Glossary · UK
What is Company Secretary?
An officer of a company, optional for private companies since 2008, responsible for statutory filings and corporate governance administration.
Full Definition
A company secretary is an officer of a company traditionally responsible for administrative and statutory compliance duties such as maintaining statutory registers, filing the confirmation statement and other documents at Companies House, organising board and shareholder meetings and minutes, and ensuring the company complies with the Companies Act 2006 and its own articles of association. Since the Companies Act 2006, private limited companies in the UK are no longer legally required to appoint a company secretary (the role became optional from October 2008), and in practice many small private companies split these duties between the director(s) and an external accountant instead. Public limited companies (PLCs), by contrast, are still required to have a qualified company secretary, who in larger listed companies is often a chartered secretary (a member of the Chartered Governance Institute) with specific governance and regulatory responsibilities, including advising the board on corporate governance codes. Where a company chooses to appoint a company secretary voluntarily, that person becomes an officer of the company and can, in some circumstances, be held liable alongside the directors for compliance failures such as late filing.