Trustee of a preschool

[Rumplestiltskinismyname]

I have recently been elected onto the board of my son's preschool. I haven't been given much guidance by them as to what I need to do.

I have asked the secretary today for copies of all the policies- and she says that she doesn't have them, and that they are all held at the preschool in hard copy. Is this normal? I am concerned that the other trustees are not up to date with the policies, and it certainly wasn't an item for discussion at the last meeting.

Is there guidance as to what I should and shouldn't be doing anywhere online? Does anyone know? I want to do this role right!!!

have you asked whether you are personally liable for the financial obligations should the preschool go bust? redundancy payments, rent etc

Is it affiliated with Preschool Learning Alliance? If it is, then there will be all sorts of useful stuff available from them.

Is it a charity? You can get information about the responsibilities of trustees from the charity commission website.

bumpybecky- I have absolutely no idea- and this is a very good point, which I wasn't even aware of. I must check. Again, 80smum, I will check.

Check that it is a charitable trust and that the liabilities of trustees are limited. Otherwise you're vulnerable, as Bumpy said.

Check, check and double check.

I ended up at an employment tribunal due to the actions of the previous committee. It was a total, absolute nightmare which took several years to eventually sort out.

PLA were fab and helped us loads (we were the first but not the last to be in this situation in our area).

Are you the new chair of the committee, or just a trustee? Not clear from the OP. If you're not the chair then the chair should answer all these questions for you! If you are the chair you should have had a handover from the previous chair - if you haven't then ask for one.

The preschool should have a hard copy of policies & procedures - normally a massive long document but we always emailed it to new committee members for them to read.

A friend of mine was a preschool trusty and things went very very wrong when the preschool went bust. She , along with the other trustees, was personally responsible for redundancy pay etc. it ended up at a tribunal I think. It was a stressful nightmare and something my friend never envisaged when she took on the role to get involved in the community all that to say , make sure exactly what you're liable for and whether you're willing and happy to accept the level of responsibility entailed

*trustee

I am a trustee! I am now going to go back and ask the chair the questions that you have put to me above.

I have asked the secretary for the policies, but she says there is only a hard copy...

Policies weren't discussed at the one and only meeting I've been to.

I have a copy of the constitution which and the annual accounts, which states that it is a charity (well it has a charity number)- but nothing about the liabilities of the trustees.

I have a bit of down time so really wanted to get to grip with the role- I worry that I have now taken on more then I can chew

Are you a trustee or a committee member? Def worth checking what you are liable for and seeing their current treasurer report to see what condition they are in and assess your risk. Ours have a hard copy of Policy and procedures you can sign out but we also operate policy of the week to get all staff and ctte to review each policy more regularly.

Being a trustee is easy if you're not the chair, secretary or treasurer! They should do all the paperwork - you will have a supporting role that could involve e.g. helping with fundraising, organising outings/events, counting Tesco school vouchers (I did 3,000 in one night).

There surely can't only be a hard copy of the P&Ps, unless somebody typed it on a typewriter in the 1980s?! Who edits it when it needs updating? In our committee all trustees and staff had to sign a form every year saying they had read and agreed to abide by the policies and procedures.

NB trustees and committee members are the same thing, they definitely are for preschools registered as charities anyway.

Thanks Meg- yes, it is my intention to bolster funds through fundraising, however, I also want to make sure that any other things- like ensuring policies are reviewed correctly. As my son is at the preschool I can see that this is important- I feel that I have more of a vested interest in the place!

However, if I have any personal liability (over £5) then I will be issuing my resignation. I have no interest in that, especially if it hasn't been spelled out to me on joining. I'm happy to carry on fundraising, but not as a trustee.

Thanks for the advice- any more, please fire away!!

You should be insured through the pre-school for the personal liability thing, we made sure this was the case at our setting but a couple of years ago this was not allowed, it is now part of the PLA insurance but you need to double check the pre-school included it. Like Meg said trustees and committee members are the same thing.

The policies should not just be a hard copy, the PLA/Early Years (can't remember which) issue a policy book but you have to redo them to make them specific to your setting, this would be a major issue for Ofsted if not done. They should be signed individually by the Chair/Manager every year also. As Meg also says staff should read/sign them every year. We make staff sign to say they have.

If it is all set up properly then it should be a good experience, if not it can be extremely stressful.

Have you had the forms to complete your CRB yet?

As it has a charity number it is a charity. There is information for trustees on the Charity Commission website - www.charitycommission.gov.uk.

You need to find out how the pre-school is incorporated. If it is a company limited by guarantee that gives you protection in that you would only be liable in limited circumstances. Regardless of how it is incorporated there should be insurance in place for the trustees. If there isn't you would be taking a big risk by becoming a trustee as you could be held personally liable if the pre-school goes under.

If it is really the case that the only copy of the policies and procedures is a hard copy held at the pre-school one of your first priorities should be to convince the trustees to create additional copies and circulate them. If they won't do that I would resign as it suggests they don't understand their responsibilities.

Thank you everyone for your advice and guidance.

OK- update. I have spoken to the chair and the preschool is not limited by guarantee, and they do not have trustee insurance.

He was seemingly confident that we didn't need it, as they kept enough in the coffers for redundancy. However, I expressed that I wasn't happy with this. He said that we could discuss it at the next meeting (mid-Jan).

I am getting a bad gut feeling about this- no trustee insurance, no electronic policies (and no mention of policies at last meeting), no new trustee induction, and I have had already had a disagreement with the nursery manager about her hampering parental involvement.

Should I:
a) go along to the next meeting with a summary of why we need the insurance, and bring along a quote. I have spoken to a couple of insurers on the phone today, and unfortunately it seems we need group cover at trustees- I can't just insure myself. And also press for electronic copies of policies that are circulated to all trustees.

b) Write a letter to the chair expressing my concerns, and agree to continue as a trustee only if the above are addressed and agreed at the next meeting.

or

c) Tender my resignation with immediate effect and bail now, and accept that this was a naive move on my part, and notch it up to experience.

I am the only parent trustee- the rest are church members/old parents. I feel that I could do so much, but feel that it is the blind leading the blind at this point.

WWYD?

(oh, and clover kiss I haven't been asked for a CRB check! Luckily for them I have a valid DBS- Scouts and school volunteer- but they don't know this!)

I would not be happy with this, we do everything possible to ensure our trustees are covered, it is literally an additional tick box when renewing the insurance and not lots of money. Our insurance including this is just over £500 a year.

I think there is a very good reason why there are no new parents on the committee, to me this says it all, I have always said if you have a group of current parents on the committee who are still happy to send their children to the setting in spite of knowing what goes on behind the scenes then you know its a good setting Admitedly I have only just left the setting and my children are Y3 and Y1 but the others are all parent.

I would personally go with b!

Does the DBS cover you for all settings? The old CRBs didn't and you had to have one for every setting, I have only done one through DBS.

It is an Ofsted requirement to have all trustees CRB checked straight away, we sent off the EY2(Ofsted form) for a new committee member and they send the DBS info back but it got lost in the post. We did not realise and just thought they were slow, next thing Ofsted sent a letter threatening a £5k fine plus potential closure (without any other warning!)

DBS should cover me for all aspects- but it is the committee's responsibility to check that I have this. As I say I haven't even been asked. I feel a bit cheated about the insurance- and very exposed. If it hadn't been posting on MN I would have been none the wiser

yes they definitely should check, Ofsted requires them to have a note of the date and number of it and will check when doing the inspection.

We have only had that insurance for a short time as it wasn't available before apparently. As soon as we could have it we went for it straight away.

i am on the board of trustees at a local independent prep school and nursery. Agree with others regarding understanding the legalities of the Charity set up - eg when i joined i understood we were unicorporated but we did have various indemnities and other insurance in place to help protect us, although we still remained jointly and serveral liable. We are in the process of transferring to an Incorporated Chartitable Org with Ltd Liability.
However, please understand that being on the Board should carry alot of responsibility and possible time involvement. As a trustee it is your responsibility to ensure the trust is run in accordance with its mission statement, to oversee financials and other important areas such as Safeguarding of children, Child Protection Policies, Curriculum (eg Early Years Foundation etc, Anti Bullying, COmplaints procedures, H&S etc) and is more than just fundraising. Maybe there are other trustees to do these things but each should be aware, have input and be confident these are in place and kept up to date with current legislation.
Not trying to put you off, just make sure you know what is expected of you and the time committment involved. In my experience fundraising usually works better when ran separate to this by a group of mums (and i dont mean to sound condescending or patronising so please dont take offence at that)

I would be very concerned about the set-up tbh. It sounds like you may have to go above the chair - I would consider speaking to the Early Years Advisor at your local council (ours was really helpful when I was chair and sometimes had no idea what to do about something!)>

Having chatted with DH I am going to tender my resignation. I'm a bit sad but have lost confidence.

I would still consider outlining your concerns in your resignation letter and copying in the preschool's manager and the Early Years Advisor at the council. I totally don't blame you for not wanting to take on the responsibility of fixing things but if nobody does then it could jeopardise the future of the preschool (and the jobs of the staff who work there).

Thanks Meg. I was going to try my best to add my concerns into my letter- planning on handing it in tomorrow.

Really really still want to remain on good terms, as very keen to continue with fundraising.