Trustees' Annual Reports
A Trustees’ Annual Report (TAR) provides an overview of your charity’s activities, achievements and financial performance over the past year. This report is not only a legal requirement but also a valuable tool for transparency and accountability to stakeholders, including donors and beneficiaries.
A good Trustees’ Annual Report clearly demonstrates how your charity is run and what it does.
What is a Trustees’ Annual Report?
It is the narrative part of your annual report and accounts and contains information about your charity, who the trustees are and how it is run. It is an opportunity to tell the story of your activities, achievements, and performance in the year under review.
It also helps to explain the numbers in the accounts and helps readers understand where your money has come from and how it has been spent.
Trustees’ Annual Reports should cover the following key concepts:
Why was your charity set up?
Who does your charity help?
What was done (outputs)
What was achieved? (outcomes)
What difference was made? (impact)
What needs to be included in a Trustees’ Annual Report?
There is certain information that must be included in a Trustees’ Annual Report, depending on whether your charity prepares receipts and payments accounts or fully accrued accounts.
However, there is flexibility in the way that the report can be presented. A good Trustees’ Annual Report should be easy to understand, and may include photographs, quotes, case studies or charts to help tell your story.
Who is responsible for preparing the Trustees’ Annual Report?
The charity trustees are jointly responsible for preparing the report. Trustees may get assistance from the charity’s staff or professional advisors, but it is the trustees who have the ultimate responsibility.
One or more charity trustees must sign and date the report to approve it on behalf of all the trustees.
More guidance
For more detailed guidance, please see our Trustees’ Annual Reports: Guidance and good practice. Click the links below to view each section.