Conflicts of Interest

The trustees will make decisions based only on what’s best for Friends of Goadby Marwood Village Hall (FoGMVH). We do not allow personal interests, or the interests of people or organisations connected to trustees, to influence these decisions.​

 

Generally, a potential conflict of interest will occur when a trustee has a connection to another organisation or person that FoGMVH has a financial, or other working arrangement with, either as:

• Family – their partner, child etc or:

• Organisation – as a trustee, board member, member of staff or similar. 

 

There are two common types of conflict of interest: 

• Financial conflicts - when a trustee, or person or organisation connected to them, could get money or something else of value from a trustee decision. This does not include the payment of expenses. 

• Loyalty conflicts - other reasons a trustee might not be able to make decisions that are best for the charity.

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Meetings 

Conflicts of Interest is a standing item on all meeting agendas; the chair will remind everyone present at the start of each meeting that any interests must be declared.

 

A record of any professional or personal interest that may make it difficult for a trustee to fulfil their duties impartially, or may create an appearance of impropriety, with any item on the agenda for that day’s meeting will be noted in the minutes of the meeting.  Specifically:

• If a trustee is in any way, directly or indirectly, interested in a proposed transaction or arrangement with the organisation, they must declare the nature and extent of that interest to the other trustees.

• If a declaration of interest proves to be or becomes inaccurate or incomplete, a further declaration must be made.

• Any required declaration of interest must be made before the organisation enters into the transaction or arrangement.

• A declaration is not required in relation to an interest of which the trustee is not aware or where the trustee is not aware of the transaction or arrangement in question.  For this purpose, a trustee is treated as being aware of matters of which they ought reasonably to be aware.

 

If a trustee states a conflict of interest, they will normally be requested to leave the meeting while the relevant agenda item is discussed. 

 

Potential Conflicts of Interest

FoGMVH may pay and offer other material benefits, to one or more of its trustees to provide services to the organisation where the trustees reasonably believe it to be in the best interests of FoGMVH to do so.  The services in question must be ones which the trustee provides in addition to carrying out normal trustee duties.  Any such proposal will be treated on a case-by-case basis and will only be approved subject to compliance with the FoGMVH Constitution and Charity Commission guidance.

 

Where an individual is not part of the decision-making process, there is no direct conflict of interest.  However, where they have a relationship with the organisation, or another trustee, the perception could arise that the trustees haven’t acted in the organisation’s best interests, because of this. 

 

Managing Conflicts of Interest

To manage these issues, the trustees will ask themselves the following questions:

 

• Is this the best use we can make of our limited resources?

• Would anyone else be able to provide this service?

• If there are others, in terms of cost, quality, availability etc, who would be the best provider?

 

Recording Decisions

Conflicts of interest will be recorded in the minutes, together with the key points and decision(s) made, in sufficient detail to enable a reader to understand the issue and the basis on which the decision was made.

 

 

This policy will be reviewed annually.

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Issue: 1

Last reviewed: January 2023

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