2024-12-31-accounts - Rights and Security International

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Annual Report

BOARD OF TRUSTEES’ REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

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Company number: 02489161 Charity number: 1048335

Committee Members	Sofia Ashraf (joined 14 August 2025)
(Trustees)	Stephen Edwards Dina Hashem
	Nadim Houry (resigned 14 August 2025)
	Nicole Leaver (joined 14 August 2025)
	Joanne Mariner
	Scarlett McGwire (resigned 31 January 2025)
	Kieran McEvoy (resigned 30 January 2025)
	Ciara McHugh (joined 14 August 2025)
	Wilder Tayler
	Marco Velasquez Ruiz (joined 14 August
	2025)
	Miqdaad Versi
Chair Treasurer Company Number Charity Number Registered Office Independent Examiner Bankers	Stephen Edwards Stephen Edwards (interim) 02489161 1048335 465C Hornsey Road, London N19 4DR Aaron Scrupps, ACA Upstreamly 7 Albert Buildings 49 Queen Victoria Street London EC4N 4SA CAF Bank Ltd PO Box 289 Kings Hill West Malling ME19 4TA

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

For more than 30 years, Rights & Security International (RSI) has worked collaboratively to document and end human rights violations that governments commit in the name of national security. We find the facts, propose law reforms based on evidence, defend human rights in court, and help others understand how to use human rights law as a practical tool for change.

Our principled, expert work ensures that the important protections of international human rights law remain in place for everyone, and helps stop governments from sliding into secrecy, impunity and oppression. We have a particular focus on challenging religious, racial, gender and other bias in national security policing.

Under a new strategic plan adopted for 2025-2029, we aim to become the UK’s preeminent charity promoting the freedoms of thought, religion, belief and opinion, along with the freedom to express those thoughts and views.

Our charity was originally established in the early 1990s to address torture, killings and arbitrary detention in Northern Ireland. Following the 9/11 attacks and rise of Islamophobic rhetoric and policing tactics in the UK, we expanded our work to focus on Great Britain as well as Northern Ireland. In 2020, we became an international organisation that promotes respect for human rights when governments act in the name of countering terrorism or extremism anywhere in the world. However, one distinctive aspect of our work is that it remains rooted in our decades of experience with investigating abuses and promoting accountability in Northern Ireland, and we have continually maintained projects in that region.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Under our constitution (‘memorandum of association’), our goals are:

Goals:

1 ‘sy

The promotion by means of education and research of the proper observance and maintenance of human rights in Britain and Ireland and elsewhere in the world with particular reference to the conflict in Northern Ireland;

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The promotion and dissemination of knowledge, information and understanding of such human rights by writing, publishing and distributing articles, reports, books and other documents and assisting in the same, by arranging and providing lectures and seminars, and by all other means of providing and exchanging information;

3 Ff

To procure the abolition of torture, extrajudicial executions, and arbitrary arrest, detention and exile.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

On 28 March 2025, our Trustees voted to add a further charitable purpose to our constitution:

We ensure that all of our work aligns with our organisational values:

“The promotion of human rights, diversity, equality, and racial and religious harmony in Britain and Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland, through the individualised provision of legal or other advice, or other informational support, to migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, people facing unlawful discrimination or hate crime, and their dependants, provided that these services must always be offered free of charge.”

This addition will clarify that the education and knowledge dissemination we may conduct includes direct advice to individuals, insofar as we are legally authorised to provide such advice. An amendment to our constitution will be filed in 2025 accordingly.

In 2024, we continued to build relationships with local partner organisations in the UK and around the world to achieve the aforementioned goals. We help our partners take advantage of opportunities to connect with one another and raise their voices on the global stage, drawing the attention of the United Nations and the media to rights violations that are harming them. We have also consulted extensively with partners in Northern Ireland about the pilot version of a new free immigration advice service we plan to create there.

1.In all we do, we seek to learn lessons from past experiences, especially in Northern Ireland, to better inform the way forward.
2.We act with integrity, protecting our independence and objectivity.
3.We strive for excellence in all aspects of our work.
4.Our work is considered and practical in approach.
5.We strive to be forward-looking, anticipating the changes and challenges that will affect human rights in the field of national security.
6.We work collaboratively both internally and with our partners.

All of our projects follow specific 12-month plans developed by staff and approved by the Executive Director, in consultation with the Trustees.

This annual report and the accompanying financial statements have been prepared and approved by RSI’s Committee, which is the Board of Directors of the charity for company law purposes and trustees for charity law purposes (‘the Board’). The Board confirms that this annual report and the accompanying financial statements comply with current statutory requirements in England and Wales, the requirements of RSI’s governing document and the provisions of the Statement of Recommended Practice – SORP FRS 102 taken together with the applicable Update Bulletin 1.

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Our projects, achievements and public benefit in 2024

In 2024, our programmes of work fell into three categories. We have updated these categories for 2024 to reflect our current projects more specifically.

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Increasing global
Ensuring respect for the
Promoting racial justice knowledge of human rights
freedom of religion,
and migrants’ rights in related to national security
freedom of thought, and emergencies, and
the United Kingdom.
freedom of expression helping civil society groups
and privacy rights in the globally increase their
United Kingdom. advocacy on these issues.
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Our work in the United Kingdom focused particularly on England and Northern Ireland. We had three overarching goals as we carried out these programmes of work:

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Ensuring that national Through training and security laws and policies, other support, ensuring especially those of the UK, that civil society groups respect human rights. These in the UK and elsewhere include what the in the world can safely government increasingly and effectively raise describes as ‘security’concerns at UN level focused or ‘counterterrorism-style’ laws on about respect for human migration rights.

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Ensuring that those who have carried out human rights abuses are held to account.

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

We achieved these goals by:

Working to ensure that the 1 methods government officials and police – especially in the UK – use to fight terrorism and ‘extremism’ are in line with international human rights law and are legal under domestic law.

Promoting independent and effective oversight of government activities on counter-terrorism and counterextremism, including to detect and address any potential racism, Islamophobia, sexism, intersectional discrimination or other bias. Activities under this heading include seeking greater transparency, for example by submitting freedom-ofinformation requests.

Helping civil society groups in Global Majority countries connect with one another to take advantage of advocacy opportunities at UN level, and to advocate for improvements in how the UN engages with activists.

Promoting accountability and redress for individuals who have suffered human rights abuses as a result of a government’s conduct in the course of counter-terrorism or counter-extremism operations.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Launch of the completed global scoping study on how the UN engages with activists about human rights issues related to counter-terrorism

Following 18 months of research and consultations with civil society groups around the world, including through several in-person convenings, we launched a report we had co-authored on UN engagement with civil society about counter-terrorism and human rights issues at UN headquarters in New York in May 2024. During the launch, our staff addressed numerous assembled civil society leaders and staff on panels that also included, for example, the Acting Permanent Representative from the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the UN Special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.

The report was well-received by a range of UN missions and agencies, and the Advisory Committee is now an informal network of experts across the globe who have come to know one another through this project and are poised for further collaboration. We are especially pleased to have brought groups and experts from Latin America into these conversations, where they are often badly underrepresented.

Carrying out a global study on this scale and launching a report at UN headquarters both represent major strides in RSI’s international work and show that although we remain a small organisation, our capabilities are strong.

The report candidly addresses barriers to civil society engagement, ranging from the UN’s institutional culture and gatekeeping by Global North organisations to problems of tokenisation, Islamophobia, colonialist attitudes and sexism—and makes concrete recommendations for change. It reflects research conducted with nearly 200 civil society organisations and activists from over 50 countries, 15 of whom served on the report’s Advisory Committee (which was majority-female, unusually for any study of counterterrorism).

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Advocacy partnerships in El Salvador and Kenya

Throughout the year, we helped build new networks at the national level, as groups in El Salvador and Kenya came together – with our administrative and drafting support – to prepare reports for the UN’s Universal Periodic Reviews (UPR) of their respective countries.

In El Salvador, we helped partners raise their voices about rights violations committed by state security forces in the fight against what the government calls ‘criminal terrorist groups’. We helped the groups prepare written submissions for the UPR and then fundraised for their travel to Geneva for direct advocacy, successfully finding support for a representative from one of the NGOs. Three organisations with which we were partnering were also able to attend a training on Geneva advocacy.

Ultimately, our delegation of NGOs (totalling three organisations from El Salvador as well as ourselves) met with the missions of 12 UN Member States, with many of those meetings arranged by RSI, and participated in a meeting with all EU ambassadors that had been organised by the EU delegation. They also met with three UN ‘special procedures’ (designated experts and working groups on specific human rights topics, such as extrajudicial executions).

At the NGOs’ request, RSI raised the issues of El Salvador’s misuse of ‘counter-terrorism’ measures to tackle alleged gang crime, a problem that has become increasingly severe, as well as the harmful impact El Salvador’s ‘security’ model is having in the region as other countries begin copying these rights-violating measures.

Our NGO partners told us they valued our contributions because our drafting work enabled them to raise ‘securityrelated’ issues explicitly at a time when they lacked the capacity to prepare a submission on that point; our UPR submission made the ‘security’ issues more prominent than they otherwise would have been. They also said we had contributed to their longer-term strategies.

As of late 2024, we were carrying out similar work with NGOs in Kenya that culminated in advocacy by two Kenyan organisations (with our support) in Geneva in early 2025.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Human rights in Northern Ireland

We continued to expand our work regarding human rights in Northern Ireland, including by investigating police and officials’ respect for protesters’ rights in the region and advocating for the new government in Westminster to repeal the controversial and harmful ‘Legacy Act’. The Labour party had made the repeal of the Act part of its 2024 election platform, a major victory for us and our partners.

To date, the new government has continued to defend its stance on the Legacy Act, although it has resisted court rulings finding that the Act violates human rights. It has also permitted the new ‘Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery’ (ICRIR), which we say is not sufficient to provide justice for victims or their families, to begin functioning. Based on standards for effective justice that the European Court of Human Rights has established, as well as the ICRIR’s own stated goals, we drafted a set of ‘key performance indicators’ for the body that we then published in early 2025. We plan to evaluate the body against these indicators later in 2025.

For example, groups that wish to stage a moving protest must submit an application to the authorities 28 days ahead of time and often must purchase public liability insurance or seek another organisation to facilitate this for them. The situation is so confusing that groups treat insurance as a de facto requirement, meaning that they must pay to protest. We believe these and other restrictions violate the UK’s Human Rights Act. These NI restrictions and their harmful consequences are part of a bigger picture of rights-violating restrictions on protests rights throughout the UK, including an increasing criminalisation of protests. We continue to address these UK-wide issues through our parliamentary advocacy.

In 2024, we also completed an investigation into protesters’ rights in Northern Ireland, where all demonstrations are strictly regulated and subject to several layers of ‘red tape’ under rules and practices that were originally designed with sectarian parades in mind.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Increased transparency about the racial impact of the controversial ‘Prevent’ programme

For many years, we have been working to end the UK’s controversial ‘Prevent’ counter-extremism programme, which we and other NGOs say amounts to an illegal policing of thoughts, opinions, and beliefs. In 2024, we focused particularly on the possibility that Prevent relies on, and is perpetuating, racial discrimination. In February, we published information from the government showing that it was failing to collect race data regarding twothirds of all Prevent referrals. In October, we published statistics raising concerns that Prevent referrals may be disproportionately impacting people in Great Britain who are of Black, South Asian, North African or West Asian descent.

During the year, we sent formal letters to the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office threatening a judicial review over their failure to collect enough data about Prevent’s impacts to enable meaningful equality monitoring, which we argue violates the public sector equality duty. We received responses from both bodies in which they provided us with further information about the way they collect and process Prevent data, as well as how they monitor the discriminatory impacts of the strategy.

In June 2024, we organised a roundtable discussion of civil society and academic experts on Prevent alternatives. Our recommendations for an ‘alternative to Prevent’ were sent to relevant members of government during the Home Office’s ‘Counter Extremism Sprint’, which concluded at the end of 2024. In October 2024, RSI also held a panel event discussing free expression rights and Prevent as they relate to expressions of support for Palestinian rights.

In March 2024, we had revealed a government document treating a belief in socialism, communism or anti-fascism, or opposition to abortion, as signs of potential ‘extremism’. After our finding was reported in the media, the government changed the relevant training. In April 2024, we published an investigative report on the UK’s export of the Prevent counter-extremism model to Indonesia.

To the extent permitted by law, we have been continually publishing the information we have obtained through the pre-action process as well as under the Freedom of Information Act.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Migration and citizenship

RSI had a strong focus on researching issues of citizenship in 2024. Under UK law, people seeking to naturalise as British citizens must pass a vague ‘good character’ test that we suspect the Home Office has been applying in a discriminatory manner. Our initial research into this requirement will be published in 2025 and will assess the racist origins of the requirement and the impact it has on migrant and minority groups in the UK today. Our research has focused primarily on how the Home Office applies the ‘good character’ requirement to adults seeking to naturalise, including where the UK Home Secretary has refused applications on ‘good character’ grounds while citing ‘terrorism’ or ‘national security’ concerns. Among those refused on these grounds, many had not been convicted of – or even charged with – any terrorismrelated crimes prior to the refusal of their naturalisation applications.

We aim to bring about a change in this law, which we regard as so vague (and therefore susceptible to abuse) that it violates human rights. This under-examined issue impacts thousands of people annually, making it ripe for activism.

In an effort to counter the hostile environment for migrants in Northern Ireland and reduce their lived insecurity, RSI made plans to establish a new free immigration advice service in Northern Ireland (initially in Belfast) in 2025.

Migrants in Northern Ireland face exceptionally high levels of racist hate crimes and violence, including by paramilitary/far-right groups – an issue we highlighted in direct advocacy with the UN CERD Committee in 2024, and which the Committee then pressed the government to address. Despite these known vulnerabilities, our research shows that NI is an immigration ‘advice desert’, meaning that migrants often must navigate a complex system without access to free or low-cost advice.

As well as benefitting migrants via tailored support to help them settle and build safer, more fulfilling lives, we anticipate that the service will help us to identify systemic problems to address through advocacy and litigation to ensure that laws better reflect migrants’ needs. It will also signal that migrants ‘belong’ in Northern Ireland.

We undertook extensive consultations with Northern Ireland-based groups during 2024 and worked towards securing Immigration Advice Authority accreditation for our new service, which we plan to pilot in collaboration with local civil society groups. In time, we hope to expand the service to underserved areas of England.

We continued to update our path-breaking ‘repatriations tracker’ in 2024, a tool that makes it easier for journalists, impacted families, legal experts and the public to see how many repatriations various countries have carried out from the camps. The figures are disaggregated by gender and adult/child status, and a wide range of partners and media outlets have been relying on this tool.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Other UK legislation

RSI continued to advocate against specific clauses of the Data (Use and Access) Bill (DUAB), which reflects an effort by the current government to change data protection law, after the prior government failed to pass the Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill (DPDIB) before the July 2024 election in the face of widespread political and public opposition. Clauses in the Bill threaten the human right to privacy while undermining the rule of law by creating impunity for police rulebreaking.

We also published a briefing explaining and opposing the use in the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill of an even weaker version of the standard in the United States for searches of data: the law, which has now been adopted, empowers the UK intelligence agencies to obtain bulk collections of personal data if – in the view of the UK government – people only had ‘low or no reasonable expectation of privacy’ in any part of that data.

Protecting and promoting international civic space

During 2024, RSI reevaluated its international strategy, and following numerous consultations, decided to focus on ending the use/misuse of legislation, policies and practices – particularly those related to counterterrorism and security – that restrict civic space in the Global South and violate the human rights to freedom of expression and association. We will also focus on strengthening the capacity of civil society organisations in Global Majority countries to influence legislation, policies and practices that restrict civic space, bringing them into line with international human rights standards and ensuring accountability for human rights violations.

We also made intensive efforts during 2024 to determine how and where RSI can best support respect for the rights of peaceful climate justice movements both in the UK and internationally. We have witnessed an emerging trend in which states worldwide are treating climate justice protesters and activists as ‘security’ or ‘terrorism’ threats (or similar) and criminalising them accordingly. We believe we can add value to movements to protect human rights defenders by contributing our experience in challenging rhetoric and laws about ‘security’, ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ that states use to justify repression.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

UK facilitation of abuses in Indonesia

As noted above, in April 2024 RSI published Exporting Prevent: The UK government’s complicity in rights-violating counterextremism programmes in Indonesia, which sets out the ways in which the UK is helping Indonesia violate the freedom of religion and risks complicity in other abuses such as torture and disappearances by exporting its ‘Prevent’ counter-extremism strategy to the country.

The report showed that the UK has supported harmful counter-extremism practices in Indonesia – the world’s most populous majority-Muslim country – even though the Indonesian government has official policies of repressing non-approved faiths. The report also documented that the UK has trained police and military officers from departments and units that have allegedly gone on to commit serious crimes.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Our public benefit

Our Board confirms that it has paid due regard to public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission. The public benefits of the RSI’s activities include, for example:

Raising public awareness about the human rights impacts of governments’ national security and counterextremism laws and policies – for example, by obtaining and publishing new information, and by holding public events.

Advocating for reforms to better protect the human rights of people in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

Educating members of the UK Parliament about the potential human rights consequences of bills so they can make informed decisions on behalf of the public.

Building knowledge of human rights in communities and regions that are heavily impacted by national security laws and policies.

Obtaining greater transparency and accountability about activities the UK government undertakes regarding national security, for example by filing freedom-of-information requests on issues of public interest in this area.

Submitting expert analyses to government, UN and other bodies seeking to evaluate human rights matters, such as all-party parliamentary groups, Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights and UN human rights treaty bodies.

Promoting respect for the rights of victims of human rights abuses allegedly carried out by the UK government, including killings, torture, arbitrary detention and exile.

Developing educational documents about government policies and human rights for public audiences.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Structure, Governance and Management

Our charity is managed by the Board, which meets at least four times per year. RSI is a private company limited by guarantee (company number 02489161) and is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission (registered number 1048335). Our governance is managed by a body referred to as the ‘Committee.’ The Committee is comprised of elected trustees, also known as ‘committee members’, as well as the Executive Director. The responsibilities of the Trustees of RSI are set out in the charity’s governing documents, which are its memorandum of association and articles of association. Broadly speaking, the trustees of RSI have independent control over, and legal responsibility for, the Charity’s management and administration.

The Trustees/Directors ensure that all of RSI’s actions are undertaken in pursuance of the purposes for which it was incorporated and act at all times in a manner which they consider would be most likely to promote our success. At all times, Trustees/Directors take adequate steps to ensure that any conflict of interest or loyalty do not fetter their decision-making and identify and declare any such conflict at the beginning of any Committee meeting or annual general meeting (as appropriate). There are no restrictions in the Articles stipulating either a maximum or minimum number of individuals who may be appointed as committee members at any given time. All the Trustees/Directors, except the Executive Director, must retire at every annual general meeting. However, retiring Trustees/Directors remain eligible for reelection, and may be re-elected if it is so agreed by two-thirds of all Trustees/Directors present and voting at the annual general meeting.

All decisions made by the Committee should be made either at a Committee meeting or at the annual general meeting. All matters for consideration at a Committee meeting are approved by a simple majority of the trustees present and voting, except for the appointment of trustees, which must be approved by twothirds of all trustees present and voting. In the event votes are equal, the Chairperson has a second casting vote.

There are no maximum terms for the Trustees, but RSI pays heed to Charity Commission guidance setting out recommended maximums. In 2024, the Trustees became aware that several current members had reached or would soon reach the maximum nine-year period of service recommended by the Charity Commission. RSI therefore began an active effort to recruit new Trustees, and the current Trustees are committed to successful transitions that ensure continual strong oversight of RSI as new Trustees join and long-serving ones conclude their service. In the meantime, the Trustees/Directors have regarded continuity as exceptionally important during the years when RSI has faced the Covid-19 pandemic, an Executive Director transition and, most recently, the fundraising challenges that have impacted RSI alongside the entire UK charity sector. Longserving Trustees have also served as a vital source of institutional memory, which has aided the Executive Director.

RSI’s Trustees/Directors are responsible for our charity’s funds. The Trustees/Directors put in place a budget and keep accurate records of RSI’s income and expenditure, including through the preparation of monthly management accounts by a third-party accountant.

The Executive Director of RSI is a Director who has been appointed to an executive office within the charity and has entered into an employment contract with the charity. The powers of the Executive Director are set out in her employment contract and otherwise agreed with the Trustees. The Executive Director, along with the Treasurer and the Chairperson, are responsible for the review of monthly spending reports, which are then shared with the other Trustees. The Executive Director is responsible for all operational matters.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Institutional strengthening

RSI maintained largely stable staff numbers in 2024, although several of these positions will end or be reduced in 2025, partly reflecting the end of certain project-specific grants and partly the challenging fundraising environment that all UK charities are facing.

As noted above, four of our trustees have reached the end of the maximum nine-year period of service recommended by the Charity Commission, so we are actively recruiting new trustees – with a view to bolstering the representation of directly impacted people on our Board. Between late 2024 and August 2025, four of our Trustees departed; however, we continue to have five highly supportive trustees and have recruited four more.

We have adopted a new strategic plan for 20252029 that focuses on promoting and defending the freedoms of expression, opinion, religion, belief and association, with a special emphasis on the rights of peaceful protesters. We have also been begun a process of re-branding and will launch a new website and logo in mid-2025.

We continually review our salary bands to ensure fairness and to address cost-of-living pressures as best we can. We also continually adjust our recruitment processes to increase our diversity, equity and inclusion.

Financial and business review

At RSI, we continue to achieve a great deal of impactful work with relatively modest funding. While we continue to aim for sustainable growth, our income from grants, individual donations, bequests and investments (e.g. bank interest) during this period declined from £565,520 in 2023 to £408,735 in 2024. This decrease occurred due to several factors: a large project grant we had received from the Global Center on Cooperative Security came to an end as we finished that project; our final grant from the Oak Foundation also came to an end (as we had anticipated and planned for), as Oak had funded us for an exceptionally long time; and many UK-based funds experienced a surge in applications due to difficult economic times for charities, making it more difficult for us to secure grants. However, our end-of-year positions for 2023 (£477,488) and 2024 (£417,524) were more similar.

Due to fluctuations in our litigation work (which was less extensive in 2024) and our increasing ability to do freedom-of-information work inhouse, the value of services donated to us by our solicitors and barristers decreased from £107,481 in 2023 to £18,935 in 2024.

As a result of these various factors, our total income decreased from £681,864 in 2023 to £438,529. in 2024.

We continue to diversify our activities and, therefore, our sources of funding, while formulating new business plans to ensure our sustainability. At the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025, we secured grants from several new donors: the National Lottery Community Fund; the Equality and Human Rights Commission (a small, project-specific grant for advocacy at the UN); and the Law Society Charity. We are making progress toward establishing an individual giving programme and maintain a dedicated Fundraising Officer role to ensure that we secure adequate funds for our activities.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Our expenditure decreased from £673,620 in 2023 to £498,763 in 2024 (with the value of donated services counted as an expenditure), and we carried £55,547 in restricted funds forward into 2025. Our expenditure will appear to exceed our income due to cash flow; we often receive grants that span multiple financial years and need to be spent down.

We also carried forward £176,030 in designated unrestricted funds into 2025, a figure that partly reflects our receipt of a large grant instalment from the Oak Foundation relatively late in the year, as well as strategic decisions to ensure stability in 2025 while our foundation funding experiences a shift from relatively large core funding to smaller project grants. We carried forward £185,677 in funds that were unrestricted and not designated. Where appropriate, the policy of the Board of Trustees is to invest the amount that it has available and grants received.

Risk management and reserves policy

The Board has considered the risks to which the RSI is exposed and has taken steps to mitigate those risks.

We aim to hold the equivalent of three to six months of unrestricted funds not committed or invested in tangible fixed assets in reserves, currently approximately £110,000 to £220,000. The free reserves – the unrestricted funds carried forward less the restricted fixed assets and designated funds – at 31 December 2024 were £185,677.

Funding

The Charity gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the following, who made donations or commitments in 2024 or whose grants from 2023 extended into 2024:

The Oak Foundation

Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust Open Society Foundations Baring Foundation
Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust John Ellerman Foundation
A B Charitable Trust All Ways Network The Law Society Charity
The National Lottery Community Fund
The Equality and Human Rights Commission
Individual friends of RSI in the UK

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

Public benefit statement

The Board of Trustees confirms that it has complied with its duty to have due regard to the guidance on public benefit published by the Charity Commission in exercising its powers or duties.

Small company exemptions

This report of the Board of Trustees has been prepared taking advantage of the small companies exemption of section 415A of the Companies Act 2006.

Statement of the Board of Trustees’ responsibilities

The Board of Trustees are responsible for preparing our annual report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice. Company law requires the Board of Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year that give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of RSI and of the surplus or deficit we have for that period. In preparing those financial statements, the Board of Trustees is required to:

select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
make judgments and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the company will continue in business.

The Board of Trustees is responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy the financial position of the company, to enable them to ensure that the accounts comply with the Companies Act 2006. The Board is also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the company and, therefore, for taking reasonable steps to prevent and detect fraud or other irregularities.

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

BOARD OF TRUSTEES’ REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024