Building a Speaker Vetting Policy: A Guide for Charities

Why a written policy matters

Charities that host external speakers — at conferences, community events, faith gatherings or fundraisers — carry a governance responsibility for who takes the platform. Recent Charity Commission for England and Wales cases make clear that regulators no longer treat this as a peripheral risk.

In May 2025 the Commission issued Official Warnings to the Mosque and Islamic Centre of Brent and Central Oxford Mosque Society after reviewing speeches given at their premises, finding that Brent had 'no effective speaker-management policies' in place. Both charities were required to adopt and implement speaker-management policies. Separately, a long-running statutory inquiry into the Islamic Centre of England culminated in a Section 84 direction in May 2025 requiring trustees to 'provide rigorous oversight of future speakers and online activity.' An earlier inquiry into Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh UK, following a 2015 ITV documentary, found trustees had 'failed to follow their own procedures and had not properly screened speakers' at a youth camp.

The common thread across these cases is not that a speaker said something objectionable — it is that the charity had no documented process for deciding whether to invite them, no record of what due diligence (if any) was carried out, and no clear line of accountability when concerns arose. A formal policy closes that gap, and it is the single most effective step a charity can take to demonstrate, after the fact, that it exercised reasonable care.

What the Charity Commission expects

The Commission's compliance toolkit, Chapter 5: Protecting charities from abuse for extremist purposes (updated November 2018 specifically to help charities that regularly host events), sets out the baseline expectations. Trustees should have a clear risk-assessment and decision-making policy for inviting speakers, with defined criteria for flagging a speaker as a cause for concern.

Due diligence should extend to the speaker and any partner organisation involved in the event, including checks against the Home Office list of proscribed organisations and the OFSI list of designated persons and entities subject to financial sanctions. For higher-risk events, the guidance recommends obtaining and reviewing the substance of a planned speech in advance. Throughout, decisions — and the reasoning behind them — should be documented, particularly where a speaker or topic is contentious.

None of this requires charities to refuse legitimate debate or shut down difficult topics. The Commission's own comment on the Brent and Oxford warnings — that 'charities are expected to bring people together, not to stoke further division' — reflects a proportionate standard: know who you are platforming, have a reason for the decision, and be able to show your working.

Core elements of a speaker vetting policy

A workable policy does not need to be long, but it should cover the following elements clearly enough that any trustee or staff member organising an event can follow it without needing to improvise.

• Scope — which events and venues the policy applies to (all public-facing events, hired-out premises, online broadcasts, or all of these), and who counts as a 'speaker' (main platform speakers, panellists, and pre-recorded contributors alike).
• Risk tiering — a simple classification (e.g. low/medium/high risk) based on factors such as subject matter, audience, the speaker's public profile, and whether the charity or a third party is organising the event.
• Due diligence steps — proportionate to risk tier: basic online research and sanctions/proscribed-organisation checks for lower-risk events; deeper background research, review of past statements, and advance sight of speech content for higher-risk events.
• Approval workflow — who can approve a speaker at each risk tier (event organiser, senior staff member, trustee board), and the deadline before an event by which approval must be obtained.
• Escalation triggers — defined red flags (e.g. evidence of extremist views, sanctions listing, links to proscribed organisations, prior conduct concerns) that automatically escalate a decision to trustee level regardless of the event's original risk tier.
• Record-keeping — what is retained for each speaker decision: the checks carried out, the evidence considered, who approved it, and the reasoning, particularly for anything contentious.
• Review cycle — how often the policy itself is reviewed and updated, and a named owner responsible for keeping it current.

Approval workflow and escalation in practice

Most policies work well with a two- or three-tier approval structure. Routine, low-risk speakers (a local business owner giving a talk on fundraising, for example) can be signed off by the event organiser using a short checklist. Medium-risk speakers — anyone addressing a sensitive topic, or previously unknown to the charity — should require sign-off from a senior staff member who reviews the due diligence findings before confirming the booking.

High-risk cases should always go to the trustee board, or a delegated sub-committee with clear reporting lines back to the board. This matters not only for quality control but for accountability: if a decision is later questioned by the Commission, funders or the press, trustees need to be able to show they were involved in — or at minimum informed of — the reasoning for higher-risk bookings.

Escalation should not depend solely on the organiser's judgement. Build in objective triggers: any adverse media mention, any sanctions or proscribed-organisation match, any history of contested public statements, or any request from the speaker's team to avoid recording or transcription. Any of these should pause the booking and route it upward automatically, rather than relying on someone remembering to flag it.

Record-keeping and the review cycle

Keep a simple, consistent record for every speaker booked above the lowest risk tier: the checks performed, the sources consulted, the decision reached, who made it, and the date. This need not be elaborate — a shared log or spreadsheet is sufficient — but it must be contemporaneous and retrievable, since its evidential value lies in showing the charity's reasoning at the time, not a reconstruction after a complaint arises.

Review the policy at least annually, and immediately after any incident or near-miss involving a speaker. Treat the review as an opportunity to check the policy against current Charity Commission guidance, since expectations in this area have visibly tightened in recent cases, and to confirm that approval thresholds and escalation triggers still reflect the charity's risk appetite and event programme.

Suggested policy outline

The following structure can be adapted to most charities' size and event programme:

• 1. Purpose and scope
• 2. Definitions (speaker, event, risk tiers)
• 3. Roles and responsibilities (organiser, senior staff, trustees)
• 4. Due diligence procedure by risk tier
• 5. Approval workflow and sign-off authority
• 6. Escalation triggers and process
• 7. Record-keeping requirements
• 8. Handling concerns raised after a booking is confirmed
• 9. Policy review cycle and ownership
• 10. Related policies (social media, safeguarding, code of conduct for speakers)

Closing thought

A written policy is only as good as the due diligence behind it, and gathering reliable background information on a speaker can be the most time-consuming part of the process — structured screening tools such as CharityScreen can help charities carry out and document that research consistently across every booking.