2025-06-30-accounts

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator.

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Business Disability Forum

Annual Report and Financial Statements

30 June 2025

Company Limited by Guarantee Registration Number: 02603700 (England and Wales) Charity Registration Number: 1018463

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

DRAFT

Reports
Reference and administrative
information	1
Trustees’ report	2
Independent auditor’s report	34
Financial Statements
Statement of financial activities	40
Balance sheet	41
Statement of cash flows	42
Principal accounting policies	42
Notes to the financial statements	48

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Reference and administrative information

DRAFT

Trustees	Ian Callaghan
	Victoria Cleland
	Fiona Daniel
	Dr Shaun Davis
	Stephen Ingham CBE (Chair)
	Rebecca Hitchings
	Hannah Mallett
	Paul Smyth
	Edward Stainton
	Angela Whitty
	Paul Wilden
	Phil Wolfenden
Company Secretary	Ben Kelly
Chief Executive Officer	Diane Lightfoot
Registered and Principal office	Dowgate Hill House
	14-16 Dowgate Hill
	London
	EC4R 2SU
Telephone	020-7403-3020
Website	www.businessdisabilityforum.org.uk
E-mail	enquiries@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk
Company registration number	02603700 (England and Wales)
Charity registration number	1018463
Auditor	Buzzacott Audit LLP
	130 Wood Street
	London
	EC2V 6DL
Bankers	HSBC Bank plc
	69 Pall Mall
	London
	SW1 5EY
Solicitors	Bates Wells & Braithwaite
	10 Queen Street Place
	London
	EC4R 1BE

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

The trustees are pleased to present their statutory report together with the financial statements of Business Disability Forum for the year ended 30 June 2025.

The report has been prepared in accordance with Part 8 of the Charities Act 2011 and constitutes the directors’ report for the purposes of the Companies Act 2006.

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the accounting policies set out herein and comply with Business Disability Forum’s Memorandum and Articles of Association, the Companies Act 2006 and Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102).

Statement of trustees’ responsibilities

The trustees (who are also directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the trustees’ report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

Company law requires the trustees to prepare financial statements, for each financial year, which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the income and expenditure of the charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements the trustees are required to:

select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
observe the methods and principles in Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing the accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS102);
make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and
prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in operation.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Statement of trustees’ responsibilities (cont.)

The trustees are responsible for maintaining adequate accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. The trustees are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

Each of the trustees confirms that:

So far as the trustee is aware, there is no relevant audit information of which the charity’s auditor is unaware; and
The trustee has taken all steps that he/she ought to have taken as a trustee in order to make himself/herself aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the charity’s auditor is aware of that information.

This confirmation is given and should be interpreted in accordance with the provisions of s418 of the Companies Act 2006.

The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the charity and financial information included on the charity’s website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Trustees

The trustees constitute directors of the charity and company for the purposes of the Companies Act 2006. The board of trustees is known as the Council of Management (the Council).

Trustees take responsibility for monitoring the charity’s activities and care is taken to ensure that members of the Council have the necessary skills required to contribute fully to the charity’s development.

The following trustees served throughout the year and remain in office, except where shown.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Trustee Appointed/resigned Rachel Blackett Resigned 5 November 2025 Ian Callaghan Victoria Cleland Fiona Daniel Dr Shaun Davis Stephen Ingham CBE Janet Hill CBE Resigned 14 November 2024 Rebecca Hitchings Hannah Mallett Paul Smyth Edward Stainton Iain Wilkie Resigned 14 November 2024 Angela Whitty Paul Wilden Appointed 9 October 2025 Phil Wolfenden Appointed 20 March 2025

New trustees may be appointed by the Council either to fill a vacancy or as an additional trustee. At each Annual Retirement Meeting (ARM) any trustees who have been appointed by a decision of the Council since the last Annual Retirement Meeting shall retire along with those trustees whose three-year term of office has concluded; they may offer themselves for re-election.

No trustee received any remuneration from the charity during the year (2024 - £nil). One trustee received payment for travel expenses incurred representing the charity in 2025 to the value of £658 (2024 – nil). No trustee had any beneficial interest in any contract with the charity during the year (2024 – nil).

Other officers

Company Secretary

Ben Kelly

Senior executives

Senior executives
Name	Position
Diane Lightfoot	Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Members

The members of the charitable company, who are guarantors, are:

Barclays Bank plc. British Telecommunications plc. Cisco Systems. Royal Mail Group. Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Organisation and management of Business Disability Forum

Business Disability Forum is governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association, most recently amended on 29 June 2020.

In order to achieve both Business Disability Forum’s vision and mission, a formal management structure is in place.

The Council is responsible for the general control and management of the organisation. At 27 November 2025, the Council comprises senior figures from business and the public sector, some of whom also have extensive experience of the not-for-profit sector. Beneath the Council three committees provide additional oversight on the strategic direction and operations of the organisation. Those committees are: Finance and Audit, People, and Strategy.

The Council meets regularly to review financial and other management information and longer-term strategic priorities for the organisation, corporate governance issues and other relevant matters. The committees meet prior to each Council meeting and update the full Council on their discussions. Further ad hoc meetings are convened as required.

An induction programme and governance manual are in place to ensure new trustees understand the vision, mission and management of the organisation as well as their responsibilities as trustees and company directors in accordance with the relevant guidelines issued by the Charity Commission and Companies House. The recruitment process for new trustees includes interviews with the Chair or another nominated trustee, CEO and Company Secretary with final approval by the Council at the Annual Retirement Meeting. We also carry out a skills audit to identify any gaps in expertise or wider lived experience that we would like to fill and have increased the maximum number of trustees permitted to help us to increase our diversity. On joining the Council, appropriate guidelines and information on the organisation’s governance, activities, products and services are also provided. The new trustee is also introduced to members of the Leadership Team and, where appropriate, to the wider membership. In addition, ongoing training is sometimes offered in the form of external courses and presentations to the Council.

The trustees appoint and employ a CEO to provide vision and leadership, achieve their strategic and charitable aims and manage the organisation.

Business Disability Forum produces an annual Business Plan. This year that plan formed the third year of our five-year strategy to “explore the road less travelled”, an agenda to grow sustainably and to use our predicted surpluses to pursue activities outside of “business as usual”; which nonetheless need attention and innovation and which are part of achieving our wider mission and vision.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

DRAFT

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

Organisation and management of Business Disability Forum (cont.)

The annual Business Plan is submitted to the Council for approval. It sets out the vision and mission, reviews progress, achievements and the financial outcomes in the current year and sets out the action plan and budget for the forthcoming year.

Progress against the annual Business Plan is reviewed at Council meetings and, where appropriate, at committee meetings, with written updates also provided at regular intervals. The Council and committees receive brief, formal written reports covering Policy & Research (Policy consultations and member engagement and BDF led research projects), Operations (Advice Service and Legal disability compliance matters, Membership Recruitment & Retention, Sponsorship, Disability Smart product suite, Professional Consultancy, Learning & Development, Development of our best practice guidance and Supplier relationships), Communications and Marketing (Communications, Marketing, PR & media, Digital communications, Design and Training & Events) and Finance & Resources (HR, ICT, Administration, Finance, and Corporate Governance). In addition, the CEO and members of the Leadership Team attend Council meetings to provide further verbal reports and more information, for example on new projects or strategic items. Other employees attend these meetings as required.

Key management personnel

There is a designated Leadership Team which includes the Chief Executive Officer, Director of Communications, Marketing & Digital, Operations Director, Director of Public Policy & Research, and Finance Director. The Leadership Team is accountable to the Council and is responsible for the day to day running of the organisation. It has agreed objectives that support the delivery of the organisation’s vision and mission. Performance and development reviews are carried out monthly to track progress towards achieving organisational Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) which are set six monthly, and to ensure that members of the Leadership Team have appropriate development opportunities.

The management personnel who form the Leadership Team are Diane Lightfoot, Adrian Ward, Angela Matthews, Lara Davis and Ben Kelly.

When personnel are appointed, the salary offered is benchmarked against roles with similar expectations and responsibilities in the not-for-profit sector, mindful that our business model also depends upon complementary skills required in the commercial sector. Key personnel salaries are additionally reviewed by the People Committee to ensure transparency.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Organisation and management of Business Disability Forum (cont.)

When the responsibilities of the roles that the key personnel perform are increased, a review of the remuneration offered is undertaken and the salary is again benchmarked against roles with similar expected outcomes to decide if a pay increase is appropriate, again to be reviewed by the People Committee.

Key personnel are awarded our standard range of benefits; these are available to all employees. We use the XpertHR, Cendex, salary benchmarking tool and take part in their annual survey to ensure parity with comparable organisations. In 2024/25 a 5% cost of living salary increase was awarded to all eligible members of our team. Key personnel salaries were benchmarked against the median for industry standards and where the 5% increase awarded to all employees did not meet the benchmark figure, key personnel were awarded salary increases to meet the industry median. This was a key part of our retention and succession strategy.

Major risks

The trustees have reviewed the major risks to which the organisation is exposed. During the year the continued economic and supply chain fallout from inflation and increased demand together with other supply chain issues arising from the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East tensions remained the greatest risk that we face over the short term.

Factors that we consider as part of the risk process include:

The ongoing Ukrainian war and unrest in the Middle East and its impact on inflation and supplies;
IT and data security;
Financial and our status as a going concern;
Government attitudes to disability;
Attitudes to disability (and DEI) around the globe;
Competition and demand for our products and services/ market conditions;
Staffing and training;
Insurances and facilities;
Governance and statutory reporting;
Internal reporting and other compliance issues;
Processes, systems and quality control;
Our mission and objectives;
Opportunities and innovation;

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Major Risks (cont.)

Internal culture, capacity and decision-making processes;
Demand for international products and services;
Procurement;
Theft, fraud and business interruption/ continuity;
Failure to protect intellectual property;
Our reputation;
The current and longer-term effects of the UK relationship with the EU;
Issues arising from increasing our prices; and
Issues arising from the increased costs of labour, goods and services (inflation).

Systems have been established to mitigate losses from such events where practical and are reviewed at each council meeting.

The top ten risks for the coming year have been identified as:

Insufficient capacity and capability to deliver what we need to achieve
Our products and services do not keep up with developing demands from our customers
Pushback against the DEI agenda, in particular changing attitudes to disability;
The ongoing effects to the economy from the Ukraine conflict and other geopolitical events contributing to fluctuating inflation and uncertainty
Impact and profile insufficiently communicated to make disability a compelling area for business investment with us
Growth in competitors
Key personnel leave to work for competitors
Business Disability Forum receives adverse publicity in the media
Economic and red tape impact of the new government's tax rises and employment legislative agenda
Income does not continue to exceed expenditure.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Major Risks (cont.)

We are fortunate that unlike many not-for-profit organisations we do not carry life-threatening risks such as operating in dangerous countries and infectious areas or working with vulnerable individuals in unsafe situations, nor do we rely on statutory grants for our income. As a membership organisation, it is unlikely that any one event would be so impactful as to render us non-existent overnight, nor do we minister directly to vulnerable people as do other charities. So necessarily, much of our focus is on our service delivery, income generation and operational effectiveness with further consideration for the social and economic environment in which we operate, guarding against events which could have a long-term debilitating effect on the organisation.

Review of our main risks

Our products and services are dependent upon the innovation and capacity of our employees. Staying ahead of the competition and delighting our Members and Partners is essential for our continued success. Our capacity and knowledge is therefore the biggest risk to that continued success and needs to be constantly monitored and nurtured. We generate sufficient revenue to resource and reward our team and to recruit good quality talent to bolster our team.

Costs increasing from demand in the global economy and from gas and electricity price fluctuations and ongoing geopolitical conflicts will impact our costs in the coming year. These costs, coupled with the imminent increase in Employers’ National Insurance contributions, mean we will need to increase our own prices accordingly. The rise is approximately the value of inflation, and we believe the new price still reflects great value to our membership.

The new government has a stated legislative agenda to improve workers’ rights. Whilst this is of course a good thing in principle, the unintended consequences of additional legislation may include an increased administrative burden for companies. Uncertainty around the provision of new workers’ rights could lead to a reduced appetite to recruit or, it could be an opportunity to partner with more organisations seeking guidance. If so, we will support them to meet new requirements as effectively as possible and, for example, to demonstrate the value of robust recruitment and retention practices so that they access the best candidates and then progress them through their organisations.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Major Risks (cont.)

There has been a rise in anti-DEI sentiment recently particularly a questioning of identity politics. This has accelerated following the US election and has also been echoed closer to home, with a corresponding risk to budgets and enthusiasm for the subject of disability and business. We have long recognised that we need to provide practical, tangible and pragmatic solutions to show that spending on disability inclusion delivers value and this will mitigate anti-woke sentiment. Disability is the only diversity strand which legally requires adjustments and disabled candidates and employees with the right adjustments offer productivity and capacity solutions for the skills shortage, whilst good accessibility of products and services can increase market share for businesses. We will continue to make this case; our mission has always been symbiotic for the disabled community and business.

Our General Fund is increasing healthily as income performance has improved this year, which when combined with the reduced overhead that has arisen from moving offices makes finance and cashflow a less immediate risk. Income generation (or lack thereof) will always feature as a risk to our operations and the risk register lists our principal mitigations to ensure that the organisation’s income remains above its expenditure, this risk remains at number ten on the list.

To increase our income generating opportunities we need to continue to give business more compelling reasons to invest in membership and our other products and services. Showcasing the benefits, financial and philanthropic, of getting it right on disability will make the case for its mainstream inclusion in budgets at board and departmental level.

Objectives and activities

In shaping our objectives and activities for the year, the trustees have complied with their duty in section 17 of the 2011 Charities Act to have due regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit.

Business Disability Forum is a membership-based charity which promotes, through its Members and Partners, the economic and social inclusion of disabled people. At year-end, the organisation had 606 (2024: 595) Members and Partners from the private, public and third sectors and emergency and law enforcement services. The membership employs approximately 16.5% of the UK workforce in employment i.e. approximately 5.3 million UK employees.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Objectives and activities (cont.)

There are 5.59 million disabled employees in the UK workforce out of a total of 10.37 million disabled people of working age (an employment rate of 54.0%) which is an increase of 71,000 from 5.51 million in the same period last year (employment rate was 53.0%). The number of non-disabled employees in the UK workforce has increased, by 400,000, since last year, and their employment rate has increased by 0.2% to 81.9%. The disability employment gap – the difference between the proportion of non-disabled people in work vs the proportion of disabled people in work - had reduced in the year by 0.8% as the rate of employment for disabled people increased more than for non-disabled people.

Whilst the disability employment gap is closing, it is doing so very slowly. We continue to push to reduce this gap more rapidly and to change the narrative – still too often one of deficit - to one of talent, and to highlight that this is a pool of talent that no business can afford to overlook, as well as continuing to work with Government to seek to change wider policy change to support this.

Table showing Disability Employment Gap

	2025	2025	2024	2024
	Disabled workforce	Non- disabled workforce	Disabled workforce	Non- disabled workforce
No. of Employees	5,593,000	26,650,000	5,512,000	26,194,000
No, of Working age employees	10,365,000	32,523,000	10,405,000	32,049,000
Employment rate %	54.0	81.9	53.0	81.7

Business Disability Forum is a registered charity and its charitable objects are the promotion of equality and diversity for the benefit of people with disabilities, in particular, but not exclusively by:

The provision of advice, assistance and training aimed at increasing employment opportunities in industry and commerce for people with disabilities; and
The provision of advice, assistance and training aimed at increasing accessibility to goods and services for people with disabilities.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Creating a disability smart world together

Business Disability Forum is the leading business membership organisation specialising in disability inclusion. We are based in the UK and have global reach. We are trusted partners, working with business, Government and disabled people to improve the life experiences of disabled employees and consumers, by removing barriers to inclusion.

Our Mission is to drive equity and remove barriers to inclusion for disabled people as employees and consumers, by partnering with business, Government and policymakers.

Our Vision is an inclusive world where disabled people can access employment, products and services equitably.

We do this by:

Advising, supporting and encouraging businesses (many of them global) to become more disability-smart.
Influencing policymakers by representing the voice of employers and disabled employees.
Providing evidence-based thought leadership on how business affects the lives of disabled people.
Helping effect changes in business practices, products, services and policies, that positively impact the life experiences of disabled people, and also benefit business.

Our membership includes organisations of all sizes and represents a huge cross sector of UK and global business.

We provide our members with:

expert, tailored, trusted, advice and support on disability inclusion, as it affects business.
opportunities to share, learn from each other and collaborate.

We also use evidence from our membership – employers and disabled people - representing their voice to influence Government and policy makers and shape policy.

Our Disability-smart Framework drives best practice by providing the benchmark against which organisations measure their own performance on disability, as employers and service providers, as well as that of their suppliers and partners. We mobilise UK and global business behind the economic and social inclusion of disabled people. We bring business, government and disabled people together for mutual benefit.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

DRAFT

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

Our values:

Purposeful – we are focused on removing barriers to disability inclusion.
Evidence-based – we are informed and driven by unique insights from our membership.
Respectful - we are supportive and approachable.
Pragmatic - we find practical solutions that business can implement.
Responsive – we are constantly evolving to meet our Members’ and Partners’ needs.
Bold – we are thought leaders and unafraid to challenge.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-25

It has been another busy year, with highlights including our Disability Smart Awards in April, hosted by our Partners Freshfields. The Awards are always an uplifting celebration of innovation, and this year was no exception – a welcome oasis in a challenging external landscape. That challenging external landscape includes Government consultations on cuts to benefits for disabled people, potential reform of Access to Work and disability workforce and pay gap reporting. As always, we consulted extensively with our Members and Partners to inform our responses and to identify the practical implications for businesses - including the risks and unintended consequences. We are in ongoing dialogue with business organisations on how we can influence the implementation of the likely reporting requirements with the aim of ensuring that they are as effective as possible for both businesses and for disabled people in furthering inclusion and opportunity. We also continue to highlight what we see are key parts of the disability inclusion jigsaw, including access to reasonable workplace adjustments which has a huge part to play in advancing access to employment opportunities and services for disabled people.

Our input into a large number of Government consultations and calls for evidence has been well received, and we are increasingly asked to be part of private working groups, where we are often the only disability charity round the table. We consistently get feedback that our constructive and solutionsbased approach is unusual and very helpful to officials. This of course does not preclude us speaking out when we believe that Government policy or messaging is wrong, and we have openly criticised some of the very damaging messaging and rhetoric that has accompanied announcements on policy in this space.

We continue to engage with Government more widely on a broad range of topics both as part of the Disability Charities Consortium and in our own right. Whilst this is constructive and important, a joined-up vision and a positive narrative around talent and disability is not forthcoming and instead the prevailing focus has continued to be around cuts and savings. We are now seeking other ways to engage with and influence decision makers in this space and to promote a more progressive approach.

Our Annual Conference took place in June, hosted in person by EBRD and also available online, sponsored by Microlink. The topic was “Disability inclusion: Business as usual?” and our panels and speakers explored what the disability landscape looks like 30 years after the Disability Discrimination Act and 15 years since the Equality Act came into force. We were joined by speakers including the Minister for Social Security and Disability, the Rt. Hon. Sir Stephen Timms MP and Sir Charlie Mayfield, who is leading the “Keep Britain Working” employer review.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Concentrating on disability inclusion at our conference felt timely in the context of the continuing anti-DEI rhetoric in the US and closer to home. As a consequence of this growing movement we are reviewing what and how we deliver to make sure that we are providing what our Members and Partners want and need in the current landscape. Our membership needs to be able to justify both monetary spend and time commitment and see the impact of that spend, so we need to deliver serious, tangible, practical content and advice to a consistent high quality.

This includes helping our membership meet new legal requirements. The European Accessibility Act came into force in June 2025 and, with disability workforce and pay gap reporting likely to be introduced in the UK, supporting Members to achieve compliance will increasingly need to be a strong focus – best practice alone is no longer going to be enough. We have always positioned ourselves as a tangible business requirement and these developments reinforce this.

Procurement is also becoming much higher profile, with a new Procurement Act coming into force. Procurement and support to disabled led businesses in particular was the topic for a Partner lunch this year, hosted by Coutts, where we shared and discussed the work of the Lilac Review which has been set up to look at what was needed to support disabled entrepreneurs to thrive. The Review has now published its final report and recommendations, and our CEO has been asked to join the steering board for the new Lilac Centre which will continue this broader work. We are also in discussion with the Lilac Review Team about hosting a Disability Trading Framework as part of our Procurement Network.

Our workforce continues to grow (by 12% during the year) to enable us to continue to provide a great service, advice and guidance to the increasing membership. As a result, we introduced an additional layer of management hierarchy to provide pastoral and mentoring support to their reports and relieve some of the bottlenecks from our leadership team. We now have four “Heads of” covering, Media and Communications, Content, Memberships and Practice. This change has been highly productive and, with three of the four roles filled by internal candidates, introduced an additional means of progression for our employees. Two thirds of our workforce have a disability or long-term condition and the majority of our managers have progressed from more junior roles within the organisation.

Our Director of Legal and Content, Bela Gor, celebrated a quarter of a century with us this year and we take this opportunity to celebrate her influence during this time; she has truly been a respected voice for challenging but pragmatic solutions during her time with us. Bela has now moved into a well deserved retirement and we wish her the most enjoyable and healthy of times for this next chapter.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Designated Fund

Our five-year plan 2022-27 aims to continue sustainable growth and generate sustainable surpluses. We wish to divert some of those surpluses to pursue activities which are outside of “business as usual” which need attention and innovation and which are part of achieving our wider mission. By designating surpluses already earned we can pilot and test ideas with a real chance of making a difference but which are less likely to make a financial return to sustain us.

Our first project, Changing the Image of Disability project was designed to improve the way disabled employees and customers were portrayed through imagery in the media. The project has built up a bank of over 750 images which are available to our membership (with a smaller library also available to print and online media) showing disabled customers and employees in everyday situations.

For 2023/24 we transferred £200,000 to the designated fund from our 2023/24 surplus and allocated £95K of those funds for innovation activity in 2024/25. We used part of this to support the high profile “ActionAble” online conference in February as part of a push to increase the number of disabled people on boards. We have also transferred £54,750 to our Parliamentary Affairs pilot to improve our ability to influence public policy for the benefit of disabled people. We are now looking at how we might use the fund to create a framework to help us and our Members demonstrate the impact of our and their work more robustly.

Policy & Research

Business Disability Forum’s policy work brings together the voice of businesses. Our Members and Partners come from organisations of all sizes and all sectors, and collectively representing nearly a fifth of the available UK workforce. Crucially, all are working to make employment, consumer experiences, and access to services more inclusive for disabled people and those with long-term conditions.

Our policy and research team works closely with our Members and Partners, and disabled people and those with long-term conditions, to drive the disability inclusion agenda. Our unique position as the organisation that links disabled people, business, and Government enables us to gather original insight to inform independent inquiries as well as broader employment, health, social, and economic policymaking.

It is core to our mission to provide pragmatic solutions that work for disabled people, business, and the wider economy so our findings convert into practical business recommendations for change as well as evidence to influence and inform Government policy development; a direct feedback loop on what works – and what doesn’t.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Our policy remit includes the following:

Responding to Government or other calls for evidence to inform a debate or Parliamentary session.
Being an expert adviser to policymakers on aspects of disability, health, and employment.
Contributing to guidance or information development on topics related to health and disability as it affects the UK economy.
We are also part of various Government policy stakeholder groups, the Disability Charities Consortium (which our CEO co-chairs), and we collaborate with disabled people’s organisations. Our CEO is also Deputy Chair of the Disability Confident Business Leaders Group.

Our research underpins the policy positions we develop to ensure these are strongly rooted in a sound evidence base. We regularly undertake research on a wide range of business and disability related topics.

Our Director of Public Policy and Research in particular is in demand to speak at external conferences. Feedback is excellent and these appearances generate interest from delegates which also supports business development activity.

Projects that we undertook this year included:

Our CEO has continued to co-chair the CEO group of the DCC with Scope, and this has given good engagement with the disability minister and the Disability Unit.
Our Director of Public Policy and Research has regular engagement with the Disability Unit and has quarterly catch ups with DWP’s public affairs lead.
Developing a relationship with Department for Business and Trade, particularly on sick pay and the Employment Rights Bill (ERB).
Action as key stakeholders in Cabinet Office’s assistive technology projects and on the Disability Confident schemes where we are part of both the Professional Advisers Group and the Business Leaders Group.
Responding to chapter 4 of the Pathways to Work benefits consultation, which is on Access to Work (ATW) , a key tool in giving disabled employees and candidates equal opportunities to excel.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Working on the Keep Britain Working employer review.
Participating in the disability pay gap consultation with our Disability Data Monitoring Working Group which also provided input for the equality law call for evidence, focusing on equal pay protections and pay transparency.
Consulting on and publishing our long-term project on disability workforce and pay gap reporting : “Towards meaningful disability workforce and pay gap reporting”.
Drafting two more research pieces on neurodiversity at work and, separately, the role of careers advisers in supporting disabled students to find work, to be published into the next financial year.
Submitting a consultation response to the consultation on expanding statutory sick pay.
Writing a paper on the future of Disability Confident at the request of the disability minister.

Our CEO also engages with senior political figures at ministerial and Deputy Director level across various government policy areas. As part of the Disability Charities Consortium we are also co-funding barrister representation of disabled interests at the ongoing Parliamentary Covid-19 inquiry.

Advice Service

The Advice Service, and the many queries it responds to, continues to add huge value to our members as well as providing us with valuable insight into their needs and concerns. The Advice Service also provides Disability Confident Level 3 “Leader” validations for our members and advises those members beginning their disability confident journey on levels one and two. The service also provides guidance on members’ policies to ensure they are inclusive and accessible for disabled colleagues and customers.

The Advice Service was even more busy this year. We responded to 1,940 queries in the year (2024: 1,930). Although the number of queries remained flat during the year, the complexity and detail required increased. This reflects both the changing environment in which we operate and our excellent engagement with the membership through our Business Partners team, highlighting the service and encouraging its use. Data monitoring and managing workplace adjustments processes continue to be the main ‘broad’ topics we are being asked about. The number of queries that we receive on data monitoring does support our policy position that companies are already collecting data and that they are best placed to decide what data to gather and how to use it to best serve their disabled employees.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Legal & Content

Content and resources

2025 saw us launch a new platform for delivering our content through an upgraded Knowledge hub, focused on better search functionality, user experience and improved accessibility. Guidance was updated and adapted for the new platform.

Resources launched through the period have included:

Factsheets on food sensitivities, learning disabilities and stroke, EUrelated subjects and preventing suicide.
Disability Around the World resource, providing profiles of disabilities in 27 countries.
Recruitment FAQs on providing interview questions in advance.
Support workers’ guide and career development guidance collections, each comprising six resources.
Resources making the case for disability inclusion, managing support workers and career development.
Disability Confident Toolkit offering guidance and support for completing the government scheme.
Updates to Getting Started, People Manager, Occupational Health and Procurement Toolkits.

Events

The Events team continued to deliver high quality online, in person and hybrid events for the membership and other stakeholders.

The team ran 63 online and flagship events attended by 4,789 delegates. These included: ELEN (Emergency Services and Law Enforcement Network), Procurement, Inclusive Communication, Customer, New Member, Government, NHS, HEI and Legal networks, our Global and Technology taskforces plus our very popular Legal Ease webinars which provide insight into disability employment and the law.

Our five highly regarded flagship events included: Global Conference (online, sponsored by HSBC), The Disability Smart awards (hosted by Freshfield), our 2024 annual conference, hosted by BT, our 2025 annual conference, hosted by EBRD and sponsored by Microlink and our annual reception hosted by Bank of America. These forums bring our members together for networking and thought-provoking debate.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Business Disability Forum in the Press

We generated a substantial amount of press coverage in 2024-25 amounting to 202 pieces of coverage and 220 additional mentions (name checks) with a total coverage of 709 million readers. HR, workplace, wellbeing, disability and diversity media outlets continued to the form the mainstay of our coverage.

We also secured several supportive pieces of national media coverage (online/print) including:

➢ The Telegraph
➢ Guardian
➢ FT
➢ Yahoo News. ➢ Forbes.

We were able to increase our broadcast coverage with several interviews on BBC regional radio and TV around the ‘Changing the image of disability’ campaign and our Disability Smart Awards.

Our campaigns and article reached into new areas of media including mentions in Vogue UK for our ‘Changing the image of disability’ campaign and supportive coverage of our disability pay gap research in Raconteur, The Critic and The Telegraph. This progress was made possible as we continued to build our media contacts across all areas of the media.

Speaking and profile raising appearances

This year, our CEO, Diane Lightfoot has spoken at:

Open or invite-only external events:

➢ IGPP Disability Inclusion in the Workplace Conference
➢ D&I Leaders
➢ Small Business Britain Inclusive Entrepreneurship Breakfast Fringe Event
➢ Disability in Policing Conference
➢ Linked In Live – Women in Tech
➢ Purple Space ERG Summit
➢ Balance the Board Conference
➢ Westminster Briefing Disability Conference
➢ ILO GBDN Conference in Geneva
➢ AXS Chat
➢ ActionAble Conference
➢ ABI Conference
➢ My Ability side event at Zero Project Conference, Vienna
➢ Valuable 500 Goals and Governance webinar series
➢ Westminster Insights NEET Conference
➢ VODG Annual Conference
➢ H3 Breakfast event on Leadership

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Events for individual Members and Partners including:

➢ MoJ
➢ TCS
➢ State Stret
➢ Defra
➢ Barclays

Our CEO is increasingly invited to be part of UK and global steering groups and taskforces. She is currently co-Chair of the Disability Charities Consortium and Deputy Chair of the Disability Confident Business Leaders Group.. She also sits on committees including the ILO (International Labor Organization) Global Business Disability Network Steering Committee, the Lilac Review Steering Board, the RSA Inclusive work, Disability and Ageing network, the “Everyone Economy” Advisory Committee chaired by Sir Trevor Phillips and a range of other Government working groups.

Taskforces and Networks

Our taskforces and networks continued to remotely support the membership through a growing range of subject, sector and location specific groups. Taskforces are included in the Partner offer with Members who have an interest in the area invited to join for an additional fee, Networks are open to the whole membership. The list of regular support network meetings includes:

Career Development Network
Central Government Roundtable
Construction Round Table
Customer Network
Emergency and Law Enforcement Network
Higher Education Network
Inclusive Communications Network
Neurodiversity Taskforce
NHS Network
SME Network
Built environment network
Technology and Global Taskforces

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

DRAFT

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Celebrating best practice

Our Disability-smart Awards recognise the work of teams and individuals who have gone above and beyond to improve the experiences of disabled people. The awards show what is possible and encourage all businesses to aim higher on disability inclusion.

Thirteen Disability Smart Awards were presented this year, recognising excellence across the areas of workplace and customer experience and we again hosted DWP who presented two Disability Confident awards.

The event was compered by our CEO Diane Lightfoot and TV personality Simon Minty, a long-standing Ambassador of Business Disability Forum. Details of winners’ case studies and runners up can be viewed at https://businessdisabilityforum.org.uk/networking-and-events/disability-smartawards-2025/winners/.

The full list of winners and finalists of the Disability Smart Awards 2025 (by category), include:

Disability Smart Diversity and Inclusion Professional Award
Neil Eustice, Digital Accessibility Manager, KPMG UK LLP
Disability Smart Leader Award
Winner: Georgina Colman, Founder and CEO, Purpl Discounts
Disability Smart Technology Award
Winner: Unilever
Disability Smart Inclusive Workplace Experience Award (large organisation)
Winner: Ofgem
Disability Smart Inclusive Workplace Experience Award (small organisation)
Winner: Inkfire
Disability Smart Inclusive Recruitment Award
Winner: Enterprise East Group CIC
Disability Smart Inclusive Communication Campaign Award
Winner: London Borough of Lambeth
Disability Smart Accessible Built Environment Award
Winner: RNIB

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

DRAFT

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Disability Smart Inclusive Customer Experience Award (250+ employees)
Winner: Alexandra Park and Palace
Disability Smart Inclusive Customer Experience Award (up to 250 employees)
Winner: Mobility in Motion
Disability Smart Global Disability Inclusion Award
Winner: Coca-Cola European Partners
Disability Smart Inclusive Product Design Award
Winner: Cambridge University Press and Assessment
Disability Smart Procurement Award
Winner: All in, Arts Council England.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Financial review 2024-25

Business Disability Forum began the year with positive unrestricted funds of £2,700,713 (2024: £2,230,482). The target for the year was to generate £78,772 additional funds with the income generated in the year to further our mission (2024: £159,183).

Revenue generation exceeded the previous year as we continued to satisfy increased demand for our practical, pragmatic support from business and government. Our expenditure expanded to increase our capacity to meet that demand while remaining well controlled and sustainable for the long term. The unrestricted funds increased by £74,039 (2024: the funds increased by £261,649) to £ 2,586,690 (2024: £2,492,131).

Most income strands performed well in the year. Membership remained our major income contributor, with our Membership Income growing 7.1% in the year to £3,670,663 (2024: £3,426,643). That growth was supported by increases in our Seminars and events and Consultancy offerings but Publications and Training packages delivered slightly lower income as we included more within the core membership offer. The value of our membership offers is evident from our retention rate for members being maintained at close to 90%. Overall income from charitable activities increased by £333,519; 8.5% (2024: £242,504 increase; 6.6%).

Throughout the year Membership continued to generate strong income as we delivered the services our membership expects remotely, digitally, in person or hybrid format. We aim to delight our Members and Partners and to exceed their expectations and that includes providing flexibility to allow them to consume our content and services in the manner they find most convenient.

Our expenditure increased in the year by £688,354; (19.0%), (2024: increased by £709,255; 24.3%). Much of this increase was staff costs as we grew our head count by 12% during periods in the year, as planned, and increased remuneration packages to remain competitive and protect our employees against the consequences of the rising costs of living. We also invested heavily in future proofing our digital strategy with updated digital offerings released from September 2025 and continually updating.

We will continue to invest charitable funds wisely to deliver our business plan, focus on keeping our profile high and to champion the awareness of disability as a business priority.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Reserves policy

The trustees have agreed the target level of reserves for the end of the 2024/25 financial year should be £1,740,992. This represents the level of funds in the upcoming budget year required to run the charity for five months. The reserves serve to provide funds for investment in service expansion or property if appropriate but also provide sufficient cash to close the organisation down in an orderly fashion while providing paid for services if required.

Reserves for this purpose include the balance of the general fund and total £2,586,691 (2024: £2,492,131). The trustees can report that reserves at the financial year end exceeded our target while not preventing opportunities to deliver our mission.

The designated fund initiative is designed to use funds in excess of our required reserves. The generous amount of £200,000 transferred to our designated fund initiative in June 2024 has not yet been fully utilised with projects for increasing the representation of disabled Non-Executive Directors, a Parliamentary affairs initiative, an accredited training programme and a portal for disabled parents having funds awarded to them in the year.

Gender pay and other equality and inclusion metrics

At year-end 2024/25 we had 35 female employees and 20 male employees. Our median gender pay gap was negative with men paid on average per hour 6.33% less than women. Our disability pay gap was also very small with our 19 non-disabled employees being paid on average 0.61% higher than our 36 disabled employees. Our ethnic minority pay gap shows that our 38 nonethnic minority employees are paid 20.50% higher than our 17 ethnic minority employees. Our LGBTQ+ pay gap shows that our 47 non-LGBT employees are paid 7.32% more than our 8 LGBTQ+ employees. We will continue to focus on these areas in our recruitment and development activities.

Our other equal opportunity statistics for the full year are:

Percentage of employees with a disability or long-term condition: 67.4%.
Percentage of employees from an ethnic minority: 29.2%.
Percentage of female employees: 69.8%.
Percentage of employees have described their sexuality/ themselves as Bisexual/ Gay man/ Gay woman/ Lesbian/ Other: 12.5%.
Average number sick days per employee non-disability related: 2.21 days.
Average number of disability-related sick days per employee: 2.03 days.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Membership

Our Disability Business Partnerships teams comprise: Senior Disability Business Partners, Disability Business Partners, the Advice Service plus a Taskforce Manager, a Consultancy Team and a Learning and Development Team. These team members each have specialist knowledge and experience of disability best practice aimed at disabled employees and customers, but which can also benefit all employees and customers.

A strong membership base, with committed and engaged Members and Partners, is necessary to fulfil our mission to promote the economic and social inclusion of disabled people by ensuring our membership is equipped to recruit and retain disabled people and serve disabled customers. In 2024/25 we maintained our retention rates for all levels of membership at nearly 90%. In total, we recruited more than 80 new Members and Partners in the year and increased our total engagement with our members through events, account management, consultancy, the Disability-Smart product suite, online resources, policy and campaigns activity and advice.

Business Disability Forum wishes to enhance and develop our membership base. In 2024/25 we aimed to consolidate our membership numbers which had rapidly grown over previous years. We aimed to increase our number to over 600 in the year. This was achieved although we fell marginally short of the 609 target with 606 members in total. The target of twelve new Partners proved slightly optimistic, with 10 Partners joining in the year but only two of our Partners did not renew their ongoing commitment.

We also fell short of our recruitment target of 80 new Members (69 new Members joined) but we have reviewed and updated our recruitment processes as a result and have a growing pipeline of interested companies in discussion with us. Our retention rate achieved in 2024/25 was 89.27% (2024: 90.06%); targeted retention rate was 88.19%.

Membership income (£3,670,663) was £244,020 greater than 2024 (£3,426,943) but £35,981 lower than the target of £3,706,644. Our missed recruitment targets were mitigated almost fully by improved retention of members against budget. Maintaining this excellent member satisfaction is key to continuing the levels of revenue generation we are now delivering. Our revised approach to recruitment will ensure that we continue to sustainably grow our membership and increase our coverage of the UK and Global workforce.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Membership (cont.)

A realistic yet stretching target has been set for 2025/26 given the uncertainties inherent in the UK and Global economy but mindful of the possibilities that skills shortages and requirement for valuable employees brings. That target is ten new Partners and 70 new Members with an overall retention rate of 87.43%. This would result in 617 Members and Partners at year end, an increase of 11. This continues the consolidation of gains from the last few years and maintains a strong base for our evidence-based policy positions and a draw for new Members and Partners who want to be part of a growing, relevant and dynamic movement. As always, we will seek to overachieve on these figures; our recent past performance shows that we are not constrained by prudent targets in seeking to exceed them.

Business Disability Forum’s Disability Business Partner framework allows each Partner to work with one of our experienced Senior Disability Business Partners to help them develop their overall approach to becoming disabilitysmart and sharing best practice. Our wider membership is served by our sector specific Disability Business Partners. This combined approach has seen improved Member and Partner engagement, giving our membership the support they need to drive change.

Support has continued in the year for sector specific networks, including the Emergency Services and Law Enforcement Network (ELEN), Construction Sector Network, HEI Network, NHS Network, Retail network, Neurodiversity Network, Peer Learning Network, Procurement Network, Legal Network, Central Government Network and the Communications Network. As video conferencing is now a routine and expected means of running these networks we are able to increase attendance and engagement within these networks and they are flourishing. The offer is further enhanced by two taskforces; our Technology Taskforce and the Global Taskforce which are included in the Partner offer and available to Members to join for an additional fee.

To further support our membership offer and improve membership retention rates, we continued with a series of podcasts and webinars. These make Business Disability Forum accessible on a national and international basis through our contacts’ desktops and browsers (a large number of our contacts within membership organisations change every year and these are useful tools to showcase what is available to new contacts). New contacts each have an introductory telephone or video conference meeting to share the latest “best practice” guidance on disability management and to discuss how the Member or Partner can best use our guidance to achieve their objectives. Many of our webinars and podcasts are also available for non-members as an acquisition tool but also as a valuable mission delivery mechanism, widening our reach and making our knowledge and learning available at no cost.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Membership (cont.)

The Disability-Smart Framework, our assessment and accreditation framework measuring how disability-smart an organisation is, continued to be available free to our membership as an online self-assessment exercise. All our members have access to the self-assessment process, a less evidencebased solution than our full Disability-smart audit, assessing ten criteria across business areas using a binary scale to measure their performance. At the end of the self-assessment a report is produced suggesting potential improvements (including legal risk) and highlighting areas of excellence. In the new financial year we aim to expand this self-assessment with a new global assessment and light touch audit for our global members.

The ‘Advice Service’, our service for best practice guidance on managing disability in the workplace and to welcoming disabled customers, has been widely used by our membership. In 2025, we again increased the size of the team on the service and were able to assist with an average of 161 calls per month (2024: 161) including 250+ policy reviews and nearly 70 Disability confident leader evaluations which generally take longer to service. Queries are ever more complex, indicating the evolution of our membership’s knowledge of disability in the workplace and their subsequent requirements from this service. The increase in capacity has enabled us to keep pace with requests and maintain the high level of member satisfaction with this much appreciated service.

Although the ‘Advice Service’ is essentially a service offered to fee paying companies from within the membership, non-member companies who contact us are provided with basic advice, invited to join the organisation or directed to other organisations that can provide them with more detailed advice. Disabled people or other stakeholders who call the ‘Advice Service’ have also been able to take advantage of the “connect service” free of charge where they are put in touch with either the relevant company from the membership or other suitable organisations to provide them with assistance.

Further advice and information is provided to the membership through our monthly newsletter; legal update bulletin; e-communications regarding our online and flagship events; products and services; online networking and webinar events and our website. Our membership and other website visitors also benefit from our online Disability Essentials toolkit which is an opensource product and freely available to all.

As part of our drive to improve membership engagement we continued to invest heavily in our Knowledge Hub in 2024/25. In 2025/26 we will launch the digital maturity model assessment as well as our global assessment. The UK based self-assessment will be revised in the coming year using our Learning management system to ensure question set and accessibility remains relevant and challenging to encourage and embed change with those measuring themselves.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Membership (cont.)

We will continue to respond to the membership’s needs through active communication with them: anticipating any non-renewals; the needs of disabled stakeholders; and ensuring the whole team is actively involved in membership retention. Member and Partner numbers and retention rates are key performance indicators that reflect the organisation’s ability to achieve its vision and mission. We are confident that the retention rates we have budgeted are achievable and realistic and that our membership will continue to thrive. In times of uncertainty, shared purpose and a sense of belonging can bring comfort and much-needed peer support.

Seminars & events

Our expectations for this year, reflected by our budget, included more inperson events and greater hosting by our Members and Partners. Financial sponsorship has proved problematic to secure, perhaps as companies were cautious about visibly partnering with causes in the context of the anti-DEI sentiment in the media. Companies were however willing to be generous and provide in-kind support, hosting our in-person events at their own cost which replaced the income that we forfeited from sponsorship. Our Disability Smart awards were hosted in person at Freshfields and also live streamed for remote attendees. Our 2024 annual Conference was hosted by BT and our 2025 event was hosted by European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and generously sponsored by Microlink. The current expectation that events, webinars and roundtables will be delivered and attended online gives us greater scope to deliver more events and welcome more delegates from a broader range of locations, including globally.

We will continue for the foreseeable future with the current format of events using online, hybrid and in-person platforms as appropriate for the type and audience of each event. During the year our Events team delivered flagship events alongside seminars, podcasts, round table discussions, toolkit launches, Business Disability podcasts and events tailored specifically for individual Members’ and Partners’ needs. We hosted 4,789 delegates in 2025 (2024: 3,577).

This year we expected to deliver five (2024: six) income generating events which would be complemented by 65 (2024 74) network meetings and webinars and four leader dinners. We actually delivered five (2024: four) income generating events alongside 54 (2024: 58) engagement events and network or Taskforce meetings and four dinners, generating income of £114,722 (2024: £63,206). This was greater than the target of £98,200 (2024: £108,900) as In-Kind sponsorship of venues boosted our income (but was offset by similar expenditure). The programme gave our membership plenty to engage them and to consider. Our events always aim to make delegates view the issues in a new way.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Publications

We have a large cache of online toolkits and resources available to our membership through our Knowledge Hub. https://businessdisabilityforum.org.uk/knowledge-hub/toolkits/) covering a comprehensive range of topics. Our distribution model has become almost wholly online although we can provide hard copy for accessibility purposes.

Many of our resources are open source and available to all. Access to these resources, while contributing to the continuing increase in memberships and membership income, has diminished the appetite for sales of resources for our memberships’ intranets and Learning Management Systems. Toolkits do provide opportunities to raise sponsorship income but this stream has diminished as an income raising exercise and we now concentrate on the public benefit and engagement aspect of our guidance distribution rather than revenue generating opportunities.

We continued to offer our Partners all our guidance as part of their membership and to Members all but the Global Guides. Logged in Members and Partners accessed our Knowledge Hub over 21,500 times (2024: 24,500) and downloaded nearly 43,000 resources (2024: 45,153). Members viewed our pages over half a million times with non-members accessing close to 400,000 of our open-source resources. Several of our toolkits are available as open-source resources and the Disability-essentials toolkit remains one of our most landed on pages.

Turnover on publications sales and projects was £37,800, a small decrease on the previous year (£43,100). We are developing a range of resources for desk free workers who do not have internet access or email addresses to use for logging into our Knowledge Hub. We believe this will provide an increase in this revenue stream next year and provide much needed access to a wider range of employees who in turn will be better supported to meet the needs of their disabled customers.

We have alliances with two companies to promote their accessibility products to our membership who pay us commission at varying rates for introductions. The purpose of these alliances is primarily to ensure we can offer our membership a fuller range of solutions. These strategic alliances delivered £7,500 (2024: £11,700) income in 2025.

Sodexo sponsored our Procurement toolkit, providing access to this previously Partner only toolkit for all members, which generated £10,800 (2024: £10,000).

We continued to offer discounted rates on our publications for all charities and non-profit making organisations as well as our range of free publications and toolkits.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Disability-smart Framework, consultancy and other projects

The Disability-smart framework (formerly the Disability Standard) is the basis for all that Business Disability Forum does. Grounded in a long history of B2B work, the Disability-smart framework uses an organisation-wide approach to disability in a unique way that differentiates Business Disability Forum from other organisations working with employers and service providers on disability.

The framework was last reviewed in 2021 with an updated interface launched in 2024 as part of our website and Knowledge Hub update. The next iteration will become live in 2026. The current version stretches the boundaries of best practice to reinforce the importance of a structured approach to planning for, and making improvements to, disability management as it affects all functional areas within an organisation. The Disability-smart framework provides an evaluation tool with participants answering a comprehensive on-line questionnaire on how disability is addressed and managed within their organisation.

The Disability Smart Framework has generated interest around the globe and has provided a framework for much of our international consulting work and ongoing discussions. This year we have made good progress in developing a global framework to complement the UK based approach which we will launch late in 2025.

We continue to use third parties to deliver some of our consultancy and Learning and Development services, which allows us to concentrate our efforts on delighting the membership and delivering the consultancy projects included within the Partner offer. Our outsourcing arrangement provides ideal solutions to those of our membership that need additional services. This has enabled us to deliver more internal and external projects and to continue to provide in house Learning and Development interventions.

Revenue generation of £435,656 (2024: £392,373) in 2025 was higher than our expectations of £327,670. Internally we were focused more on delivering membership services and benefits that consultancy offerings, meaning direct costs decreased to £390,530 (2024: £470,718). The revenue and expense mix reflects the volume of outsourced work delivered which has supported income delivery while providing valuable solutions to a greater number of Members and Partners.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Strategic priorities

Our aim is to be the go-to organisation for guidance and advice on all aspects of disability as it affects business whilst striving to maintain and grow our core income streams.

2024/25 was a very productive year for Business Disability Forum. We expanded our reach nationally and internationally and continued to improve our profile and reputation particularly in the policy space while developing improved opportunities and capacity to recruit new members and income generating opportunities.

In this time of economic uncertainty, and while the disabled stakeholders who we serve are often more disadvantaged by the economic situation than most, Business Disability Forum’s main focus will be to increase our capability and capacity to deliver the services for which our membership pays.

We will be running schemes using our designated funds to sustainably utilise some of our surplus funds in areas that are not “business as usual” and to test and create solutions to help us meet our mission and improve opportunities for disabled employees and customers.

Strategic priorities for 2025/26, driven by our five-year plan are:

To improve life choices and experiences for more disabled people.
To sustainably increase the membership.
To deliver outcomes from our evidence-based policy and research programme that improve life choices and experiences for disabled people as employees and consumers.
To develop and share cutting edge thought leadership.
To extend opportunities for businesses to network and share best practice.
To create quality information and guidance content in response to business need.

To this end we will increase our capacity through careful employee recruitment, train our existing employees and develop new ways of working for the current environment. We will develop new products and upgrade our website as a medium through which to deliver to a wider audience.

To judge how we are performing against these priorities we will use a range of measures including anecdotal feedback, qualitative and quantitative research.

The ultimate OKR for our relevance is member numbers and by how much the disability employment gap can be reduced.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

DRAFT

Trustees’ report: Year to 30 June 2025

Financial objectives 2024-25

To release sufficient funding to enable recruitment of enough new employees to provide services paid for by the membership, but to ensure this remains sustainable.
To maintain the sustainability of Business Disability Forum’s business model. Increasing the volume and predictability of income and reviewing expenditure, to monitor the cashflow and working capital required to run the organisation.
Further develop OKRs and real time reporting, using real time data to monitor progress against budget and the new five-year plan.
Monitor and control expenditure ensuring a “value for money” approach to resources expended without missing any realistic opportunities for growth and mission delivery.
Report on income and expenditure in real time and provide sufficient information for management to make timely and informed decisions.
Carefully monitor membership renewals which are essential for cash flow.

Approved by the trustees and signed on their behalf by:

Stephen Ingham CBE, Chair EB8D3C81C95E41B... Approved by the trustees on:

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Independent auditor’s report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Independent auditor’s report to the members of Business Disability Forum

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Business Disability Forum (the ‘charitable company’) for the year ended 30 June 2025, which comprise the statement of financial activities, the balance sheet, the statement of cash flows, the principal accounting policies and the notes to the financial statements. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 ‘The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland’ (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion, the financial statements:

give a true and fair view of the state of the charitable company’s affairs as at 30 June 2025 and of its income and expenditure for the year then ended;
have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and
have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charitable company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the Trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Independent auditor’s report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Conclusions relating to going concern (continued)

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the Trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The other information comprises the information included in the Annual Report and Financial Statements, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. The Trustees are responsible for the other information. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:

the information given in the Trustees’ report, which is also the Directors’ report for the purposes of company law, for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and
the Trustees’ report, which is also the Directors’ report for the purposes of company law, has been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Independent auditor’s report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the charitable company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the Trustees’ report. We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

adequate accounting records have not been kept, or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or
the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or
certain disclosures of Trustees’ remuneration specified by law are not made; or
we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit; or
the Trustees were not entitled to prepare the financial statements in accordance with the small companies regime and take advantage of the small companies’ exemptions in preparing the Trustees’ report and from the requirement to prepare a strategic report.

Responsibilities of Trustee

As explained more fully in the statement of Trustees’ responsibilities contained within the Trustees’ report, the Trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the Trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the Trustees are responsible for assessing the charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the Trustees either intend to liquidate the charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Independent auditor’s report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below.

Our approach to identifying and assessing the risks of material misstatement in respect of irregularities, including fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations, was as follows:

the engagement partner ensured that the engagement team collectively had the appropriate competence, capabilities and skills to identify or recognise non-compliance with applicable laws and regulations;
we identified the laws and regulations applicable to the charitable company through discussions with management, and from our commercial knowledge and experience of the sector;
the identified laws and regulations were communicated within the audit team regularly and the team remained alert to instances of noncompliance throughout the audit;
We focused on specific laws and regulations which we considered may have a direct material effect on the accounts or the activities of the charity. These included but were not limited to the Companies Act 2006 and the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland - FRS102, and also the Charities SORP FRS102; and
we assessed the extent of compliance with the laws and regulations identified above through making enquiries of management, inspecting legal correspondence and reviewing Trustee meeting minutes.

We assessed the susceptibility of the company’s financial statements to material misstatement, including obtaining an understanding of how fraud might occur, by:

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Independent auditor’s report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements (continued)

making enquiries of management and those charged with governance as to where they considered there was susceptibility to fraud, their knowledge of actual, suspected and alleged fraud; and
considering the internal controls in place to mitigate risks of fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations.

To address the risk of fraud through management bias and override of controls, we:

performed analytical procedures to identify any unusual or unexpected relationships;
reviewed journal entries to identify unusual transactions;
tested the authorisation of expenditure as part of our substantive testing thereon;
assessed whether judgements and assumptions made in determining the accounting estimates set out in the accounting policies were indicative of potential bias; and
investigated the rationale behind significant or unusual transactions, if any.

In response to the risk of irregularities and non-compliance with laws and regulations, we designed procedures which included, but were not limited to:

agreeing financial statement disclosures to underlying supporting documentation;
reading the minutes of Trustee meetings; and
enquiring of management and those charged with governance as to actual and potential litigation and claims.

There are inherent limitations in our audit procedures described above. The more removed that laws and regulations are from financial transactions, the less likely it is that we would become aware of non-compliance. Auditing standards also limit the audit procedures required to identify non-compliance with laws and regulations to enquiry of the Trustees and other management and the inspection of regulatory and legal correspondence, if any.

Material misstatements that arise due to fraud can be harder to detect than those that arise from error as they may involve deliberate concealment or collusion.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Independent auditor’s report: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements (continued)

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the charitable company’s members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charitable company's members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor's report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charitable company and the charitable company's members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

12/3/2025

Gumayel Miah, Senior Statutory Auditor for and on behalf of Buzzacott Audit LLP, Statutory Auditor 130 Wood Street London EC2V 6DL

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Statement of financial activities incorporating income and expenditure account: Year to 30 June 2025 DRAFT

Notes	Unrestricted funds £	Restricted funds £	2025 Total funds £	2024 Total funds £
Income and expenditure Income from: • Investments • Donations • Charitable activities 1 Total income Expenditure on: Charitable activities 2 Total expenditure Net income and net movement in funds Reconciliation of funds Total funds brought forward at 1 July 2024 Total funds carried forward at 30 June 2025	134,623 450 4,258,841	- - -	134,623 450 4,258,841	99,248 - 3,925,322
	4,393,914	-	4,393,914	4,024,570
	4,319,875	-	4,319,875	3,631,530
	4,319,875	-	4,319,875	3,631,530
	74,039 2,700,713	- 12,125	74,039 2,712,838	393,040 2,319,798
	2,774,752	12,125	2,786,877	2,712,838

All of the charity’s activities derived from continuing operations during the above two financial periods.

The charity has no recognised gains and losses other than those shown above.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Balance Sheet: Year to 30 June 2025

DRAFT

		2025	2025	2024	2024
	Notes	£	£	£	£
Fixed assets
Tangible assets	8		12,790		7,597
Current assets
Debtors	9	556,628		523,994
Cash at bank and in hand		3,360,971		3,192,398
Short term deposits		1,637,579		1,659,437
		5,555,178		5,375,829
Creditors: amounts falling due
within one year	10	(423,588)		(433,311)
Net current assets			5,131,590		4,942,518
Deferred income	11		(2,357,503)		(2,237,277)
Total net assets			2,786,877		2,712,838
Represented by:
Funds and reserves
Unrestricted Funds
General Fund			2,586,690		2,492,131
Training Designated Fund	12		2,312		8,582
NED Designated Fund	12		25,750		-
Parliamentary Affairs	12
Designated Fund			54,750
Designated Fund	12		105,250		200,000
Restricted Fund	13		12,125		12,125
			2,786,877		2,712,838

Approved by the trustees and signed on their behalf by:

Signed by: _ 12/3/2025 [Sp——EB8D3C81C95E41B... Chair Name Steve Ingham CBE

Approved on:

Company Number 02603700

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Statement of Cashflows: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Notes	2025 £	2024 £
Cash flows from operating activities: Net cash provided by operating activities A Cash flows from investing activities: Movement on short term deposits Dividends and interest from investments Purchase of tangible fixed assets Net cash used in investing activities Change in cash and cash equivalents in the year Cash and cash equivalents at 1 July 2024 B Cash and cash equivalents at 30 June 2025 B	24,369	611,176
	21,858 134,623 (12,277)	(1,659,437) 99,248 (1,284)
	144,204	(1,561,473)
	168,573 3,192,398	(950,297) 4,142,695
	3,360,971	3,192,398

Notes to the statement of cash flows for the year to 30 June 2025

A B	Reconciliation of net income to net cashflows from operating activities 2025 £ 2024 £ Net income for the year (as per the statement of financial activities) 74,040 393,040 Adjustments for: - Depreciation charge 7,084 4,696 Dividends and interest from investments (134,623) (99,248) Increase in debtors (32,634) (7,806) Increase in creditors 110,502 320,494 Net cashprovided by operating activities 24,369 611,176 Analysis of cash and cash equivalents 2025 £ 2024 £ Cash at bank and in hand 3,360,971 3,192,398 Total cash and cash equivalents 3,360,971 3,192,398	Reconciliation of net income to net cashflows from operating activities 2025 £ 2024 £ Net income for the year (as per the statement of financial activities) 74,040 393,040 Adjustments for: - Depreciation charge 7,084 4,696 Dividends and interest from investments (134,623) (99,248) Increase in debtors (32,634) (7,806) Increase in creditors 110,502 320,494 Net cashprovided by operating activities 24,369 611,176 Analysis of cash and cash equivalents 2025 £ 2024 £ Cash at bank and in hand 3,360,971 3,192,398 Total cash and cash equivalents 3,360,971 3,192,398
	Net income for the year (as per the statement of financial activities) Adjustments for: Depreciation charge Dividends and interest from investments Increase in debtors Increase in creditors Net cashprovided by operating activities	74,040 7,084 (134,623) (32,634) 110,502
		24,369
	Analysis of cash and cash equivalents	2025 £
	Cash at bank and in hand Total cash and cash equivalents	3,360,971
		3,360,971

No separate reconciliation of changes in net debt has been provided as the charity held no external debt at either the start or end of the reporting period.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Principal accounting policies: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

The principal accounting policies adopted, judgements and key sources of estimation uncertainty in the preparation of the financial statements are laid out below.

Basis of preparation

These financial statements have been prepared for the year to 30 June 2025.

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention with items recognised at cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policies below or the notes to these accounts.

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland - FRS102, and also the Charities SORP FRS102 and the Companies Act 2006.

The charity constitutes a public benefit entity as defined by FRS 102.

The financial statements are presented in sterling and are rounded to the nearest pound.

Critical accounting estimates and areas of judgement

Preparation of the accounts requires the trustees and management to make significant judgements and estimates.

The items in the financial statements where these judgements and estimates have been made include:

Our year end membership figure of 606 assumes that 26 Members and Partners (2024: 38) who have not yet confirmed they will continue in membership will do so. This has no effect on income which is not booked until confirmation is received.

Assessment of going concern

The trustees have assessed whether the use of the going concern assumption is appropriate in preparing these financial statements. The trustees have made this assessment in respect to a period of at least one year from the date of approval of these financial statements.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Principal accounting policies: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Assessment of going concern (continued)

The trustees of the charity have concluded that there are no material uncertainties related to events or conditions that may cast significant doubt on the ability of the charity to continue as a going concern. The trustees are of the opinion that the charity will have sufficient resources to meet its liabilities as they fall due. The most significant areas of judgement that affect items in the financial statements are detailed above. With regard to the next accounting period, the year ending 30 June 2025, the most significant areas that affect Business Disability Forum continuing as a going concern have been raised in the note on Major Risks in the Trustees Report namely:

Insufficient capacity and capability to deliver what we need to achieve
Our products and services do not keep up with developing demands from our customers
Pushback against the DEI agenda, in particular changing attitudes to disability;
The ongoing effects to the economy from the Ukraine conflict and other geopolitical events contributing to fluctuating inflation and uncertainty
Impact and profile insufficiently communicated to make disability a compelling area for business investment with us
Growth in competitors
Key personnel leave to work for competitors
Business Disability Forum receives adverse publicity in the media
Economic and red tape impact of the new government's tax rises and employment legislative agenda
Income does not continue to exceed expenditure

Issues such as the inflationary impact of supply chain issues, energy shortages driven by the drive for net zero and huge money printing programmes undertaken by Central Banks cast a shadow over all companies’ assessments of going concern at this time. We feel our stock of deferred income as reported in these pages (£2.35 million; note 11) provides more than half of the working capital and cashflow to fund us in the year to come. Our free reserves, totalling £2,586,691, have also increased from just £17,085 in 2019 and are budgeted to increase again in 2025/26 following five years of rising demand for our services.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Principal accounting policies: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Assessment of going concern (continued)

Further comfort is provided across our core membership income by the historically high rates of member retention and recruitment that we achieve, the proposition and approach that delivers these high retention rates is continually reviewed and monitored using feedback from the membership, market conditions, advances in disability best practice and knowledge and perceived value. Indeed our recent membership survey returned results which provided areas for continual improvement while confirming that overall our delivery exceeds expectations.

Our budget for 2025/26 has been designed to build on our current performance and is mindful of the likely recession that will come from Government action to in raising corporate taxes, combat inflation, employment legislation and consumer reactions. We have assumed realistic attrition rates for the membership than we have seen in previous years, and used experience gained in 2008-2011 during the great recession to guide our income projections while allowing sufficient expenditure to deliver the services our membership expects to our usual high standards. We can expand as the economy contracts to consolidate our position as the go-to provider of advice on disability in business.

Our healthy cash position resulting from deferred membership, sponsorship and project income means that we will be able to meet all foreseen liabilities as they fall due. Our General Fund has been improved by this year’s sterling performance and our fixed costs are manageable for an organisation of our size and income.

Income recognition

Income is recognised in the period in which the charity has entitlement to the income and the amount can be measured reliably and it is probable that the income will be received. Income is deferred only when the charity has to fulfil conditions before becoming entitled to it or where the donor or funder has specified that the income is to be expended in a future accounting period.

Income comprises membership fees, income from seminars and events, income from publications and training, consultancy and bank interest.

Income from membership fees is recognised over the membership year with the unexpired portion of membership fees being included in the balance sheet as deferred income.

Income from seminars and events, income from publications and training, consultancy, disability standard and from the provision of training and workshops is recognised to the extent that it is probable that the economic benefits will flow to the company and the revenue can be reliably measured.

Income from Sponsorship is recognised when the deliverables for the agreed sponsorship have been accomplished.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Principal accounting policies: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Income recognition (continued)

Income is measured as the fair value of the consideration received or receivable, excluding discounts, rebates, value added tax and other taxes.

Interest on funds held on deposit is included when received and the amount can be measured reliably by the charity; this is normally upon notification of the interest paid by the bank.

Expenditure recognition

Liabilities are recognised as expenditure as soon as there is a legal or constructive obligation committing the charity to make a payment to a third party, it is probable that a transfer of economic benefits will be required in settlement and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably.

Expenditure comprises the costs of charitable activities in respect to the charity’s primary charitable purposes as described in the Trustees’ report. Such costs include:

Events and seminar expenses;
Costs of delivering sponsored projects;
Publication costs; and
External supplier delivery costs.

All expenditure is stated inclusive of irrecoverable VAT.

Allocation of support and governance costs

Support costs represent indirect charitable expenditure. In order to carry out the primary purposes of the charity it is necessary to provide support in the form of personnel development, financial procedures, provision of office services and equipment and a suitable working environment.

Governance costs comprise the costs involving the public accountability of the charity (including audit costs) and costs in respect to its compliance with regulation and good practice.

Support costs and governance costs are apportioned using staff numbers.

Tangible fixed assets

All assets costing more than £1,000 and with an expected useful life exceeding one year are capitalised.

Tangible fixed assets are depreciated at the following annual rates in order to write them off over their estimated useful lives:

Furniture and office equipment 25% per annum based on cost
Computer and similar equipment 33% per annum based on cost

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Principal accounting policies: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

Debtors

Debtors are recognised at their settlement amount, less any provision for non-recoverability. Prepayments are valued at the amount prepaid. They have been discounted to the present value of the future cash receipt where such discounting is material.

Cash at bank and in hand

Cash at bank and in hand represents such accounts and instruments that are available on demand or have a maturity of less than three months from the date of acquisition. Deposits for more than three months but less than one year have been disclosed as short term deposits. Cash placed on deposit for more than one year is disclosed as a fixed asset investment.

Creditors and provisions

Creditors and provisions are recognised when there is an obligation at the balance sheet date as a result of a past event, it is probable that a transfer of economic benefit will be required in settlement, and the amount of the settlement can be estimated reliably. Creditors and provisions are recognised at the amount the charity anticipates it will pay to settle the debt. They have been discounted to the present value of the future cash payment where such discounting is material.

Pension costs

Contributions by the charity in respect of the group money purchase pension scheme (workplace pension scheme) are included in the statement of financial activities when they are payable.

Fund accounting

Designated funds comprise monies set aside out of unrestricted general funds for specific future purposes or projects.

General funds represent those monies which are freely available for application towards achieving any charitable purpose that falls within the charity’s charitable objects.

Restricted funds are monies raised for a specific purpose.

Leased assets

Rentals applicable to operating leases where substantially all of the benefits and risks of ownership remain with the lessor are charged on a straight-line basis over the lease term.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Notes to the financial statements: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

1 Income from charitable activities

	2025 Unrestricted £	2025 Restricted £	2025 Total £	2024 Total £
Membership fee income Seminars and events Publications and training packages Consultancy	3,670,663 114,722 37,800 435,656	- - - -	3,670,663 114,722 37,800 435,656	3,426,643 63,206 43,100 392,373
	4,258,841	-	4,258,841	3,925,322

In Kind income totalling £78,060 (2024 £40,000) has been included in the Training and Events income above. Equal costs have also been included in the direct costs below.

2 Charitable activities

(a) Analysis of costs of unrestricted charitable activities

	Costs allocated directly £	Support costs £	Total 2025 £
Membership Seminars and events Publications and training packages Consultancy and other projects	1,846,822 340,667 42,167 390,530	1,398,370 148,537 55,171 97,611	3,245,192 489,204 97,338 488,141
	2,620,186	1,699,689	4,319,875

	Costs allocated directly £	Support costs £	Total 2024 £
Membership Seminars and events Publications and training packages Consultancy and other projects	1,320,941 239,665 112,085 539,328	1,098,594 118,858 81,503 120,556	2,419,535 358,523 193,588 659,884
	2,212,019	1,419,511	3,631,530

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Notes to the financial statements: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

2 Charitable activities (continued)

(b) Analysis of support costs

	Staff costs £	Office expenses £	Depreciation £	Professional and legal £	2025 Total £
Membership Seminars and events Publications and training packages Consultancy and other projects	833,285 88,513 32,876 58,166	405,690 43,093 16,006 28,319	5,828 619 230 407	153,567 16,312 6,059 10,719	1,398,370 148,537 55,171 97,611
	1,012,840	493,108	7,084	186,657	1,699,689

Support costs are allocated to charitable activities on the basis of staff numbers assigned in each area. Since 2020/21 we have outsourced much of our Consultancy delivery to allow us to focus on deliver Membership services.

	Staff costs £	Office expenses £	Depreciation £	Professional and legal £	2024 Total £
Membership Seminars and events Publications and training packages Consultancy and other projects	624,257 67,538 46,313 68,504	365,789 39,575 27,137 40,140	3,634 393 270 399	104,915 11,351 7,783 11,513	1,098,595 118,857 81,503 120,556
	806,612	472,641	4,696	135,562	1,419,511

3 Governance costs

Governance costs
	2025 Total £	2024 Total £
Staff costs Legal and professional fees Other	35,876 37,828 5,279	32,004 25,508 8,020
	78,983	65,532

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Notes to the financial statements: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

4 Net income and net movement in funds

This is stated after charging:

	2025 Total £	2024 Total £
Staff costs (note 5) Auditor’s remuneration •Statutory audit services •Other services Depreciation Operatinglease rentals	3,196,578 14,670 6,844 7,084 27,484	2,689,265 14,800 4,626 4,696 95,000

5 Employees and staff costs

Staff costs during the year were as follows:

	2025 £	2024 £
Wages and salaries Social security costs Other pension costs Payments to agency staff Staff training Other payments/benefits	2,386,054 274,817 304,585	2,019,024 216,315 239,293
	2,965,456 135,749 22,248 73,124	2,474,632 133,649 16,866 64,118
	3,196,577	2,689,265

The average number of employees during the year was 56 (2024: 50).

The number of employees who earned £60,000 or more (including taxable benefits but excluding employer pension contributions or termination charges) during the year was as follows:

	2025 Number	2024 Number
£60,001 - £70,000 £70,001 - £80,000 £80,001 - £90,000 £90,001 - £100,000 £100,001- £110,000	1 - 2 1 1	- 2 1 2 -
	5	5

5 Employees and staff costs (continued)

Total employer contributions to the group money purchase schemes in respect of the above employees during the year amounted to £77,610 (2024: £90,816).

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Notes to the financial statements: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

The key management personnel of the charity comprise the trustees and the Leadership Team with 6 members (5.4 FTE) (2024: six members, 5.7 FTE). The total remuneration of the key management personnel for the year was £592,661 (2024: £630,673).

6 Trustees

None of the trustees received any remuneration in respect of their services during the year (2024: £nil).

During the year travelling expenses were incurred by one of the trustees in the course of their duties totalling £658. Expenses were reimbursed to trustees during the year where their corporate expense policy did not provide reimbursement. Our policies do allow for expense for any adjustments to be reimbursed but this has not been necessary in the year.

Business Disability Forum has indemnity insurance which covers actual or alleged breach of duty, breach of trust, neglect, error, misstatement, omission, breach of warranty of authority, libel and slander or any other act committed by trustees, officers and employees in the course of the organisation’s activities (subject to specified exclusions). The cost of this insurance was £3,350 (2024: £4,052).

7 Taxation

Business Disability Forum is a registered charity and therefore is not liable to corporation tax on income derived from its charitable activities, as it falls within the various exemptions available to registered charities.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Notes to the financial statements: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

8 Tangible fixed assets

	Fixtures, fittings and equipment £
Cost At 1 July 2024 Additions Disposals At 30 June 2025 Depreciation At 1 July 2024 Charge for the year Disposals At 30 June 2025 Net book values At 30 June 2025 At 30 June 2024	73,463 12,277 -
	85,740
	65,866 7,084 -
	72,950
	12,790
	7,597

	Fixtures, fittings and equipment £
Cost At 1 July 2023 Additions Disposals At 30 June 2024 Depreciation At 1 July 2023 Charge for the year Disposals At 30 June 2024 Net book values At 30 June 2024 At 30 June 2023	83,321 1,284 (11,142)
	73,463
	72,312 4,696 (11,142)
	65,866
	7,597
	11,009

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Notes to the financial statements: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

9 Debtors

Debtors
Due within oneyear	2025 £	2024 £
Fees receivable Other debtors Prepayments and accrued income	427,860 47,296 81,472	405,886 42,447 75,661
	556,628	523,994

10 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year

Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
	2025 £	2024 £
Expense creditors Payroll and VAT creditors Accruals and other creditors	150,629 210,057 62,902	107,319 201,385 124,607
	423,588	433,311

11 Deferred income

Deferred income
	2025 £	2024 £
At 1 July 2024 Invoiced in the year Released in the year At 30 June 2025	2,237,277 5,440,374 (5,320,148)	1,926,919 5,137,072 (4,826,714)
	2,357,503	2,237,277

Deferred membership income includes £1,641,774 (2024: £1,539,248) for the unused element of Members’ and Partners’ current membership year. The remainder of deferred income relates to the second year of certain Partners’ or Members' two year membership fees and also income due from projects, publications and events to be delivered post year-end.

12 Designated Funds

Training Fund

The Trustees recognised that following the restructure in 2020 it was vital that Business Disability Forum’s employees retain, share and improve their business and disability skills and knowledge. To ensure that was possible they designated £20,000 of funds to be used for training and development of employees. We were able to continue to routinely develop our staff as income remained strong so we now use the fund for professional

development and qualifications of our employees such as CIPD, legal, IT or accountancy qualifications.

	2025 £	2024 £
At 1 July 2024 Expenses incurred At 30 June 2025	8,582 6,270	12,656 4,074
	2,312	8,582

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Notes to the financial statements: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

NED Fund

Our Designated fund programme has been set up to use the large surpluses we were previously generating to provide opportunities to explore non-core projects with little hope for financial return but which expand our mission to provide better life opportunities for the disabled community through access to employment opportunities and services. The NED project aims to increase disabled representation among Non-Executive directors on businesses

	2025 £	2024 £
At 1 July 2024 Funds transferred from Designated Fund Expenses incurred At 30 June 2025	- 40,000 14,250	- - -
	25,750	-

Parliamentary Affairs Fund

The Parliamentary Affairs programme project aims to increase MP and Lords’ awareness of the potential for business to improve the life chances of disabled people as employees and customers.

	2025 £	2024 £
At 1 July 2024 Funds transferred from Designated Fund Expenses incurred At 30 June 2025	- 54,750 -	- - -
	54,750	-

Innovation Designated Fund 2025/26

As written earlier a central aim of our five-year plan is to use our surpluses for less commercial, more philanthropic purposes by designating funds for non-core projects aimed at disability in business.

We transferred £200,000 to the designated fund in 2023/24 to be used on projects that continue to undergoing the rigorous selection process. The ideas include: Greater disabled representation as Non-Executive directors. An AI chatbot for our website, an accredited training programme for disability professionals and a portal to provide support for disabled parents, a triage process for Access to Work and a Parliamentary Affairs programme to increase MP and Lords’ awareness of the potential for business to improve the life chances of disabled people as employees and customers.

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

DRAFT

Notes to the financial statements: 30 June 2025

	2025 £	2024 £
At 1 July 2024 Funds transferred from General Fund Transferred to other funds At 30 June 2025	200,000 - 94,750	- 200,000 -
	105,250	200,000

13 Restricted Funds

City Bridge London SME project

City Bridge Trust committed to a five-year grant funded programme to improve the disability confidence of London’s SMEs. This project did not receive the traction that had been hoped, focus on survival following Covid lockdowns being a major cause. In 2023 we agreed with City Bridge that this project should cease but that we would create a toolkit of guidance specifically for SMEs as a legacy of our involvement in the project. This toolkit is maintained on our website.

	2025 £	2024 £
At 1 July 2024 Grants received in the year Expenditure in the year At 30 June 2025	12,125 - -	12,125 - -
	12,125	12,125

14 Leasing commitments

Operating leases

At 30 June 2025 the charity had the following total minimum commitments under non-cancellable operating leases as follows:

	2025	2025	2024	2024
	Land & buildings £	Equipment £	Land & buildings £	Equipment £
Operating leases: Less than one year Between one and two years Between two and fiveyears	- - -	- - -	19,950 - -	- - -

Business Disability Forum

Docusign Envelope ID: FE0B8198-67AF-4ADE-AC3D-621CAF5ADB8A

Notes to the financial statements: 30 June 2025

DRAFT

15 Related party transactions

Seven organisations by which trustees are employed or who are members of the company paid to the charity £172,230 during the year in respect of membership fees and other services, (2024: Five organisations paid £94,999).

Of the 2025 related party transactions £39,720 was outstanding for payment at 30 June 2025 (2024: £28,740).

16 Liability of members

The charity is constituted as a company limited by guarantee. In the event of the charity being wound up, members are required to contribute an amount not exceeding £1.

17 Prior year statement of Financial Activities

Notes	Unrestricted funds £	Restricted funds £	2024 Total funds £	2023 Total funds £
Income and expenditure Income from: • Investments • Donations • Charitable activities 1 Total income Expenditure on: Charitable activities 2 Total expenditure Net Income and net movement in funds Reconciliation of funds Total funds brought forward at 1 July 2023 Total funds carried forward at 30 June 2024	99,248 - 3,925,322	- - -	99,248 - 3,925,322	39,137 75 3,680,818
	4,024,570	-	4,024,570	3,720,030
	3,631,530	-	3,631,530	2,922,275
	3,631,530	-	3,631,530	2,922,275
	393,040 2,307,673	- 12,125	393,040 2,319,798	797,755 1,522,043
	2,700,713	12,125	2,712,838	2,319,798

Accessibility Statement

Business Disability Forum is committed to ensuring that all its information, products and services are as accessible as possible to everyone. If you wish to discuss anything in regards to the accessibility of the information provided in our Annual Report and Financial Statements please contact us as follows: telephone: 020-7403-3020 or by email: enquiries@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk

Business Disability Forum

Annual Report and Financial Statements

Contents

DRAFT

Reference and administrative information

DRAFT

DRAFT

Statement of trustees’ responsibilities

DRAFT

Statement of trustees’ responsibilities (cont.)

Trustees

Other officers

Company Secretary

Senior executives

Members

Organisation and management of Business Disability Forum

Organisation and management of Business Disability Forum (cont.)

Key management personnel

Organisation and management of Business Disability Forum (cont.)

Major risks

Major Risks (cont.)

Major Risks (cont.)

Review of our main risks

Major Risks (cont.)

Objectives and activities

Objectives and activities (cont.)

DRAFT

Creating a disability smart world together

Our values:

Review of activities and impact in 2024-25

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Designated Fund

Policy & Research

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Advice Service

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Legal & Content

Content and resources

Events

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Business Disability Forum in the Press

Speaking and profile raising appearances

Open or invite-only external events:

DRAFT

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Events for individual Members and Partners including:

Taskforces and Networks

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Celebrating best practice

Review of activities and impact in 2024-2025 (cont.)

Financial review 2024-25

Reserves policy

Gender pay and other equality and inclusion metrics

Membership

Membership (cont.)

Membership (cont.)

Membership (cont.)

Seminars & events

Publications

Disability-smart Framework, consultancy and other projects

Strategic priorities

Financial objectives 2024-25

Independent auditor’s report to the members of Business Disability Forum

Opinion

Basis for opinion

Conclusions relating to going concern

Conclusions relating to going concern (continued)

Other information

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

Responsibilities of Trustee

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements (continued)

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements (continued)

Use of our report

Statement of financial activities incorporating income and expenditure account: Year to 30 June 2025 DRAFT

Notes to the statement of cash flows for the year to 30 June 2025