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2024-03-31-accounts

JUSTICE

Report and financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2024

Company Number: 03216897 Charity Number: 1058580 Scottish Charity Number: SC43518

JUSTICE

Contents

For the year ended 31 March 2024

Reference and administrative information ....................................................................................... 1 Trustees’ annual report ................................................................................................................... 3 An introduction from our Chair of the JUSTICE Board, Peter Binning ................................................ 3 Objectives and activities .................................................................................................................. 5 Achievements and performance .................................................................................................... 11 Plans for the future from JUSTICE Chief Executive, Fiona Rutherford ............................................. 39 Structure, governance and management ....................................................................................... 41 Staffing and volunteers ................................................................................................................. 44 Independent auditor’s report ........................................................................................................ 50 Statement of financial activities (incorporating an income and expenditure account) .................... 55 Balance sheet ................................................................................................................................ 56 Statement of cash flows ................................................................................................................ 57 Notes to the financial statements .................................................................................................. 58

JUSTICE

Reference and administrative information

For the year ended 31 March 2024

Company Number 03216897
Country of incorporation
United Kingdom
Charity Number 1058580
Country of registration
England and Wales
Scottish Charity Number
SC43518 registered in Scotland
Registered office and 2nd Floor, Lincoln House
Operational address
296-302 High Holborn
London
WC1V 7JH
Board members Board members, who are also directors under company law and the charity
trustees as defined by section 177 of the Charities Act 2011, who served
during the year and up to the date of this report were as follows:
Peter Binning Chair from 10 November 2020
Rachel Sexton
Nick Benson (from 8 November 2023)
I. Stephanie Boyce
Alexandra Carr (to 8 November 2023)
Patrick Corr
Ruth Crawford KC (from 8 November 2023)
Professor Naomi Creutzfeldt
Alastair Livesey
Jennifer MacLeod
Sara Mansoori KC
Maryann McMahon (co-opted from 11 December 2023)
Kate Saunders (to 8 November 2023)
Dame Alison Saunders DCB
Alice Smith
Christian Weaver
Charles Wynn-Evans (from 8 November 2023)
Key management Fiona Rutherford Chief Executive
personnel Samantha Burridge Director of Operations
Jane Collier Director of Development (from 15 January
2024)
Amanda Miller Director of Development (to 31 January 2024)
Stephanie Needleman Legal Director
Tyrone Steele Interim Legal Director (from April 2023 to
January 2024)

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JUSTICE

Reference and administrative information

For the year ended 31 March 2024

Bankers Lloyds Bank plc 222 Strand London WC2R 1BB CAFCash Ltd PO Box 289 West Malling Kent, ME19 4TA Investment BlackRock managers 33 King William St London EC4R 9AS CCLA Investment Management Ltd 80 Cheapside London EC2V 6DZ Auditor Sayer Vincent LLP Chartered Accountants and Statutory Auditor 110 Golden Lane London EC1Y 0TG

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Trustees’ annual report

For the year ended 31 March 2024

An introduction from our Chair of the JUSTICE Board, Peter Binning

Welcome to JUSTICE’s Trustees’ Annual Report and Financial statements. I hope this provides you with an overview of the achievements and challenges we have faced across the past year.

This year was an extremely busy one for JUSTICE: we produced seven reports, each of which engaged our membership and the wider legal community to identify key issues and pragmatic solutions to pressing justice system issues. We also either launched or began scoping work on ten research projects – including a multiyear project on AI, human rights and the law – and continued our work to implement recommendations from our many previous reports. In addition, we undertook a significant amount of parliamentary briefing and consultation work due to the government’s heavy legislative agenda, briefing on six bills and responding to seven consultations across a range of access to justice, rule of law and human rights issues.

Some outstanding achievements of the year include our landmark report on the rule of law, notable successes in implementing our recommendations for reform for private family proceedings for separating families, and ensuring government accountability in judicial review proceedings via a successful legal intervention.

We hosted a bumper programme of both free and ticketed events this year, reaching people from students to senior judges and audiences in Belfast, Edinburgh, Leeds, and London. Our event series on the rule of law was a particular highlight of mine, as well as our lively and thought-provoking annual conference.

In 2022 we sold our freehold property, which was originally bought as part of an appeal and formed part of our endowment fund. To stay true to the appeal’s intentions of providing a home for the charity, the trustees finalised an endowment policy which stipulates that the endowment be conserved to fund office accommodation. After spending much of this year in temporary office accommodation, I am glad to say that the team are looking forward to moving into a new permanent office towards the end of the summer.

Our fundraising efforts were very successful again this year, bringing a 20% increase to overall income (due to increases in membership, donation, and JUSTICE60 income, as well as an increase in income from Trusts and Foundations and corporate organisations and some fantastic fundraising events).

Overall, however, JUSTICE recorded a net deficit of around £25k this year. Although this was an improvement on the expected deficit of £38k, we ended the year with reserves just over our reserves policy. The Senior Management Team are continuing to develop a five-to-ten-year plan and forecasting model to ensure JUSTICE’s sustainability and growth for the future, to put the organisation on a more secure long-term funding base.

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Trustees’ annual report

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The Finance Committee and Board continue to oversee the finances, paying close attention to the plans for improving our deficit situation. We consider that the fundraising plans for the year ahead are achievable and we will support the staff to achieve these targets and monitor progress against them.

This is my last year as Chair of JUSTICE’s board, as I am standing down in October. I look forward to seeing this important law reform and human rights charity continue to grow in expertise and influence in the years to come. I am very proud to have played a part in its hugely impressive range of work across the UK justice system – it has been a real privilege. I am also so grateful to all who work on behalf of JUSTICE and to you, our members and supporters.

I hope you enjoy reading this report. There is much for us to do in the next few years and much that JUSTICE can achieve, with the help of our members and supporters across the country and around the world (I am pleased to say that we have had a number of overseas guests at recent events who are very impressed with the work we do). I urge you to support us in any way you can and to spread the word about the work that we do and why it is more important than ever.

Thank you.

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Trustees’ annual report

For the year ended 31 March 2024

The JUSTICE Board present their report and the audited financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2024.

Reference and administrative information, set out on pages 1 and 2, forms part of this report. The financial statements comply with current statutory requirements, the memorandum, articles of association, and the Statement of Recommended Practice - Accounting and Reporting by Charities: SORP applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with FRS 102.

Objectives and activities

Purposes and aims

JUSTICE is an all-party membership organisation, drawn primarily from the legal profession with a common commitment to the rule of law and the fair administration of justice.

As reflected in our governing documents:

JUSTICE was established to promote the sound development and administration of the law for the benefit of the public in the following ways:

(a) By promoting education and conducting research into the law, including current and proposed practice and administration and reform of the law, as the JUSTICE Board thinks fit, and by publishing the useful results of such research;

(b) By providing specialist legal advice in relation to the law and legal procedures particularly in cases where it is apprehended that a miscarriage of justice has taken place;

(c) By providing legal representation for those who are unable to obtain legal representation from their own resources, particularly in cases where it is apprehended that a miscarriage of justice has taken place;

(d) and for such other purposes for the benefit of the community as shall be exclusively charitable.

Our primary focus is on overcoming institutional and procedural barriers to access to justice and fairness for people using the system. We put their experiences at the heart of our work, and we recognise that many aspects of the existing structure and practises within the justice system compound exclusion for disadvantaged people.

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Across all our work we address:

Institutional weakness: considering ways to strengthen the operation of key institutions and frameworks in the justice system, testing them for fairness, accessibility, and efficiency.

Procedural deficiency: identifying and challenging unfair, inaccessible, and inefficient legal procedures. We will examine the potential of technology and innovation in delivering justice – including alternatives to traditional justice processes – and consider and influence its emerging impact on the system.

Biases in the justice system: exploring and confronting the ways in which the justice system adversely treats and impacts upon individuals and groups based on their status and/or protected characteristics including race, gender, disability and/or socio-economic status.

In recent years, JUSTICE has moved away from providing legal advice and representation. In part, this has been the result of the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which has taken on much of JUSTICE’s previous work on miscarriages of justice. We continue to be involved in how miscarriages of justice are handled, both in the courts and by the CCRC.

The focus of our work

JUSTICE’s strategic plan for 2021-24 continued to see our work span administrative, civil, family and criminal justice in the United Kingdom.

Our four intersecting core areas of activity have been:

JUSTICE also provided the Secretariat for the Administrative Justice Council (the AJC) during 202324, though we will not do so from April 2024 onwards for reasons set out below. Despite this change,

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we foresee continuing to work closely with the AJC, both through the Secretariat and Fiona Rutherford’s membership of the Council and the team’s involvement in AJC projects.

Public benefit

Since its formation in 1957, JUSTICE has been at the cutting edge of the debate on legal reform and is widely respected for the breadth, depth and quality of its analysis. Today, more than ever, JUSTICE is involved in the issues that will shape the future legal landscape.

Direct beneficiaries of our work include ministers, judges, practising lawyers, law students and policymakers interested in the development and protection of the rule of law and human rights. This is in addition to the public at large, who benefit from system and policy changes we have identified and influenced into delivery to create a fairer UK justice system that is within everyone’s reach.

The benefit of our work is demonstrated through: the adoption of our recommendations in government law reform initiatives and policy; the referencing of our contributions to government consultations; the adoption by parliamentarians of our suggested amendments to legislation; and the acceptance of our arguments in third-party interventions in court judgments. Our third-party interventions in the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court and in the European Court of Human Rights are submitted ‘in the interests of justice’ and not on behalf of particular parties. When adopted, our arguments strengthen legal protection for all people beyond those directly involved in the proceedings.

The Board has referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission's general guidance on public benefit when reviewing the charity's aims and objectives and in planning its future activities. In particular, the Board considers how planned activities will contribute to the aims and objectives that have been set. While some activities are available only to members, these are in the minority and the vast majority of our work is available to the public free of charge. The JUSTICE website provides accessible information on our work to the public at large.

The Trustees confirm that they have paid due regard to the public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission in deciding the aims, objectives and activities of the charity.

The Board considers that JUSTICE’s activities are of public benefit in at least the following ways:

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Principal Activities

Policy

More than ever, during this strategy period, we have strived to tackle urgent and important issues within the current social, economic and political constraints. To achieve this, our working parties, briefings and interventions have focused on the following themes (taken from our Strategy 20212024):

Reform of courts and the impact of COVID-19:

We will continue to monitor the HMCTS Reform Programme, urging that it increase access and fairness in the courts and tribunals. We will explore and evaluate ways in which the integrity of the courts and justice process can be maintained as they adapt to the impact of COVID-19. We will lead thinking on which aspects of the COVID-19 response should remain, be revised or be discarded as courts ‘return to normal’.

User-centred justice:

The justice system must be comprehensible to all its users so that they can effectively participate and have confidence in it. Building on our 2019 Working Party Report, Understanding Courts, we will focus on improving the experience and involvement of specific cohorts of users, such as children, victims of crime and vulnerable people to enable fair outcomes.

In 2021, our Working Party ‘Improving Access to Justice for Separating Families’ undertook a childcentred review of what families need from the Family Court when they seek help with child arrangements, with particular emphasis on domestic abuse victims and unrepresented litigants.

Effective routes of redress:

Routes of redress are becoming increasingly uncertain or unavailable as a result of shifting State powers and responsibilities.

We will focus on ensuring privatisation, automation, and civil orders with criminal consequences do not inhibit effective challenge to decision-making through courts, tribunals and other complaints mechanisms.

Challenges to the courts and Constitution:

Independent and impartial courts are a central feature of the UK constitution. Safeguarding their integrity and remit amidst proposed reforms is crucial to the rule of law and ensuring access to justice.

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We will pursue projects addressing proposed reforms to the operation of the Supreme Court, the role of judicial review and amendment of the Human Rights Act. We will continue to examine judicial appointments, with a view to increasing judicial diversity.

Non-judicial decision-making:

At the start and end of court and tribunal processes, many public bodies and officials make significant decisions concerning individual rights and freedoms. Given the impact of these decisions on people’s lives, these require careful scrutiny.

In the first part of the strategy period, we will consider the processes for release from imprisonment through the Parole Board and Criminal Cases Review Commission.

Other work:

We will continue to follow up on past reports and policy work by capturing whether our activities and interventions have paved the way for desired outcomes.

We will continue to collaborate and establish constructive relationships with diverse stakeholders within the justice system as we evidence, elaborate, and implement our work.

We will seek opportunities to expand our work in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales in line with our above priorities, as relevant to those jurisdictions.

We will look to engage more closely with the International Commission of Jurists, using its network to strengthen our work, and supporting it as appropriate.

Development

The key to successful fundraising has been multifaceted and meaningful relationships, especially given the challenging political and economic climate. To this end, developing even stronger and deeper bonds with our donors, supporters and members through thoughtful engagement opportunities has been the foundation of the Development team’s work over this strategy period. The Development priorities from our Strategy are detailed below.

Membership

JUSTICE is a membership organisation, and our members are among our greatest assets. Our members span law students, through the ranks of the legal profession, to retired lawyers and judges. They include practitioners of all different types of law and all branches of the profession. While our members cover the spectrum of politics, they share a common concern in maintaining the integrity of the justice system in the United Kingdom.

Strengthening and increasing our membership programme

Membership plays a crucial role in shaping our work, as well as a source of unrestricted and sustainable funding. We have worked to develop and create lasting relationships and multifaceted

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journeys for our members, especially those in the highest-level categories and corporate members, to ensure better acquisition and retention.

We have improved our engagement communications through segmentation and strategic messaging and streamlined our administrative communications to make the membership experience easier. Events are the cornerstone of our membership programme. We have provided thought-provoking and topical events to our current members and in order to attract new members.

We have maximised our reach through virtual events, allowing us to expand our membership beyond England by attracting new members from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Fundraising

Broadening our current income streams and attracting new funders:

We have attracted new funders and increased support from existing donors by developing opportunities for them to support us beyond a single project and by investing in our longer-term growth, especially Trusts and Foundations. Our focus has been and will remain on obtaining unrestricted, multi-year funding and increasing our network of donors of all sizes and from varied industries.

We have continued to improve the experience of our JUSTICE60, Friends and major donors by working with the Development Board Chair and other key supporters to ensure these transformational supporter groups remain engaged in our work and invested in our impacts. We are committed to providing bespoke events and networking opportunities and will look to diversify growth by increasing corporate donors and approaching lawyers and leaders of industry from a wider audience.

We have enhanced our external communications and cemented our reputation as sector leaders, by focusing on more accessible content, targeted events, demonstrating our impact and encouraging wider audiences to engage with and support our work.

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Achievements and performance

The charity's main activities and beneficiaries for 2023-24 are described below. All its charitable activities focus on strengthening the justice system and are undertaken to further JUSTICE’S charitable purposes for the public benefit.

Policy

Research projects

Over the past year, we have published seven research reports which have engaged our membership and the wider legal community. One further report is set to be published shortly and we have launched a new multi-year, multi-project workstream on AI, Human Rights and the Law. Many of our reports are produced through working parties of our membership and invited experts, meeting in committees over the life of the project to identify problems, issues and solutions and taking evidence from relevant sources. We make a series of recommendations relating to each area of the justice system, which we are working to implement. This year we have also conducted an observational research project, produced a practitioner’s guide and done a stock take of the state of the rule of law in the UK, based in large part on our own Parliamentary briefing work. This work sits alongside the continuing implementation work on our previously reported work and working parties that are still in progress or in the scoping and evidence gathering stage.

Reports published in 2023-24

This report, published in August 2023, analysed two schemes – the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (“ACRS”) and the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (“ARAP”) – designed to help Afghan citizens whose lives are at risk due to having supported the UK during its presence in Afghanistan.

The Working Party advising on this report was comprised of lawyers, academics, NGOs, and community organisations. It first sat in January 2023, and met over the course of seven months. It consulted with a wide range of professionals with considerable knowledge and experience of the Afghan Resettlement Schemes, people with lived experience of the schemes, and public bodies, such as the Ministry of Defence, Home Office, and Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office to gather evidence and ensure accuracy.

JUSTICE found that neither scheme is working as it should. Despite promises to help Afghans relocate, significant delays, lack of transparency, and a lack of consist Government decisionmaking remain.

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The report makes 24 recommendations to the Government which include proposed changes to improve the accessibility and efficacy of the schemes. Recommendations covered practical ways to reduce delays, improve consistent decision-making, clarify how the schemes work, improve communications to affected people, enhancing transparency, hastening relocation times, and the need to lower the threshold for what counts as an ‘unsafe journey’, amongst other things.

This project was funded from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation grant, a three-year grant of £120,000, with £43,605 received in this financial year. Dechert LLP provided pro bono support.

This report, published in September 2023, looked at the rapidly increasing use of ‘Behavioural Control Orders’ (‘BCOs’) – legal tools that impose conditions on a person with the aim of changing their behaviour. It analysed whether the current BCO regime is achieving its aims to protect victims, prevent crime, and rehabilitate individuals.

Following the template of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (‘ASBOs’), BCOs have quietly crept across our justice system. Today there are over 30 types of BCO, seeking to tackle a range of issues such as anti-social behaviour, football violence, organised crime, trafficking, domestic abuse, stalking, sex-offending, and protest, amongst others.

The working party advising on this report including legal practitioners, academics, representatives from the police and local authorities, and relevant charities. It gathered evidence from a wide range of sources and stakeholders via meetings and interviews and by hosting and attending subjectspecific roundtables and events on issues such as knife crime, gendered violence, and anti-social behaviour.

The report found that successive Governments failed to provide robust evidence that BCOs are an effective way of dealing with these complex issues. Controversial examples range from banning a pensioner from wearing a bikini in her garden to restricting a family with an autistic child from closing the door too loudly, under threat of a fine or prosecution.

The report identified four overarching areas of concern: First, legal ambiguities and lack of training, funding, and monitoring have led to inconsistent and inappropriate enforcement practices. Second, despite the Government’s insistence that BCOs are preventative and have rehabilitative aims, they are unduly punitive in practice. Third, widespread lack of data on the use and outcomes of BCOs makes it difficult to assess their effectiveness. Finally, new BCOs are too often borne from political knee-jerk reactions to specific, one-off events rather than from pragmatic, evidence-based policymaking.

Key recommendations in the report include:

o An urgent review into the function, efficacy, and impact of existing BCOs.

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King & Spalding LLP supported this work with pro bono research and in-kind support. Shepherd and Wedderburn supported this work through pro bono research. This work is also supported by The 29[th] May 1961 Charitable Trust (£7,500) and CEO Sleepout (£2,000).

The rule of law – at its most basic, the principle that we all benefit from and answer to the same set of rules – is the foundation of a democratic society. When it is stable and secure, it protects the citizen from arbitrary state power, provides certainty to domestic and international commerce, and preserves the independence and impartiality of our judiciary. Like any foundation, however, there is no guarantee that serious damage will be noticeable at first glance; close inspection is required.

This substantial evidenced-based body of work, published in September 2023, looked at the importance of the Rule of Law as a legal concept fundamental to the proper functioning of our democracy, and at the various ways it has been eroded in recent years, both now and prior to the pandemic.

It found that, over the past decade and particularly in the last five years, the process of lawmaking has become less transparent, less accountable, less inclusive, and less democratic. It urges current and future governments to wake up to the worrying trajectory the UK is on and start to reinstate our longstanding adherence to the Rule of Law.

This work is supported by grants from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, JRSST Charitable Trust and The Legal Education Foundation and is aimed at responding to proposed reforms of administrative law including judicial review and immigration and the Human Rights Act. Clifford Chance LLP provided pro bono research for this project.

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Linked to this report and with a view to raising awareness of the issues it raises, we have held and will continue to hold a number of events (see below in relation to these).

JUSTICE completed its observational research project of remand decision-making in the magistrates’ courts in November 2023. This project aimed to better understand how magistrates and district judges make their decisions and whether there are any problematic patterns of decision making in respect of remand issues and possible systemic issues, particularly around racial and gender bias.

One in five people in prison are being held awaiting trial or sentencing (i.e. are held ‘on remand’) – up from one in nine in 2019. This jump – largely caused by increasing numbers in custody awaiting trial – has been a key driver of prison overcrowding. Until this report, a serious lack of public data has obscured its causes.

The report, based on the observation of over 740 hearings across England, opened this black box of bail decision-making. It found that most decisions to either jail people awaiting trial or add conditions to their bail often did not follow the correct legal processes.

The law says defendants should be released on unconditional bail to await trial unless there are substantial reasons not to. Any decision to override this is supposed to be made with reference to the relevant law (the Bail Act 1976); give reasons in language the defendant can understand; and refer to the facts of their particular case.

Yet the large majority of decisions to either imprison people or impose conditions on their bail observed by JUSTICE did not follow this correct legal process. This data suggests thousands of people may have been imprisoned without magistrates’ courts following correct legal process, and without people fully understanding the proceedings they were subject to.

The data also showed that non-legal factors such as race, nationality, and the use of secure docks and video links for defendants are impacting court choices about whether to either grant people unconditional bail, impose conditions on their bail, or jail them while they await trial.

In consultation with stakeholders, we are now working on a producing a set of recommendations aimed at addressing the issues uncovered by this research.

Students at University College London, Newcastle University, Nottingham Trent University and Exeter University and lawyers at Reed Smith LLP and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP helped us with data collection for this work over 2022.

This work is supported by the Dawes Trust (who are funding our criminal implementation work), and Reed Smith LLP have provided pro bono research support.

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This guide, produced together with the charity INQUEST and published in February 2024, provides lawyers representing families bereaved by deaths in police custody, prisons, immigration detention, and mental health settings with the legal expertise to raise the potential role of race and racism at inquests. It also provides foundational knowledge and strategy to coroners to ensure they satisfy their duty in fully investigating the circumstances in state custody deaths.

The deaths of Black and racialised people are among some of the most violent, neglectful and contentious of all deaths in state custody. Yet inquests rarely ever address race or racism. For bereaved families, inquests present key opportunities to find out how and why their loved one died. Not only does the failure to explore issues of race and racism stop families from learning the truth; it also prevents potentially life-saving issues from being identified and addressed.

Aiming to help address this issue, the guide equips lawyers and coroners with the tools to recognise, raise, evidence, and investigate issues of race and racism at inquests. The working party advising on this report was made up of legal practitioners, people with lived experience of this issue, relevant charities and campaigners, and academics.

The Law Society Charity (£5,000) support this work. Morrison Foerster, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP provided pro bono support.

• Reforming the EU Settlement Scheme: The Way Forward for the EUSS (strategy theme 5: non-judicial decision making)

This report, published in March 2024, analysed key operational issues with the EU Settlement Scheme – the scheme designed to secure eligible European Economic Area (‘EEA’) nationals their rights to live and work in the UK after Brexit. The EUSS grants successful applicants either ‘settled’ or ‘pre-settled’ status, both of which recognise their right to live and work in the UK and to access NHS care and other benefits.

The scheme has had some notable successes – not least by handling applications from over 6 million people. Yet many of those affected have not yet applied because they do not know they need to update their immigration status. Everyone granted pre-settled status also needs to reapply later on to get settled status. Between 15,000 to 20,000 applications come in each month, meaning the scheme’s decisions still impact hundreds of thousands of people every year.

The Working Party advising on this report was made up of legal practitioners, academics, people with lived experience of navigating the scheme, and relevant campaigners and charities.

The report identified ongoing problems with the scheme that put millions of people at risk of wrongly losing their jobs, homes, and access to healthcare and benefits. In addition to this, continuing problems with the scheme’s online ‘proof of status’ portal mean even those who have

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secured the right to live and work in the UK sometimes have no way to prove this, leaving them needlessly missing flights, job opportunities, and housing rental options.

The report makes 16 recommendations to strengthen the EUSS, including: automatically moving eligible people from pre-settled to settled status without having to reapply; giving people a reliable offline way to show their settlement status; training and clearer guidance to ensure all kinds of residence and relationship evidence is given proper weight; a reinstated and improved route to review decisions without the need for an immigration tribunal; and ensuring those who do need to appeal decisions at a tribunal have access to the necessary legal support to do so.

This project was funded from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation grant, a three-year grant of £120,000, with £43,605 received in this financial year. Dechert LLP provided pro bono support.

This report, published in March 2024, examined key areas of prison decision-making: categorisation and risk, incentives and discipline, segregation, mechanisms for redress, and the standards that ought to apply to the treatment of people in prisons.

The UK has the highest prison population in western Europe, and it continues to grow. The Ministry of Justice forecasts the prison population to exceed 100,000 people by early 2026. Nearly 30% of people in prison are there for non-violent or non-sexual offences and nearly 20% are there to await trial or sentencing.

Prisons are widely acknowledged to be in crisis, with two thirds of prisons in England and Wales holding more people than they were designed to house in recent months. Official reporting finds instances of raw sewage flowing through cells, chronic and severe staff shortages, prisoners locked in cells for 23 hours a day, and multiple people sharing cells meant for one. Very high rates of self-harm and violence have become common.

The Working Party advising on this report was made up of a former Chief Inspector of Prisons, academics, legal practitioners, relevant campaigners and charities, as well as those with lived experience of the prison system. It drew on evidence from a broad range of sources and stakeholders, including HMPPS, the Prison and Probation Ombudsman, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, legal practitioners, and academics. We also benefited from insights obtained via a roundtable of prison governors. Our desk-based research, conducted with the assistance of Sidley Austin LLP, included comparative research in relation to a number of overseas jurisdictions, including Canada, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

The report notes that other European nations experiences’ show progress on prison conditions and reoffending is within our reach. In Norway, policy changes dropped a 70% reoffending rate in the 1990s to its current level of 20%. And the Netherlands was able to shrink its prison population by 40% between 2005 and 2022.

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In Norway, people sentenced to prison are placed in a queue to await an available prison space. Today’s report recommends adopting and tailoring this approach to the UK’s needs by:

The report also recommends granting people in prisons means-tested legal aid. This relatively inexpensive change, the report argues, would add essential checks to a system that otherwise controls almost every aspect of prisoners’ lives – allowing people to appeal life-changing decisions about their risk categorisation, for example.

It also advocates for the need to find alternative ways to handle mental health crises rather than relying on segregation units and makes several other recommendations to improve the fairness and transparency of decision making in prisons, including improvements to the complaints system.

This work is supported by the Bromley Trust who provided a two year grant of £30,000 in 2022-23, £15,000 received in this financial year, the Dawes Trust who provided a two year grant of £50,000, £25,000 received this financial year (towards criminal implementation work), the Oakdale Trust (£2,000), and Sidley Austin LLP through pro bono support.

Working Party implementation work in 2023-24

From 2021-2022, JUSTICE’s Improving Access to Justice for Separating Families Working Party considered how access to justice can be improved for separating families in private family proceedings. Separation is often distressing and traumatic, particularly when children are involved. Most families resolve disagreements about children privately, but some cannot and need additional

help; they may not be emotionally or practically ready to negotiate, or there may be imbalanced power dynamics – for example domestic abuse – which would make unassisted negotiation unfair or unsafe.

The Working Party analysed how to better secure access to justice for these families, who face a confusing landscape of advice and support with scarce affordable and trustworthy legal advice (only one in five cases that go to court has a lawyer on both sides). Children at the centre of disputes are

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nearly always not a party to the legal proceedings and too often feel unheard and unsupported. The final report made 43 ambitious but realistic recommendations related to child arrangements problems and their resolution in England and Wales.

In April 2023, JUSTICE lawyer, Ellen Lefley, presented the report’s recommendations to the Family Justice Council, chaired by the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane. And in May and June 2023, JUSTICE responded to two linked consultations on the earlier resolution of private family law arrangements.

In January 2024, the Ministry of Justice announced plans to reform private family justice adopt a series of JUSTICE recommendations, including a key recommendation to pilot early legal advice for families with child arrangements problems. We are now urging the Ministry of Justice to consult with community support organisations and individuals with experience of unmet family legal need to ensure the pilot is designed around the people it is intended to help.

Other important JUSTICE recommendations adopted include:

• Securing access to justice: reviewing the Windrush compensation, EU Settlement and Afghan Resettlement and Relocation Schemes

( Strategy themes: non-judicial decision-making; effective routes of redress)

In addition to the launch of the reports on the EUSS and Afghan Resettlement Schemes detailed above we have continued to work on implementing the recommendation from the Reforming Windrush Compensation Scheme report, published in November 2021. We held a number of meetings with the Home Office to discuss our recommendations, operational challenges and practical difficulties of the scheme including with Nigel Hills, Director of the Windrush Compensation Scheme. We are pleased to hear that the Home Office are looking at getting rid of the £250 cap for the homelessness award. We were recently informed that after listening to our feedback the Home Office are reviewing the current exclusion from the Scheme of compensation for occupational and private pensions. We will continue to work with the Home Office advocating for the change and drawing on our expertise to provide case studies and methodologies for how this can be done effectively.

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The Home Office has implemented a number of other recommendations from JUSTICE’s Working Party report, including those relating to the independent person; providing video guides to help claimants understand the application process; and providing a reasoned explanation when no preliminary payment is awarded.

In order to strengthen the evidence base for the need for legal advice for claimants, in January 2024 we set up a Windrush Compensation Scheme Legal Representative’s Group. The group is compiling case studies where an individual has applied to the compensation scheme without any legal assistance, received a low or no award, and subsequently reapplied or went through the review process with legal assistance and been awarded a higher amount of compensation. With the necessary permissions, we will interview the claimants and their legal representatives to produce a detailed picture of the difference the legal representation made.

On the basis of JUSTICE’s work on the Windrush Compensation Scheme, our policy lead provided a witness statement in the judicial review case of Oji v Legal Aid Agency, challenging the LAA’s decision to refuse the claimant’s application for exceptional case funding for assistance with her application. The case was heard in February.

In June 2023 JUSTICE hosted an event on the Windrush Compensation Scheme to mark the 75[th] Anniversary of Windrush. The event looked at the weaknesses of the scheme, and what actions have been taken by individuals and groups to reform it and ensure that claimants receive the compensation they are entitled to. The panel included Glenda Caesar, Ravi Nayer (Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner), Martin Levermore MBE DL (Independent Person to the Windrush Compensation Scheme), and Anna Steiner (University of Westminster).

• A Parole System Fit for Purpose

(Strategy theme: non-judicial decision-making)

In April 2021, JUSTICE launched its a Parole System fit for Purpose Working Party, which examined the role, powers, and procedures of the Parole Board and wider system. Implementation work in respect of this report has largely taken place through our work around the Victims and Prisoner’s Bill (see below).

We are grateful to Jude Bunting KC and Stephanie Davin of Doughty Street Chambers for pro bono advice in relation to the Government’s proposals in the Victims and Prisoners Bill. This work is also supported by the Dawes Trust (who are funding our criminal implementation work).

• - Reforming Benefits Decision Making

(Strategy theme: non-judicial decision-making)

We have continued to examine and make recommendations in respect of outsourced health assessments for benefits as part of our working party Beyond the blame game: a responsible and rights centred approach to government contracting? (see above).

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In addition, our public lawyer has been attending DWP workshops on its Health Transformation Programme and the HMCTS Tribunal Engagement Group. We also responded to the Ministry of Justice’s Review of Civil Legal Aid drawing on the Reforming Benefits report (amongst others).

• Tackling Racial Injustice: Children and the Youth Justice System

In February 2021 we published Tackling Racial Injustice, chaired by Sandra Paul and with the assistance of Travers Smith LLP. At most stages of the youth justice system – from arrest to custody – the proportion of Black and Minority Ethnic young people is higher than the proportion of white young people. This Working Party examined the causes of racial disproportionality in the Youth Justice System (YJS) of England and Wales and made recommendations to ensure that children are not needlessly criminalised by improving the attitudes, processes and procedures in the YJS.

We have been working as part of the Art Not Evidence group to end the inappropriate use of drill music as evidence in criminal trials, an issue identified in the report. We met with the CPS to discuss their guidance on the use of drill music as evidence. We are also preparing a suggested amendment to the criminal procedure rules to limit the use of drill music. We are running a workshop on drill at the Oxford Listening Workshops – Sound and Music organised by Professor Naomi Waltham-Smith, Merton College. The above is in addition to the third-party intervention re drill music mentioned below.

As described above we have commenced a new project looking at the looking at Black and racialised women and girls’ experiences of the justice system.

In a new jurisdiction for JUSTICE, we filed two near identical appeals in the First Tier Tribunal from decisions of the Information Commissioner’s Office. The appeals concern Freedom of Information Act requests by JUSTICE for statistical ethnicity, age and gender information held by Merseyside Police and West Midlands Police in respect of referrals made by the police forces to the Prevent programme. Information was withheld by those forces under ss24 (national security) and 31 (law enforcement) of FOIA. The hearing is provisionally scheduled for January 2024, and this work is based on recommendations and evidence from our report.

Clifford Chance LLP provided pro bono support for this project and this work is also supported by the Dawes Trust (who are funding our criminal implementation work).

• When Things Go Wrong

The When Things Go Wrong Working Party was chaired by Sir Robert Owen and published in August 2020. It made recommendations aimed at addressing the erosion of public trust in the response of the justice system to deaths giving rise to public concern.

The implementation work for this report has taken the form of the Achieving Racial Justice at Inquests guide described above as well as work on the Victims and Prisoners Bill (see below). In addition, our Legal Director gave evidence to the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee on the Inquiries Act 2005 and we responded to the Justice Committee’s inquiry into the Coroner Service. Our evidence offers a roadmap for improving the service and promoting transparency,

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accountability, and dignity for bereaved families. Our recommendations included: expanding legal aid for bereaved families at inquests; measure to reduce regional disparities and ensuring a consistency include the establishment of a Coroner Service Inspectorate to monitor standards and a full-time Chief Coroner appointment; establishment of a National Oversight Mechanism dedicated to monitoring and implementing Prevention of Future Death recommendations; and increased co-ordination between investigating agencies for example through collaborative witness questioning to streamline proceedings.

• Solving Housing Disputes

We have continued to work towards implementing the recommendations of our 2020 Solving Housing Disputes Working Party report this year.

We have been working on the Renters Reform Bill. JUSTICE’s Chief Executive gave oral evidence to the Public Bill Committee, she highlighted the need to end section 21 no-fault evictions without delay and raised concerns over the disaggregated and confusing landscape that exists for the resolution of housing disputes.

We responded to the Ministry of Justice’s Review of Civil Legal Aid drawing upon our Solving House Disputes Report (amongst others). In respect of housing, we highlighted the urgent need to increase legal aid fees for housing advice providers to address the rapid decline of providers. Housing advice deserts affect huge swathes of the country and are likely to continue worsening unless the sector receives significant investment. This is extremely worrying considering the cost-of-living crisis, during which more people than ever are struggling to pay rent and are therefore at risk of becoming homeless.

In addition, our working party on Behavioural Control Orders considered the disproportionate impact of many of these orders on people experiencing homelessness (see above). We have also been briefing Parliamentarians on the Criminal Justice Bill (see below).

• Preventing Digital Exclusion from Online Justice

We continue to work on implementing recommendations from our report Preventing Digital Exclusions which was chaired by Amanda Finlay CBE.

Across all our workstreams we consider the issues that arise for those who are digitally excluded and make recommendations aimed at addressing these. In particular, this Working Party report has provided a strong background and starting point for our new AI, Human Rights and the Law workstream.

JUSTICE continues to sit on AJC’s Digitisation Working Group chaired by Caroline Sheppard OBE. The group is reviewing the progress of HMCTS’s reform programme and identifying areas for improvement for five discrete user groups: lay claimant/appellants, respondents (specifically government departments), judges, court/tribunal staff, and advice and support organisations. JUSTICE’s focus is on the improvements required for lay users and the advice organisations supporting them, with a focus on the Digital Support service now available from HMCTS for digitally

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excluded users. JUSTICE consulted with stakeholders including HMCTS lead for the Digital Support service and Support Through Court, one of the delivery partners providing the service.

• Understanding Courts

We continue to promote the principles from our Understanding Courts Working Party, chaired by Sir Nicholas Blake, across all our work streams. JUSTICE lawyers continue to engage regularly with the Ministry of Justice and HMCTS on issues arising out of this report.

• Legal Assistance in the Police Station

Our first Working Party report in Scotland was published in June 2018, chaired by the Rt. Hon. Lord Eassie. It looked at the reasons for the high level of suspects waiving the right to a solicitor and the quality of advice and support provided to individuals. We are continuing to implement this work through the collaborative PhD described above.

Other projects

JUSTICE recognises the need to ensure data about the justice system exists and is used to identify problems and evaluate proposed solutions. We also aim to play a key role in gathering, synthesising, and disseminating high quality data to better understand the way the current system works and the needs of the people who require justice-related services, including courts. With this knowledge of what does and doesn’t work in the current system and a clearer understanding of the needs of the people it serves we seek to utilise this evidence to identify areas of pressing need for the policy arm of JUSTICE Insights to work on including by bringing together actors from research, policy, and civil society and by building links internationally to share insights and seek solutions. To initiate this work, in November 2023 we commissioned external consultancy support, Dr Natalie Byrom, to scope this idea out and develop proposals to create a new Justice data and policy initiative- ‘JUSTICE Insights’. This work has included stakeholder interviews and desk research and will result in a report in the financial year 2024/25.

The Access to Justice Foundation have provided £7,150 to support this work.

Briefing on legislation and public consultation

JUSTICE continues to disseminate detailed submissions on relevant legislation and respond to consultations of Government, select committees and the judiciary that are relevant to our priorities. These are reasoned memoranda that include discussion of relevant law. They are designed to assist parliamentarians of all parties in scrutinising legislation and Government and other bodies in their considerations of the reform of their processes.

This year has seen JUSTICE engage in a significant amount of briefing and consultation work due to the heavy legislative agenda. These bills included the Illegal Migration Bill, the Victims and Prisoners

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Bill, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, the Criminal Justice Bill, the Renters (Reform) Bill, the Sentencing Bill, and the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, all of which have implications for the UK constitution, human rights and the rule of law. In addition, we responded to seven consultations, also covering a range of access to justice, rule of law and human rights issues.

Below, we highlight three of the Bills we briefed on to give a sense of this work.

• The Illegal Migration Bill

JUSTICE has significant concerns with this legislation, which was introduced with little consultation or scrutiny and subject to a very short Parliamentary timetable. Consequently, we drafted six parliamentary briefings on the Bill between April-June 2023.

The Bill’s stated aim was to deter people from crossing the Channel in small boats by deeming the asylum claim of anyone who arrives in the UK irregularly as inadmissible – leaving them open to being detained indefinitely or removed to their own country or a “safe” third country. JUSTICE advised parliamentarians that the Bill likely breached international law, diminished government accountability, and handed significant power to the executive. We also argued that, by applying retrospectively to those asylum seekers already in the UK, the Bill was deeply unfair and undermined legal certainty.

We had some limited success in amending the Bill so that the date on which the duty to remove came into force was amended from date the Bill was introduced to the date the Bill passed so the Bill did not operate retrospectively. This work was supported by the Garden Court Special Causes Fund with a £3,000 donation, and Garden Court Chambers also supported pro bono.

• The Victims and Prisoners Bill

JUSTICE briefed Parliamentarians extensively on the Bill explaining that it fails to deliver on key promises to victims and poses significant challenges to human rights and the rule of law. We also engaged with the Bill team at the Ministry of Justice.

The Bill initially contained a power for the Secretary of State to veto the Parole Board’s decision to release a prisoner. This would have threatened the status of the Parole Board as a court-like body and challenged the separation of powers and therefore the rule of law. We were instrumental in convincing the Ministry of Justice to remove this power from the Bill. In addition, the Government tabled amendments to remove the powers in the Bill that would have changed the role of the Parole Board chair and enabled the Secretary of State to dismiss the Chair of the Parole Board. These are changes that we advocated for.

In addition, we supported amendments relating to the Sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection alongside a number of other organisations including the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Prison Reform Trust, Liberty, Amnesty and INQUEST.

We also raised concerns around the definition of ‘major incidents’ as well as the lack of

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requirements for the standing advocate to consult with victims when advising the secretary of state. We advocated for the extension of the Victims Code (applicable to victims of crime) to victims of major incidents as well. We also worked alongside INQUEST and Hillsborough Law Now supporting an amendment which would introduce a statutory duty of candour. This amendment was passed by the Lords at report stage.

In November 2023, the Supreme Court held in an unanimous decision that the Government’s previous Rwanda Memorandum of Understanding was unlawful for several reasons; most notably that it risked refoulement (asylum-seekers being directly/ indirectly returned to their home country before their asylum claim is properly considered) found in the Refugee Convention, Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’) and a number of other international legal instruments and domestic law.

In response, the UK Government agreed a new treaty with Rwanda which was published in December 2023. JUSTICE, alongside the Immigration Lawyers Practitioners Association (‘ILPA’) and Freedom from Torture, briefed Parliamentarians on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.

We opposed to this legislation on the following basis:

We also, alongside Immigration Lawyers Practitioners Association (‘ILPA’), submitted evidence to the House of Lords International Agreements Committee on the UK-Rwanda asylum partnership treaty.

Our briefing and consultation work was supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, with a three-year grant of £71,597, which has been extended by another year to December 2024 (£27,207 of additional funding), £24,703 has been received in this financial year. The JRSST Charitable trust

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has supported this grant with a two-year grant of £30,094, of which £15,047 was received this year. The Legal Education Foundation also supported this work with a two-year grant of £70,000, with £35,000 received in this financial year. This programme of work has also been supported pro bono by many law firms.

Third Party Interventions

Nealon and Hallam v UK

In July, the European Court of Human Rights (Grand Chamber) heard Hallam and Nealon v UK, which concerns the UK’s compensation scheme for miscarriages of justice. This requires proof beyond reasonable doubt of innocence — an almost impossible bar to reach. We made written submissions to the Court. We await judgment.

The case was heard on 5 July 2023. We are grateful for the assistance of Gibson Dunn LLP for further research and Jodie Blackstock, Garden Court Chambers for acting as pro bono counsel.

U3 v SSHD [2022] UKSIAC SC/153/208 and SC/153/2021

JUSTICE was granted permission to intervene in the Court of Appeal in the case of U3. The case concerns the deprivation of UK citizenship of a woman – U3 – and refusal to allow her to re-enter the country, both for reasons of national security. U3 appealed both decisions, but JUSTICE’s intervention focused on the deprivation of citizenship appeal.

JUSTICE’s intervention related to the approach that should be taken by SIAC in deprivation of citizenship appeals. JUSTICE’s intervention focused on those appellants who have had no opportunity to put across their version of events before the original decision is made, as is often the case in national security cases and indeed was the case for U3.

We filed our written submissions in February and were subsequently granted permission to make oral submissions. The case was heard in April 2023. Unfortunately, our arguments were not successful. However, the case has now been granted permission to appeal to the Supreme Court following a Rule 15 letter from JUSTICE in support of the grant of permission. We will seek to intervene in the Supreme Court.

JUSTICE is extremely grateful for the pro bono assistance in this matter from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and Tom Hickman KC, George Molyneaux, and Rayan Fakhoury of Blackstone Chambers.

R (IAB & OTHERS) v S/S HOME DEPARTMENT & S/S LEVELLING UP, HOUSING, AND COMMUNITIES

JUSTICE intervened in this case – heard in November 2023 in the High Court – on a single issue: the redaction of the names of ‘junior civil servants’ by the Government from documents disclosed in

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judicial review proceedings. The term ‘junior civil servant’ is a broad one, and may include political Special Advisors, who are classed as temporary civil servants, as well as external contractors.

In the case, the government proposed to redact routinely any names outside the senior civil service from documents disclosed in judicial review proceedings; a policy which risked hiding the names of external contractors and political Special Advisors as well as that of junior civil servants. Judicial review is one of the central ways people can challenge the Government’s decisions.

JUSTICE argued that:

JUSTICE suggested that the correct approach to such redactions is on a case-by-case basis, and the Hight Court ruled in line with our intervention.

In January 2024, the government appealed to the Court of Appeal against that decision; the Court of Appeal then agreed with the High Court to rule in line with JUSTICE’s intervention.

JUSTICE is extremely grateful for the pro bono representation of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and Guy Vassall-Adams KC (Matrix Chambers).

Administrative Justice Council

The Administrative Justice Council (AJC) was set up to ensure that the administrative justice system is more accessible, fair and effective by improving administrative decision-making, simplifying appeals, complaints procedures and redress mechanisms, and ensuring access to justice for some of the most vulnerable people in society. Over the years the AJC secretariat has been funded by grants and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), in recent years JUSTICE was covering any shortfall in funding. Trust for London provided a multi-year grant to the AJC, which ended in October 2023 (£8,250 was received in 2023-24). During the 2022-23 financial year, the MOJ agreed to fund the entire shortfall of running costs of the secretariat for the AJC for the 2023-24 financial year. On basis that the MoJ would seek to regularise the AJC structure to mirror the existing approach for the Civil Justice Council (CJC) and the Family Justice Council (FJC). The secretariat functions for both the CJC and FJC are delivered by Judicial Office (JO), independent to but funded by the MoJ. To that end, JUSTICE has

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worked closely with the JO and MoJ to plan for the transition of the two members of JUSTICE staff via TUPE arrangements to the MoJ.

The transfer of the AJC was completed on 31 March 2024, as planned, and both members of the JUSTICE team who formed the AJC Secretariat joined the JO with immediate effect on the same contractual terms as they enjoyed with JUSTICE.

Details of the work carried out by the Administrative Justice Council can be found on their website.

Events

We held a substantial number of free and ticketed events throughout the year in order to disseminate our research, for public education and engagement and to raise funds (more details on our fundraising events are provided on page 49). We continued to strive to reach audiences outside of London, holding or speaking at events in Edinburgh (three separate events held here, including one with the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Justice), Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool and Belfast and providing hybrid facilities for many others.

In person:

Online:

Hybrid:

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We held the JUSTICE Human Rights Conference on 6 October 2023, at Linklaters LLP, with an option for guests to attend virtually as well as in person. In total, 94 delegates attended in person plus 48 staff and speakers; and 41 delegates attended virtually (plus one speaker online), raising £23,361in total. This year, we heard keynote address from Deputy High Court Judge Margaret Obi, Richard Ratcliffe, Penny Madden KC and Sir Max Hill KC. The closing debate was on justice and party manifestos, and the panel included the Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC, the Rt Hon Sir Robert Buckland KC MP, the Rt Hon the Lord Falconer of Thoroton KC, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, the Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames KC.

The annual JUSTICE Student Seminar took place online on 13 February 2024. Delegates first heard from Tyrone Steele, who discussed current threats to the rule of law in the UK, then attended workshops with the Policy team on: A Right to a Human Judge? AI and the law, Criminalising Poverty: Law and Homelessness, The Rwanda Bill, and Rap, Drill and the Criminal Justice System. We raised £230 in ticket sales and gained 15 new student members (generating £225 in membership).

In addition, JUSTICE staff members attended and spoke at a wide range of external conferences and events.

Development

Membership

Over the past few years our individual membership has been declining and we have therefore shifted our attention to increasing our corporate members; this aligns with our plans to increase our support from law firms, chambers, and corporate organisations. We recruited nine new corporate members across the year, which equated to £9,660 in income. We ended the financial year with 1,565 members (down 211 from 1,776 in 2023), this was made up of 1,500 individuals and 65 corporates. Whilst membership numbers have decreased, due to new higher membership fees and the focus on corporates who pay a much larger membership fee, our membership income has increased to £150,664 (£117,503 for 2022-23)

We continued our focus on increasing membership and engagement through the country with more events in Scotland, one in Leeds (held jointly with Communicourt) and one in Belfast (held jointly with the Bar of Northern Ireland).

Our Annual Human Rights Lecture in Scotland is a way to attract support for our work in Scotland. This year’s lecture was held on 28 February 2024 and entitled “Whatever happened to the Human Rights Act?” and given by Helen Mountfield KC and 59 people attended. This was followed a dinner

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to re-engage supporters for our work in Scotland and raised £250. Pinsent Masons LLP very generously supported both the lecture and dinner.

We held our virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM), in November 2023, over Zoom, ensuring that members across the country could participate. Thirty-one members joined us to hear reports on our work and fundraising from Peter Binning and Karyl Nairn KC, Chair of the Development Board. The members appointed three new Board members and approved the reappointment of twelve Council members. The AGM was followed by our annual Tom Sargant Memorial Lecture, delivered by Dr Ann Olivarius KC (Hon) OBE, speaking on “Making the law work for women: Solutions to extreme misogyny”.

We continued to focus on expanding our reach through social and traditional media, strategic communications, and targeted messaging. On social media, we focused on LinkedIn since, as a growing platform for professionals, it is very well placed to spread the work of JUSTICE. We have adapted our content and style to encourage organic shares, whilst also including links to our page in our post-event emails. This resulted in over 4,000 new followers this financial year. A similar approach on Twitter kept our follower numbers steadily growing over this period, despite a substantial concurrent drop in the platform’s daily users.

Due to some invaluable pro bono help from Bell Yard Communications in the autumn, along with our new Head of Communications beginning work in October, our traditional media work was particularly strong this year – media mentions of our work were up by nearly 60% on the year before, for example. These mentions fell across national, regional, online and specialist legal outlets.

Fundraising

Our fundraising plan for 2023-24 was to continue to focus on diversification of our income streams. This included introducing a major fundraising programme, reinvigorating our JUSTICE60 and Friends; increasing income from Trust and Foundations; starting up a legacy programme; and increasing financial support from law firms, chambers and corporate organisations, ensure our sustainable and continued growth. This year, we have seen growth across most of our income streams, as detailed below.

Our donation income grew overall by 7% which included a 20% increase from general donations (2023-24: £133k; 2022-23: £95k) this included £30k from our major fundraising programme. As part of our major donorship programme we have spent some time researching prospective supporters, from which we have been and will continue to develop plans to encourage donations. We held a major donor event with 19 prospective donors on 28 November 2023, generously hosted by Farrer’s & Co with Lady Hale as guest speaker. This event was postponed from February 2023, so the £5,000 raised was received in 2022-23 financial year. Major donor fundraising is a longterm tool to raise income and, though we were not as successful as we would have liked in 202324, we are confident that we have laid the foundations for a successful future income stream, and are in the process of recruiting for a new Major Gifts Fundraiser to support this work.

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Our JUSTICE60 income has continued to grow in 2023-24, we ended the year with 56 members and an increase in donations (£321,400 in 2023-24 up from £313,430 in 2022-23). We held a number of Supper Clubs through 2023-24 including one on 6 June 2023 with Robert Spano; on 29 June 2023 with Julia Gillard; and on 5th March 2024 with Sir Bob Neill speaking on the work of the Justice Select Committee.

We also held a very insightful Strategy Dinner for JUSTICE60 Members on 1 November 2023 to harvest ideas and opinions for our 2024-30 Strategy and on how to recruit new members to the group. Lastly the Rule of Law series of events and the Ukraine Series of events detailed above were also used to steward existing members and engage new ones.

We are extremely grateful to all our JUSTICE60 members, past and present, for their continued support during a year when fundraising continues to be incredibly competitive, and especially, to our extraordinarily generous and supportive Development Board Chair, Karyl Nairn KC.

We were not as successful with our Friends income which decreased by 2% to £33,862 (£34,592 for 2022-23), although the number of Friends increased to 118 (117 in 2022-23). Friends of JUSTICE are our regular donors who donate at least £240 per year (usually through regular monthly donations) and provided us with much needed unrestricted income. This was despite holding a recruitment drive in September 2023 which resulted in four new members and sending out letters to new KCs in March 2024 which recruited one additional Friend. We also held a Friends Appreciation event in December where Fiona elaborated on our plans for the future, which 17 of our Friends attended. We continue to consider how to engage and recruit Friends better and will be focusing on individual giving more once we recruit our Major Gifts Fundraiser.

We also saw a decline in legacy income (2023-24: £1,468; 2022-23: £2,500). This is an unpredictable area of giving but although this is a new income stream focus for JUSTICE, it needs careful planning which we were not able to give the time to this year. We expect this area of giving to increase slowly over the next few years as we fine-tune our approach to it.

We hosted a series of fundraising events discussing the current threats to human rights and the rule of law in the UK. We were joined by senior retired judges, leading practitioners, parliamentarians, and academics for three evenings of debate and discussion followed by dinner to engage prospective donors and supporters - The Rule of Law and its relationship with the UK’s economic strength, 14 June 2023 and The Rule of Law and the UK’s International Position, 15 November 2023. Ticket sales from these events raised £6,775 of income.

We have continued to work hard to improve the experience of our JUSTICE60, Friends and major donors. Working closely with the Development Board, especially Chair of the Development Board, Karyl Nairn KC and chair of the JUSTICE Board, Peter Binning to ensure that these donors remained engaged with JUSTICE and its impacts and felt confident to recruit others to support JUSTICE.

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We are grateful to the JUSTICE Board, Council, JUSTICE60, Friends, Members and partners that supported us with donations and introductions throughout the year. We would not have been able to do it without their support.

Trusts and foundations and corporate support

Our income from Trusts and Foundations and corporate organisations has increased this year, by 24% (£532,881, up from £431,223 in 2022-23). This included £85,127 from twelve new funders. This year we focused on cultivating links within trusts and foundation known to us to secure followon funding. We also worked hard to discover links with new funders and deliver specialised applications them. A larger proportion of time was also spent on stewardship, including reporting due to our success in grant fundraising in previous years.

The Development team continued to focus on strengthening our relationships with Corporates and increasing the support we receive either in the form of monetary donations or pro bono support, This led to increased requests to corporates than in previous years, including help with non-legal pro bono assistance, research requests, with our briefings, consultations and with our third party interventions It also resulted in a 23% increase in financial support (2023-24: £214,876, 2022-23: £174,566 and an increase in corporate membership as detailed above.

The grants from Trusts and Foundations and donations from Corporates are detailed below.

Restricted income increased by just over 26% to £416,701 (£330,723 in 2022-23). We received new restricted grants or donations from:

The Bromley Trust, the Dawes Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Legal Education Foundation, Linklaters LLP, Paul Hamlyn Foundation Trust for London and the Ministry of Justice continued to support us with restricted multi-year grants on existing projects, details of which can be found in the policy section of this report (p.11-30).

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Unrestricted support increased by just over 16% to £116,180 (£100,500 in 2022-23). We have received new unrestricted grants or donations from:

We also received unrestricted donations from existing donors:

We are very grateful to the Trust and Foundations and Corporations who have supported our work during this difficult year.

Approach to fundraising:

JUSTICE employs a Director of Development who leads on all our fundraising activities and line managers our Development Administrator and Trust and Foundation Fundraiser and shares oversight of our Engagement and Communications Executive with our Head of Comms. Our main focus and successes in relation to fundraising has been from Trust and Foundations, corporate support and our wide range of donors. Any fundraising events are organised by our Development team. JUSTICE does not use external professional fundraisers or involve commercial participators. There has been a significant amount of positive feedback about our events including our fundraising activities and we are pleased to report that there have been no complaints about fundraising activity this year.

We are committed to providing the best possible standards for all our supporters. Our fundraising activities are carried out respectfully and we are a member of the Fundraising Regulator (FR) working within their agreed guidelines.

We pledge to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and at all times we respect the wishes of our supporters about how they are contacted, offering them frequent opportunities to change these preferences, which are recorded on our database.

Beneficiaries of our services

Our system-change approach benefits all those involved in the justice system include practising lawyers, judges, students of law and policymakers interested in the development and protection of the rule of law and human rights, and the public at large, who benefit from a robust justice system that protects their rights.

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Trustees’ annual report

Financial review

For the year ended 31 March 2024, JUSTICE recorded a net deficit, before other recognised gains, of £32,090 (2022-23: £7,317 surplus when we remove income and expenditure related to property sale). Our investments performed better this year and we made a gain of £6,921 reducing our deficit to £25,169 (2022-23: £1,203 deficit when we remove income and expenditure related to property sale). We had expected to end the year with a deficit of £38k so we ended the year better than expected.

Whilst we ended the year better than expected we have a deficit of £55,907 on unrestricted funds compared to a £2,549 surplus in 2022-23. This is due to an increase in unrestricted expenditure which increased by 27% to £961,023 (2022-23 £757,150) related to salaries and associated support costs for three new posts within the organisations (as detailed below).

Income

Income received in 2023-24 increased by 20% to £1,318,162 (£1,098,529 2022-23) without the proceeds from the sale of freehold premises. Details of how this has arisen have been explained above and are shown below.

Donations and legacies

The level of donations and legacies saw an increase in 2023-24 to £505,551 (2022-23: £472,206). This is mainly due to new income of £30k from our major fundraising programme, and an increase in JUSTICE60 donations, which is the result of the hard work of our Development team, supported by the Development Board and the generosity of our supporters.

Charitable activities

Income towards our Research and Education activities has increased for 2023-24 (2023-24: £557,219, 2022-23: £451,797), this down to the hard work of our Deputy Director of Development, Trust and Foundation Fundraiser and Development Administrator who have focused on obtaining funding from new funders and repeat funding from existing funders and converting restricted funding to core through improved stewardship, this increased our unrestricted funding by 16%.

Membership income has increased by 28% this year to £150,664 (2022-23: £117,503). This is due to an increase in membership fees and more targeted approach to recruiting Corporate members as detailed above under membership.

Trading activities

Income for our trading activities has decreased by 28% from last year when we held our 65[th] anniversary fundraising event, which resulted in increased income. We continued to hold a series of Rule of Law events and other major donor fundraising events.

Investments

Investment income was £97,573 (2022-23: £9,248). This increase mainly relates to interest received on our endowment fund, (the endowment terms allow us to use income generated from the capital

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to meet general expenditure needs, therefore the interest is treated as unrestricted income) which is currently held in high interest-bearing bank accounts. We are in the process of finalising a formal investment policy to ensure we get the best return on the endowment fund.

Expenditure

Total expenditure in 2023-24 showed an increase of 24% (2023-24: £1,350,252, 2022-23: £1,091,212 without expenditure related to sale of Carter Lane (or £1,125,922 with expenditure related to sale of Carter Lane).

Staff costs

Staff costs account for 89% of the total costs of the organisation and have increased by 27% from 2022-23. This increase relates to increases in staff training, recruitment and consultancy costs related to communications and accounting consultancy. The latter was required to support the organisation during a period of long-term sickness absence. As well as salary increases related to inflation, we also increased our staff numbers with three new roles: a Head of Communications, an Administrative Assistant and a Deputy Legal Director. We also employed seven interns / fellows funded by Linklaters, Paul Hamlyn and the Portal Trust. During the year the total average FTE headcount increased to 18.9 (2022-23: 15.9), and the employed number to 22 (2022-23: 19). Further details of staff costs and staffing levels can be found in notes 7 & 8 to the accounts and the staffing and volunteers section of this report.

Costs of generating funds

The cost of generating funds which makes up 17% (2022-23: 13%) of our overall expenditure, has increased this year from £150,378 (in 2022-23) to £230,053. This increase relates to the expansion of the team to increase our fundraising capabilities, activities and income generation, as well as an increase in salaries related to the cost of living. These costs include fundraising salary costs, costs associated with fundraising materials and publicity expenditure plus an allocation of salary and overhead costs based on staff time attributable to the fundraising function this has increased from 18% to 20%, more details can be found in note 1 (j) of the accounts.

Endowment Fund

JUSTICE sold its freehold property in October 2022. This property in Carter Lane, was purchased as part on an appeal back in the 1990’s. The sale proceeds with the related sale expenditure deducted and some listed investments (Charishare) are held within this expendable endowment fund. These investments form part of our reserves. The Trustees have finalised an endowment policy which stipulates that the endowment is conserved to fund office accommodation in perpetuity. For 2024, this cost equated to £28,754 of expenditure for rent and storage costs. Endowment funds will be invested as per our investment policy. Any income generated from the capital can be used to meet general expenditure needs.

The charity has sufficient resources to settle its liabilities as they fall due in the foreseeable future.

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The Finance Committee reviews our investments at every meeting. We have not needed to draw down on these during the year. This year our investments made a gain: the value at 31 March 2024 was £288,949 up from £282,028 at 31 March 2023.

Principal risks and uncertainties

JUSTICE’s risk management strategy includes a Strategic risk register which details the external risks to JUSTICE which are identified as important but outside of our control, with the effects mitigated through response plans and management actions. Risks associated with our operations and projects continue to be managed through our operational risk register. See below for a summary of the risks covered in the Strategic risk register.

These risks are overseen by the relevant staff members, the Finance Committee and the Board. Our Finance Committee develop assurance frameworks to test that internal controls are working properly and provide regular updates to the Board on the outcome of these. As we move into a new strategic period with an emphasis on growth and sustainability, the SMT and Board are keen to take a more proactive approach to risk in order to improve our decision-making and performance. In order to become more risk enabled, we are developing a risk management framework based on an understanding of our thematic risks and our risk appetite. This will incorporate our existing risk registers, which SMT will update on a quarterly basis, but also provides a more holistic and meaningful approach to risk assessment. We are aiming to become a ‘risk-enabled’ organisation and will monitor our progress in this endeavour.

The main strategic risks for JUSTICE are as follows.

  1. External influences: A decline in funding and donations due to external influences such as Brexit, inflation, economic downturns and exhaustion of relevant trust and foundation sources resulting therefrom.

This risk is mitigated through: A diverse funding base which includes members, trusts and foundations, major corporate partnerships, major donors and other regular donors, which is in line with our fundraising and organisational strategy. An engaged Development Board and Chair who are focused on identifying new sources of funding. Robust event and engagement calendar to engage with existing and new donors to show the value of donations and the importance of our work. Proceeds from sale of building could provide additional funding to invest in growing the charity or to strengthen reserves. A regular review of our reserves policy.

Further management actions have been agreed which include: development of longer-term plans on organisational growth and implement more sustainable business model; Review of proceeds of sale and discussion on whether some of these should be designated for the work of JUSTICE. Investigate fundraising campaign ability and projected income and develop a written fundraising strategy; Build a strategy to 2030 with a core aim of becoming financially sustainable (this will include our vision for the organisation); Explore technology-supported efficiencies (including AI) and the potential for increasing revenue and staff capacity (eg through automated processing); Invest in easier ways to donate – card machines at events, easier access to website links, QR codes, text, etc...

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  1. Data breach: Loss of data through data breach, cyber-attack, server failure or human error. Cyber-attack is now one of the largest concerns for businesses. Despite adoption of all recommended protections and processes, the changing nature of cyber-attack means that there will still be a risk, which we will be unable to completely mitigate or manage. A data breach or cyber security incident could result in legal, contractual and/or regulatory consequences, as well as reputational damage.

This risk is mitigated through: having a dedicated IT supplier who ensure that we have strong IT systems in place, Firewall and antivirus software installed, software and operating systems regularly updated with security patches, and our database and email are hosted securely in the cloud. In March 2021 we upgraded our network to SharePoint so the whole network is located offsite and hosted by Microsoft Azure. We have clear Data Protection, Data Breach and IT policies which staff are regularly reminded of, and all staff received online GDPR and cyber security training annually. Phishing email simulation exercises introduced in 2023, where phishing simulation email campaigns are sent to all staff each month, using cognitive and behavioural therapy techniques to create security reflexes, with training being designed to meet our needs. We have a Cyber Essentials Plus certificate which renews annually and sees our network, policies and procedures independently audited and tested. We also have cyber security insurance in place, to insure us against an unfortunate breach. We have a Data Security Committee that supports the team.

Further management actions have been agreed which include: Develop an assurance process to ensure compliance with policies. Introduce once or twice monthly payment runs, with payments not made outside of these – helping to reduce risk of fake payment emails.

  1. Lack of own working space: JUSTICE being without its own permanent work base, which can lead to Loss of morale, organisational culture and benefit of in-person collaborative working caused by using temporary space on a much smaller scale than required; Loss of opportunity for confidential conversations (with team or external stakeholders); Staff time spent finding external meeting rooms to hold staff, policy and governance meetings; Increase in costs of storing items that we do not have space for in temporary office.

This risk is mitigated through: Having a good infrastructure in place for remote working, Covid19 lockdown and continued remote working has demonstrated that operations can continue effectively; network upgraded to SharePoint means we are no longer reliant on the server in the office and can work completely remotely, without requiring a physical space; Moved financial and operational files online and all being stored in Xero and on the network; Temporary desk space and collaborative working spaces provided for staff that need it; Ensuring there is the opportunity for the whole team to get together on a monthly basis in the office and/or at a venue provided by a key benefactor; Being mindful of sensitive conversations and considerate to where and when these take place; Using coffee shops for external meetings; Developed a network with many large and medium law firms that can provide meeting spaces for team as needed free of charge; Produced a Feasibility Report to understand our requirements (and those of two other charities who may be future partners in finding and renting an office space.

Further management actions have been agreed which include: We have found a permanent office space, which allows JUSTICE culture and values to grow and meets the needs of the team and

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charity, we hope to move into this space in summer 2024. Review Business Continuity Plan and develop a response plan.

  1. Demonstrating impact: As a law reform organisation working to strengthen the justice system through practical proposals for reform, it can sometimes be difficult for JUSTICE to demonstrate impact. This could lead to key funders withdrawing or significantly reducing funding, because they struggle to place the work of JUSTICE ahead of charities where demonstrating impact is more straightforward and evident. This would increase our risk of financial instability, could impact our staff numbers and lead to a reduction in work output, with knock-on effects for management and administrative overheads. Cutting management and administration staff would reduce the charity’s capacity to regrow.

This risk is mitigated through: close liaison with key funders to ensure that we understand their expectations, share and invest them in our vision and regularly update them on our work and impact; ongoing research of alternative funding sources to diversify income and; monitoring the impact of our work. Our impact is a consistent topic of discussion with the Board who monitor work and impact through papers. Constantly reviewing and updating our impacts across all communications methods (website, social media, newsletters)

Further management actions have been agreed which include: Develop strategy to 2030 with clear strategic, measurable goals, including creating a new Theory of Change (with external support) to ensure we are accurately capturing the impact of our work. Regularly updating and implementing our communications strategy. Producing KPIs (to date we have done this for our major fundraising and our communications). Seeking expert advice on measuring impact.

  1. Reputational: Media or other organisations publish highly critical, slanderous and/or inflammatory opinions on our work or stakeholders are highly critical of JUSTICE’s work, which could result in a loss of reputation for excellence and impartiality; confidence of Council members and/or members and/or donors of JUSTICE, loss of funding and less influence over stakeholders.

This risk is mitigated through: policy initiatives grounded in and supported by JUSTICE working party reports or external research findings and aligned with strategic aims; ongoing discussions with the Chief Executive, Board and other expert stakeholders for the duration of the project, with risk considered as part of these discussions; wherever possible evaluation, or at a minimum engagement, by academic partners; a communications plan in place around the operation of the project including the nature of the questions being tested and the release of any report; all projects to align with Strategic Aims; Head of Comms in post to manage external comms; and a response plan has been developed which staff can follow plan to manage any reputational risk following negative media commentary.

Reserves policy and going concern

Both the Board and JUSTICE's supporters recognise that the organisation operates in a policy environment that requires a long-term commitment if it is to achieve its mission. Being a research and educational organisation, it is the work undertaken by JUSTICE's staff that forms JUSTICE's charitable activities. Therefore, it is the view of the Board that JUSTICE needs a reserves level that

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will enable it to continue to attract the highest level of legal expertise and, in so doing, meet its long-term commitments to its supporters and beneficiaries.

Each year the Board reviews the reserves policy, taking into consideration any major risks and the impact these could have on planned income and expenditure. In light of the change in circumstances regarding our endowment fund, with funds no longer tied up in the building the Finance Committee undertook a careful trend analysis, which was challenged and assured by our Board, who then made a decision to revise our reserves policy, down from six months to three. Our current policy is that unrestricted reserves, on average are equivalent to at least three months’ of running costs (c£410,000 based on our 2024-25 budget), are needed if JUSTICE is to deliver on its commitments, meet the long-term expectations of its supporters and beneficiaries, and continue to attract the highest level of legal expertise with which to do so.

At the close of 31 March 2024, JUSTICE had £433,584 (2023: £491,274) in general reserves which is just over the Board’s reserves policy. JUSTICE’s reserve funds are held in a mix of deposit accounts and fixed interest and equity-based common investment funds, with the aim of achieving a combination of income and capital growth.

These reserves are comprised of general unrestricted funds of £439,612 less tangible fixed assets of £6,028.See note 16a of the accounts for more details.

As with most small charities, the past few years have been difficult for JUSTICE, and we have been operating at a deficit leading to a decline in reserves. We are predicting another deficit budget for 2024-25 but have plans in place to increase our fundraising efforts and our reach, through the major gifts campaign, JUSTICE60 income streams and fundraising events. The SMT are in the process of pulling together a five-to-ten-year plan for the charity and some financial modelling to determine what we need to ensure future financial sustainability of JUSTICE.

As always, the Finance Committee and Board are monitoring our finances closely and are of the view that we have the plans in place to meet the fundraising targets set in 2024-25 budget.

JUSTICE’s Board will continue to review its reserves policy on an annual basis and will keep its investment and treasury management policy under regular review.

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Plans for the future from JUSTICE Chief Executive, Fiona Rutherford

Commenting on our soon-to-be launched new organisational strategy, Baroness Hale of Richmond DBE says, “Justice and the rule of law are under threat in this country in ways which would have seemed unimaginable when JUSTICE was founded 67 years ago – its work has never been more needed than it is now.”

We agree. We have put careful thought into how to best meet this pivotal moment, and we have exciting plans for the year ahead and beyond.

In September 2024 we will launch our new organisational strategy, which will take us up to 2030. This strategy will focus our work around four key goals: First, to firmly establish the rule of law as a key feature of our democracy. Second, to challenge discrimination and inequality in the justice system. Third, to build a well-functioning, people-centred justice system with trustworthy and effective data management. Finally, to increase public understanding of the importance of the justice system, its key challenges, and most promising solutions. This strategy was drawn up in careful consultation with a wide range of stakeholders as well as the whole JUSTICE team.

We are already starting work on this new strategy’s implementation, on both the policy and operational side. For example, we are actively planning how to become a more financially robust and impactful organisation over the course of the new strategy (six years). As part of this we have started building a longer-term financial planning model. We also plan to refresh our approach to measuring the impact of our work over the coming years. Finally, we will continue scoping work on our JUSTICE data and policy institute. There is no shortage of areas where the justice system is failing people and where JUSTICE could make a positive difference.

In late summer 2024 we plan to move into a new permanent office at 1 Paternoster Lane near St Pauls; the team are very much looking forward to getting settled into their new premises. This will give us with a stable base from which to meet the needs of the team and charity and make the most of the opportunities ahead.

For 2024-25 and beyond, we plan to build on our hard work in setting up new income streams and consolidating our existing ones. To this end we intend to recruit a Major Gift Fundraiser to service the major donor programme of work. We have also increased Riikka Andersson’s hours to focus on larger, unrestricted, and multi-year funding from new and existing Trusts and Foundations. We will continue to organise events to engage and retain donors but also to raise funds. We will concentrate our efforts on building a legacy-giving programme as well as look outside the legal world to broaden our support from corporates.

We plan to launch reports or reviews covering government contracting, protest, AI, Human Rights and the Law, ethnic minority women and girls in the criminal justice system, and others over the

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coming year. This is in addition to ongoing scoping and other research, as well as our continued work to implement our previous recommendations. We will continue our legislative analysis and briefing and consider how we might add value to legal understanding by making third party interventions.

We will use events to raise awareness and educate ourselves and others in relation to important topics and will speak and attend events hosted by others to do the same. We already have several of these events confirmed, including the launch of our government procurement report in June, an AI fundraising dinner and a strategy launch event in September, and our annual conference in November, with many more in planning stages.

Our regional expansion work will continue over the next year. As part of plans to strengthen ties across the UK, we have events planned in Wales as well as our Annual Human Rights Lecture in Edinburgh. We also plan to continue engaging with the Northern Irish NGO sector to determine how we can best add value to the legal advocacy ecosystem there.

My sincere thanks go to our members, Friends, donors, funders, Development Board (particularly our Chair, Karyl Nairn KC), Council, Board and, of course, the brilliant JUSTICE staff, for all their support – without which, none of the work in this report would be possible. I very much look forward to working with you all in the year ahead as JUSTICE continues to build a fairer justice system within everyone’s reach.

I want to end with special thanks to our outgoing Chair, Peter Binning. With a trademark combination of energy, kindness, and careful thought, Peter has done much to build on our reputation as a trusted, independent voice on justice issues. His commitment to JUSTICE has been unwavering and we are all deeply grateful to him for his work over the past five years.

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Further detail on our future plans

Research projects in progress or due to commence 2024-25:

This Working Party launched in February 2023 and looks at how to better protect the rights of individuals when public services are contracted out to providers. Chaired by Sir Gary Hickinbottom, it also has senior lawyers, commercial experts, and academics on its panel.

It is particularly interested in the outsourcing of decisions and assessments that impact individuals’ access to public services or have a particular impact on individual rights. The Working Party aims to ensure outsourced decisions and assessments are of good quality and fully engage and respect the rights of individuals involved. Where decisions are disputed, the Working Party seeks to ensure there are sufficient protection for individuals with vulnerabilities and that there are clear, accessible ways to challenge those decisions. The Working Party will launch its report in June 2024.

This work was supported by the 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust (£7,500) and CEO Sleepout (£2,000).

• AI, Human Rights and the Law

This is a multiyear project to ensure the use of data and AI in the justice system improves access to justice, advances human rights, and strengthens the rule of law, for the benefit of those currently underserved by the status quo rather than those already empowered by it.

We are currently getting underway the first project in this workstream which will be developing principles for the use of AI in the justice system. This is being done with the assistance of an advisory group lead by Sophia Adams Bhatti of Simmons and Simmons. It is also benefiting from pro bono research support from Pinsent Masons. We aim to have the principles finalised by the beginning of Autumn 2024.

Simultaneously we are conducting research for the second project in this work stream – a comparative lessons learning project on how AI is or has been used in international criminal jurisdictions. We are being assisted with pro bono research by DLA Piper LLP, Convington & Burling LLP and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

The third project in this workstream is how AI can be used to help address unmet legal need. We envisage that this will be a multidisciplinary project drawing on technological expertise. We have already been developing a relationship with LawTech UK who will be natural collaborators on this project. We envisage commencing this project towards the end of 2024-5 financial year.

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A fourth project - considering what accountability and effective redress for unfair or unsafe AI looks like is planned but will not commence until later on in the 25/26 financial year.

• Lessons for Democratic Renewal

Following our landmark 2023 report, ‘The State We’re In: Addressing Threats & Challenges to the Rule of Law’, we are now looking internationally for lessons to help us repair and renew the UK’s Rule of Law. We have commenced a project to chart different countries’ respective journeys and difficulties with rule of law adherence and then apply these learnings to the UK context.

Clifford Chance is supporting us with international research on this project.

• Protest review

In our “The State We’re In” report two of the pieces of legislation that we assessed as raising particular issues for the rule of law were the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023, both of which introduced restrictions on protest rights.

We are conducting a review as to how these pieces of legislation have been operating in practice and what impact they have had on Article 10 and 11 rights. This will encompass a mixture of desk-based research, to which we are grateful to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, for their assistance, as well as consultation with practitioners and front line organisations to understand their experience of the legislation.

This work is supported by the JRSST Charitable Trust, the Legal Education Foundation, and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

• Ethnic minority women and girls in the criminal justice system

Following our report ‘Tackling Racial Injustice: Children and the Youth Justice System’ (2021), we have commenced a project looking at Black and racialised women and girls’ experiences of the justice system and offer a series of practical recommendations to improve these groups’ experiences, reduce discrimination, and ensure they receive any help and support needed.

It will be done in a series of three papers looking at different stages of the CJS: (i) entry into the CJS; (ii) within the core CJS itself (i.e. remand, courts, prison etc); and (iii) leaving the CJS. Each paper will be structured around the same 5 or 6 cross cutting issues. We have commenced work on the first paper. The second paper will be commenced later in the financial year.

This project is based on a substantial amount of desk-based research Travers Smith LLP have conducted for us over the past 18 months. In addition, we will be consulting widely with stakeholders. This project is also supported by the Dawes Trust (who are funding our criminal implementation work).

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• Legal Assistance in the Police Station

Following on from our Scottish working party Legal Assistance in the Police station, we are conducting a collaborative PhD with Aura Bamber, a student at the University of Warwick, supervised Professor Jacqueline Mackenzie.

The aim of the PhD is to conduct observational research of interrogation of suspects in police custody and of lawyers providing legal advice in order to understand: (i) why so few suspects in Scotland request a lawyer; (ii) why lawyers in Scotland have resisted attending the police station, preferring to provide telephone advice; (iii) what impact this has on the interrogation and treatment of suspects.

The research will look, in particular, at vulnerable suspects and how the treatment and experience of suspects in detention, and the degree to which procedural safeguards are complied with are impacted by characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, vulnerability (legally defined), mental ill-health, addiction.

Our work in Scotland is supported by the Tay Charitable Trust (£5,000).

• The operation and enforcement of the Public Sector Equality Duty

We will be scoping a new project which will look at the operation of the Public Sector Equality Duty. Next year will be 15 years since the introduction of the Equality Act – an opportune moment to take a look at one of its central duties. We are interested in both what impact it has had on government decision making, as well as how it is enforced in court.

• Neurodivergence in the justice system

We have touched on the treatment of neurodivergent individuals in the justice system in a number of existing projects including Remand Decision Making, Behavioural Control Orders and Mental Health and Fair Trials. We are doing some early thinking about pulling the strands from this work together to look at the experience of neurodivergent individuals in the justice system more broadly. We are doing some scoping in relation to the experience in both the English justice system and Scottish justice system.

• Windrush Lessons Learning

Following publication of the third in our series of reports on this project on the EU Settlement Scheme. We will now be putting together a comparative report drawing out the similarities in issues faced by the Windrush Compensation Scheme, Afghan Resettlement Schemes and the EUSS and the lessons that can be learnt from them.

Simultaneously we will continue to work towards implementing the individual recommendations from each of the reports.

This work is supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

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• Fraud

We will be scoping a new project looking at the prosecution of fraud offences. Fraud constitutes over 40 per cent of all offences in England and Wales. Much of this is committed online. As part of the Government’s Fraud Strategy they have launched an independent review, chaired by Jonathan Fisher KC, into the disclosure regime in a digital age and whether the nature of current fraud offences meet the challenges of modern fraud (the “ Fisher Review ”)

We have been asked by the Home Office to help facilitate a series of evidence gathering roundtables as part of the review as well as sit on the practitioners’ advisory panel. Recommendations of Part 1 of the review are due to be provided to the Home Secretary in Summer 2024 and the recommendations on fraud offences by Spring 2025.

The fraud part of the review is looking primarily at penalties for crimes, how to make informing on associates easier and the scope of civil powers. We are looking at doing a complementary project which looks at the procedural aspects of the prosecution of fraud offences, building on the disclosure part of the review.

Structure, governance and management

Staffing and volunteers

JUSTICE has a small permanent staff team, which is supported throughout the year by interns and fellows. We have benefited this financial year from funding from Linklaters LLP to support two fulltime six-month legal fellowships, the Portal Trust who funded two full-time three-month internships and from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation who provided funding for fellowships for our immigration work.

Our permanent staff complement at the end of March 2024 was 16 with thirteen full-time and three part-time employees, this full-time equivalent (Note 8) is 22 when we include staff who have left within the year and our Legal Interns. We are proud to pay all our three-month interns the London Living Wage and to be a registered London Living Wage Employer. All our six-month fellows are recruited on our salary scale to reflect the impact of inflation.

The volume of work detailed above would not be possible without all those who volunteered their services to JUSTICE. We would like to extend our thanks to the many eminent lawyers, judges, academics, NGOs, Parliamentarians, officials, politicians and individuals with lived experience, who have contributed to our reports, our conferences and seminars, and helped us to raise the profile of JUSTICE’s purpose and work over the last year.

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Governance

The organisation is a charitable company limited by guarantee, incorporated on 26 June 1996 and registered as a charity on 10 October 1996.

The company was established under a memorandum of association, which established the objects and powers of the charitable company and is governed under its articles of association. In 2015, we amended our memorandum of association and regulations so that members of JUSTICE are members of the Company of JUSTICE, and are able to be elected, directly to the JUSTICE Board.

JUSTICE Council

The JUSTICE Council is an advisory body to the Board and is asked to:

JUSTICE Board

JUSTICE Board Members are elected from individual members of JUSTICE and are Directors of the Charity for the purposes of the Companies Act and the charity trustees as defined by section 177 of the Charities Act and are referred to as Board members throughout this report.

All Board Members give their time voluntarily and receive no benefits from the charity.

The present Board Members and any previous Board Members for this financial year are listed on page 1 of this report.

The JUSTICE Board is responsible for the overall governance of JUSTICE. There must be a minimum of three members and a maximum of fifteen, we currently have thirteen in post. The Board meet at least four times per year, where they consider overall strategy, operational performance, and the financial situation.

The Chief Executive of JUSTICE, Fiona Rutherford, works closely with the Board, meeting regularly with the Chair of the Board, Peter Binning, and holds quarterly meetings with both the Chair and the Senior Independent Director, Dame Alison Saunders, consulting other Board members as required.

JUSTICE is managed on a daily basis by the Senior Management Team, comprised during this year of Stephanie Needleman, Legal Director, maternity cover provided by Tyrone Steele as the Interim

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Legal Director; Samantha Burridge, Director of Operations; Amanda Miller, Director of Development (to January 2024), and Jane Collier, Director of Development from January 2024 (prior to this she was the Deputy Director of Development)his and is headed up by the Chief Executive, Fiona Rutherford. Samantha Burridge meets regularly with the Treasurer, Rachel Sexton, to review and discuss financial reports.

Appointment of Board Members

JUSTICE generally recruits Board members from within our membership. In order to be appointed to the Board, you need to be a JUSTICE member and be nominated by two members of JUSTICE, nominations being made in writing to the Chief Executive at least seven days before the Annual General Meeting. Board members have the power to appoint any person at any time to the Board to fill a vacancy, although this person will stand down and be re-elected at the next Annual General Meeting.

The Chair of the Board is nominated by the Board and subject to the approval of the members at the AGM.

In line with the recommendations of the UK Charity Governance Review 2016. Board members can only serve for two three-year terms and the Chair for one term, of four years.

Board Members induction and training

All new Board Members are inducted by the JUSTICE Chief Executive, invited to meet with JUSTICE staff, and are provided with an induction pack which includes the Charity Commission guidance on the responsibilities of Trustees, the Charity Governance Code and copies of JUSTICE’s Articles of Association, Regulations, latest strategy, annual review, accounts and organisational structure.

All staff and Board members are offered the opportunity to pair up, with the Board member providing mentoring to the staff member. This has proved valuable to both the staff and Board member.

All Board Members are encouraged to attend training sessions offered by our Auditor on the roles and responsibilities of Trustees and the dates of these training sessions are circulated on a regular basis.

Finance Committee

JUSTICE’S Finance Committee is usually made up of JUSTICE Board Members, although membership of the Committee is also open to members of JUSTICE. The members in 2023-24 were:

Rachel Sexton (Treasurer), Peter Binning (Chair of the JUSTICE Board), Nick Benson, Alastair Livesey, Kate Saunders and David Stern.

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The Finance Committee met four times in 2023-24. Meetings were also attended by the JUSTICE Chief Executive, the Director of Operations and the Operations Co-ordinator. The Finance Committee’s role is to:

Remuneration policy for key management personnel

JUSTICE is committed to ensuring a proper balance between: (i) paying our staff and others who work for us fairly so that we attract and retain the best people for the job, and (ii) careful management of our charity funds. In so doing, we will ensure the greatest effectiveness in delivering our charitable objectives and meeting the needs of our beneficiaries.

JUSTICE’s Remuneration Committee is a Committee of the Board of trustees and reports directly to the Board, it comprises of the Chair, Treasurer and the Senior Independent Director of JUSTICE.

Formal consideration of remuneration matters takes place annually, usually ahead of the Finance Committee’s February/March meeting. However, remuneration matters may also be considered at other meetings if ad hoc issues arise during the year. The Chief Executive attends Committee meetings but leaves when his/her remuneration is discussed.

The annual formal considerations of the Committee are to:

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recommendations are compatible with the training policy of the charity and are timed to feed into the budget planning cycle.

The Remuneration Committee does not have fully delegated authority in these matters and any recommendations or decisions must be ratified by the Board prior to implementation.

Statement of responsibilities of Board Members

JUSTICE Board Members (who are also directors of JUSTICE for the purposes of company law and the charity trustees as defined by section 177 of the Charities Act 2011) are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ annual report and the financial statements, in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

Company law requires the Board to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the Board are required to:

Board Members are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006, the Charities and

48

JUSTICE

Trustees’ annual report

For the year ended 31 March 2024

Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended). They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

In so far as the Board are aware:

The Board are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charitable company's website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Members of the charity guarantee to contribute an amount not exceeding £1 to the assets of the charity in the event of winding up. The total number of such guarantees at March 2024 was 1,565 (2023: 1,776). The Board are members of the charity, but this entitles them only to voting rights. The Board have no beneficial interest in the charity.

Auditor

Sayer Vincent LLP was re-appointed as the charitable company's auditor during the year and has expressed its willingness to continue in that capacity.

The Trustees’ annual report has been approved by the Board on 10 July 2024 and signed on their behalf on

Rachel Sexton Board Member and Treasurer

49

Independent auditor’s report

To the members of

JUSTICE

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of JUSTICE (the ‘charitable company’) for the year ended 31 March 2024 which comprise the statement of financial activities, balance sheet, statement of cash flows and notes to the financial statements, including significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including FRS 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:

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.

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 JUSTICE'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.

50

Independent auditor’s report

To the members of

JUSTICE

Other Information

The other information comprises the information included in the trustees’ annual report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. The trustees are responsible for the other information contained within the annual report. 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. 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 course of 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:

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’ annual report.

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended) require us to report to you if, in our opinion:

51

Independent auditor’s report

To the members of

JUSTICE

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the statement of trustees’ responsibilities set out in the trustees’ annual 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.

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

We have been appointed as auditor under section 44(1)(c) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and under the Companies Act 2006 and report in accordance with regulations made under those Acts.

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 are set out below.

Capability of the audit in detecting irregularities

52

Independent auditor’s report

To the members of

JUSTICE

Because of the inherent limitations of an audit, there is a risk that we will not detect all irregularities, including those leading to a material misstatement in the financial statements or non-compliance with regulation. This risk increases the more that compliance with a law or regulation is removed from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, as we will be less likely to become aware of instances of non-compliance. The risk is also greater regarding irregularities occurring due to fraud rather than error, as fraud involves intentional concealment, forgery, collusion, omission or misrepresentation.

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

53

Independent auditor’s report

To the members of

JUSTICE

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 and section 44(1)(c) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. 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.

Joanna Pittman (Senior statutory auditor)

Date 26 July 2024

for and on behalf of Sayer Vincent LLP, Statutory Auditor 110 Golden Lane, LONDON, EC1Y 0TG

Sayer Vincent LLP is eligible to act as auditor in terms of section 1212 of the Companies Act 2006

54

JUSTICE

Statement of financial activities (incorporating an income and expenditure account)

For the year ended 31 March 2024

Note
Income from:
2
3
3
Fundraising
Rental income
4
5a
6
Reconciliation of funds:
Total funds carried forward
Transfers between funds
Net movement in funds
Total funds brought forward
Net gain / (loss) on investments
Research and education
Membership
Raising funds
Net income / (expenditure) for
the year
Total expenditure
Net (expenditure) / income
before investments
Charitable activities
Research and education
Membership
Investments
Total income
Expenditure on:
Other trading activities
Profit on disposal of building
Donations and legacies
Charitable activities		 Endowment
Fund
£
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 Restricted
Funds
£
-
416,701
-
-
-
-
-		 Unrestricted
Funds
£
505,551
140,518
150,664
6,775
-
97,953
-		 2024
Total
£
505,551
557,219
150,664
6,775
-
97,953
-		 Endowment
Fund
£
-
-
-
-
-
-
1,767,251		 Restricted
Funds
£
-
330,723
-
-
-
-
-		 Unrestricted
Funds
£
472,206
121,074
117,503
47,775
-
9,248
-		 2023
Total
£
472,206
451,797
117,503
47,775
-
9,248
1,767,251
- 416,701 901,461 1,318,162 1,767,251 330,723 767,806 2,865,780
6,441
21,496
817		 -
360,475
-		 223,612
714,934
22,477		 230,053
1,096,905
23,294		 7,220
25,415
2,075		 -
334,062
-		 143,158
577,531
36,461		 150,378
937,008
38,536
28,754 360,475 961,023 1,350,252 34,710 334,062 757,150 1,125,922
3,266
(28,754)		 -
56,226		 3,655
(59,562)		 6,921
(32,090)		 (1,204)
1,732,541		 -
(3,339)		 (7,316)
10,656		 (8,520)
1,739,858
(25,488)
-		 56,226
-		 (55,907)
-		 (25,169)
-		 1,731,337
-		 (3,339)
791		 3,340
(791)		 1,731,338
-
(25,488)
2,152,276		 56,226
(648)		 (55,907)
495,519		 (25,169)
2,647,147		 1,731,337
420,939		 (2,548)
1,900		 2,549
492,970		 1,731,338
915,809
2,126,788 55,578 439,612 2,621,978 2,152,276 (648) 495,519 2,647,147

All of the above results are derived from continuing activities. There were no other recognised gains or losses other than those stated above. Movements in funds are disclosed in Note 15 to the financial statements.

55

JUSTICE

Company no. 3216897

Balance sheet

As at 31 March 2024

Restricted
£
-
-		 Unrestricted
£
6,028
172,297		 2024
£
6,028
288,949		 Endowment
£
-
113,386		 Restricted
£
-
-		 Unrestricted
£
4,245
168,642		 2023
£
4,245
282,028
116,652
-
204,248
1,805,888		 -
-
55,578
-		 178,325
159,507
205,595
-		 294,977
159,507
465,422
1,805,888		 113,386
-
238,880
1,800,010		 -
-
(648)
-		 172,887
71,050
332,420
-		 286,273
71,050
570,652
1,800,010
2,441,712
80,838
2,010,136
-		 55,578
-		 365,102
103,816		 2,430,817
103,816		 2,038,890
-		 (648)
-		 403,470
80,838
2,010,136 55,578 261,286 2,327,001 2,038,890 (648) 322,632 2,360,874
2,126,788 55,578 439,612 2,621,978 2,152,276 (648) 495,519 2,647,147
2,126,788
-
-		 -
85,128
(29,550)		 -
-
-		 2,126,788
85,128
(29,550)		 2,152,276
-
-		 -
34,371
(35,019)		 -
-
-		 2,152,276
34,371
(35,019)
- 55,578 - 55,578 - (648) - (648)
-
-		 -
-		 -
439,612		 -
439,612		 -
-		 -
-		 -
495,519		 -
495,519
- - 439,612 439,612 - - 495,519 495,519

Approved by the trustees on 10 July 2024 and signed on their behalf by

Rachel Sexton Treasurer

Peter Binning Chair of the JUSTICE Board

56

JUSTICE

Statement of cash flows

For the year ended 31 March 2024

Reconciliation of net income / (expenditure) to net cash flow from operating activities

Net income / (expenditure) for the reporting period
(as per the statement of financial activities)
Depreciation charges
(Gains)/losses on investments
Dividends, interest and rent from investments
Loss/(profit) on the sale of fixed assets
(Increase)/decrease in debtors
Increase/(decrease) in creditors
Net cash provided by / (used in) operating activities
Cash flows from operating activities
Net cash provided by investing activities
Net cash provided by operating activities
Cash flows from investing activities:
Dividends, interest and rents from investments
Purchase of fixed assets
Proceeds from the sale of fixed assets
Transfers to short term deposit accounts
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the year		 £
£
(190,562)
(5,878)
97,953
(6,743)
-
85,332
(105,230)
570,652
465,422
2024		 £
£
(190,562)
(5,878)
97,953
(6,743)
-
85,332
(105,230)
570,652
465,422
2024		 2024
£
(25,169)
4,960
(6,921)
(97,953)
-
(88,457)
22,978		 2023
£
1,731,338
10,680
8,520
(9,248)
(1,767,251)
(17,054)
10,657
(190,562) (32,358)
(105,230)
570,652		 242,676
327,976
465,422 570,652

57

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

1 Accounting policies

a) Statutory information

JUSTICE is a charitable company limited by guarantee and is incorporated in United Kingdom.

The registered office address is 2nd Floor Lincoln House, 296-302 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7JH

b) Basis of preparation

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) - (Charities SORP FRS 102), The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Companies Act 2006.

Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy or note.

In applying the financial reporting framework, the trustees have made a number of subjective judgements, for example in respect of significant accounting estimates. Estimates and judgements are continually evaluated and are based on historical experience and other factors, including expectations of future events that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances. The nature of the estimation means the actual outcomes could differ from those estimates. Any significant estimates and judgements affecting these financial statements are detailed within the relevant accounting policy below.

c) Public benefit entity

The charitable company meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102.

d) Going concern

The trustees consider that there are no material uncertainties about the charitable company's ability to continue as a going concern.

The trustees do not consider that there are any sources of estimation uncertainty at the reporting date that have a significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities within the next reporting period.

e) Income

Income is recognised when the charity has entitlement to the funds, any performance conditions attached to the income have been met, it is probable that the income will be received and that the amount can be measured reliably. Tax recoverable under the gift aid scheme is recognised when receivable to align with the original donation.

Income from government and other grants, whether ‘capital’ grants or ‘revenue’ grants, is recognised when the charity has entitlement to the funds, any performance conditions attached to the grants have been met, it is probable that the income will be received and the amount can be measured reliably and is not deferred.

For legacies, entitlement is taken as the earlier of the date on which either: the charity is aware that probate has been granted, the estate has been finalised and notification has been made by the executor(s) to the charity that a distribution will be made, or when a distribution is received from the estate. Receipt of a legacy, in whole or in part, is only considered probable when the amount can be measured reliably and the charity has been notified of the executor’s intention to make a distribution. Where legacies have been notified to the charity, or the charity is aware of the granting of probate, and the criteria for income recognition have not been met, then the legacy is a treated as a contingent asset and disclosed if material.

Income received in advance of the provision of a specified service is deferred until the criteria for income recognition are met.

Income received for seminars and other similar events, including income received to sponsor events, is recognised in the statement of financial activities in the period the event takes place.

Subscription income from members is credited to the statement of financial activities when received.

Rental income is credited to the statement of financial activities in the period in which it is related to.

58

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

f) Donations of gifts, services and facilities

Donated professional services and donated facilities are recognised as income when the charity has control over the item or received the service, any conditions associated with the donation have been met, the receipt of economic benefit from the use by the charity of the item is probable and that economic benefit can be measured reliably. In accordance with the Charities SORP (FRS 102), volunteer time is not recognised so refer to the trustees’ annual report for more information about their contribution.

On receipt, donated gifts, professional services and donated facilities are recognised on the basis of the value of the gift to the charity which is the amount the charity would have been willing to pay to obtain services or facilities of equivalent economic benefit on the open market; a corresponding amount is then recognised in expenditure in the period of receipt.

g) Interest receivable

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

h) Fund accounting

Endowment funds are amounts raised through an appeal for charitable purposes which may be retained to produce an income for the charity or may be spent on premises, equipment and development at the discretion of the Board of Trustees.

Restricted funds are to be used for specific purposes as laid down by the donor. Expenditure which meets these criteria is charged to the fund.

Unrestricted funds are donations and other income received or generated for the charitable purposes.

i) Expenditure and irrecoverable VAT

Irrecoverable VAT is charged as a cost against the activity for which the expenditure was incurred.

59

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

j) Allocation of support costs

Expenditure is allocated to the particular activity where the cost relates directly to that activity. However, the cost of overall direction and administration of each activity, comprising the salary and overhead costs of the central function, is apportioned on the following basis which is an estimate, based on staff time, of the amount attributable to each activity.

Where information about the aims, objectives and projects of the charity is provided to potential beneficiaries, the costs associated with this publicity are allocated to charitable expenditure.

Where such information about the aims, objectives and projects of the charity is also provided to potential donors, activity costs are apportioned between fundraising and charitable activities on the basis of area of literature occupied by each activity.

2024 2023
Research and education 66% 63%
Membership 2% 5%
Support costs 9% 11%
Governance costs 3% 3%
Fundraising 20% 18%

Support and governance costs are re-allocated to each of the activities on the following basis which is an estimate, based on staff time, of the amount attributable to each activity

Governance costs are the costs associated with the governance arrangements of the charity. These costs are associated with constitutional and statutory requirements and include any costs associated with the strategic management of the charity’s activities.

Rental charges are charged on a straight line basis over the term of the lease.

k) Tangible fixed assets

Items of equipment are capitalised where the purchase price exceeds £500. Depreciation costs are allocated to activities on the basis of the use of the related assets in those activities. Assets are reviewed for impairment if circumstances indicate their carrying value may exceed their net realisable value and value in use.

Depreciation is provided at rates calculated to write down the cost of each asset to its estimated residual value over its expected useful life. The depreciation rates in use are as follows:

Computer equipment - 25% straight line
Database - 20% straight line
Freehold buildings - 1% straight line

The useful economic life of the freehold buildings is in excess of 50 years but as the value of the building is not impaired below its carrying amount, no adjustments have been made. The value of land is not known and it is not separately accounted for; instead, the freehold property, including land, is depreciated over 100 years.

l) Listed investments

Investments are a form of basic financial instrument and are initially recognised at their transaction value and subsequently measured at their fair value as at the balance sheet date using the closing quoted market price. Any change in fair value will be recognised in the statement of financial activities. Investment gains and losses, whether realised or unrealised, are combined and shown in the heading “Net gains/(losses) on investments” in the statement of financial activities. The charity does not acquire put options, derivatives or other complex financial instruments.

60

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

1 Accounting policies (continued)

m) Debtors

Trade and other debtors are recognised at the settlement amount due after any trade discount offered. Prepayments are valued at the amount prepaid net of any trade discounts due.

n) Cash at bank and in hand

Cash at bank and cash in hand includes cash and short term highly liquid investments with a short maturity of three months or less from the date of acquisition or opening of the deposit or similar account.

o) Short term deposits

Short term deposits includes cash balances that are invested in accounts with a maturity date of between 3 and 12 months.

p) Creditors and provisions

Creditors and provisions are recognised where the charity has a present obligation resulting from a past event that will probably result in the transfer of funds to a third party and the amount due to settle the obligation can be measured or estimated reliably. Creditors and provisions are normally recognised at their settlement amount after allowing for any trade discounts due.

q) Financial instruments

The charity only has financial assets and financial liabilities of a kind that qualify as basic financial instruments. Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at transaction value and subsequently measured at their settlement value with the exception of bank loans which are subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method.

61

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

the year ended 31 March 2024
Donations and legacies
General Donations
Legacies
Donated services
Friends
JUSTICE60 Donations		 Restricted
£
-
-
-
-
-		 Unrestricted
£
133,222
33,862
321,400
1,468
15,599		 2024
Total
£
133,222
33,862
321,400
1,468
15,599		 Restricted
£
-
-
-
-
-		 Unrestricted
£
95,455
34,592
313,430
2,500
26,229		 2023
Total
£
95,455
34,592
313,430
2,500
26,229
- 505,551 505,551 - 472,206 472,206

62

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

Income from charitable activities
the year ended 31 March 2024
2024 2023
Restricted Unrestricted Total Restricted Unrestricted Total
£ £ £ £ £ £
Trust and Foundations
Existing / previous funders:
The Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust - 25,000 25,000 - - -
The Barrow Cadbury Trust - - - 8,350 - 8,350
The Bromley Trust 15000 - 15,000 15,000 - 15,000
The Clifford Chance Foundation - - - 2,603 - 2,603
The Dawes Trust 25,000 - 25,000 - - -
Doughty Street Chambers Supported Causes Fund - 5,000 5,000 - 5,000 5,000
The Dulverton Trust - 35,000 35,000 - 35,000 35,000
The Evan Cornish Foundation - - - - 10,000 10,000
The Golden Bottle Trust - - - 1,000 - 1,000
The Jolanta and Max Neufeld Charitable Trust - - - - 5,000 5,000
Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust 24,703 - 24,703 28,639 - 28,639
Laura Kinsella Foundation - 1,000 1,000 - 1,000 1,000
The Legal Education Foundation 35,000 - 35,000 35,000 - 35,000
The Leri Charitable Trust - 17,250 17,250 - 15,000 15,000
Paul Hamlyn 43,605 - 43,605 38,815 - 38,815
Simmons and Simmons Charitable Foundation - - - - 4,500 4,500
abrdn Financial Fairness Trust - - - 5,000 - 5,000
The Stewarts Foundation - 6,000 6,000 - 6,000 6,000
Treebeard Trust - - - 25,000 - 25,000
Trust for London 8,250 - 8,250 15,750 - 15,750
New funders:
The Access to Justice Foundation 7,150 7,150
Garden Court Chambers Special Fund 3,000 3,000
The JRSST Charitable Trust 15,047 15,047
The Law Society Charity 5,000 5,000
The Oakdale Trust 2,000 2,000
The Portal Trust 22,500 22,500
Tay Charitable Trust 5000 5,000
The 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust 7,500 - 7,500 - - -
The 4814 Trust 10,000 10,000
Other:
Existing / previous funders
Allen and Overy Foundation - - - - 10,000 10,000
Dechert LLP - - - 750 - 750
Herbert Smith Freehills LLP - 6,000 6,000 - 3,000 3,000
Linklaters LLP 124,063 - 124,063 51,500 1,000 52,500
King & Spalding LLP - - - 10,000 - 10,000
Ministry of Justice 71,883 - 71,883 58,163 - 58,163
Reed Smith LLP - 5,000 5,000 5,000 - 5,000
Sidley Austin LLP - - - 10,000 - 10,000
Society of the Holy Child Jesus - - - - 5,000 5,000
University of Kent - - - 9,737 - 9,737
University of Westminster - - - 10,416 - 10,416
New funders:
CEO Sleepout 2,000 - 2,000
Covington & Burling LLP 4,025 4,025
Intermediaries for Communication 1,905 1,905
Education:
Conferences - 23,591 23,591 - 20,387 20,387
Publications - 227 227 - 187 187
Other - 520 520 - - -
Sub-total for research and education 416,701 140,518 557,219 330,723 121,074 451,797
Membership - 150,664 150,664 - 117,503 117,503
Sub-total for membership - 150,664 150,664 - 117,503 117,503
Total income from charitable activities 416,701 291,182 707,883 330,723 238,577 569,300

63

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024 4 Other income

Other income
es to the financial statements
the year ended 31 March 2024
Gain on disposal of property Endowment
Fund
£
-		 Restricted
£
-		 Unrestricted
£
-		 2024
Total
£
-		 Endowment
Fund
£
1,767,251		 Restricted
£
-		 Unrestricted
£
-		 2023
Total
£
1,767,251
- - - - 1,767,251 - - 1,767,251

JUSTICE sold its freehold property in Carter Lane, in October 2022. This property was purchased as part on an appeal back in the 1990’s and was held as part of our endowment fund. Since the building was sold, we have been renting a few temporary desks from another charity whilst we decide how best to use the proceeds from the sale. During this time we have learnt the importance of having space for our staff to work together whilst maintaining flexible working so we know we do need some form of office space.

As the building was purchased as part of an appeal, we feel its right to fully consider all options and this is not a decision the Board is taking lightly. We are commissioning a number of experts to advise us and the senior management team on our options and we hope to have a decision on this by the summer. In the meantime, the funds have been deposited in high interest accounts so that we can receive some income on these.

64

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

5a Analysis of expenditure (current year)

Analysis of expenditure (current year)
s to the financial statements
he year ended 31 March 2024
Staff costs (Note 7)
Costs associated with sale of premises*
Premises costs
Office costs
Publications/printing/design
Training, seminars and conferences
Fundraising costs
Professional fees
Depreciation
Other costs
Support costs
Governance costs
Total expenditure 2024
Total expenditure 2023		 Cost of
raising funds
£
168,829
-
7,164
15,173
-
-
4,681
-
992
4,145
200,984
19,888
9,181
230,053
150,378		 Research &
education
Membership
£
£
911,272
16,883
-
-
23,642
716
63,356
1,517
-
-
1,833
-
-
288
-
-
3,274
99
-
-
1,003,377
19,503
63,989
2,594
29,539
1,197
1,096,905
23,294
937,008
38,536
Charitable activities		 Governance
costs
£
25,324
-
1,075
2,276
-
-
-
10,530
149
563
39,917
-
(39,917)
-
-		 Support costs
£
75,973
-
3,224
6,828
-
-
-
-
446
-
86,471
(86,471)
-
-
-		 2024
Total
£
1,198,281
-
35,821
89,150
-
1,833
4,969
10,530
4,960
4,708
1,350,252
-
-
1,350,252		 2023
Total
£
943,245
48,403
15,676
73,715
-
2,441
18,368
9,828
10,680
3,566
Research &
education
£
911,272
-
23,642
63,356
-
1,833
-
-
3,274
-
1,003,377
63,989
29,539
1,096,905
937,008
1,125,922
-
-
1,125,922

65

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

5b Analysis of expenditure (previous year)

Analysis of expenditure (previous year)
he year ended 31 March 2024
Staff costs (Note 7)
Costs associated with sale of premises*
Premises costs
Office costs
Publications/printing/design
Training, seminars and conferences
Fundraising costs
Professional fees
Depreciation
Other costs
Support costs
Governance costs
Total expenditure 2023		 Cost of
raising funds
£
90,295
8,713
2,822
8,448
-
-
18,046
-
1,922
-
130,246
13,713
6,419
150,378		 Research &
education
Membership
£
£
757,639
25,082
30,494
2,420
9,876
784
56,349
2,347
-
-
2,441
-
-
322
-
-
6,729
534
-
-
863,528
31,489
50,053
4,800
23,427
2,247
937,008
38,536
Charitable activities		 Governance
costs
£
15,049
1,452
470
1,408
-
-
-
9,828
320
3,566
32,093
-
(32,093)
-		 Support costs
2023
Total
£
£
55,180
943,245
5,324
48,403
1,724
15,676
5,163
73,715
-
-
-
2,441
-
18,368
-
9,828
1,175
10,680
-
3,566
68,566
1,125,922
(68,566)
-
-
-
-
1,125,922
Research &
education
£
757,639
30,494
9,876
56,349
-
2,441
-
-
6,729
-
863,528
50,053
23,427
937,008

*Costs associated with the sale is made up of £34,710 of direct costs and £13,693 of donated services related to legal advice.

66

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

This is stated after charging / crediting:

This is stated after charging / crediting:
2024 2023
£ £
Depreciation charge for the year 4,960 10,680
Auditor's remuneration (excluding VAT):
Audit services 8,775 8,190

7 Analysis of staff costs, trustee remuneration and expenses, and the cost of key management personnel

Staff costs were as follows:

Staff costs were as follows:
Staff recruitment
Salaries and wages
Social security costs
Staff training/practising certificate
Employer’s contribution to defined contribution pension schemes
Consultancy		 2024
£
983,510
104,375
94,783
4,379
9,044
2,190		 2023
£
780,512
82,072
73,538
3,870
2,058
1,195
1,198,281 943,245

The following number of employees received employee benefits (excluding employer pension costs and employer's national insurance) during the year between:


national insurance) during the year between:
2024 2023
No. No.
£60,000 - £69,999 2 2
£70,000 - £79,999 1 -
£80,000 - £89,999 - -
£90,000 - £99,999 - -
£100,000 - £109,999 - -
£110,000 - £119,999 - 1
£120,000 - £129,999 1

The total employee benefits including pension contributions and employer's national insurance of the key management personnel were £511,910 (2023: £395,270).

The charity Board members were not paid nor received any other benefits from employment with the charity in the year (2023: £nil). No Board member received payment for professional or other services supplied to the charity (2023: £nil).

67

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

8 Staff numbers

The average number of employees (head count based on number of staff employed) during the year was as follows:

Raising funds
Research and education
Membership
Support
Governance		 2024
Employed
No.
4.5
14.4
0.5
1.9
0.7		 2024
FTE
No.
3.8
12.4
0.5
1.7
0.6		 2023
Employed
No.
3.4
11.9
1.1
2.1
0.5		 2023
FTE
No.
2.9
9.9
0.9
1.7
0.5
22.0 18.9 19.0 15.9

9 Related party transactions

Aggregate unrestricted donations from related parties were £96,618 (2023: £77,365).

There are no other related party transactions to disclose for either year.

10 Taxation

The charitable company is exempt from corporation tax as all its income is charitable and is applied for charitable purposes.

11 Tangible fixed assets

Tangible fixed assets
Depreciation
Cost or valuation
At the end of the year
At the start of the year
Charge for the year
At the end of the year
Disposals
At the start of the year
At the end of the year
At the start of the year
Additions in year
Disposals
Net book value		 Database
£
25,180
-
-		 IT
Equipment
£
46,972
6,743
-		 Total
£
72,152
6,743
-
25,180 53,715 78,895
25,180
-
-		 42,727
4,960
-		 67,907
4,960
-
25,180 47,687 72,867
- 6,028 6,028
- 4,245 4,245

All of the above assets are used for charitable purposes.

68

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

For the year ended 31 March 2024
12
13
14
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
Trade creditors
Fair value at the end of the year
Accruals
Debtors
Investments representing over 5% by value of the portfolio comprise:
Fair value at the start of the year
UK Common investment funds
Investments comprise:
Additions at cost
Net gain / (loss) on change in fair value
Listed investments
Charishare Common Investment Fund
Taxation and social security
CCLA COIF Fixed Interest Fund
Pension contributions payable
Other debtors
Prepayments
Accrued income		 2024
£
282,028
-
6,921		 2023
£
290,548
-
(8,520)
288,949 282,028
2024
£
288,949		 2023
£
282,028
288,949 282,028
2024
£
104,380
184,569		 2023
£
102,700
179,328
2024
£
66,382
10,692
82,433		 2023
£
49,000
8,606
13,444
159,507 71,050
2024
£
13,764
28,284
9,048
52,720		 2023
£
1,981
23,031
7,468
48,358
103,816 80,838

69

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

15a Movements in funds (current year)

e year ended 31 March 2024
Movements in funds (current year)
Restricted funds:
Total restricted funds
Total unrestricted funds
Defending the rule of law, access to justice
and human rights
Administrative Decision Making Working
Party
Homelessness
Scotland Lawyer / Fellow
Administrative Justice Council
Endowment fund
Total funds
Windrush Working Group
Criminal implementation
JUSTICE Innovation Hub
Reforming Benefits Decision-Making
Working Party
Race and state related deaths
Intern funding
Illegal Migration Bill		 At 1 April
2023
£
2,152,276		 Income &
gains
£
3,266		 Expenditure
& losses
£
(28,754)		 Transfers
£
-		 At 31 March
2024
£
2,126,788
19,697
303
-
(35,019)
-
-
-
-
467
2,190
-
11,714
(648)		 17,000
80,133
25,000
74,750
9,500
3,000
146,563
7,150
5,000
-
5,000
43,605		 (36,697)
(80,436)
(25,000)
(69,281)
(9,500)
(3,000)
(74,905)
-
(5,467)
(2,190)
(5,000)
(48,999)		 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 -
-
-
(29,550)
-
-
71,658
7,150
-
-
-
6,320
416,701 (360,475) - 55,578
495,519 905,116 (961,023) - 439,612
2,647,147 1,325,083 (1,350,252) - 2,621,978

The narrative to explain the purpose of each fund is given at the foot of the note below.

70

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

e year ended 31 March 2024
Movements in funds (prior year)
Restricted funds:
Total restricted funds
Total designated funds
General funds
The function and operation of Hybrid
Orders Working Party
Race and state related deaths
Reforming Benefits Decision-Making
Working Party
Remand Decision-Making in the
Magistrates’ Court
Challenging school exclusions Working
Party
Defending the rule of law, access to justice
and human rights
Delivering Administrative Justice After the
Pandemic: What can we learn about
digitalisation and vulnerable groups?
Improving Access to Justice for Separating
Families Working Party
Intern funding
Prosecuting Sexual Offences Working Party
Outsourcing Working Party
Tackling Racial Injustice Working Party
Endowment fund
Administrative Justice Council
Administrative Decision Making Working
Party
Designated fund - Working Parties
Designated funds - Administrative Justice
Council
Total unrestricted funds
Windrush Working Group
Unrestricted funds:
Total funds		 At 1 April
2022
£
420,939		 Income &
gains
£
1,767,251		 Expenditure
& losses
£
(35,914)		 Transfers
£
-		 At 31 March
2023
£
2,152,276
-
-
4,039
(14,691)
-
-
(1,873)
-
5,583
6,265
5,440
6,278
-
(9,141)
-		 73,913
26,000
-
66,242
20,153
10,000
25,000
51,500
-
-
-
5,000
5,000
8,350
39,565		 (73,610)
(6,303)
(4,039)
(86,570)
(20,153)
(10,000)
(23,127)
(51,500)
(5,583)
(6,265)
(4,973)
(9,088)
(5,000)
-
(27,851)		 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
791
-		 303
19,697
-
(35,019)
-
-
-
-
-
-
467
2,190
-
-
11,714
1,900 330,723 (334,062) 791 (648)
25,000
65,304		 -
-		 -
(127,606)		 (25,000)
62,302		 -
-
90,304 - (127,606) 37,302 -
402,666 760,490 (629,544) (38,093) 495,519
492,970 760,490 (757,150) (791) 495,519
915,809 2,858,464 (1,127,126) - 2,647,147

71

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

15 Movements in funds (continued)

Purposes of endowment funds

Endowment funds are held as part of an expendable endowment fund and is comprised of the freehold property on Carter Lane and some listed investments. The Trustees agreed to use the endowment fund to fund our office costs from January 2024 onwards.

Purposes of restricted funds

Restricted funds represent grants and donations given for specific purposes. Unspent funds at the year end are to be carried forward and spent on that specific project in a future period. The specific purposes are:

Administrative Justice Council

The Administrative Justice Council (AJC) was set up to ensure that the administrative justice system is more accessible, fair and effective by improving administrative decision-making, simplifying appeals, complaints procedures and redress mechanisms and ensuring access to justice for some of the most vulnerable people in society. The Council is funded by the Ministry of Justice (£71,883) and Trust for London (£8,250). At the end of March 2024 the secretariat function of the AJC moved from JUSTICE to the Judicial Office (independent to but funded by the MoJ), the two members of staff who worked on the AJC and were employed by JUSTICE transfered over to the JO at the end of March with the same contractual terms they enjoyed at JUSTICE.

Administrative Decision-Making Working Party

While an individual is in prison, they remain subject to a number of rules and processes that can serve to unduly delay their release. The Administrative Decision Making Working Party will examine these rules and processes to ensure that individuals do not remain in prison unlawfully or any longer than is necessary. The work is supported by The Bromley Trust who provided a two year grant of £30,000 in 2022-23, £15,000 received in this financial year, the Oakdale Trust (£2,000) and Sidley Austin LLP through pro bono support.

Criminal implementation

This work is suported by The Dawes Trust (£25,000).

Defending the rule of law, access to justice and human rights

These grants have supported our work on upholding the rule of law, access to justice and human rights. This has included the research, drafting and dissemination of a report assessing the UK’s adherence to the rule of law “The State We’re In: Addressing Threats & Challenges to the Rule of Law”, work towards updating our guide for parliamentarians “Law for Law Makers”, our work briefing parliamentarians on legislation impacting human rights and the rule of law including the Illegal Migration Act, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act, the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, the Victims and Prisoners Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill. This work is supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, with a three-year grant of £71,597, which has been extended by another year to December 2024 (£27,207 of additional funding), £24,703 has been received in this financial year, the Legal Education Foundation with a two-year grant of £70,000, with £35,000 received in this financial year and the JRSST Charitable Trust with a two-year grant of £30,094, with £15,047 received in this financial year. This fund is in deficit but future grant payments will be received to bring it back into a positive position.

Homelessness

This work encompasses our work on behavioural control orders (civil orders with criminal consequences for breach) such as community protection notices and public space protection orders, that are aimed at addressing anti-social behaviour but have a disproportionate impact on those experiencing homelessness. It also includes our work on a rights based approach to government contracting, which includes local authority homelessness vulnerability assessments. It is supported by The 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust (£7,500) and CEO Sleepout (£2,000).

Illegal Migration Bill

This work on analysing and briefing Parliamentarians on the Illegal Migration Bill was supported by Garden Court Chambers Special Fund (£3,000).

72

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

15 Movements in funds (continued)

Intern funding

Linklaters LLP £124,063 and The Portal Trust (£22,500) have provided grants to support our internship and fellowship programme.

JUSTICE Innovation Hub

The Access to Justice Foundation have provided £7,150 to support a scoping project looking at how to better harness data and evidence to provide a person centred data driven approach to policy making.

Race and state related deaths

The Law Society Charity (£5,000) supported our work on Racism and state related deaths. There is concern about the disproportionate number of people from ethnic minority backgrounds who die in contentious circumstances where the State may have played a role (either due to a positive action, a failure to act, or a discriminatory policy) but despite this, issues of discrimination and bias are rarely given consideration during inquests and inquiries,. We aim to put together a practitioners guide to identifying and raising issues relating to bias and race in the context of inquests. Matrix Causes Fund provided financial support in previous financial years, this year they provided pro bono advice, as did Reed Smith LLP and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

Reforming Benefits Decision-Making Working Party

BlackRock Gives and abrdn Financial Fairness Trust (previously the Standard Life Foundation) supported our working party on Reforming Benefits Decision-Making. The report published in July 2021 makes 44 recommendations aimed at improving the administrative and procedural aspects of the benefits system. It considers initial decision making, through to appeals, to ensure that the system works well for everyone, regardless of their digital capability, their health, their disabilities, or their vulnerabilities. With rising living costs the need for a fair benefits system that is accessible and makes timely and accurate decisions is as important as ever. Implementation work this year has included responding to the DWP’s Health and Disability Green Paper, monitoring the roll out of Adult Disability Payment in Scotland, liaising with other NGOs and meeting with the DWP to discuss the report’s recommendations.

Scotland Lawyer / Fellow

The Tay Charitable Trust supported our work in Scotland with a grant of £5,000.

73

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

15 Movements in funds (continued)

Windrush Working Party

The ‘Reforming the Windrush Compensation Scheme’ Working Party report was published in November 2021. It makes 27 recommendations to improve the process for those seeking compensation from the Home Office for the losses and hardships they suffered as a result of not being able to demonstrate their lawful immigration status. Many of the issues we identified with the Windrush Compensation Scheme are also applicable to other recent bespoke Home Office schemes. This new project uses our Windrush report as a starting point to identify problems with, and potential solutions in respect of, the Afghanistan relocation schemes (the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS)) and the EU Settlement Scheme. We have set up working groups to examine these schemes. These groups will be comprised of experts, those with lived experience of these schemes, and those who represent and support them. The working groups will identify the issues with these schemes and make recommendations for reform, drawing on our recommendations from the Windrush Compensation Scheme Report. The aim of the project is to identify common issues and solutions to improve the existing schemes, and ensure that lessons are learnt for any future Home Office schemes. This work is supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation with a three-year grant of £120,000, £42,605.10 of this was received in this financial year. Dechert LLP are also supporting the work providing pro bono support.

Purposes of designated funds

Designated funds were set aside in previous years by the Trustees to fund staff time spent on our Working Parties and the Administrative Justice Council.

16a Analysis of net assets between funds (current year)

Analysis of net assets between funds (current year) ent year)
Endowment
£
-
116,652
2,010,136
2,126,788
Endowment
£
Tangible fixed assets
-
Investments
113,386
Net current assets
2,038,890
Net assets at the end of the year
2,152,276
Investments
Net current assets
Net assets at the end of the year
Analysis of net assets between funds (prior year)
Tangible fixed assets		 Endowment
£
-
116,652
2,010,136		 Restricted
£
-
-
55,578		 Designated
£
-
-
-		 General
unrestricted
£
6,028
172,297
261,286		 Total
funds
£
6,028
288,949
2,327,001
2,126,788 55,578 - 439,612 2,621,978
Restricted
£
-
-
(648)		 Designated
£
-
-
-		 General
unrestricted
£
4,245
168,642
322,632		 Total
funds
£
4,245
282,028
2,360,874
2,152,276 (648) - 495,519 2,647,147

16b Analysis of net assets between funds (prior year)

74

JUSTICE

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2024

17 Operating lease commitments payable as a lessee

The charity's total future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable operating leases is as follows for each of the following periods


the following periods
Over five years
Two to five years
Less than one year		 2024
2023
£
£
-
1,162
-
291
-
-
-
1,452
Equipment
- 1,452

18 Legal status of the charity

The charity is a company limited by guarantee and has no share capital. The liability of each member in the event of winding up is limited to £1.

75