Help centre / People & access / Set up a sub-committee
Set up a sub-committee
Set up a committee from the Governance hub with a name, terms of reference and a board-agreed budget. Add members, and end memberships when people move on. Spend from linked projects counts against the budget, and every record is kept over time.
Establish a committee
- Go to the Governance hub and open Committees.
- Select Establish.
- Give it a Name. Meadowbank Community Trust called theirs the Summer fair committee.
- Describe its Purpose / remit: what the board has delegated to it.
- Write or paste the Terms of reference: the scope, limits and reporting the board agreed.
- Enter the Board-agreed budget (£), if there is one.
- Choose who it Reports to, then select Establish.
A sub-committee only acts under delegation from the board, so agree it at a board meeting first and record the decision in your minutes. The committee then works within those terms and reports back.
Add and change members
Open the committee and select Add member. Pick the person and their role, Member or Chair. When someone leaves, end their membership. The dates are kept, so you can always see who was on the committee at any point in time.
Budget and spending
When you link a project to the committee, the money spent on that project counts against the committee's budget. The committee's page shows the agreed budget next to the live spend, so any overspend shows up early, well before year end. See Run a project.
Winding it up
When the committee has done its job, open it and select Disband. Memberships end that day and the whole record is kept. Nothing is deleted, so next year's board can see exactly what was delegated and to whom.
The governance behind this: our free guide on charitycontrol.org explains the why in plain English.