Memorandum from WEC International UK (DCH
84)
WEC International is a religious charity (registration
no 237005) whose object is to advance the Christian Gospel by
all means throughout the world. It was founded by the former Cambridge
and England Test cricketer, Mr CT Studd, in 1913 and operates
solely through some 400 full-time volunteers in full-time service
with no salaried employees.
We wish to comment on the last of the eight
principal themes on which the Joint Committee intend to concentrate,
namely, whether the specific proposals in the draft Bill are adequate,
workable and beneficial. Our comments relate to the draft Bill's
provisions for the remuneration of trustees. This is Clause 27
inserting a new section 73A in the 1993 Charities Act.
Our concern is that section 73A should preserve
existing schemes or orders of the Charity Commission which already
authorise remuneration to be paid to volunteer trustees
of a charity, or the continued validity of existing schemes made
by the Commission will be put in doubt.
If I could mention our own case by way of illustration.
Three years' correspondence with the Charity Commission resulted
in 2003 in the Commission making a scheme which authorises discretionary
payments from WEC funds to our charity trustees in certain circumstances.
No trustee could claim payment as of right.
Section 73A(7) and (8) protects "remuneration"
for services as a trustee or under a contract of employment or
under an existing order of the Charity Commission to which a person
is entitled. As our trustees are also full-time volunteers
with the charity, what they do for WEC is in that volunteer capacity;
they have no entitlement and no contract of employment
as WEC volunteers. They are in fact in the same position as our
other 400 or so volunteers but are also the charity's trustees.
In our submission, it would give adequacy to
the draft Bill in this respect if all existing orders and schemes
of the Commission were expressly preserved by new section 73,
or we fear that the present legal authority for payments to our
trustees could be lost by the terms of the draft Bill.
Thank you for this opportunity to make these
views known whilst there is still time. The Commission themselves
would be able to advise if ours is an isolated instance or whether
many other charities with volunteer "user" trustees
could be similarly adversely and unwittingly affected.
June 2004
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