In 2024, the Charity Commission disqualified Naomi Campbell from acting as a charity trustee following its inquiry into Fashion for Relief, the charity she founded to host global fashion shows to fundraise for humanitarian and environmental disasters. The First-tier Tribunal have now overturned the five-year trustee disqualification.
The judgment illustrates the limits of individual responsibility where serious wrongdoing has been deliberately concealed. It highlights the continuing importance of active trustee oversight, including the need for reliable records and effective financial controls.
The Commission identified serious misconduct and mismanagement, including unauthorised expenditure and failures in financial governance. On appeal, the Tribunal found that Campbell had been deceived by a fellow trustee and that the most serious misconduct had been concealed from her. It accepted that she had not knowingly participated in the misuse of charitable funds and overturned the disqualification. The Tribunal did not, however, absolve her of every failing: it found that she shared responsibility for deficiencies in the charity's minutes and the late filing of accounts.
The appeal concerned Campbell's statutory disqualification and fitness to act as a trustee. Trustees should therefore read the decision as a fact-specific judgment, not as protection for those who take a passive approach to governance.
Can trustees delegate responsibility?
One of the most important principles of charity law is that trustees remain collectively responsible for the administration of their charity. Whilst trustees can delegate functions to individual trustees, employees, advisers, and so forth, they cannot delegate ultimate responsibility and decision-making.
The Charity Commission's guidance makes clear, amongst other responsibilities, that trustees must:
- Act only in the charity's best interests;
- Manage the charity's resources responsibly;
- Ensure the charity remains accountable; and
- Exercise reasonable care and skill.
A trustee who assumes that others are dealing with governance, finance or compliance may face difficult questions if problems emerge. The facts in this case were unusual: documents were deliberately concealed from Ms Campbell and some were forged. While most governance failures will not involve deception of that kind, trustees should still ensure that they receive sufficient information to scrutinise the charity's affairs and that concerns are followed up and recorded.
Good intentions are not enough – financial controls
Many charities are founded by passionate individuals committed to a charitable cause. However, enthusiasm for a charity's mission does not replace the need for effective governance.
Trustees should understand:
- How money is received and spent;
- Who authorises payments;
- What financial controls exist;
- Whether conflicts of interest are being managed appropriately; and
- How key decisions are recorded.
Where trustees do not understand the financial information provided to them, they should ask questions until they do. As a minimum, trustees should consider dual authorisation for payments, direct trustee access to bank information, regular management accounts and clear records of approval for significant or unusual expenditure. Controls should be proportionate to the charity's size, activities and risks, and should be relied upon in practice rather than existing only on paper.
Key takeaways
Trustees are not expected to be experts in every area. In fact, one hallmark of good trusteeship is recognising when specialist advice is required.
Professional advice should be obtained where the trustees cannot make a properly informed decision from the expertise and evidence available to them. Three recurring examples are:
- Dealing with charity property - Disposals, leases and other transactions involving charity land are subject to specific statutory requirements. Non-compliance may place trustees in breach of duty.
- Managing conflicts of interest - Conflicts remain one of the most common governance issues encountered by charities. Where there is uncertainty about trustee benefit, connected persons or corporate relationships, professional advice should often be obtained before a decision is made.
- Undertaking significant restructuring – When considering mergers, incorporations, constitutional amendments and transfers of assets, trustees should seek advice before committing the charity to a particular course of action.
Campbell succeeded because the evidence showed that serious misconduct had been deliberately hidden from her and that, on the specific facts, disqualification was not justified. The judgment does not provide a general defence for trustees who fail to engage with the charity's finances or governance. It also demonstrates that even where a trustee successfully challenges regulatory action, the financial cost, disruption and reputational damage may already be substantial.
Trustees should remain sufficiently informed to test what they are told, obtain the documents needed to support important decisions and act promptly when information is incomplete or inconsistent.
If you have any questions or would like advice on the issues discussed in this article, please contact Chelsea Rosak at [javascript protected email address].
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