What Every Charity Trustee in Sheffield Needs to Know About Employment Law (But Probably Doesn't)
Most charity trustees didn't sign up to become employment law experts. They signed up because they care about the cause. Maybe they were asked by someone they couldn't say no to. Maybe they wanted to give something back. Either way, the bit about legal liability for staff management probably wasn't in the pitch.
And yet here we are.
Charity trustees in England and Wales carry legal duties — fiduciary, regulatory, and operational. Some of those duties sit squarely in employment territory. And in a sector where HR infrastructure is often thin or non-existent, the gap between what trustees are responsible for and what they actually understand can be alarmingly wide.
The basics that catch people out
The employer is the charity, not the CEO. This sounds obvious. It isn't, in practice. Many trustees treat the CEO as the employer and the board as a distant oversight body. But the board is the employer. That means employment decisions — dismissals, settlement agreements, restructures — ultimately sit with them. Delegating authority to the CEO is fine, but abdicating responsibility isn't.
Dismissal decisions need proper process. Even in a small charity. Even when the person clearly isn't performing. Even when everyone agrees they need to go. If the process doesn't hold up, the tribunal doesn't care about the mission statement. They care about whether you followed a fair procedure.
Contracts and handbooks aren't optional. The number of South Yorkshire charities operating with contracts that haven't been updated since 2015 — or worse, no written contracts at all — would surprise you. Or maybe it wouldn't.
Redundancy has specific legal requirements. It's not just a word you use when the funding runs out. There's a defined process, consultation obligations, and scoring criteria. Getting it wrong is expensive and damaging.
Why this matters more now
The Employment Rights Act 2025 is reshaping the landscape. Day-one unfair dismissal rights. Strengthened protections around flexible working. Changes to zero-hours contract regulation. Charities that have historically relied on informal arrangements and goodwill are going to find the ground shifting beneath them.
And here's the uncomfortable truth: most charity trustees don't read employment law updates. They shouldn't have to — that's not their specialism. But someone in the governance structure needs to be paying attention, and in too many organisations, nobody is.
What a board should actually be asking
If you're on a charity board in Sheffield or South Yorkshire, here are the questions worth raising at your next meeting.
When was the last time our employment contracts were reviewed? Do we have a clear disciplinary and grievance procedure that's actually followed? Who handles HR issues day-to-day, and are they qualified to? If we had to defend a tribunal claim tomorrow, would we be confident in our documentation? Are we aware of the ERA 2025 changes and what they mean for our workforce?
If the honest answer to most of those is "I'm not sure" — that's the gap. And it's a gap that carries real financial and reputational risk for the charity and, in some circumstances, for the trustees personally.
Getting proportionate support
This doesn't need to mean hiring a head of HR. For most charities, that's neither affordable nor necessary. What it does mean is having access to someone senior enough to advise the board properly — someone who understands both employment law and the charity governance context.
That's what we do. King HR Advisory works with purpose-led organisations across Sheffield and South Yorkshire, providing senior people leadership without the full-time overhead. We've sat in the boardroom. We know what the Charity Commission expects. And we know what a tribunal panel looks for.