Trustee

This East London based homeless charity seeks Trustees to join our Board team and support the leadership of our Charity. If you share our passion and have the required skills and experience, we would be keen to hear from you.

Caritas Anchor House (CAH) is an award winning homelessness charity based in the London Borough of Newham, providing residential and life-skills support for single homeless adults. Our driving mission is to ensure that those who walk through our doors grow in confidence and move towards leading independent, self-fulfilling lives by providing education, guidance and personal rehabilitation. To find out more about the organisation, please do review our website: www.caritasanchorhouse.org.uk

This is a voluntary and unpaid position.

Trustees have overall control of a charity and are responsible for making sure it is doing what it was set up to do. Trustees lead the charity and decide how it is run. Being a Trustee means making decisions that will impact on people’s lives and making a difference to the local community or to society as a whole. Trustees use their skills and experience to support their charities, helping them achieve their aims, and also often learn new skills during their time on the Board.

Our Board of Trustees is made up of six to twelve Trustees, who work together to ensure the charity is run properly. As a trustee you will have the opportunity to support our strategic development, make decisions about what the charity will do, and oversee its finances. Trustees meet approximately five times throughout the year and are asked to commit an additional eight to 10 hours between meetings to follow up on actions, provide advice, and input into strategic documents/areas of work relevant to their areas of expertise. In addition we currently have one sub committee which meets quarterly and we may look to increase and add other sub committees in the future which new trustees may wish to become involved in. 

Key trustee responsibilities are:

• Board Leadership: Trustees have ultimate responsibility for directing the affairs of CAH, ensuring it is solvent, well-run, and delivering the outcomes for which it has been set up. 
• Social Impact: Trustees ensure that the organisation is carrying out its purpose for the public benefit; addressing a social need to the best of its abilities.
• Strategic Role: Trustees focus on the strategic direction of CAH, and avoid becoming involved in day-to-day operational decisions and matters.
• Compliance: Trustees ensure that CAH complies with its own governing document, relevant laws, and the requirements of any regulatory bodies (including the HCA and the Charity Commission).
• Internal controls: Trustees maintain and regularly review CAH’s system of internal controls, performance reporting, policies and procedures and use results to inform positive change and innovation.
• Managing risk: Trustees must act prudently to protect the assets and property of CAH, and ensure that they are used to deliver the organisation’s objectives. Board meetings regularly review the risks to which CAH is subject, and take action to mitigate risks identified.
• Equality and diversity: Trustees ensure that CAH upholds and applies the principles of equality and diversity, and that it is fair and open to all sections of the community in all of its activities.

We are currently seeking trustees with skills and experience in the following areas:

• Homelessness / social housing / health or social care sectors
• Finance
• Property / asset management
• HR
• Social / commercial enterprise

In addition we are keen to ensure that our Board membership better reflects our diverse service user group and we would particularly welcome enquiries from those from black and minority ethnic communities, women, people from a variety of faiths, or those with no faith, and under 50’s.

To enquire further:
To enquire further, please contact Amanda Dubarry, Chief Executive, at a.dubarry@caritasanchorhouse.org.uk or on 020 7476 6062.

Caritas Anchor House is an equal opportunity employer and we would appreciate it if you could complete our Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form when applying for this position. This post is subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.