The trustee duty of care, in one paragraph
A charity trustee owes a duty of care to the charity's beneficiaries to manage the charity's assets prudently. That includes donated assets. The duty is summarised by the Charity Commission for England and Wales in its publication CC3 (The Essential Trustee) and is mirrored, with local variation, by OSCR in Scotland and CCNI in Northern Ireland. The high-level position across all three regulators is the same: trustees are expected to act with the care and skill a reasonably prudent person would exercise in managing their own affairs, and to be able to evidence that they have done so.
Where unusual donations sit in the duty of care
For ordinary donated stock (clothing, bric-a-brac, books) the duty of care is discharged by the shop's standing rules: price using the chain's guidelines, sell on the floor, account for the proceeds. For unusual donations the standing rules often do not apply, because the standing rules were written for clothing and bric-a-brac, not for an 18-carat chain or a Victorian silver service. The duty of care, however, is unchanged: the trustees are still expected to manage the asset prudently.
Prudent management of an unusual donation looks like: an itemised written valuation, a documented disposal route, and a clean audit trail showing that the trustees can evidence the decision they made. The opposite (passing the item to whoever happens to call at the back door, with no paperwork) is not consistent with the duty, and is no longer a defensible default for any charity that has been asked the question.
"We always send it to the scrap-weighbridge buyer"
A common pattern in UK charity retail is the long-standing relationship with a local scrap-weighbridge buyer: the buyer collects from the warehouse on a schedule, weighs the items in bulk, and pays a cash or BACS lump sum against the weight. The pattern is convenient and operationally clean. It has, in some chains, been the default for a long time.
The duty-of-care question for trustees is whether the lump sum represents a prudent disposal of the donated assets. A weight-only price by definition does not pay for jewellery value, for collectable value, for hallmark premium, or for any item that is worth more than its melt weight. For a tea service this might be a small leakage; for a heavy gold chain or a sovereign, the leakage is substantial. The leakage is invisible because the bulk lump sum produces a single number and no itemisation.
Trustees asking the prudent-disposal question for the first time often find that the answer the charity has been giving in practice ("we always send it to the weighbridge buyer") does not survive a half-hour of scrutiny. The honest position is that the default was set when nobody was asking, and the default has not been re-examined since. The duty of care does not require trustees to abandon a working relationship; it does require them to look at it.
The audit trail requirement
A clean audit trail for an unusual donation has, at minimum, the following items: a written description of what was donated, a written valuation by an identifiable third party with a stated method, a record of the disposal route taken, the date of disposal, the amount received, and the bank-account destination of the proceeds. Each of those items can be evidenced from paper if the trustees are asked to evidence them.
A weighbridge sale produces some of those items (a weight ticket, a payment, a date) but not the valuation with a stated method. GoldPaid is designed to produce all of them: every parcel generates an itemised written valuation, the method (XRF assay plus LBMA benchmark for metals; auction comparables for non-bullion) is stated on the report, the offer and acceptance are dated, and the payment is by Faster Payment direct to the registered charity bank account with the parcel reference in the payment narrative.
When to demand an itemised valuation
A practical trustee question is: at what threshold does the trustee duty of care require an itemised valuation rather than a bulk weight ticket? There is no single regulatory threshold. The Charity Commission's position is that trustees should act proportionately to the risk and value involved. In practice, three triggers are worth a board policy:
Below the triggers, the chain's standing rules for ordinary stock are usually fit for purpose. Above them, an itemised written valuation is the proportionate response.
Bank-account payment versus cash or till
A trustee should expect any buyer of a charity's donated specialty items to pay by bank transfer to the charity's registered bank account. Cash payment at the shop till for a specialty item is operationally and reputationally problematic: it puts cash in the till that has to be reconciled differently from till takings, it creates a counting and banking risk, and it makes the audit trail rely on a cash-handling step. Payment to a personal account, to a consortium account, or to anything other than the registered charity bank account is not acceptable for a specialty item and should be a board-level red line.
GoldPaid is structured so that the registered charity bank account is the only payment destination. The account is verified at onboarding against the Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI register. The bank account of record cannot be changed without a written request from the charity's registered head-office contact. This is a structural commitment, not a policy.
Conflict of interest disclosure
Conflict of interest is the most-cited trustee duty in Charity Commission guidance and the most common source of avoidable trustee criticism. For specialty donations the most common conflict is the trustee or staff member who has, or has had, a commercial or personal relationship with the buyer the charity uses. The duty is not to avoid all such relationships (that is often impossible in a small sector); the duty is to disclose them, record the disclosure, and make sure the trustee with the relationship is not the one approving the buyer arrangement.
A working board policy is: every supplier arrangement above a stated threshold is approved by a quorum of trustees with no relationship to the supplier; relationships are disclosed at the time of approval and recorded in the minutes; and the supplier's conflict policy is checked. GoldPaid's standing position is that it pays no referral fees, commissions, or any other form of inducement to charity staff or trustees, and that any trustee or staff member with a personal or commercial relationship with GoldPaid is asked to disclose it at onboarding so it can be recorded against the charity's onboarding record.
Donor anonymity and how to handle it
Some donors of specialty items want to remain anonymous, particularly when the donation follows a bereavement or a difficult life event. The trustee duty here is to honour the donor's wish to the extent the law allows, while preserving the audit picture the charity needs internally. The two are not in tension: the audit picture relies on item description, manifest reference, parcel reference and payment narrative, none of which require the donor to be named publicly.
GoldPaid records anonymous items on the manifest as anonymous and carries them through to the per-parcel report as anonymous lines. The Gift Aid claim, where applicable, simply does not include them. The proceeds form part of the shop's general donated income and are accounted for on that basis.
The head-office contact versus the shop manager
A practical governance question is who, in the charity, has authority to approve a specialty disposal. The shop manager has authority over day-to-day stock decisions. Specialty donations cross an authority line that varies by chain. Some chains require head-office sign-off on any specialty disposal above a threshold; some give the shop manager discretion within a published policy. The trustee role is to make sure the line is set and that the relevant person is following it.
GoldPaid is designed to sit on either side of that line. A shop manager can run the WhatsApp photo conversation directly. The written offer, however, is always sent to the registered head-office contact in parallel, so head office sees the same offer the shop manager sees and can intervene before acceptance if the chain's policy requires head-office sign-off. The acceptance email or message is the operative decision point, and it is visible to head office in real time.
A short trustee policy paragraph
A working board policy on specialty donations is short. It might read: "Donated items of precious metal, jewellery, watches, or collectables with an indicative value above £500 per item or £1,000 per parcel will be disposed of via a buyer that provides an itemised written valuation with stated method, pays by bank transfer to the charity's registered account, and offers free return of any item not sold. Trustees with a relationship to the buyer must disclose it at the time of approval. The retail director will report quarterly on volumes and proceeds." A board that has signed off a paragraph of that shape has discharged the substantive duty.
Common questions
Is there a specific Charity Commission rule on disposing of donated jewellery?
There is no item-specific rule. The duty is the general duty of prudent management of charity assets summarised in CC3. Trustees are expected to act proportionately to the value and risk involved. The thresholds and the documentary practice are set by the board.
Does the trustee have to personally see every offer?
No. The trustee role is to set the policy and oversee the system, not to approve every individual offer. The retail director and the head-office contact handle the day-to-day under the policy the board has approved.
What if the trustee has a personal connection to a competing buyer?
Disclose the connection, record the disclosure in the minutes, and make sure the trustee in question is not the one approving the supplier arrangement. The Charity Commission's general guidance on conflicts of interest applies.
Is a bulk weighbridge sale defensible if we have always done it that way?
It depends on the value and on the documentary picture. For low-value mixed-metal stock the answer is often yes. For a single substantial item (a heavy gold chain, a sovereign in good condition, a signed watch) the answer is much harder to defend, because a bulk weight ticket does not pay for jewellery or collectable value.
Can payment land in a consortium account if the chain shares a back office?
Trustees should expect payment to the registered charity bank account of the receiving charity, not to a consortium account. Shared back-office arrangements can still be honoured downstream once the payment has landed in the right charity's account.
What happens if the trustees decline GoldPaid's offer on an item?
The item is returned: free insured return of any item the charity chooses not to sell. There is no fee for return and no obligation to give a reason.