A charity trustee meeting agenda needs four standing items — declarations of interest, approval of last meeting's minutes, your charity's financial position, and any other business (AOB) — plus this meeting's live decisions. No law fixes the wording or order, but the Charity Commission's guidance (CC48) says those items should be included. Copy the annotated agenda template below into tonight's email: standing items in place, a quorum check (the minimum number of trustees needed for decisions to count), and a realistic 90-minute running order.
Does the law say what a charity trustee agenda must include?
Mostly, no.
Start with your own governing document (your charity's constitution, articles, or trust deed) — it comes first, and it may name specific items your board must cover. Beyond that, the Charity Commission's CC48 guidance on charity meetings says: "You should share an agenda before your meeting... Check your governing document for any items that you must include in an agenda for trustee meetings and AGMs." That's a "should", not a "must" — CC48 is guidance on good running of meetings, not a statute, and this guide keeps that distinction throughout.
Where CC48 is specific is on three standing items it recommends every trustee agenda carries: "a standing item on conflicts of interest to allow attendees to declare any conflicts they have; an item to discuss your charity's financial position and performance; an item for 'any other business' to allow others to raise new items on the day." NCVO adds a fourth in practice: approving last meeting's minutes, so trustees can "raise follow-up questions" without re-running old business.
Between those four standing items and your own governing document, most of the agenda writes itself.
The annotated agenda: copy this in for tonight's meeting
Not just a list of headings: each item shows why it's there and how long it should realistically take. Copy the whole thing into an email or document, fill in your own detail under each heading, and send it.
1. Welcome, apologies, and quorum check — 5 minutes Why it's here: CC48 says to record the names and roles of who's present, because "this helps to show that your meeting had the quorum required to make valid decisions." Check quorum now, against the number in your governing document — for example, "5 of 7 trustees present; quorum of 4 met." How long: 5 minutes. Note apologies and confirm the number in the room before you move on.
2. Declarations of interest — 5 minutes Why it's here: CC29 says conflicts should be identified and declared "at the start of each trustee meeting", and recommends having it "as an agenda item at each trustee meeting" — every time, not just when something's obviously live. How long: 5 minutes. If nobody has anything to declare, say so out loud and minute it — a silent skip looks like an oversight later.
3. Approval of previous minutes — 5 minutes Why it's here: NCVO's reasoning is practical: circulating the draft in advance means the meeting itself is for confirming accuracy and raising follow-up questions, not re-reading the whole document together. How long: 5 minutes, assuming trustees have already read the draft you sent with this agenda. If there are corrections, note exactly what changed.
4. Matters arising / actions from last time — 10 minutes Why it's here: Not a CC48-named item, but the natural bridge between last meeting's decisions and tonight's business — nothing agreed three months ago should quietly vanish. How long: 10 minutes. Go owner by owner: who had an action, is it done, and if not, what's the new date.
5. Finance update — 15 minutes Why it's here: CC48 names this as one of the three standing items every trustee agenda should carry — a regular look at your charity's financial position and performance, not just at year-end. How long: 15 minutes. The treasurer talks to a one-page summary, not a full set of accounts read aloud.
6. Main decision items (2–3 items) — 40 minutes Why it's here: This is the substantive work of the meeting — the reason you're all giving up an evening. Everything above exists to protect time for this. How long: Roughly 12–15 minutes per item for two or three items. If an item needs longer than that, it usually needs its own paper circulated in advance, not more airtime on the night.
7. Any other business (AOB) — 5 minutes Why it's here: CC48 lists AOB as a "should include" item, to let people raise things that didn't make the main agenda. How long: 5 minutes, capped. This guide's own practical advice — not a Commission rule — is to ask trustees to flag AOB items to the chair before the meeting starts, so "any other business" doesn't quietly become "the whole meeting again."
8. Date of next meeting — 5 minutes Why it's here: NCVO and CC48 both treat this as routine good practice — nobody should leave without knowing when the board next meets. How long: 5 minutes. Confirm a date now if you can; if not, say when it will be confirmed.
A realistic 90-minute evening meeting for volunteer trustees
Add up the timings above and you land on 90 minutes — a 7pm to 8:30pm slot that respects the fact your trustees have already done a full day's work before they turned up. That total only holds if you're disciplined about two things: keeping the standing items to their allotted five or ten minutes, and limiting the main business to two or three genuine decisions rather than a long list of updates dressed up as agenda items.
If your board regularly overruns 90 minutes, the honest fix usually isn't a longer meeting — it's fewer items on it. Anything that doesn't need a room full of trustees to resolve (a routine update, a heads-up, a minor scheduling question) can go out by email between meetings instead, leaving the agenda for things that actually need a discussion and a vote.
Who sets the agenda, and how far ahead should it go out?
NCVO describes setting the agenda as "usually the responsibility of the chair with the support of the chief executive." CC48 puts the secretary at the centre of organising the meeting itself — calling it, supporting the chair, and taking the minutes. In a small charity, one volunteer often does both jobs, which is entirely workable as long as it's clear whose job it is.
On timing, be careful what you copy from other guidance you find online. CC48's often-quoted "three weeks' notice" is a fallback for general meetings (like an AGM) when the governing document is silent on notice — it is not a rule for ordinary trustee meetings. For trustee meetings, CC48 says only that you "should send copies of any relevant documents with the agenda to allow people to prepare", with no fixed day-count. In practice, sending the agenda and papers about a week ahead is common among small charity boards, and it's what this guide recommends — but check your own governing document first, because it may set its own notice period that overrides general practice.
Do this once, then let it run itself. Trustee Meetings is a simple board-meetings tool built for small UK charities. It builds this agenda for you and emails it to every trustee, papers attached. 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
Common mistakes with trustee agendas
Letting AOB become a second meeting. An open floor with no notice and no time limit is how a 90-minute meeting becomes two hours. Keep it on the agenda — CC48 says you should — but ask for advance notice and hold it to five minutes, as this guide recommends above.
No timings on the agenda at all. A bare list of headings gives every item equal weight, so the loudest topic eats the evening. Put a number of minutes next to each line, even a rough one, and the chair has something to point to when a discussion overruns.
Skipping declarations of interest because "nothing's happened this time." CC29 asks for this as a standing item at every trustee meeting, not just when something obviously needs declaring. We see this often on small boards: the item gets quietly dropped for a few meetings, then reappears awkwardly once something genuinely conflicted comes up and nobody has the habit of raising it.
Packing in too many substantive items. Four or five genuine decisions plus the standing items cannot fit in 90 minutes without either rushing the votes or running late. If the list is long, it's usually a sign some items should be delegated to a sub-committee or handled by email, not squeezed into one evening.
Treating the agenda as fixed once it's sent. The chair can still reorder items on the night — moving a long discussion earlier if energy is fading, for instance — but the sent agenda is what trustees prepared against, so any change should be announced at the start of the meeting, not sprung on people mid-way through.
Frequently asked questions
Who sets the agenda — the chair or the secretary? The chair owns the agenda, usually with support from the secretary or chief executive. In a small charity it's often the same volunteer doing both jobs, which is fine — the point is that one person is clearly responsible for it.
How far in advance should the agenda go out? There's no fixed rule for trustee meetings — check your governing document first. The Charity Commission's three-week default only applies to general meetings when the governing document is silent; sending it about a week ahead, with papers attached, is common practice for trustee meetings.
Is "any other business" (AOB) good practice, or should we drop it? CC48 lists AOB as an item charities should include. Opinion beyond the Commission is split, because an open floor can run away with your evening. This guide's own advice is the middle ground: keep it, ask for advance notice where you can, and cap it at five minutes.
How many items is too many for a 90-minute meeting? There's no Commission rule on this — it's arithmetic. Once you've allowed time for the standing items (welcome, minutes, declarations, finance, AOB), you typically have room for two or three substantive decision items before a volunteer board's attention runs out.
Should we check quorum only when we're about to vote? No — check it at the start and keep half an eye on it throughout. CC48 is clear that decisions taken without quorum (the minimum number of trustees needed to make decisions) are not valid and could be challenged later, and quorum can be lost if someone leaves early.
Is a trustee meeting agenda the same as an AGM agenda? No. CC48 treats them as different meeting types with different rules, particularly around notice periods. Don't assume something you've read about AGM notice carries over to your regular trustee meetings.
This guide covers England and Wales. Scottish charities are regulated by OSCR, which takes the same governing-document-first approach and publishes its own agenda and minutes guidance, alongside pointing to CC48 for detail. 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.
Want the rest of the meeting sorted too? See what should go in your minutes afterwards, get ready for your first trustee board meeting, or browse the full guides library.