Trustee Policy Summary
Ultimately, it is the Board of Trustees that is responsible for ensuring the Hall which is set up as a charity has the right policies, and that these are being complied with. That includes ensuring that trustees are aware of their responsibilities and the board has any policies it needs to ensure it governs itself well.
Trustee Responsibilities & Duties
Trustees have the following six main responsibilities:
To ensure the charity is carrying out its purposes for public benefit.
To ensure that the organisation works in line with the governing document
To ensure the staff and Trustees are accountable for their actions
To act in the best interest of the Hall its clients and its community
To manage any resources responsibly
To act with care and skill to ensure the health and safety of users
Governance and Operation of the Board
The governance document for the charity was set up on 22nd April 1924 when the Trust was established to manage the Hall for the use of the Billingshurst community.
The Deed of Trust states that it should be ‘used in perpetuity as a place or recreation, education and social intercourse and as a place for meetings connected with women’s institutes, mother’s unions, child welfare and other subjects and matters affecting the moral or social welfare of women and their families’. The Trustees were also given powers to extend and develop the hall to meet the needs of the time.
The governance of the Hall and wider site has developed over the years and although its name remains, the hall is now used for all sections of the community but is still rooted in its original purpose as a place of recreation, education and social interaction for its local community.
The current governance arrangements are:
The Board of Trustees has a Chair and a Treasurer and one of the trustees acts as the company secretary.
The Trustees manage the business through a monthly meeting where they are also joined by the caretaker of the Hall for the majority of discussions.
The Chair or their representative carry out an inspection of the hall and site as a minimum on a monthly basis and the report of the inspection/s is/are presented to the monthly meeting of the Board
An Issues log is available in the Hall for the use of any users and issues raised are reported to the board and action taken if they have not been able to be resolved immediately.
The caretaker inspects the site and the playground on a daily basis and reports any issues requiring resolution to the Chair of the Board in an ongoing way. A record of the playground inspections are kept by the caretaker and the record is presented to the Chair for ratification or action at the monthly meeting.
Any complaint or whistle-blowing issue should be reported to the Chair in the first instance who will involve other Trustees in accordance with the complaints and whistle-blowing policy.
Trustees must act in the best interest of the charity at all times and any trustee who may not be able to do so because of a relationship outside the board will be excluded from discussions and associated decision making and this will be recorded in the minutes. Generally, a potential conflict of interest will occur when a board member has a connection to another organisation or person that the charity has a financial, or other working arrangement with.
Policies and Procedures
The Trust Board ensures that we have effective policies and procedures, to meet our needs, and these are reviewed regularly, with key policies approved by the Board.
Policy requirements are communicated through this policy summary which is available on the Website and policies are also integrated into hirer agreements for users. Policies are also made available to others who may need to know this, such as users, volunteers, beneficiaries, contractors and the public.
Our organisational policies are clear, understandable and applied pragmatically to ensure they do not create unnecessary work or prevent us from getting the job done.
Health & Safety Policy
The Women’s Hall does not have more than five employees and thus is not required to have a written Health and Safety at work policy. However, we do have a policy for managing health and safety which sets out our general approach to health and safety and explains how we manage health and safety, who is responsible for what and what is expected of our users.
We expect all users who employ staff to have their own Health and Safety policy and if they have more than five employees they should have a written policy for Health and Safety at Work. They are asked for confirmation of this as part of the booking process.
We do have a Women’s Hall Health and Safety Policy which identifies our process for ensuring that the site is safe and the responsibilities and procedures that are in place to ensure that is the case.
Safeguarding Policy
The Charity does not of itself work with children or vulnerable adults but some of its users do and thus should have their own safeguarding policy which we ask for confirmation about during the booking process. The policies should identify how they will:
Protect people from harm.
Make sure people can raise safeguarding concerns.
Handle allegations or incidents.
Respond, including reporting to the relevant authorities.
We do have a Women’s Hall Child Protection Policy which is available to all users of the Hall which identifies our expectations of users and how we would behave if alerted to an issue arising on the site
Whistleblowing
The Women’s Hall has a Women’s Hall Whistleblowing policy (Public Disclosure Act), with the whistleblowing contact details available to all users. As the Women’s Hall is not a significant employer the whistle-blowing and complaints policy use the same procedure. It is also expected that users also have their own whistleblowing policy. They are asked for confirmation of this as part of the booking process.
Food Handling Policy
Although the Hall has a kitchen it does not process or handle food itself. We accept that it is an offence to supply food that is unsafe or harmful. Even if it's just a one-off event we, therefore, endeavour to ensure that those who use the Hall:
Keep themselves and the working area clean and wear suitable, clean protective clothing.
Store, prepare and display food at safe temperatures.
Do everything possible to protect food from contamination.
We do not have a specific policy ourselves on this area apart from the above and our expectation of any user of the Hall for an activity which supplies food is to be registered and approved to do so. This is stated as part of the booking process.
Employment Policy
A written statement of employment is given to staff and contains terms of employment and refers to disciplinary rules and procedures. The duties of the postholder/s are set out clearly and reviewed on an annual basis or more frequently if required.
The trustees ensure that HR procedures are applied in a consistent and fair way, and without avoiding addressing issues or unreasonably delaying the process.
The current situation is that the caretaker is the only employee of the charity and he is line managed by the Chair on behalf of the Board of Trustees.
All tasks outside the expectations of postholders are agreed by Trustees and commissioned to external contractors in line with the finance policy. External contractors will be supervised by the caretaker and will be responsible for their own employment policies and insurance.
Charity Finance And Reserves Policies
The funding for the Women’s Hall comes from the fees for the hiring of the space and also from bids to funding agencies when these funding streams meet the needs of the charity.
The Hall has its own finance policy The Women’s Hall Finance Policy, which also contains its reserves policy. to ensure we maintain adequate free reserves to enable us to manage any reasonably foreseeable contingency.
Our policy sets out:
How much our charity needs to hold in reserve and why.
When our charity’s reserves can be spent.
How frequently the reserves policy will be reviewed.
The revenue and reserves are reported to the Trustees at every meeting and decisions are taken on the basis of the information presented. The Treasurer implements systems and regular checks to safeguard cash and other assets, including in areas such as cash handling, banking, claiming expenses and online fraud.
The Board of Trustees is required to authorise the opening or closing of any bank, deposit or other account. There is not a single person with access, substantial payments require 2 signatures or full board authorisation and the bank account is reconciled on a monthly basis
Risk Management Policy
There is an effective risk register and Trustees monitor risks at their monthly meetings with a formal annual review to ensure these are implemented consistently across the organisation. Women’s Hall Risk Register
Data Protection Policy
The charity holds information about the Trustees which is a matter of public record and available on the Charity Commission’s website. It does not hold information about those who book the hall beyond the time of their booking. Information submitted by individuals when booking the Hall is only used for that booking and data is not retained or passed to any other organisation.
Environmental Policy
The Trustees have a strong commitment to the local community and to the wider local and global environment and so although there is no requirement to have an environmental policy it has developed a Women’s Hall Environmental Policy to demonstrate this commitment. The Hall is located in a conservation area and has been identified by the Parish Council as a building of local significance and thus takes its responsibilities seriously in this regard.
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If any user or stakeholder would like to see the policies identified on this summary sheet they should contact the Secretary of the Women’s Hall Trustees at billingshurstwomenshall@gmail.com