles with fellow students. Your trustee responsibilities require institutional thinking even when this produces outcomes that disappoint some students. Effective student governors find ways to contribute valuable student insights whilst maintaining focus on institutional benefit.
This balance becomes easier with experience as you develop understanding of how institutional strength serves student interests over time. Fresh perspectives combined with proper understanding of trustee duties makes student trustees valuable contributors to university governance.
When problems arise
Recognising and reporting concerns
If you discover serious problems, report concerns to the chair or appropriate committee rather than hoping others will address them. Ensure proper investigation procedures are followed and consider whether to report to the principal regulator. Most problems can be resolved by trustees themselves, sometimes with advice, but serious cases may require regulatory intervention.
Serious incidents include fraud, theft, significant financial losses, safeguarding issues, or anything that risks significant harm to the charity’s money, property, work, beneficiaries, or reputation. Trustees must avoid exposing their charity to undue risk and should take reasonable steps to assess and manage risks to its activities and reputation.
Personal liability considerations
It’s extremely rare for charity trustees to be held personally liable, but understanding potential liabilities helps protect yourself and your charity. Trustees can be held liable for financial losses they cause through improper actions, though the law generally protects trustees who have acted honestly and reasonably. Higher standards apply to trustees acting in professional capacities or receiving payment.
Unauthorised payments or benefits must be repaid regardless of good intentions. Criminal liability can arise in specific circumstances, whilst third-party claims might exceed charitable assets in unincorporated charities. Understanding these risks helps inform decisions about incorporation, insurance, and governance procedures.
Embracing the opportunity
Serving as a student trustee provides exceptional experience in governance, strategy, and leadership whilst contributing essential perspectives to university decision-making. Your role helps ensure the institution remains connected to its primary beneficiaries whilst maintaining focus on its charitable mission of advancing education.
The responsibilities are significant, but so is the opportunity to shape your institution’s future. By understanding and fulfilling your trustee duties properly, you help ensure your university can continue serving current and future students effectively whilst maintaining public trust in higher education. Your contribution becomes part of the institution’s long-term development rather than simply representing current student interests.
Seeking advice represents good governance practice – don’t hesitate to ask questions, request training, or seek guidance when facing difficult decisions. The combination of your fresh perspective with proper understanding of trustee duties creates genuine value for your university’s governance, helping bridge the gap between institutional leadership and student experience whilst maintaining focus on charitable purposes.
Read more
This guide covers the fundamental duties and most critical considerations for student trustees, but represents a summary of much more detailed guidance. For comprehensive coverage of technical requirements, you should refer to the Charity Commission’s CC3 guidance “The essential trustee: what you need to know, what you need to do.”
This contains essential detail on areas including public benefit requirements, statutory accounting and reporting obligations, property management rules, financial control requirements, trading subsidiary governance, employment law compliance, serious incident reporting procedures, and the specific responsibilities of chair and treasurer roles.
CC3 also provides crucial guidance on planning and reviewing your charity’s work, managing delegation effectively, understanding insurance considerations, and ensuring valid trustee appointments. While this student-focused summary equips you with the core knowledge needed to fulfil your trustee duties, CC3 remains the definitive reference for detailed compliance requirements and best practice guidance that applies to all charity trustees, including those serving on university governing bodies.
The essential trustee: what you need to know, what you need to do (CC3)
