Trustee skills audit

What a trustee skills audit is, and who asks for one

A trustee skills audit is guidance and good practice, not law. The Charity Commission's Finding and appointing new trustees (CC30) says: “You don't need to wait for a vacancy before you carry out this process. Regularly exploring what your charity needs from its trustee board (sometimes called a “skills audit”) can help you to: identify the skills, experience and knowledge that you already have. Your current trustees may have skills and experience that you are unaware of; identify any gaps that you need to recruit for.” It adds that the result feeds the trustee role description, the selection criteria and planning for future vacancies, and that “For smaller or less complex charities the skills audit can be quite simple. Larger or more complex charities may need a more formal approach.”

The Commission's own checklist for boards, Charity governance, finance and resilience: 15 questions trustees should ask, puts the same point as a question under “Are we an effective trustee body?”: “Have we recently reviewed the skills, knowledge and experience we have as a trustee body? have our needs changed?” And The essential trustee (CC3) tells charities recruiting trustees to think about “the skills and experience the current trustees have, and whether there are any gaps”.

The voluntary Charity Governance Code makes it part of its Board effectiveness principle. That principle is working when “The board has the right mix of skills, knowledge and experience to serve the charity's purposes”; its practice is that “The board has, and regularly considers, the mix of skills, knowledge and experience (including lived experience) needed to provide direction and oversight”; and its suggested evidence includes “Periodic assessment of competencies needed by the board to understand any skills gaps” and “Evidence of efforts to fill skills gaps through board training, recruitment or specialist advice”.

Two things a skills audit is not. It is not a review of how well the board works together, its meetings, culture and decisions: that is a board evaluation, which the Code treats separately. And it is not an appraisal of an individual trustee's performance. It maps what the board has, so the board can decide what it needs.

Building the skills matrix

Start from the charity's future, not from the trustees around the table. Reach Volunteering, whose trustee recruitment material CC30 points to as a free resource, suggests in its guide How to complete a skills audit that the board first “agree what key challenges and opportunities the charity is facing in the next 3-5 years”, drawing on its strategy, operational factors such as “the need to move premises” and external factors “such as government policy or climate change”. The skills the board needs follow from that list.

CC30 suggests the list may include a mix of:

• “knowledge or experience of your charity's field of work”
• “specific skills or experience. For example, in finance, governance, safeguarding, digital or risk”
• “particular behaviour or qualities. For example, commitment to your charity's purposes and values, or being able to play an active part in discussions”
• “knowledge or experience of the people, communities or local areas that your charity serves”
• “personal or first-hand experience of the cause your charity works on. This is sometimes called “lived experience””
• “the experience of people who currently use your charity's services or facilities, or who are close to someone who does. This is sometimes called being a “user trustee””

In practice most matrices have between ten and twenty rows. A typical set for a small or medium charity: finance and accounting, legal and governance, safeguarding, risk, digital and data protection, employment and HR, fundraising, property, communications, strategy, the charity's own field of work, knowledge of the communities it serves, and lived experience. Add what is specific to the charity: clinical knowledge for a health charity, housing law for a housing one, investment for an endowed trust.

Then weight each row by how much the board needs it in the next three years, for example essential, important or useful. A charity about to take on a lease needs property experience now; one with no staff needs employment experience less. CC30's reminder keeps the list honest: “This does not mean that your trustee board can have experts to cover every topic, event or viewpoint. It's about having a skilled and balanced group of people who, together, can run your charity effectively.”

Scoring: self-assessment, calibration and honesty

Each trustee then scores themselves against every row. Reach suggests a four-point scale: “3 = Significant experience and expertise. 2 = Some knowledge or experience. 1 = Interested in learning more. 0 = No knowledge or experience.” The “interested in learning more” point is the useful one: it identifies who could grow into a gap with training rather than recruitment.

Reach is candid about the weakness of self-assessment: “Some groups typically underestimate their expertise, and others can be more generous to themselves. It can help to explain in greater detail how people should score themselves.” It suggests three ways to complete it: “by trustees individually completing a printed or online skills audit”, “by the Chair as part of a 1:1 discussion with each trustee”, or “as part of a board meeting either as a whole board or in smaller groups”. A short descriptor for each score in each row (what a 3 in finance means, for example: has prepared or audited charity or company accounts) does more for consistency than any template.

Honesty matters for another reason. CC3 explains that the duty of care under the Trustee Act 2000 depends on the trustee: what is reasonable “will depend on any special knowledge or experience that the trustee has or claims to have”. A board that records a trustee as its finance expert will, reasonably, lean on that trustee's judgement, and the trustee should be content to be relied on in that way. The Code's Board effectiveness principle expects the chair to play a part: “The chair seeks to understand the motivations, strengths and areas for development of trustees and supports them to address their development needs.”

The completed matrix is personal data about each trustee. Keep the individual scores to the board and anyone supporting it, and follow CC30's instruction to “Always follow data protection rules and request and handle personal information sensitively”.

From scores to gaps: the gap analysis

With the matrix complete, read it row by row rather than trustee by trustee. Four patterns matter most:

1. An essential row with no 3 and no 2. A real gap. Prioritise it.
2. An essential row covered by one trustee only. A dependency. Reach notes that the audit “can show how you may be affected if a trustee leaves”; if that trustee's term ends next year, the gap is already scheduled.
3. A row where several trustees score 1. A training opportunity rather than a recruitment one.
4. A row the board weighted as useful where it has three experts. Not a problem, but a reason not to recruit a fourth.

Then check the gaps against time: Reach asks “Will this change because of existing trustees standing down?”, and the Code expects that “The appointment and retirement cycle of trustees is mapped and enables timely management of succession”. Prioritise the gaps against the challenges agreed at the start, and record why each one matters. Reach suggests recording “why you need specific skills and experience” and avoiding “specific job titles so that you don't inadvertently exclude people with relevant skills”.

Not every gap needs a new trustee. NCVO's Carrying out a governance review puts it plainly: “A skills or experience gap doesn't mean the board must recruit a new member. A board can decide to recruit, undertake training or simply make sure there's awareness of the gap so they can seek advice when that issue or topic arises.” The options are recruitment, training an existing trustee, a co-opted trustee or non-trustee committee member where the governing document allows, or professional advice when the issue arises, which CC3 already expects trustees to take “when necessary”.

Diversity is a separate exercise. CC30 says that “Separately from your skills audit, you can also consider the mix of backgrounds, characteristics and perspectives on your trustee board”, and Reach's guidance on how to carry out a diversity audit recommends “collecting this data using an anonymous online form, and viewing the data for each characteristic only in aggregate”, because it is special category data. Keep the two audits apart, and combine only the conclusions: CC30 notes that a diverse range of backgrounds and perspectives helps a board “reach and stay connected to the needs of your beneficiaries”, which is a skills question as much as a diversity one.

The action log, and how often to repeat the audit

The audit is only evidence if something follows from it. The Code's suggested evidence is not the matrix but “Evidence of efforts to fill skills gaps through board training, recruitment or specialist advice”. A simple action log does that:

• the gap, in a few words, and its priority
• the action: recruit, train, co-opt, set up access to advice, or accept and note
• the owner: a named trustee, usually not the chair for everything
• the date by which it should be done
• the status at each review, and the outcome

Share the findings with the whole board as a summary of rows and gaps rather than a table of named scores, minute the board's discussion and approve the action log, so that the record shows the board as a whole agreed the priorities. A recruitment action feeds straight into the role description; our trustee recruitment guide covers the next steps. A training action belongs in the trustee's development record and, for a charity in tier 2 or 3 of the Charities SORP 2026 (accruals accounts and income over £500,000), in the induction and training paragraph of the trustees' annual report.

How often? CC30 says “regularly”, and the Code says “periodic”. Reach suggests that, as well as before recruitment, “it can be helpful to complete the exercise every year because it prompts trustees to reflect on how their personal expertise has developed and new areas of interest they want to explore”. A sensible pattern for most boards is a full audit every two or three years, a quick refresh each year (new skills, changed priorities, terms ending), and an extra one whenever the charity's plans change sharply: a merger, a new service, a property purchase or the loss of a major funder.

Keep the action logs and the board-level summary of each audit with the board papers. Individual score sheets can be destroyed once a later audit has replaced them, under the charity's retention schedule.

The expertise that is used in messages

A skills matrix records where expertise sits on the board. It does not record how it is used, and most of it is used between meetings. The chief executive messages the trustee who is a solicitor to ask whether a contract clause looks normal. The treasurer answers a question about restricted funds by text on a Saturday. The trustee with safeguarding experience talks the designated lead through a difficult referral in a series of direct messages. The board then takes decisions relying on that advice, and the minutes record the decision, not the advice.

That advice is part of how the board exercises care and skill, and it is a record. If a decision is later questioned, by the Commission, an auditor or a former employee, the charity will want to show what expert view it had and when. If it sits in one trustee's messages on a personal phone, the charity cannot produce it, and when that trustee's term ends, the matrix loses a 3 and the charity loses the record of everything they advised.

The audit is a good moment to notice this, because it shows exactly which trustees the board relies on most. Where expertise is given informally, agree how substantive advice reaches the board's own record: a short note to the board, a line in the minutes, or a channel the charity holds.

A question for the next board meeting: which decisions in the last year rested on one trustee's expertise, and could we show what that trustee advised, and when, if we were asked?

Questions people ask

What should a trustee skills audit include?

A trustee skills audit should list the skills, experience and knowledge the board needs, weighted by the charity's plans, with each trustee's self-assessed score against each one and the gaps that result. The Charity Commission's CC30 suggests the list cover knowledge of the charity's field of work, specific skills such as finance, governance, safeguarding, digital or risk, behaviours and qualities, knowledge of the communities served, lived experience and the experience of people who use the charity's services.

How often should a trustee skills audit be done?

There is no fixed interval: the Charity Commission's CC30 says to explore what the board needs “regularly” and not to wait for a vacancy, and the Charity Governance Code lists “Periodic assessment of competencies needed by the board to understand any skills gaps” among its suggested evidence. Reach Volunteering suggests completing it every year as well as before recruiting trustees.

Is a skills audit a legal requirement for a charity?

No: no law requires a charity to carry out a trustee skills audit. It is recommended in the Charity Commission's guidance CC30 and expected by the voluntary Charity Governance Code, and trustees must still act with reasonable care and skill, which a board that knows its gaps is better placed to show.

Should a skills audit include diversity?

Diversity is better audited separately: the Charity Commission's CC30 says that “Separately from your skills audit, you can also consider the mix of backgrounds, characteristics and perspectives on your trustee board”. Because a diversity audit collects special category data, Reach Volunteering recommends an anonymous form and reporting results only in aggregate.

Official guidance and your next step

The Charity Commission's guidance is in Finding and appointing new trustees (CC30), section 3 of The essential trustee (CC3) and question 10 of its 15 questions trustees should ask. The good-practice standard is principle 8 of the Charity Governance Code. Reach Volunteering's skills audit guide has free templates in Microsoft Forms and Excel, and NCVO members can use its skills audit tool. Quotations are from those pages as published on 3 October 2026.

This guide is a summary for charities in England and Wales, not legal advice. Scottish charities should look to OSCR and Northern Ireland charities to the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland.

Then do one thing: at the next board meeting, agree the three biggest challenges the charity faces in the next three years and write down, for each, which trustee would be the board's expert on it. Any blank is the first row of your gap analysis.