A trustee skills audit is a check of the skills, experience and knowledge already on your board, and of the gaps you still need to fill. The Charity Commission's guidance on finding trustees, CC30, says you do not have to wait for a vacancy, and that a smaller charity can keep the check simple. You use the result to write the role, decide who to shortlist, and plan the next vacancy. The grid is the trustee skills audit template.
What a trustee skills audit is for
CC30, updated on 14 May 2025, gives the job its name. It says that looking regularly at what your charity needs from its board, which it calls a skills audit, helps you see the skills, experience and knowledge you already have. That includes skills you did not know a trustee had. It also shows the gaps you need to recruit for.
Trustee Meetings is a governance tool, not a law firm. This is information, not legal advice.
CC30 puts the audit as something you can do, including before anyone has resigned. In the same guidance it says you must follow the rules in your governing document (the constitution, the articles, or the trust deed), the legal rules on who may be a trustee, and your recruitment policy if you have one. CC30 also says your decisions must serve your charity's best interests. The audit informs that decision. It does not replace it.
CC3, The essential trustee, updated on 16 September 2026, says that when you recruit you should think about what skills and experience your current trustees bring, and where the gaps are. The Charity Governance Code (2025) says of itself: "Compliance with the Code is not a regulatory requirement." Under board effectiveness it lists, as a practice, that the board has the skills, knowledge and experience it needs and keeps that mix under review, including lived experience (personal experience of the cause). Its suggested evidence includes a periodic assessment of the competencies the board needs, so you can see skills gaps, and evidence that you tried to fill them by training, recruitment or specialist advice.
What you put on the list
Start from the charity in front of you, not from a generic trustee advert. CC30 says you can think about your purpose, your beneficiaries, your plans, and your opportunities and challenges, in the short term and the long term.
CC30 says the list may mix these:
- Knowledge or experience of your field of work. Its examples are a counselling service and a housing service.
- Specific skills or experience. Its examples are finance, governance, safeguarding, digital and risk.
- Behaviours and qualities. Its examples are commitment to the purposes and values, and being able to take an active part in discussion. How you write those expectations down is a separate job, covered in the trustee code of conduct.
- Knowledge of the people, communities or local areas you serve.
- Lived experience, which CC30 describes as "personal or first-hand experience of the cause your charity works on".
- A user trustee, which CC30 defines as someone who uses your services or facilities, or who is close to someone who does.
CC30 is plain that this does not mean an expert for every topic, event or viewpoint. It is a skilled and balanced group who, together, can run the charity. It also says you can match the method to the charity. For a smaller or less complex charity, the audit can be quite simple. A larger or more complex charity may need something more formal.
Keep a second question off this grid. CC30 says that, separately from the skills audit, you can also look at the board's mix of backgrounds, characteristics and perspectives. A grid that also records age, ethnicity or health has become that other exercise.
CC30 tells you to follow data protection rules, and to request and handle personal information sensitively. If the governing document says some trustees must live in a place, belong to a faith, or be people who use the service, follow that clause. CC30 says that if you do not follow the document, your trustee decisions may be invalid.
How you run the audit in one meeting
Do this before you draft an advert. CC30 says you can use the same information when you write a trustee role description, set the criteria for selecting people, and plan later vacancies.
- Read the governing document on who appoints trustees, how long they serve, and any conditions on who may serve. CC30 says you must follow what that document says.
- Write six to ten rows, drawn from the categories above, and only the rows this year's plans need. A youth club opening a second evening does not add a digital row just because a sample list had one.
- Send the grid a week before the meeting. Use the trustee skills audit template. Ask each trustee to mark only their own name. The depth words on that template (strong, some, or none) are this guide's scale so a small board can finish in one evening. CC30 does not set a score.
- In the meeting, agree the gap column together. People undersell themselves. They also tick a skill because they are willing to learn. Willingness is a quality CC30 lists on its own. It is not the skill.
- For each gap, pick one route: train someone who is already a trustee, recruit, or take specialist advice. That trio is the Code's suggested evidence for how a board shows it tried to fill a skills gap. CC3 says you "must use reasonable care and skill, making use of your skills and experience and taking appropriate advice when necessary".
- Minute the gaps, the route, the owner and the date. Then turn every "recruit" row into the role description. CC30 says that description should include the skills you decided the board needs, and why, and that you should include only the experience you actually need. It also says to think about what a new trustee could pick up in the role, given the right support.
Here is an illustration, not a real charity. A community hall has six trustees. Five mark finance as "some" because they have looked at the bank balance. The treasurer marks it "strong" and is the only person who has read the quarterly figures.
Safeguarding is "none" on every row, and a youth group now uses the building on Thursdays. The board does not advertise for a second accountant. It asks the treasurer to walk the board through the figures for twenty minutes at each of the next two meetings. It recruits for someone with safeguarding knowledge in work with children or young people.
We see the opposite. Every box says "some", and the advert asks for a wide range of skills. You have not found a gap. You have avoided one.
What you do with the gaps
Sort the rows into three piles. Put a name and a date on each.
Train. One trustee can close the gap with a course, a briefing, or a standing item. Write the person and the date into the minutes. CC3 says you "should give enough time, thought and energy to your role", and its example is preparing for meetings and taking an active part. Learning to read the figures is part of that.
Recruit. The current board cannot cover the gap in the time the plan needs. CC30 says you may need more than one new trustee to get the skills you have decided you need. Write the role from the gap, not from the person who just left. Once they join, the papers they should receive are in the trustee welcome pack, and the first months are in the new trustee induction checklist.
Take advice. The gap is a one-off, not a seat on the board. CC3's example is land: "most charities must take advice from a surveyor or other qualified person when selling charity land". A single legal question has the same shape. Recruiting a trustee so you can avoid paying for advice is how a small board ends up with one person treated as the unpaid legal department.
If members elect some of you, or another organisation appoints some of you, you still do the audit. CC30 says you can tell the members or the appointing body which skills you are looking for and why, share candidate profiles before an election, and ask an appointing body to put forward several candidates so you can state a preference against the role. You still follow the document.
Term limits are a different decision. Do not hide them in the grid. CC30 says you should consider whether to set them, and they may already be in the governing document. The Code's practice is that once a trustee has served more than nine years, a reappointment gets a rigorous review and is explained in the trustees' annual report. Separately, the Code says trustees serve for an agreed period, subject to the constitution and the law. If your document sets a different period, follow the document.
Do this once, then let it run itself. Trustee Meetings is a simple board-meetings tool built for small UK charities. It keeps the minute that records the gaps, and the grid you attached, with the rest of the board's agendas and minutes. 30-day trial, then £15 a month or £180 a year. Card required at signup. Cancel any time in the trial. £120 a year if your charity's income is under £25,000. Every trustee included. Try it with your board
Mistakes that waste the evening
Scoring the person, not the gap. The audit is for the role, the training and the next recruitment. It is not a quiet way to ask someone to stand down. The Code lists separate processes for reviewing the board, ideally each year, and for reviewing the chair and individual trustees. Do not hold that conversation inside this grid.
One person completing it for everyone. The chair's memory of who "does the money" is how a retired bookkeeper stays invisible. CC30's own reason for the audit is that current trustees may have skills and experience you are unaware of. Each person marks their own row. The board then agrees the gaps.
Copying a national list unchanged. CC30's examples are examples. A row you cannot tie to this year's purpose, beneficiaries or plans will be ticked, and then ignored.
Folding a diversity audit into the same sheet. Backgrounds and characteristics are the separate exercise CC30 describes. Leave them off this grid, and handle any personal information with the care CC30 asks for.
Frequently asked questions
Do you have to run a skills audit before every vacancy? No. CC30 says you do not have to wait for a vacancy, and that regularly looking at what the board needs can help you recruit. If the trustees and the plans have not changed since the last audit, you can reuse it. If someone has left, or the charity has taken on new work, do it again before you write the advert.
The members elect the trustees. Is an audit a waste of time? No. CC30 says that where members or another body appoint trustees, you can still tell them which skills you are looking for and why, share candidate profiles before an election, and ask an appointing body for more than one name. You follow the governing document. The audit does not let you ignore an election the document requires.
Should the grid record age, ethnicity or disability? No. CC30 treats the mix of backgrounds and characteristics as a separate diversity audit, not as part of the skills audit. Keep those details off this grid. CC30 says you follow data protection rules, and you handle personal information sensitively.
Can one willing trustee close every gap? Not if you have already decided the board needs that skill for the work in front of you. CC30 says filling the skills you have chosen may take more than one new trustee, and that the board does not need an expert for every topic. A named gap still needs a route: train someone, recruit, or take advice. CC3 says you should recognise when you need advice.
Is a low score a reason to ask a trustee to leave? No. CC30 uses the audit to spot what you already have and what you need to recruit for, and to write the role. It is not a sanction. A review of how an individual trustee is doing is a separate prompt in the Charity Governance Code. Do not use the grid as a quiet way to push someone off the board.
This guide is for trustees of charities in England and Wales. CC30 states that it applies to England and Wales. Scottish charities are regulated by OSCR, and charities in Northern Ireland by the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland. Use their rules rather than assuming this page applies in full.
Fill the grid in with the trustee skills audit template. The behaviour half of the same conversation is the trustee code of conduct. For the papers a new trustee should receive, use the trustee welcome pack and the new trustee induction checklist. Browse the full guides library.