Trust yourself: What can civil servants gain from becoming charity trustees?

Emma Barlow, a policy adviser at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, usually spends the run-up to All Party Parliamentary Groups writing briefings and helping ministers to prepare. But this time was different: in her capacity as a trustee for Reaching Higher, she’d encouraged the young people supported by the Croydon-based youth charity to attend the APPG on youth affairs, and she’d worked with them to get ready. “I helped them think about what questions they wanted to ask, and made sure they backed their points up with statistics,” she says. “Bringing those two worlds together was a real moment.”

Barlow has also seen progression in her civil service career since becoming a trustee outside of work. “I now work on staff wellbeing, looking at how we capture data on that, how we monitor it, and I don’t think I’d have taken it on if I hadn’t already done it for the charity,” she says. “It gave me the confidence to put myself forward for it.” She’s also noticed that senior colleagues ask her opinion more than they used to: “They trust my judgement, because I can reinforce what I’m saying with experience.” 

There is a push from the top for more civil servants to form connections with the third sector like the one Barlow describes. The prime minister has made it clear that his administration wants charities to be brought inside the tent, speaking of a “new era of partnership” and a recognition of charities as a core part of the policymaking process. A new civil society covenant is promised in due course, which will set out these expectations in more detail.

What will this mean in practice? Officials might be wondering what the benefits of a partnership with civil society might look like for the job they are doing and the career path they are pursuing. They may also be wondering what their contribution might consist of, and where they should start.

Marie-Elise Howells, deputy director for volunteering and tackling loneliness at DCMS, suggests that becoming a charity trustee is a great way to begin. Howells has been volunteering since she was an HEO, and can testify to its benefits on multiple fronts. “Being a trustee lets you feel the impact of the work you carry out,” she says, “since charities tend to be smaller. Whereas in the civil service, you are a small cog in a giant machine.” And it’s likely you’ll find yourself taking on organisational responsibilities at an earlier career stage. “There is a massive skills game to volunteering,” Howells says. “The first time I got to do organisation-level financial planning or restructuring was in a trustee role.”

“Being a trustee lets you feel the impact of the work you carry out”
Marie-Elise Howells, DCMS

Writing for CSW in October last year, Gus O’Donnell acknowledged a “friction that sometimes exists between the charity sector and the civil service”, which is not helped by stubbornly low rates of collaboration between the sectors. Referring to polling by the Law Family Commission in 2021, Lord O’Donnell pointed out that “just 10% of the surveyed civil servants said they had served as a charity trustee in the previous 12 months, compared with 36% of MPs and 46% of local councillors”.
Speaking from her desk in the Home Office, where she leads on partnerships in crime and policing, Katie Aston is clear that any friction that might still exist is unjustified. Aston is a trustee for StreetDoctors, a charity that tackles knife crime, and she also leads on criminal justice as a trustee for the Noel Buxton Trust. “Most of our policy work at the Home Office is about protecting the most vulnerable,” Aston says, “and there has often been a breakdown of trust between the individual and the state. But they might trust a small charity.” 

For Aston, the trustee role is helpful in reinforcing the values that sit behind the safer streets agenda. “It’s a consistent reminder of the communities that we serve,” she says. Although it’s not her primary motivator, she agrees that volunteering can also be career enhancing. “If you’re not getting leadership experience at work, then joining a charity board is a good way to learn,” she says. “I do think civil servants have a lot of the skills that a charity board needs, such as understanding reputational risk. With most charities, reputation is their most valuable asset, and we understand that stuff.”

Richard Jones is head of innovation and development at the Department for Education’s Schools Commercial Team and a trustee of the Two Counties Trust, a group of nine schools in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. He says that “volunteering has kept me refreshed, interested and challenged”. While for him “there’s a moral driver to it”, he believes that “it also helps with my personal credibility as a leader and influencer in my organisation”.

“It helps with my personal credibility as a leader and influencer in my organisation” 
Richard Jones, DfE

Reflecting on what he’s learned in his trustee role, Jones says: “Ideally, I like to take my time giving feedback. But in the live environment of a board discussion, you have to be quicker than that. It’s always helpful to put yourself into a different context and stretch yourself a bit.” 

Echoing Aston, Jones says his trustee role “keeps you aware of the realities on the ground”. He thinks the relationship between the learning from his trusteeship and the policy direction he takes at work is a subtle one. “We won’t completely change direction based on one piece of feedback, but we will feed it into the mix,” he says. It helps him to demonstrate that “we are plugged in; we aren’t just dreaming up policy from ivory towers and think tanks”. 

Barlow describes the job of a trustee as being “a critical friend to the organisation, supporting leaders to make the best decisions, offering friendly challenge”. The civil service trains you to think in a way that lends itself to the role, she says. “How do we manage risks? How do we gather evidence and make recommendations? How do we weigh it all up? These are the things that are often asked of me as a trustee.” 

Jones seconds this point, adding that whatever grade you are and wherever you are in your career, you will almost certainly have a helpful contribution to make. “Don’t worry about being the new person,” he says. “Part of the role is to ask questions – and sometimes a naïve question is the best type of question.” 

For those who are still unsure about taking the first step, Barlow suggests thinking about the things you care about and where you would most like to see societal change. “What is a charity local to you that moves the dial on that?” she says. “Start by volunteering on the ground and see where it takes you.” And if you don’t want to take on the longer-term commitment of a trusteeship, you could offer your skills on a short-term project. “For example, an HR official could review a charity’s HR policies, so they don’t have to pay someone to do that.”

Aston agrees. “You could befriend a housebound neighbour and help them with some of their security, or set up a tech hub for elderly residents. Or you could get involved in community scrutiny of police practices,” she says. “We have lots of evidence that stronger communities are safer communities. Also, if you are delivering the safer streets mission, you want a happy, healthy workforce. There’s loads of evidence that volunteering is good for your mental health.” 

Will we achieve the meaningful and reciprocal partnership that the prime minister aspires to? One of the ways we might make this high-level ambition a reality is to “de-risk both sides of it”, Howells says. “Charities need to learn civil service language and have safe people they can talk to, and vice versa. Being a trustee is a fantastic way to get that started.” 

This article first appeared in the spring 2025 issue of Civil Service World. Read the full issue online here

Related

28 Feb Leadership

Leading with purpose: Jonathan Freeman on his journey from senior official to head of Charity for Civil Servants

by Susan Allott