No — a conflicts of interest register isn't a legal requirement for most charities, so if you don't have one yet, you haven't broken the law. It's Charity Commission guidance: the legal duty underneath is to make decisions only in your charity's best interests, and a register is how you show you did. There are three moments a trustee declares an interest — on appointment, as a standing item at every meeting, and when circumstances change — and this guide walks through each, with a register template to copy tonight.
Is a conflicts of interest register a legal requirement?
Mostly no — with one narrow exception.
The Charity Commission's CC29 guidance is direct about what's law and what's good practice, and it's worth keeping the two separate in your head. The law is this: "As a trustee you must make decisions based only on what is in your charity's best interests." That's one of your legal duties as a trustee, full stop, regardless of your charity's size or structure.
The register itself sits below that line, as guidance rather than statute. CC29 says "Keeping a register of conflicts can also help you identify conflicts early. Have one at your charity and make sure it is regularly updated" — a recommendation, not a "must". The same goes for having a written conflicts of interest policy. Both are strongly advised, and both are how you show, later, that you took the underlying legal duty seriously. But nothing in charity law says a small charity is required to hold either document.
There is one genuine "must" worth knowing if your charity is a company: "if your charity is a company, you must amend your Articles of Association to add these rules before you make the decision which gives rise to the conflict of interest." That's a real legal requirement, but it's narrow — it applies to charitable companies, and only bites before you rely on your conflict-of-interest rules to make a particular decision. Check your Articles now, not on the night you need them.
The three moments you declare a conflict
This is where most confusion lives — people think "the register" and "declaring a conflict" are two separate jobs. They're not. They're the same information, captured at three different points in time.
1. On appointment — your standing interests. When someone joins the board, or when you set the register up for the first time, every trustee lists what they already know: their employer, any other charities they're a trustee of, family members' jobs, businesses they or a spouse have a stake in. This goes straight into the register. It's not urgent — it's housekeeping — but skipping it is how a "surprise" conflict turns up eighteen months later that everyone could have flagged on day one.
2. A standing item at every meeting — what actually gets minuted. At the start of each meeting, ask: does anyone have an interest in anything on today's agenda? This is the live moment. If a trustee's answer is "yes, item 4," that declaration gets recorded in the minutes for that meeting — not just noted in the register. If nobody has anything to declare, write "no conflicts of interest were declared" in the minutes anyway. An empty line looks deliberate; a missing section looks like nobody asked.
3. When circumstances change — update immediately, not at the annual round. A trustee starts a new job, their partner's company starts supplying you, they take on a trusteeship elsewhere. That's not something to save for the yearly refresh. Tell the board when it happens and update the register there and then. The annual collection (see below) is a backstop for anything that slipped through, not the only chance to catch it.
Keep those three straight and the "register vs meeting declaration" question mostly answers itself: the register is where standing interests live and get kept current; the meeting declaration is the live check against today's specific business, and it's the one that goes in the minutes.
Financial conflict or conflict of loyalty — which is it?
CC29 splits conflicts into two kinds, and small boards often only think about the first.
A financial conflict is where a trustee, or someone connected to them, could get money or something else of value from a decision the board makes. CC29's examples cover a lot of ordinary small-charity territory: the charity buying goods or services from a trustee's business, employing a trustee's relative, borrowing from or lending to a trustee, a land or property transaction involving a trustee, or a trustee's organisation getting reduced-rate use of the charity's premises. Two points catch people out: "it doesn't matter if the value of the benefit is small," and it's still a conflict "if your charity will get a good deal" — a below-market price from a trustee's firm is not a loophole, it's still a conflict that needs declaring and managing.
A conflict of loyalty is different — no money changes hands, but the trustee's judgement could be pulled in two directions by their relationship with someone. CC29's list of "connected persons" is wider than most people assume: a spouse or civil partner, immediate family and wider relatives, a business partner, an employer, another charity the trustee is also a trustee of (even one with similar aims), the organisation that appointed them to your board, and friends. A trustee who also sits on the board of a charity you're about to partner with has a loyalty conflict, even though nobody's being paid.
A small-charity example: your treasurer's daughter runs a printing business, and you're getting quotes for the annual report. That's a financial conflict — declare it before quotes are even requested, not after her firm wins.
Your register — copy this tonight
This is the one document that resolves the whole confusion, because it makes the difference between "standing interest" and "meeting declaration" visible in the same table.
| Trustee name | Interest / organisation | Nature (financial or loyalty) | Date declared | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (illustrative — replace with your own trustees) | ||||
| Jane Ferris | Spouse employed by Ashgrove Print & Design | Financial | 3 Feb 2026 | 3 Feb 2026 |
| Michael Osei | Trustee, Riverside Community Trust | Loyalty | 3 Feb 2026 | 12 Jun 2026 |
| Priya Shah | Son's firm quoted for hall repairs (declined; lapsed) | Financial (lapsed) | 14 Apr 2026 | 14 Apr 2026 |
The two rows above are fictional worked examples to show the shape of the table — swap them out for your own board on day one.
Who keeps it: the chair or secretary usually holds the master copy, but CC29 is explicit that managing conflicts is "the responsibility of all the trustees of a charity, not just the responsibility of the chair or the person who has the conflict." Treat the register as the board's document.
How to fill it in: one row per standing interest, not per meeting. When a trustee joins, collect everything from moment one above. When something changes, add or update the row there and then — moment three. The "Last reviewed" column is what shows an outside eye (an auditor, a funder, a new trustee) that this isn't a document you wrote once and forgot.
Review rhythm: collect fresh information from every trustee at least once a year — CC29's own policy checklist recommends gathering this "when new trustees join the charity, and annually, to keep your register updated" — on top of updating immediately whenever something changes. An annual date in your calendar is enough; it doesn't need to be a big exercise.
Is the register public? That's your choice, not a requirement either way. CC29 says: "You may want to make your policy and some or all of your register of interests available to the public. Make sure you comply with data protection rules if you decide to do this." Publishing isn't compulsory and it isn't forbidden — if you do publish any of it, UK GDPR applies to the personal information in there, so think about what you're comfortable putting in front of the public before you post it.
Do this once, then let it run itself. Trustee Meetings is a simple board-meetings tool built for small UK charities. It asks for declarations at every meeting and keeps them on the record automatically — the standing item never gets forgotten. Free until your first board meeting is done — no card, no clock running. Then £180 a year (or £15 a month), every trustee included. Try it with your board
What to do when a conflict comes up in a meeting
CC29 sets out five steps for handling a conflict once it's spotted: identify it, declare it, consider whether the conflicted trustee needs to be removed from the discussion, manage it, and record what happened. That order matters — you can't manage something properly if you skip straight from "identify" to "record" without actually declaring it to the rest of the board.
For a financial conflict, CC29's minimum is specific: the trustee affected should declare the conflict, leave the relevant discussion, not take part in the decision, and not be counted in the quorum (the minimum number of trustees needed for the meeting to make valid decisions). If your board only has five trustees and quorum is three, losing one conflicted trustee to the doorway can matter.
For a loyalty conflict, CC29 allows a sliding scale depending on how serious the risk is — a trustee might stay in the room for a low-stakes discussion but still shouldn't vote on anything where their judgement could be questioned. Use your judgement, and when in doubt, treat it like a financial conflict.
Whatever the type, CC29's record list has six things you write down every time:
- What the conflict was
- Who or what it affected
- When it was declared
- How you managed it
- Which rules or guidance you followed
- Whether you took legal advice, and if so, what it said
Missing any of these six is the most common gap reviewers find in charity minutes — not because boards are careless, but because they only write down the first two or three and stop.
A quorum knock-on to plan for: CC29 warns that "you must have enough unconflicted trustees in the meeting when a conflicted trustee withdraws," and that some charities "may need to appoint new, independent trustees" if they can't otherwise reach quorum. On a small board, one recurring conflict — say, a trustee whose business regularly supplies the charity — can genuinely stall decisions if nobody planned for it.
Can a trustee ever benefit from the charity?
Yes, but only with permission obtained before the fact, never after. This is one of the two clean legal "musts" in this whole area: "You must have authority (legal permission) before making any payments to trustees or people connected to them." Authority might come from your governing document, from the Charity Commission, or from the court — but it has to exist, and it has to be in place before the payment or benefit happens, not arranged retrospectively once someone's already been paid.
This sits alongside the best-interests duty and proper conflict management — all three apply together. The detail of how trustee payments and expenses work, including what counts as authority and how to get it, is covered fully in the Commission's CC11 guidance; this article doesn't repeat it here.
Common mistakes to avoid
Recording nothing when nobody declares a conflict. A blank agenda item looks like the board forgot to ask, not that there was genuinely nothing to raise. Write "no conflicts of interest were declared" in the minutes every time, even when it's true every single meeting.
Letting the register go stale. A register filled in once, at the first meeting three years ago, tells a reviewer nothing about the board's current interests — and it's the "Last reviewed" column, not the "Date declared" column, that shows whether anyone's still looking at it.
A conflicted trustee staying in the room "because it's small." We see this a lot on boards that know each other well: someone reasons that a £200 printing job from their partner's business is too minor to bother leaving for. CC29 is explicit that the size of the benefit doesn't change whether it's a conflict — only whether it's declared and managed properly.
"We're only five trustees, we don't need a register." The opposite is closer to true. Conflicts "can happen in all types and sizes of charity," and a small board is exactly where losing one trustee to a declared conflict can threaten quorum. A five-minute table is cheap insurance against a decision being challenged later — and if it ever is, an unmanaged conflict can mean the decision isn't valid, with trustees personally liable to cover any resulting loss from their own funds.
Frequently asked questions
Who keeps the conflicts of interest register? Usually the chair or secretary holds it, but the Charity Commission is clear that managing conflicts is the responsibility of all the trustees, not just the chair or the person with the interest. Treat it as the board's document, even if one person types it up.
How often should we review the register? Update it whenever circumstances change — a new job, a new business interest, a new trusteeship elsewhere — and collect fresh information from every trustee at least once a year, plus when someone new joins the board.
Does a spouse's job or a small supplier really count as a conflict? Yes. Connected persons include spouses, civil partners, and their employers, and it doesn't matter if the value of the benefit is small — it's still a conflict even if your charity is getting a good deal out of it.
What if a trustee refuses to declare a conflict? Raise it with the rest of the board and check what your governing document says about handling disputes. The Charity Commission notes that in serious cases, the board may need to consider whether that trustee should resign — and an unmanaged conflict can make a decision invalid and leave trustees personally liable for any loss.
We're only five trustees — do we really need a register? Arguably more than a bigger charity does. The Charity Commission says conflicts happen in charities of every size, and small boards feel the pinch hardest when a conflicted trustee has to leave the room and there aren't enough people left for quorum. One table costs nothing and shows you took the duty seriously.
This guide covers England and Wales. Scottish charities should use OSCR's guidance on conflicts of interest; charities in Northern Ireland are regulated separately by the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI) — check its guidance rather than assuming these rules apply in full.
New to the board or building your papers for the next meeting? Start with your first trustee board meeting and the new trustee induction checklist, set your standing item using the trustee meeting agenda template, and check what quorum means for your board. Or browse the full guides library and try it with your board.