Pre-school Holding Trustees

[DDennison]

Hi All,

I'm the Chair of a pre-school committee and we are in the process of appointing a new holding trustee because one of our three holding trustees passed away this year.

I'm trying to get my head around exactly what a holding trustee is supposed to do. I know that as a charity we cannot own any property so we need 'holding trustees' to be official names on our lease. When I spoke to the Charity Commission awhile ago they told me a holding trustee didn't have any actual responsibilities and that they were basically figureheads. However, I've just been advised by the PLA that we can invite them to our committee meetings and should give them copies of our minutes. At the moment we invite them to our AGM and give them a copy of our annual accounts.

I'm wondering if other preschool committee members can give me an idea of how involved their holding trustees are in committee activites?

Thanks!

I'm also the chair of a preschool with a voluntary committee. We don't have any holding trustees as far as I'm aware. Is this something you need to have? Can you just have two? The only trustees we have are the normal committee members. Maybe the PLa are similarly clueless about holding trustees so just assume they are like other trustees.

If you rent your building you probably don't need holding trustees. If you 'own' your building or land then you do need them. According to our constitution (we use the standard PLA) we need no less than two and no more than four holding trustees. They play no part in the management of the pre-school and are not voted on annually like committee members. If you're unsure you could check with the Charity Commission.