North Smethwick Development Trust (NSDT) is a Charity (registered in England and Wales – 1035308) and Company Limited by Guarantee (Registered in England 02736636).  

Since being established, NSDT has been locally led with most of our Directors made up of local residents. Being locally owned provides the strategic link between community and organisation.

Here we use the term Management Committee to describe our governing body. 

Overall responsibilities 

Broadly, the Board of Directors responsibilities are to ensure that our charity:

• – Does what it was set up to do
• – Manages its finances well 
• – Works within the law 
• – Works together and makes effective decisions 
• – Has effective Fundraising practices 

• – Recognises equality, diversity and inclusion across our team and in the services and activities we offer 
• – Is compliant with Health and safety, safeguarding and insurance 
• – Is compliant with Regulations and licences 
• – Has appropriate policies and procedure in place to mitigate risk 
• – Is compliant with Charity and Company Law 

• – Legal liability of committee members 
• – Is a good employer to paid workers and recognises our volunteers 
• – Is compliant with the requirements of leasing premises 

Our Chairman of the Board directly line manages the Chief Executive. We regularly seek input and engagement from local residents in our work through organising meaningful consultations which also act as an accountability mechanism for feeding back on the achievements of the Trust and to check whether we are making an impact.  We work with local leaders and people of trust within the community, we seek feedback from the many services we deliver to ensure we are getting things right.

Following our governing document 

We have to operate within our charity’s Memorandum and Articles of Association. This means keeping to the agreed aims of your organisation, and sticking to the rules we agreed about how our organisation is run. 

All policies are reviewed by the Board either annually or bi-annually or when legislation requires. 

As a registered charity, our Memorandum and Articles of Association has already been approved by the Charity Commission. It states when we need to have our AGM, how many times our Management Committee will meet during the year, and how our accounts should be kept. 

How we manage and report our Finances 

As a charity, we prepare annual accounts and make them available to the public on request.  

As we have an income above £25,000, we have our accounts examined by an Independent Person. We also keep our accounts for at least 6 years after their date. This means all the records – bank statements, receipts, cheque books – not just a summary of the account. 

The Board is presented with the management accounts at every quarterly Board meeting, these reports provide details about the charities profit and loss, monies owed, cashflow and our balance sheet including Bank balances. Management accounts are presented at each bi-monthly Finance and Human Resources Sub-Committee meeting.  

Budgets are prepared by the Chief Executive Officer with the support of the Finance & Administrative Officer and presented to the Finance and Human Resources Sub-group for approval before being confirmed. The Finance policy states the requirement for Board approval by mid-February each year.  

NSDT employs a Finance & Administrative Officer to manage the day to day income and expenditure.  

Trustees annual report 

As a charity, we must produce a Trustees’ Annual Report. This report forms part of the Annual Accounts and is presented at the charity’s Annual General Meeting. 

Annual return 

An annual return is how we inform the Charity Commission of the work of a charity over the year. We have to ensure that this is done within 10 months of end of their financial year.