Rollits serving up breakfast and best practice for charity and education leaders

BRIEFINGS: Gerry Morrison, left, and Caroline Hardcastle

By Rick Lyon, Co-Editor

Experts at a leading law firm will address issues ranging from how to handle serious incidents involving charities to social media threats on smart phones as part of their next series of free breakfast briefings.

Rollits LLP, which has offices in Hull and York, will present a series of three briefings for the charity and education sectors with some content relevant to both audiences.

The first in the new season of charity briefings will take place on Wednesday, October, 16. Gerry Morrison, partner and head of charities, and senior solicitor Harriet Wheeldon will present jointly on how charities should deal with serious incidents if they occur and what can be done in the first place to prevent them.

James Peel, data protection partner at Rollits, will join the second session on Wednesday, February 12, when the focus will be on the legal duties relevant to charity trustees in respect of charities and data protection.

The third session on April 30, 2025, will look at how charities can take practical steps to avoid and mitigate the risk of serious incidents involving staff and volunteers. Gerry and Harriet will be joined by Rollits’ employment partner Ed Heppel to discuss the responsibilities of trustees as employers and in respect of recruiting volunteers

Gerry said: “Our starting point in the first session is that, due to the unique nature of charities and their operations and the legal duty imposed upon trustees to report, it can sometimes be difficult for trustees to determine whether an incident in their charity is reportable to The Charity Commission or not. We will explore the requirements around reporting such issues and as the sessions progress, we will look more specifically at two areas which can be minefields.

“All charities are involved in some way in controlling or processing personal data in relation to beneficiaries, service users, trustees, staff and volunteers as well as other third parties. Charities are also under a duty to protect people who are benefiting from or involved in delivering the charity’s activities and operations – which includes staff and volunteers – and any failure could lead to safeguarding and reputational risks to the charity.”

The first in the series of education breakfast briefings will take place on Thursday, November, 7, and will bring together James Peel and Ed Heppel from Rollits’ specialist education team, and Sarah Young, founder of Young Plus and a highly experienced education professional who works in partnership with the Rollits’ team to provide a wider range of advice and support to clients in this sector.

The first session will examine the challenges presented by the growing use of smart phones among adults and children and the implications for employers, employees, learners, parents and wider stakeholders with regard to social media use and the risks associated for schools and colleges.

The second education briefing on Thursday, January 30, 2025, will look at effective governance and supporting board members and trustees, with Ed Heppel and his colleague in the employment team Lucy Trynka adding an HR and discrimination dimension to the final event on Thursday, April 3, 2025, which is entitled ‘A Positive Approach to Menopause’.

Caroline Hardcastle, head of Rollits’ cross-disciplinary education sector team said: “The breakfast briefings have been very popular in the past because of the variety of subjects which we’ve covered – all wide ranging yet connected in many ways – and because of our ability to draw on our in-house experts to present exemplar case studies and give a very practical strategic and operational view of each topic.

“These ‘bite size’ opportunities for continuing professional development and learning aim to give a practical training resource to sector leaders and to enable then to share their experiences and best practice with fellow professionals.”

All the events will take place at Rollits’ office in High Street, Hull. The charity briefings will run from 9am until 10.30am and the education sessions will take place from 8am until 10am.

To find out more and to reserve a place visit https://www.rollits.com/news/events/