The trustees of The ME Association have recently been accused of illegal payments and dishonesty. These accusations have been made on social media and via other communications methods including emails.
These are serious accusations and are wrong.
The payments were made in respect of two contracts. Those contracts were for professional services provided by two trustees. This happens regularly with charities who require specialised skills and is not related to the work those Trustees undertake as Trustees (Trustees decide how the Charity is run) which is unpaid.
The Charity Commission permits such arrangements provided certain strict conditions are met. One of these is that the Articles of Association do not forbid such payments. The current version of the Articles, as registered with Companies House in 2014, does not forbid such payments.
The current Articles are available for everyone to see. They permit payments for services-see “Allowed Payments”-section 28 (a), which lists a number of strict requirements which have all been complied with.
A review of the original Articles was carried out in 2013. A number of amendments were made at the time to reflect the changes in the Charity Commissions Model Articles and comply with Sections 185 and 186 of the Charities Act 2011.
The version of the Articles, which has previously appeared on our website, is not the 2014 version. The correct 2014 version of the Articles has now been uploaded. Human error can never be eliminated but we have put in operation a process to ensure this does not happen again.
The Charity Commission accepts the current 2014 version of the Articles. Companies House carries the full version.
The MEA repeats that no illegal payments have been made to Trustees. Any accusations of dishonesty are totally wrong. Any repeat or reposting of such allegations by anyone that the charity has not complied with its legal obligations will be actionable.
Neil Riley,
Chairman of Trustees
The ME Association
