Training Requirements for Charities and Voluntary Organisations

Charities have no CPD scheme and no single training rulebook — but trustees carry a legal duty to take reasonable steps to protect people who come into contact with the charity, and the Charity Commission can hold them to account when things go wrong. Training is one of the clearest ways that duty is evidenced, and the absence of it is one of the first things a regulator or an insurer asks about.

This guide covers what the Charity Commission actually expects on safeguarding, the duties that apply to volunteers as well as staff, the areas where charities carry the same statutory obligations as any employer, and how a small organisation can meet them without a training budget.

At a glance: Nexis CPD offers £9 CPD-accredited online courses relevant to charities and voluntary organisations, with a verifiable e-certificate on passing — and any three courses cost £18.

The trustee duty, in plain terms

Trustees must take reasonable steps to protect from harm people who come into contact with their charity — beneficiaries, staff, volunteers and anyone else affected by its work, whether that contact is in person or online. The Charity Commission treats safeguarding as a governance priority for all charities, not only those working with children or adults at risk.

Four points follow that are routinely misunderstood:

• It applies to every charity. A heritage railway, a grant-maker, a sports club and a food bank all have people coming into contact with them.
• Safeguarding is wider than physical abuse. It includes neglect, emotional abuse, exploitation, radicalisation, and harm arising from the misuse of personal data.
• Delegation does not transfer responsibility. You can appoint a safeguarding lead or group, but trustees retain overall responsibility.
• Trustees are expected to report safeguarding matters to the relevant agencies — police, social services, Ofsted as applicable — and to put matters right when things go wrong.

The Commission’s own framing is useful here: it can check that trustees followed its guidance and the law. So the question is never “did we mean well”, it is “can we show what we did”.

Policies people actually know about

The Commission expects charity policies to be known and applied: trustees, staff, volunteers, partners and beneficiaries should be aware of the policies, and all of them need to know how to apply them. Charities must also make sure trustees, volunteers and staff are suitable to act in their roles through relevant checks.

That second requirement is where small charities most often have a gap. Eligibility for DBS checks depends on the role, not the organisation — a regulated activity with children or adults at risk attracts an enhanced check, while a trustee role in a charity working with those groups has its own rules. The safe approach is to work out eligibility role by role rather than applying a blanket policy, and to record the decision.

Serious incident reporting

Trustees must report serious incidents to the Charity Commission. In practice the judgement is not whether the incident is embarrassing but whether it resulted, or could have resulted, in significant harm to beneficiaries, staff, volunteers or others who come into contact with the charity, or significant loss of the charity’s money or property.

Two habits make this manageable. First, decide in advance who makes the reporting decision and how quickly — an incident at a weekend event is not the moment to discover nobody knows. Second, record the decision either way, including where you decided a report was not needed and why. A documented decision that turns out to be wrong is defensible; an undocumented one rarely is.

Reporting to the Commission is separate from reporting to the police, social services or other agencies, and one does not replace another.

Volunteers: fewer employment rights, the same duty of care

Volunteers are not employees, so most employment law does not apply to them. Health and safety law largely does, because the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act places duties on employers towards people who are not their employees but who may be affected by the work.

Practically, that means a volunteer should receive what an employee would receive for the same task: an induction, instruction in the risks, whatever equipment the task requires, and supervision proportionate to the work. A volunteer driving a minibus, handling food at a fundraiser, lone-working at a drop-in, or sorting donations with a cutting tool is exposed to exactly the same hazards as a paid worker doing that job.

Two further points that catch charities out:

• Insurance follows training. Public liability and trustee indemnity insurers commonly ask what training volunteers received. An honest “none” changes conversations after an incident.
• Turnover is the enemy of records. Volunteer rosters change constantly, and a training log that is accurate in March is often fiction by September unless someone owns it.

The statutory duties charities share with every other employer

Charitable purpose gives no exemption from the general law. If your charity employs anyone, or engages volunteers in activity that affects them, these apply in full:

• Health and safety. Information, instruction, training and supervision under the 1974 Act, and training on recruitment and when risks change under the Management Regulations (see our guide to the 1974 Act).
• Data protection. Charities often hold unusually sensitive data — beneficiary case notes, donor financial details, safeguarding records. UK GDPR applies exactly as it does to a business (see what is GDPR).
• Equality. The Equality Act 2010 applies to service delivery and to employment, and the “all reasonable steps” defence depends in part on training people actually completed (see what EDI means in practice).
• Fire safety. If you occupy premises, the responsible person must provide fire safety training on employment and when risks change (see fire safety training and UK law).
• Food. Community meals, lunch clubs and fundraising catering bring food hygiene duties with them (see food hygiene levels explained).

Where charity training budgets get wasted

Small charities often spend what little they have in the wrong place. Four patterns come up repeatedly:

1. Training the willing, not the exposed. The people who need it most are frequently the occasional volunteers with the most direct beneficiary contact and the least induction.
2. One big session a year. Useful for the people who attend, useless for everyone who joined afterwards. Most charities need a repeatable induction more than an annual event.
3. Buying a qualification where awareness would do — or the reverse. Awareness training is the right level for most volunteers. It is the wrong level for a designated safeguarding lead handling disclosures.
4. No record. Training that happened but was never logged provides no evidence at all when it is needed, which is usually after an incident or when a funder asks.

What funders and insurers ask for

Beyond the regulator, two other groups look at training. Grant funders increasingly ask about safeguarding arrangements as a condition of funding, and the question is usually specific: who is your safeguarding lead, when did staff and volunteers last receive training, and how do people raise a concern. Insurers ask similar questions after a claim.

Being able to answer those with dates rather than intentions is worth real money — sometimes the grant itself. It is also the same evidence the Commission would look for, so one well-kept record serves all three audiences.

A proportionate training plan for a small charity

Most charities are small, run on goodwill, and cannot send everyone on a day course. A defensible minimum usually looks like this:

1. Everyone, at induction: what the charity does, the safeguarding policy and how to raise a concern, who the safeguarding lead is, basic health and safety for their specific task, and confidentiality.
2. Anyone working with children or adults at risk: safeguarding training at the level their role needs, refreshed on a stated cycle.
3. The safeguarding lead and trustees: deeper safeguarding training, including how to handle an allegation and when to report to the Commission as a serious incident.
4. Anyone handling personal data: data protection awareness, particularly around case notes and sharing.
5. Task-specific training where the risk assessment says so: food, driving, lone working, manual handling, first aid.

Write the cycle down, apply it consistently, and record completion. An imperfect plan that is followed evidences reasonable steps far better than an ideal plan nobody applies.

Charity shops, events and fundraising

Much charity activity happens outside an office, and each setting brings its own training duties that trustees are still responsible for.

Charity shops combine retail and waste handling: manual handling of donation bags, sharp objects and broken glass in donations, electrical goods that need testing before sale, ladders and stock at height, and lone working at opening and closing. Most shop volunteers receive an induction about the till and very little about any of that.

Community events and fundraising add temporary risks: food served by people who do not normally handle it, crowds, gazebos and equipment, cash handling, and often children present. A short written risk assessment for the event, with a briefing for everyone helping on the day, covers most of it — and is the document anyone will ask for afterwards.

Transport is the quiet one. Volunteer drivers using their own vehicles need business-use insurance cover for volunteering, and minibus driving has its own licence rules. Neither is training exactly, but both belong on the same checklist because the consequences of missing them are serious.

The common thread is that none of this requires expensive courses. It requires someone to have thought about the task, written down the risks, briefed the people doing it, and kept a note that they did.

Trustees need induction too

Trustee recruitment often focuses on skills and availability, and stops at a welcome pack. But trustees carry the legal duties, so their own induction matters more than anyone’s.

A workable trustee induction covers what the charity does and its financial position, the governing document and what it permits, the duties trustees hold collectively, conflicts of interest and how they are recorded, the safeguarding policy and who the lead is, and the serious incident reporting process. The Charity Commission publishes guidance for trustees that does most of this work for you, and reading it should be a condition of joining rather than an optional extra.

Two additions repay the effort. First, give new trustees the last two sets of minutes and the most recent accounts before their first meeting — the fastest route to useful contribution. Second, make safeguarding a standing item at board meetings rather than an annual review. A board that discusses it four times a year has a record of oversight; a board that discusses it once has a gap the Commission would notice.

Which courses suit a charity team?

• Safeguarding Adults — the Care Act framework and how concerns are raised (see what is safeguarding adults)
• Data Protection and GDPR Awareness — beneficiary and donor data
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Awareness — service delivery and volunteering

Those three together cost £18 rather than £27, because any three courses trigger the pay-for-2-get-3 offer. Add them to the cart and the discount applies automatically. Charities working with children usually start with Safeguarding Children instead, and those running premises or community events often add Fire Safety Awareness, Lone Working Awareness or Modern Slavery Awareness.

An honest note on cost: £9 a course is affordable for a small charity, but check first whether your local infrastructure body, council or safeguarding partnership offers relevant training free. Several do, and a free course that meets the need is better value than a paid one.

Frequently asked questions

Do charity staff and volunteers need safeguarding training?

There is no single statutory training requirement for all charities, but trustees must take reasonable steps to protect from harm people who come into contact with the charity, and the Charity Commission treats safeguarding as a governance priority for every charity. Training is one of the clearest ways of evidencing those reasonable steps, and the Commission expects everyone to know the policies and how to apply them.

Are trustees personally responsible for safeguarding?

Trustees hold overall responsibility, and delegating to a safeguarding lead or group does not transfer it. Trustees are expected to report safeguarding matters to the relevant agencies such as the police, social services or Ofsted, and to put matters right if things go wrong. The Charity Commission can hold trustees to account and check whether they followed its guidance and the law.

Does health and safety law apply to volunteers?

Largely yes. Volunteers are not employees, so most employment law does not apply, but the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act places duties on employers towards people who are not their employees but may be affected by the work. In practice a volunteer should get the same induction, instruction, equipment and supervision an employee would get for the same task.

What training do small charities actually need?

A defensible minimum is induction for everyone covering the safeguarding policy and how to raise a concern, safeguarding training for anyone working with children or adults at risk, deeper training for the safeguarding lead and trustees, data protection awareness for anyone handling personal data, and task-specific training where the risk assessment requires it, such as food, driving or lone working.

Do charities need DBS checks for volunteers?

It depends on the role rather than the organisation. Eligibility for a DBS check is set by what the person actually does, so regulated activity with children or adults at risk attracts an enhanced check while other roles may not be eligible at all. Work out eligibility role by role, record the decision, and make sure checks form part of a wider suitability process rather than the whole of it.

Does GDPR apply to charities?

Yes, in full. Charities frequently hold unusually sensitive information, including beneficiary case notes, safeguarding records and donor financial details, and UK GDPR applies exactly as it does to a business. Anyone handling that data needs to understand lawful basis, retention, access requests and how to report a breach.

Training courses for charities and voluntary organisations

£9 per course. CPD accredited, 100% online, verifiable e-certificate. Pay for 2, get 3 — any 3 courses for £18.

This article is general information, not legal advice or a statement of Charity Commission policy. A CPD awareness course is not a regulated qualification and does not by itself discharge trustee duties. Safeguarding requirements vary by activity and by nation, and charities in Scotland and Northern Ireland are regulated by OSCR and CCNI respectively. Always check current guidance with your regulator and your local safeguarding partners.