Advantages of Using an External Company Secretary

A company secretary carries out a complex, multi-faceted and essential role within an organisation. It is therefore surprising that some companies still view this function as an ‘add-on’: a handful of tasks which can be passed to an existing company director to carry out (usually the finance director). In fact, there are many advantages of using an external company secretary, from avoidance of conflict of interest to ensuring legal compliance. Corporate and legal support firm London Registrars (http://www.london-registrars.co.uk/) highlights the main advantages of outsourcing this important role.

Company secretarial services can be seen as two-pronged: administrative and strategic. A company secretary will be called upon to carry out vital administrative responsibilities which ensure company compliance with statutory and regulatory obligations.
They will also be required to take a more strategic role: advising the chairman, ensuring that non-executive directors are fully trained and compliant and providing an impartial viewpoint in board evaluations. It is in the strategic sphere of the company secretary role that the potential for conflict of interest lies. A truly impartial handling of board-level strategy is, in the majority of cases, not possible if carried out by a finance director or other board director, and to overlook this part of the company secretary role can have real disadvantages for the organisation.

An outsourced company secretary brings the added benefit of corporate governance and legal training, guidance which can be lacking in a standard board of directors and which can be costly to source from ad-hoc legal counsel. An external company secretary will also belong to networks and professional memberships which helps them keep abreast of the very latest in legislative changes and best practice. When all of this is handled by a reputable and experienced outsourced company secretary, directors are free to concentrate on the smooth running of the company, safe in the knowledge that this vital role is being carried out effectively – arguably the greatest advantage of filling this role externally.