2024-12-31-accounts

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) (A Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee)

Annual Report and Financial Statements

For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

Company Number: 03602851 Charity Registered in England and Wales Number: 1070994

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians)

Contents

For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

	Page
Contents	1
Reference and Administrative Details	2 - 3
Trustees’ Annual Report	4 - 43
Independent Auditor’s Report	44 – 47
Statement of Financial Activities	48
Balance Sheet	49
Statement of Cash Flows	50
Notes to the Financial Statements	51 - 62

Administrative details

Charity registration number	1070994
Company registration number	3602851
Registered Office	PO Box 2754 Bristol BS4 9DA
Auditor	Albert Goodman Chartered Accountants 5th Floor 25 King Street Bristol BS1 4PB
Bankers	CAF Bank Limited 25 Kings Hill Avenue Kings Hill West Malling Kent ME19 4JQ The Charity Bank Limited Fosse House 182 High Street Tonbridge, TN9 1BE
Investment Managers	EdenTree Investment Management Benefact House 2000 Pioneer Avenue Gloucester Business Park Brockworth Gloucester GL3 4AW Rathbones Ltd 8 Finsbury Circus London, EC2M 7AZ Sarasin & Partners LLP 100 St Paul’s Churchyard London EC4M 8BU

Chief Executive	Hester Cockcroft
Trustees	Lynda Beament1 5 Morro Barry (appointed 10 December 2024)3 4 Max Brown3 4 Fintan Canavan3 Sue Carbert (appointed 10 December 2024)3 Julian Forbes (appointed 12 March 2024)1 5 Jessica Grime (appointed 10 December 2024) Fiona Harvey (resigned 10 December 2024)3 5 Uta Hope (appointed 12 March 2024)2 Karen Humphreys MBE5 Philip Jones (Chair)2 5 Michael Littlechild3 Beverley Mason4 5 Ella McCoshan (resigned 11 June 2024)2 Thomas Sharpe KC5 Laurie Watt (resigned 10 December 2024)3
Sub Committees	1. Communications 2. Major Gifts (previous Trusts and Foundations and Individual Donors now combined) 3. Audit and Risk 4. Equity, Diversity and Inclusion 5. Board Nominations
Patrons	Professor Derek Aviss OBE Sir Simon Rattle OM CBE Dame Evelyn Glennie CH DBE Jess Gillam MBE Dechanel Gordon Thomas Gould The Baroness Harman PC KC Julian Lloyd Webber OBE Alpesh Chauhan OBE Duncan Ward Ksenija Sidorova Gavin Higgins Shabaka Hutchings Miloš Karadaglić Paul Lewis CBE Tasmin Little CBE Zeb Soanes Kathryn Stott Ayanna Witter-Johnson

Trustees’ Report for the year ended 31 December 2024

From the Chair

2024 was a year of significant achievement for Young Sounds UK. In the spring we rebranded from Awards for Young Musicians: a change that has been well received by our young people and their parents and carers, by our supporters and more generally across the music education community. The new name has brought with it renewed energy and focus on our mission to give musically talented young people the chance to be the best they can be.

Working with others in an open and collaborative way is a core value of our organisation. We continued to strengthen our relationships and partnerships across the sector, particularly this year with the BBC, and we especially welcome a new four-year partnership with the Department for Education (DfE) to evaluate how best to support young people’s musical progression.Of course the funding environment is as tough as ever, so we are particularly pleased that yet again we have been able to increase our annual income, this year by an impressive 38%. We are enormously grateful to all our supporters; public, trusts, individual donors and legators, who recognise the quality and value of what we do, and for our team’s professionalism and hard work.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our whole team; trustees, staff and volunteers. It is their passion and commitment that makes Young Sounds UK such a great organisation.

Philip Jones Chair of Trustees

Young musician participating in our Attune programme in Birmingham

Progress against our 2024 strategic objectives

We made significant progress against our strategic objectives throughout the year. We continued to do everything we could to provide support and inspiration to the young musicians from low-income families we’re here to help. As ever we focused our support on young people who a) need it the most because of the financial and social obstacles they face and b) are able to make the most of it, because of their musical potential.

Increased Income

We are very grateful to our many long-term supporters, whether individuals, trusts or public funders. With their help our year-on-year revenue increased 38% to £1,931,842. This enabled us to provide sustained support for 1,280 individual young people across our programmes during the year.

Expanded and improved support

Our Discover training programme (formerly Identifying Talent) went from strength to strength. As well as delivering our training to Music Hubs we expanded our reach to music educators across a range of settings – schools, Multi Academy Trusts, higher education institutions such as conservatoires and other organisations working with young people and training music leaders and teachers.

Connect (formerly Furthering Talent) grew substantially, particularly due to the significant investment by the Department for Education (DfE) via the Music Opportunities Pilot. We’re now working with 22 Music Hub partnerships across England to support 1,000 young people.

Our Thrive programme (formerly our Awards programme) continued to attract an even more diverse range of applications from young people seeking support for their musical development. We were delighted to work with many fantastic partners across the year, including through three Awards Days, at Leeds Conservatoire, the Confetti Institute in Nottingham and at Maida Vale Studios in London with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (our fifth collaboration).

Our Attune chamber music projects, funded by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, this year were in London in partnership with the City of London Sinfonia and the Royal Academy of Music and in Birmingham with the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

Within our Innovate programme (formerly Innovation and Research) we continue to lead the national conversation on next steps for music education, moving our focus to the new government’s planned National Centre for Arts and Music Education. This followed our co-convening of roundtable conversations with Music Mark, UK Music and Youth Music, with further support from the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) and the DfE. We also developed our long-term partnership with all five BBC Orchestras, launching the latest phase of our mentoring work.

Our Alumni Mentors taking part in our Discover training

Evaluation, Improvement and Innovation

Judith Robinson continued as our freelance External Evaluator, looking at our impact across all our programmes and finalising a robust new evaluation framework, ensuring we can report effectively to our funders whilst also capturing learning about the effectiveness of our programmes. Our Mentor training, aimed at existing Mentors (many of them Alumni of our Thrive programme) and new Thrive Alumni interested in mentoring in the future, took place for the second time across two days in September. This learning will ensure that the Mentors working with us on our Connect and Thrive programmes have the skills and confidence they need to support our evaluation processes, helping to boost the knowledge and experience of the music education workforce.

Communications

In April 2024 we rebranded as Young Sounds UK. The purpose was threefold: we wanted to reach more talented young people from low-income families who need our help; reflect the broadening of our work; and create a more inclusive, approachable and youthful image. The change was very well received across all our stakeholders. Following this, in September 2024, we updated our four programme names.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion was at the heart of our motivation for changing our name: we believe it will help us reach more young people who need us, particularly those facing the most barriers to progressing musically. We believe it captures the incredible diversity of musical talent, creativity and energy that young people bring to our communities. It reinforces our commitment to embracing all musical genres and opens new conversations about the most sustainable ways for young people to flourish in dynamic and inclusive environments.

In 2024 we explored the findings of a cross-organisational benchmarking survey, carried out in late 2023, of everyone working with Young Sounds UK. We wanted to gain a better understanding of where each person is on their EDI journey. We held a series of focus groups to discuss these findings further, a thematic analysis of which will help us determine actions to take forward as an organisation. This process will enable us to continue to further our EDI ambitions and strengthen relationships with our stakeholders across the sector.

EDI was also at the heart of our newly articulated quality principles, published for the first time in 2024. We tested these with a selection of our partners to ensure they aligned with their experience of working with us: we’re pleased to say that they did!

Sustainable Our organisational practices are designed to create a positive long-term impact on our people, programmes and planet.	Collaborative We draw on the benefits of collaborative working to deliver activity, problem-solve, and support mutual goals, aiming to foster a sense of community among all we work with.	Person-centred We acknowledge individual circumstances and needs as far as possible, across all organisational relationships.
Fair, open and honest Our work represents our organisational integrity, promoting trust and aiming high, while encouraging realistic expectations.	Progressive Our organisation continually evolves: we respond to sector needs, prioritise internal reflection and learning, and identify opportunities to create and lead new initiatives.	Empowering Our work is designed to create opportunities to empower, support and encourage our participants, partners and colleagues.

Increased capacity

Our team continued to evolve. In February 2024 Sophia Loizou took over from Naomi Wellings as Discover Programme Producer. In April Madelyn Brown joined us as Finance and Operations Director, a significant new role for the organisation. Two colleagues returned from maternity leave: Hannah Turner, our Thrive Programme Manager and Katherine Rigg, our Development Administrator. Sarah Barton Wales stepped down in the summer as Partnerships Manager to take on the role of Head of Leicestershire Music. Katie Walker joined Lee Merchant as our second Programme Producer for Connect. Nick Daniels also joined us in October as our first Data Officer. All have already made a significant contribution to Young Sounds UK and we’re delighted to have them on board.

Carbon footprint

As a charity that exists to support young people, we take our duty of being environmentally responsible seriously. We continue to develop ways of assessing and monitoring our team’s environmental impact. We calculate the carbon footprint of the time our staff spend working from home (having no office space of our own) as well as emissions from travel. We are piloting an environmental questionnaire to recognise the environmental management practices of the spaces we use for in-person events. We strive to work with partners and venues who are committed to reducing their environmental impact.

Compliance

Young Sounds UK’s Audit and Risk Committee keep a close eye on the charity’s financials across the year and ensure our review cycle for all key policy and compliance documents is followed, from Safeguarding to our Risk Register. All policy revisions are reviewed and approved by the Trustees and we ensure that they are understood by all staff, freelancers and volunteers.

Plans for future periods

The announcement of our new name, Young Sounds UK, in April 2024, launched the organisation into an exciting new phase of development. We’re confident that it will enable us to reach more of the young people we’re here to help, as well as their families and the music educators working with them. As demand for our support rises, our drive to raise further funding will continue, so we can find and assist more and more musically talented young people across the UK. We are making significant progress.

At the time of writing Young Sounds is currently supporting 1,400 young people across the UK. This is a major milestone for us, with 400 young people supported through our Thrive programme combining with 1,000 young people supported through our Connect programme. We’ve been able to double the participants in Connect thanks to funding from the DfE’s Music Opportunities Pilot.

Our programmes

Alumni supporting young musicians at an Awards Day at Metronome in Nottingham

Young Sounds UK is a national charity. Our mission is to find musical potential and give talent a chance. We know that musical talent is everywhere but opportunity isn’t - family finances and other obstacles too often get in the way.

We do this in two ways:

• We support young musicians from low-income families with funding and other help.

• We support music education through training, advocacy and research.

Whatever the genre, our strategically targeted programmes help young musicians from across the UK to grow, flourish and fulfil their potential. Each programme is designed to tackle a major obstacle faced by these young people:

Discover	training teachers how to spot young people’s musical potential.
Connect	targeting and nurturing emerging talent with sustained, strategic support.
Thrive	funding young talent UK wide with annual grants, and tailor-made help for individual musicians.
Innovate	leading new thinking and action on talent development.

Discover

A Discover session with students at Southampton University

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In numbers
671 27
Teachers reached Training sessions
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This programme, established in 2008, tackles one of the biggest obstacles to talented young people’s musical progress - many teachers’ limited experience of how to identify their musical potential in the first place. Primary school class teachers generally have very little musical training, so their limited confidence can be a stumbling block; this inevitably affects their ability to identify young people’s musical potential in their classes.

Our Discover facilitators taking part in a training day.

Alongside this, instrumental teachers working as part of the wider Music Hub partnership can focus too much on instrumental proficiency, which can get in the way of them spotting early potential in a child who has never had the chance to play an instrument because their family can’t afford it. 2024 saw the training expand to reach teachers at Multi Academy Trusts as well as undergraduates and postgraduates at both the Royal College of Music and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Joining the National Portfolio of Arts Council England in April 2023 helped us to continue to expand our work during the year. Participants gain both specific skills to spot musical potential as well as broader learning to support their wider practice.

Feedback from 2024 Discover sessions:

“Being able to participate in the Discover programme has provided invaluable support to educators in the London East Music Hub area. Our team have gained confidence, creativity, and teamwork skills through this training. Staff found the sessions to be some of the most inspiring and beneficial they’ve attended, truly enhancing their ability to spot and develop young talent.”

Mary Mycroft, Head of Waltham Forest Music Service

“The Discover training has been a real asset to our students at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, offering engaging and inspiring delivery that will help the next generation of music educators in identifying and supporting musical potential. The leadership team were impressive and experienced music educators which has given real confidence to students who previously felt less confident in teaching contexts. I would highly recommend this programme.”

Dr Adam Whittaker, Associate Professor of Music and Head of Pedagogy, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

'I just wanted to say a huge thank you for the session on Monday. It was really good to bring the team back to basics and remind them what it feels like to have the sort of early musical experiences you were replicating. You unleashed the child within us all and it has brought renewed vigour to our work. Thank you!'

Tom Redmond, Joint Principal, Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester

Connect

Young musicians visiting the University of Hull.

In numbers an CASAC A® @ee2e@eee@ Aaya iY BRATEAT 866 22 13,180 32 Young people Partnerships with Instrumental lessons Get Together events participating in the Music Education Hubs delivered held programme

Connect helps young people from low-income families lead their own musical learning after wholeclass lessons end in primary school, so they can keep on progressing as musicians across the transition into secondary school. It connects young people to funding, opportunities and each other. It’s a highly targeted and cost-effective approach. In 2024 we worked across 22 areas of England to support 866 young people.

In 2024 8 a North Tyneside 62 Sunderland 221 13 —— Middesborough Music leaders delivering Connect Liverpool — 41) wf 35) 56 TA Sheffield ~~OO~~ NorthGreaterotManchester j 4452 :=:West YorkshireAlfreton : West Midlands <= (iu) by QQ Bromsgrove 10 213 Worcestershire 42 8 /— Luton 25 —\, Central Music leaders receiving 7 y : _ CPD from Young Sounds UK ~~oO~~ 15 38 Bedfordshire Bournemouth, TN hristchurch and Poole Southampton and Isle of Wight 29 Music Teacher Forums with 229 attendances Numbers represent young people participating ~~Oo O Music Hub Partners e OpenUp Music school partners~~ We want to give many more talented children across the country the chance to achieve in music, by transforming how musical progression is viewed by children and teachers and therefore how it is supported.

In Connect - and the Individual Learning Plan (ILP) which is central to its approach - we have developed a model that can effect this change. This young person-led approach, combined with free weekly instrumental lessons, termly Get Togethers, a Connector in each area to manage all relationships and communications, plus Teachers’ Forums has proven highly effective.

We work closely with our partners including schools and the partner organisations within Music Hubs, to identify the young people who could benefit most from our help. Many are living in challenging circumstances which makes it crucial that we effectively communicate with them, their families and their schools. At the time of writing we’re working in partnership with 30 Music Services across 21 of the ACE Music Hub programme networks. 12 sets of partnerships we refer to as Ambassador Hubs, with whom we collaborate to run the full Connect programme (with all seven programme elements, see below). 10 partnerships we refer to as Connector Hubs, where the focus is on two of the elements (the Connector role and Teachers’ Forums).

Highlights of the year

In September 2024, we announced a new programme phase, following our successful bid to the DfE to run the Music Opportunities Pilot (MOP). This had formerly been called the Music Progression Fund when it was announced in the National Plan for Music Education in 2022.

The DfE’s investment is enabling us to supercharge the Connect programme. The pilot will run for 4 years to March 2028 and support around 1,000 young people from low-income families to progress in their music education across the aforementioned Music Hub regions, mainly in Education Investment Areas.

Participants will comprise around 500 young people already on the Young Sounds Connect programme across our Ambassador Music Hub partners and over 160 schools in England. They will be joined by a second cohort of around 500 new students, including disabled young musicians via our partners at Open Up Music. The key aims of the Musical Opportunities Pilot are: 1. To test and refine a number of interventions to support young people with significant musical potential, enthusiasm and commitment. 2. To promote the most effective interventions to schools, Music Hubs and other partners at the end of the programme. ~~a~~ The expanded programme is a collaboration between music educators, the partner Hubs and 7 national musical partners. Each of the latter is bringing an additional new element to the programme from which more learning will be taken and disseminated:

ABRSM

(free exams for all participants and a new progression matrix)

National Youth Orchestra (supporting peer mentoring)

BBC

(free tickets across their orchestras)

Open Up Music

(identifying young disabled musicians)

Music Mark

(convening and supporting national meetings)

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

(creating a new toolkit for young musicians’ mental and physical health)

Music Masters

(free places on their iPGCE)

Key programme elements

There are seven key elements of the Connect programme.

For participating young people the programme offers the following support:

Free weekly instrumental lesson on an instrument of their choice, or a singing lesson. Individual Learning Plan recording three goals they have chosen for the term.

Personal bursary to spend on items or activities that support their musical progression.

Get Togethers every term, having the opportunity to meet with others to share a musical experience.

Mentors Access to a trained mentor.

The programme also enables:

Teachers’ Forums In each region, every term, with teachers paid to attend. A Connector In each area.

Free weekly instrumental lessons

These are essential, but often too expensive for many families and Connect’s support in providing free, weekly instrumental lessons for all children on the programme is crucial. A total of 13,180 instrumental lessons were delivered across 2024. As might be expected, as it’s the core of their musical progression, our evaluation shows that having their lesson is participants’ favourite activity.

“I’ve enjoyed my weekly keyboard lessons with Anne. She’s helpful and has given me brilliant advice I’ve never heard before. She makes me feel like I matter, and she cares about me. I feel like my playing has got so much better since I started lessons with her. I feel comfortable around her.”

A Get Together in Sheffield

Individual Learning Plan

A student-led approach to teaching and learning is at the heart of Connect. Every student has an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) recording three goals they have chosen for the term. For a beginner with few points of musical reference, the ILP guides and prompts the student while allowing the teacher to tailor their lessons to an individual’s needs. Using this tool encourages a more personalised approach to progression.

Our online version of the ILP was launched in September 2023 in partnership with Charanga. Investment from the DfE as part of the Music Opportunities Pilot will enable us to develop the online tool further. This will reach thousands of children across the nation, supporting them to lead their own musical progression and helping their music leaders embed the ILP principles into their own practice. In 2024, 7,435 Online ILP’s were created across 18 hubs.

Screen captures from the upgraded ILP.

Personal Bursary

Children on the programme receive a bursary to use on expanding their musical interests and knowledge, and to help them achieve their musical goals through their Individual Learning Plan. In 2024, 431 young people used their bursaries to not just expand their musical interests and knowledge but to help them keep playing music. For example:

• 10 year old Cara from Worcestershire plays the cornet. She was finding it difficult to practise at home as her brother, who has learning difficulties, was struggling with the loud volume. She used her bursary to purchase a mute for her cornet, making it easier for her to play without disturbing him.

• 17 year old Victor from Bradford, who plays the violin, used his bursary to help him buy his uniform for the Bradford Youth Orchestra.

Get Togethers

Every term we organise Get Together events for the children in their region. These are all kinds of high-quality musical opportunities and are a chance for the young people to explore the wide world of music and find inspiration for their own music making. Get Togethers are for students on the Connect programme but we also invite other students too, to offer exciting musical opportunities to more young people.

We held 32 Get Togethers between January and December 2024. Here are some examples:

In March 2024, Connect students from Manchester City visited the Royal Northern College of Music and formed ‘The Manchester Band,’ rehearsing and performing pop, folk and classical music. For many children, it was their first opportunity to play in a large ensemble.

Students in Bradford worked with local composer Ben Crick in November 2024 to create a piece of music inspired by rivers. A BBC production crew visited and featured the workshop and Connect on Newsround. You can see this coverage here: www.youngsounds.org.uk/connect-in-2024

In November 2024 young people in Worcestershire visited Load Street Studios where students composed and recorded their own music. Our Connector worked to make this experience as inclusive as possible. A student who had struggled to participate in the programme due to anxiety was given his own practice area to work on his composition, enabling him to stay for the whole event.

In April 2024 in Hull, Connect students met over three weekends to compose and record their own piece of music which combined instruments, music technology, improvisation and videography. This concluded with the production of a new song and video. They worked with Andy Scott (saxophone tutor at the Royal Northern College of Music), bass guitarist Oliver Thompson (who has played in the bands for pop acts such as RAYE and Little Mix) and music technician Stan Scott.

“It was great to not have a time restraint preventing us from fleshing out our project beyond the bare bones. By the second session I was comfortable and had an idea of what I wanted to do the minute I walked through the door. I gradually became more comfortable with improvisation, and I enjoyed using those improvisations as part of a larger composition. All too often I'd stumble across a melodic idea I love, then go on to do nothing with it. Having the microphones and gear there to record and fully realise my ideas was something I'd never done before and would love to do more of. Seeing how a professional went about setting up recordings and mixing his tracks was very reassuring, as it wasn't miles off from how I, a relative novice, do it already. It was nice to see that there wasn't anything wildly different about producing even as you get to the professional level.”

Matas, cello, Hull

In December children from the Northwest Midlands travelled to Birmingham to see a concert performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Young Sounds Patron and Alumna Jess Gillam. As well having a backstage tour before the concert, they also had a special meet up and chat with Jess after the concert.

Mentors

Our Mentors provide personalised support to Connect children. We recognise how important it is for young people to receive peer support from musicians who have similar lived experiences and understand their challenges. Our Mentors are young people (between 18 and 25) from low-income backgrounds, some of whom have previously been supported by our Thrive programme. They also support the Connector to run the programme locally. In 2024, we delivered over 300 mentoring sessions.

For example our Mentor in Bradford, violinist and Young Sounds Alumnus Matthew Crisp, has been focusing on supporting children in their transition to secondary school, particularly through the use of a ‘Musical Passport.’ This has been an opportunity for us to understand the challenges facing the young musicians and support them to continue their musical journey with confidence.

“In many of the conversations I have with these young musicians, the importance of music in their lives shines through – it’s their means of expression and the activity they go to when they face challenges. In the Musical Passports, we've been recording the young musicians' reasons for starting music, their favourite musical activities, their ambitions for the future and the things they might need help with at their new school. We can then pass this information on to their new teacher and respond to any concerns, putting bespoke support in place if necessary.”

Matthew Crisp, mentor

An example of a musical passport Alumnus Mentor Matthew Crisp

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A Teachers’ Forum
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Teachers’ Forums

In 2024 we held 29 Teachers’ Forums, attended by 229 teachers. Our evaluation is showing how these forums are helping teachers to share best practice and ideas, ultimately helping them to take a more young person-centred approach to their teaching.

“I had been a bit concerned about Daniel’s engagement with the lessons, as he often seemed quite uninterested and would rarely show enthusiasm. However, I was aware that this could be how he chose to present himself. I discussed these concerns at a Teachers’ Forum and received good suggestions and advice - to explicitly ask him if he was enjoying the lessons, if he wanted to continue, and if so, what he’d find most interesting. I spoke to him, and he expressed an interest in sampling. We did some research together, chose some songs to take samples from, and started building a track based around them. While he still presents in a very nonchalant way, he’s definitely more engaged.”

Teacher of Daniel, piano, 15, Liverpool

Connectors

In each of the Music Hub areas we engage a local Connector. In the Ambassador Hubs the Connector is responsible for supporting all the young people on the programme, communicating closely and regularly with their families, their instrumental teachers and all other programme partners. Given many Connect participants face a range of financial and social challenges the Connector’s role is crucial to their musical progress and continuation on the programme.

In 2024 we expanded the remit of the Connector’s role in our Ambassador Hubs, giving each an extra day per week to tackle an ongoing barrier: how difficult it can often be for families and young musicians to find the information, advice and guidance they need. Often people find this information by accident while others sadly don't, missing the support they need for their musical development. This extra time is enabling Connectors to be a visible point of information and assistance for all young people in their area, not just those directly supported by the Connect programme.

Our first Connect Conference A Connector performing with young Young musicians at a Get Together in bringing together Connectors from musicians in Bradford Sheffield across the UK

In 2024 we appointed Connectors to our 10 Connector Hubs both to help tackle this information challenge and to run Teachers’ Forums and disseminate key learning on the programme’s approach across their regions. In 2024, 499 young people were assisted to new musical opportunities by Connectors.

“A young person came from another Connect area. That person left the programme, and the amazing Connector did not just assume from his absence that this was the end for him. She asked the right questions and found he had moved to my area in a kinship care situation. She contacted me, and I went to Children’s Services. As a result, we found the school and carers of the young person. Neither were aware of the young person's previous enrolment on the Connect programme or of their music ability. Thankfully the stars aligned and we got this young person back onto our programme, lessons started, and shortly after, he joined the youth and community orchestra.”

Connector in the North of England

Evaluating Connect’s impact

By being involved in Connect, we’re aiming for young people to:

• have an increased sense of ownership of their musical journey and to have experienced the joy of becoming better musicians, of discovering new music, and playing with others.

• have an increased self-belief, resulting from playing an instrument to the best of their ability and seeing themselves succeed musically.

Results from our termly surveys completed by Connect students and their teachers demonstrate the effectiveness of the programme.

Young people participating in Connect

	90%	of young people agreed or strongly agreed that they were more confident in playing their instrument.
	89%	of young people agreed or strongly agreed that they were comfortable trying new things.
	95%	of young people agreed or strongly agreed that Connect has given them the opportunity to access musical activities they otherwise wouldn’t have experienced.
	85%	of young people agreed or strongly agreed they have a say in what they do in their music lessons.
	83%	of young people agreed or strongly agreed that they did something they didn’t know they were capable of.
Teachers participating in Connect 89% of teachers said that being part of Connect has opened their mind to new possibilities. 78% of teachers said that being part of Connect has helped them to develop their student-centred teaching practice. ~~a~~

Sample feedback from teachers on their students’ progress in Connect:

“I’ve seen very pleasing progress in Anna's social skills. She’s started conversing more when she comes for her lessons and school bands. Also, she’s interacting musically with a friend in school. She is displaying much more confidence, and this includes her guitar playing. She’s starting to express her musical choices more and I believe she now realises that she has great ability!”

“We now have constant sharing of songs, artists, resources and cultural context. Our lessons have become a continuous discussion and are moving almost in a musicology direction which was unexpected!”

“She has transitioned well into secondary school, remembering her lesson and instrument each week! She has also started band and her playing has improved massively because of this.”

“With regular lessons every week, my pupil is taking ownership of their learning and picking pieces they want to do.”

And the impact on their own practice:

“The embedded CPD and networking that comes with the programme is hugely useful. It’s easy at times to work within your own confines and bunkers. This gives you a sense of perspective and also support in which to challenge yourself.”

Impact for families

Parents and carers regularly tell us about the impact Connect has had on their child and on the wider family too.

“Everything is really easy and well organised. Helen [the Liverpool Connector] is always happy to help or explain anything I need to know. Children have loads of wonderful opportunities, they love being part of experience and so do we as parents. I wish more children could experience it.”

“I have great communication with the instrumental teacher and the Connector. I love getting emails about music my child is learning.”

Young families on our Connect programme in Bradford

Thrive

Thrive participants at our Artistry and Industry Awards Day in Nottingham.

In numbers 197 £85,600 £18,688 41% Instrumentalists, in funding was Average household of Award winners singers and music granted across three income of Award identified as Global creators offered cohorts winners Majority, 11% as Awards disabled

The biggest barrier many of our young people face is a financial one: developing musical potential is extremely expensive and since our launch we’ve supported more than 3,500 young people aged 5 to 18 who would otherwise find their musical costs prohibitive.

Key programme elements

Financial Awards

12 months to spend the funds with access to musical advice and opportunities throughout the year.

Mentoring

Free one to one mentoring is available for each participant from a trained Mentor, often an Alumni of Young Sounds.

Workshops

Free one-off projects and events each year, ranging from our chamber music projects in London and Birmingham to mentoring programmes, masterclasses and workshops with our Patrons.

Awards Days

An opportunity to meet like-minded musicians and learn from professionals. These events are free to take part in and help is provided with travel and accommodation costs.

Free or heavily subsidised ticket offers

To attend concerts and events with our partners including the BBC, the City of London Sinfonia, London Mozart Players and more.

Performance opportunities

We put on events across the UK, from Edinburgh to London featuring performances by Award winners representing a range of musical genres.

Financial Awards

We make awards of up to £2,000 to talented instrumentalists, music creators and singers, making music in any genre, who are resident and studying in the UK. Applicants send in a five-minute video of themselves playing their instrument or singing, or of their composition, and they complete an online application form. When a conditional offer of an Award is made, parents/carers are required to provide documentary evidence of financial need. (All applications are means tested.)

Applicants are asked to tell us about their musical journey in their application, including their ambitions for the future and their proudest musical moment. We fund a wide range of musical needs including instruments, music lessons and other costs such as travel and software. We keep our funding as flexible as possible to meet young people’s individual needs.

An independent panel of adjudicators with expertise in a range of genres decides on all aspects of the grants made, using an inclusive and rigorous decision-making methodology.

Map of young people supported by our Thrive programme.

Eligibility criteria

Young musicians can apply at any point in the year, with grants made up to four times a year, allowing young people to apply when they most need the funding. Decisions are made within 13 weeks. Due to illness on the adjudication panel the fourth cohort of 2024 was moved into early 2025. Therefore the figures throughout this report include three cohorts, rather than the four cohorts granted in 2023. In 2024 we supported a total of 414 Thrive programme participants across the year.

Age

The young person must be at least 5 and under 18 when they apply.

Residency status

The young musician must satisfy the government criteria in force at the time of application. We welcome applications from refugees and asylum seekers.

Musical study

The young musician must be learning a musical instrument, singing or creating music as a composer or producer.

Evidence of musical talent/potential

We look for evidence of high musical talent/potential. Our Awards programme is not aimed at beginner-level musicians, nor do we expect all applicants to have taken top-level grades or be members of national ensembles. We understand that everyone is on their own musical journey. Applicants provide video evidence of their playing.

Evidence of financial need

The Thrive programme is means-tested. Our eligibility threshold is modelled on the lowest level threshold employed by the Government's Music and Dance scheme. This looks at the annual gross family income of the home in which the young person mainly lives and takes into account the number of dependent children within that household.

Mentoring

In July 2024 we announced the latest phase of our Exchange project with the BBC Orchestras. Thrive participants aged between 15 and 18 are working with musicians from the BBC’s five orchestras – the BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBCSO), BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

The project connects with participants at pivotal points in their journeys: preparing for music college or university or making decisions about career options. 24 young musicians have been matched with a BBC musician for six mentoring sessions each. They will gain access to music experiences across the BBC with their Mentors acting as a role model, guide and advocate.

The programme kicked off with an insight day in August 2024 held at the Royal Albert Hall during the Proms. As well as meeting their Mentors in person, young people took part in musical workshops and watching a rehearsal, and they also attended a BBCSO Prom. You can read more about this - day here: www.youngsounds.org.uk/exchange proms/

“Watching the BBC Prom was my favourite part of the day, but I also enjoyed meeting other musicians. I enjoyed being the ‘behind the scenes’ tour of the Royal Albert Hall. It was such a surreal experience and I’d definitely love to do that again!”

Dineo, viola, 17, Stirling

“I enjoyed the tour of the Royal Albert Hall and the interview with [American mezzo-soprano] Jamie Barton and [BBCSO’s Principal Guest Conductor] Dalia Stasevska. The creative music session was very inspiring and encouraged me to be free to listen and collaborate with those around me.”

Ryan, violin, 16, Glasgow

Exchange participants receiving a tour of the Royal Albert Hall

Workshops

We offer a variety of workshops to our Award winners, often led by our Patrons. These are targeted to particular genres, instruments or types of performance. In 2024 we ran the following:

In January and February seven young musicians came to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC). Supported by musicians and composers from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, they explored pieces from the series ‘Music For Young Players’ which challenge conventional ideas of notation and encourage each musician to re-evaluate their idea of how sound is organised to create music : www.youngsounds.org.uk/attune-2024

"I thought that it was an amazing opportunity to explore the way music can be shaped in many different forms. I really enjoyed the improvisation and pictorial music scores."

Jacob, flute, 14, Manchester

In October we returned to the RBC. Three young musicians worked across three consecutive days to explore and finally perform several works for piano trio written by female composers of the mid to late 19th century, alongside some light classical music by composers popular in the early 20th century.: www.youngsounds.org.uk/attune-2024

In September four advanced Thrive violinists met at Craxton Studios in London for a masterclass with Young Sounds Patron Thomas Gould. Each student explored their chosen repertoire and discussed aspects of their musical technique and musical lives. The participants were joined by an - audience of younger violinists, who came to listen and learn: www.youngsounds.org.uk/thomas gould-masterclass

“I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to participate in Thomas Gould’s masterclass. His insightful feedback on ensemble playing and musicality was incredibly valuable. This masterclass was not only educational but also deeply inspiring, and I feel more prepared for future performances. The whole experience was both challenging and motivating, and I left the masterclass feeling more confident and excited to apply what I had learned in my practice. Thank you for an inspiring experience!”

Zarema, violin, 13, Hertfordshire

Awards Days

These events bring young musicians together to collaborate and learn. We held three Awards Days in 2024. In March 18 young musicians met at Leeds Conservatoire for a day of improvisation and creative music making. Across three workshops participants were introduced to contrasting approaches to improvising across jazz, folk and Indian classical. www.youngsounds.org.uk/improvisation-at-leeds-conservatoire

"The day was extremely fun and fast paced. I loved how we learnt about different improvisation techniques as well as different styles of music. I loved making connections with other young musicians."

Fennrin, cello, 16, London

In September we hosted an Industry and Artistry Day in Nottingham in partnership with Confetti Institute for Creative Technologies. 14 young people worked in small groups across three of Metronome’s state-of-the-art studios, responding to a real industry brief, they wrote and produced a demo: www.youngsounds.org.uk/industry-and-artistry.

“I really enjoyed the day and would love to go again. When I walked in, I had a nice welcome and got to know everyone there. When I played drums and practiced songs, the music leaders came in and helped with making things better in the song. I even use some of the things they taught me in my everyday drumming now. I didn't feel nervous when I played in front of everyone because they were nice and friendly. I enjoyed the panel session and hearing from professional musicians. They helped me with understanding social media to promote my music. I’ll be using the techniques I learnt on the day to push myself to be a better drummer and to challenge myself.”

Will, drum kit, 13, Staffordshire

In November we invited young musicians on our Thrive programme to participate in an Orchestral Experience Day at the BBC Maida Vale Studios in London. 72 young people attended from across the UK. Students played side-by-side within the BBCSO. Those interested in audio production spent the day with the BBC Radio team: www.youngsounds.org.uk/orchestral-experience-day-with-thebbc-so

“This experience was extremely useful and interesting. I was able to see how the BBC function and work as a team to get jobs done. I was able to have some hands on experience with things like setting up mics, recording an orchestra, interviewing a BBCSO musician and on top of that I got to write and record a radio script. I think the day was great and couldn't think of anything that would have made it better. I enjoyed collaborating with your team of industry professionals and this also inspired me for my future career. Thank you!”

Aubrey, viola and piano, 17, London

Free or heavily subsidised ticket offers

We work with partners to provide tickets to attend professional performances, rehearsals, and masterclasses. This offers valuable exposure and learning opportunities. In 2024 we were able to extend 1,349 invitations across 35 opportunities, resulting in 265 people being able to attend events. Partners who supported us during the year included all five BBC Orchestras, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gabrieli Roar, National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, Philharmonia Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Thomas Gould Masterclass

Young musicians with Alumnus Patron Duncan Ward

Young musicians at the Royal Albert Hall

Performance opportunities

We offer the opportunity for vital performance experience during our fundraising concerts held at prestigious or interesting venues. In 2024 23 young musicians had the opportunity to perform in front of an audience, often for the very first time. You can read more about some of these concerts and the young musicians who performed on our website.

Violinist performing for media at our Young Sounds launch event at the Fender Showroom, London

Guitarist performing for supporters at the London College of Contemporary Music

Violinist performing at a private residence for supporters

Evaluating the Thrive programme’s impact

Our Thrive programme aims for the following outcomes for young people:

• Increased musical development as a result of the funding and experiences provided by the programme.

• Expanded musical horizons, skills, knowledge, experience and networks.

• Increased confidence and raised aspirations in pursuing a creative career, whether on or off the stage. of Thrive participants agree that the programme has increased their ability 85% to reach their musical goals. say that the programme has increased their confidence in pursuing a 85% musical career. ~~—~~ Our Thrive team and External Evaluator our young musicians’ feedback to develop the programme further and offer new opportunities. In early 2025 we also commissioned a Needs Analysis for the Thrive programme, to help inform the next few years of its development.

Many Alumni of the Thrive programme are now shaping the sector for future generations. They include saxophonist, broadcaster on BBC Radio 3 and Young Sounds Patron Jess Gillam MBE, Mahaliah Edwards (violinist, Alumna Trustee and presenter of Sounds Connected on BBC Radio 3) and Caius Lee (Director of College Music at Worcester College, Oxford and a former Alumnus Trustee). Some feedback from Thrive participants: “Overall, it's been a game-changer. I'm not just growing as a musician; I'm part of a supportive community that cheers me on every step of the way.” “It’s given me more confidence in my abilities - to be given an Award is a really special feeling and being given money to put towards equipment and maintenance has been amazing! It’s allowed me to be less worried – and my mum too.” “Young Sounds has helped me to express myself through music. The funding has supported me massively, and has helped me to attend weekly band rehearsals, as well as lessons and concerts. Music has given me so many happy memories, and Young Sounds, through its support, has meant that I will keep progressing in music.” “I’m thrilled to share some wonderful news! I’ve been accepted to the Royal College of Music, Royal Academy of Music, and the Guildhall, all with full scholarships! I just wanted to say how ~~=~~ much Young Sounds helped me with my confidence. Knowing I had such a lovely and supportive

community behind me made a huge difference when I walked into those audition rooms. I can’t thank you and everyone at Young Sounds enough for all the encouragement and support, it truly means the world to me!” “Young Sounds gave me the push I needed to develop my talents. Before, I felt very uncertain about my career and was unsure about whether I would be suited for a music-based career. Now I have clarity, support, more skills and much more.” ~~ee~~

Innovate

We use our independent role in music education to lead new thinking and action on talent development. Across 2023 and 2024 we convened a national conversation with Music Mark, Youth Music and UK Music, supported by the DCMS and the DfE, looking at how music education and the music industry could work together more effectively to support young people’s individual journeys into the profession. With the change of government in July 2024 the focus has shifted, and Young Sounds are now at the forefront of discussions around the planned new National Centre for Arts and Music Education.

Fundraising

Photo from our autumn fundraiser at Fishmongers’ Hall.

Overview of the year

Our revenues grew strongly again in 2024 and totalled £1,931,842. Donations came from a variety of sources: individual donors, grant making trusts, public funders and a range of donated goods and services. We’re confident that Young Sounds UK’s strategic approach and high impact will continue to attract increased funds for our work over the coming years.

Trusts and Foundations

We are hugely appreciative of the support of the following funders during 2024:

Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation

The Charlotte Bonham-Carter Charitable Trust

Cecil King Memorial Foundation

Community Foundation for Tyne, Wear and Northumberland

The Cheryl King Trust

The Childwick Trust

D And H Charitable Trust The D'Oyly Carte Charitable Trust David Barnett Charitable Trust The Finderman Charitable Trust East Devon Music The Headley Trust Garfield Weston Foundation The Henry Lumley Charitable Trust Golsoncott Foundation The Karlsson Jativa Charitable Foundation Gordon Pack Charitable Trust The Kaye Music Trust Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation The Ken and Edna Morrison Charitable

The Ken and Edna Morrison Charitable Trust

Margaret Engering Music Trust The Kirby Laing Foundation Middle Way Trust The Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation Misses Barrie Charitable Trust The Margaret and David Walker Trust Myrtle Charitable Trust The Martin Charitable Trust New Philanthropy for Arts & Culture The Percy Hedley 1990 Charitable Trust Nimar Trust The Reed Foundation Patricia Routledge Charitable Trust The Sir James Knott Trust R. E. Chadwick Charitable Trust The Sir Tom Cowie Charitable Trust Sir Maxwell Harper Gow Charitable Trust The Slater Foundation Limited Swire Charitable Trust The So-Ma Trust The 29th May 1961 Charity The Thistle Trust The Alan Brentnall Charitable Trust The Tulip Charitable Trust The Andor Charitable Trust The Veronica Awdry Charitable Trust The Ashford Trust Warner Priory Charitable Trust The Cecilian Singers and one funder who wishes to remain

and one funder who wishes to remain anonymous.

Public funders

We would like to thank our public funders from whom we are in receipt of multi-year grant funding: Arts Council England, Department for Education and Youth Music.

Donors

Our network of individual donors continued to widen during 2024. Our generous Angels commit to either donate or raise at least £1,000 each year, in support of the talented young people we help. We had the support of eight donors contributing £5,000 or more during the year and eight supporting us with £10,000 or more. We would particularly like to thank our current Angels, as follows:

Archangels

Dr Linda Beeley, David Gilmore, Dr Linda Patterson OBE, Thomas Raymond Reesby, Dave and Veronica Russell, and two Archangels who wish to remain anonymous.

Guardian Angels

Lynda Beament, Douglas Bruce CA LRAM ARCM ARCO, Hywel Davies, Terry Hitchcock, Philip Jones and Noel Qualter, Stephanie and Marek Kulesza, Aileen Lauler.

Angels

Tim and Helen Berg, Alan and Patricia Botterill, Handa Bray MBE DL, Richard and Elena Bridges, Robert Canavan, Ashley and Zoe Claymore, Marilyn and Michael Dolan and Ria Hopkinson, David Emmerson, Madeleine Gantley, Anna Gordon, Giles Gostwick, Christine Gough, Roger Gundry, Yvonne Horsfall Turner, Ulrike Horstmann-Guthrie, Joy Humphreys, Mary and Peter Isaac, Jenny James, Natalia Jimenez and Edmund Fawcett, Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Val Harding and Trevor Walker, Kathryn Jones, Dr Ursula Jones OBE, Honor Juniper, Colin Kirkpatrick, Michael Lewin, Beverley Mason and Lara Pysden, Miranda Ramphul McCormick, Primrose Metcalf, Paul and Ruth Meyer and Rachel and Shaun Moore, Michael Mitchell and Greg Taylor, Kieran Morgan, Gemma O'Connor, Dr Dele and Eleanor Olajide, Jessica Osborne, Andrew Palmer, Sue Pandit, Elizabeth Rantzen, Julia Roth, Julian Schild, Lavinia Sealy DL and Nick Sealy, Thomas Sharpe KC, Terence and Sian Sinclair, Janis Susskind OBE, Richard and Gail Taylor, Diana Toeman OBE, Professor Sir David Warrell KCMG, Richard and Alison Williams, Keith Wilson, and three Angels who wish to remain anonymous.

Champions

We also grew the number of Young Sounds UK Champions who commit to giving at least £5 a month to 91 people.

The Robert Lewin Circle

The Robert Lewin Circle honours those who have pledged to leave a legacy to Young Sounds. We’d like to thank:

Handa Bray MBE DL, Douglas Bruce CA LRAM ARCM ARCO, Hywel Davies, Rosalind Earp, Giles Gostwick, Uta Hope, Michael Lewin, Elin Lloyd, Clare and Chris Loosley, Julia Roth, Diana Toeman OBE, Malcolm Touchin, Andrew Tween, Laurie Watt and 23 legacy pledgers who wish to remain anonymous.

We continued to be very appreciative of a very substantial legacy from the estate of Quintin and Monica Des Clayes received in late 2019. Their generous expendable endowment has enabled the establishment of a new group of Awards and support for our Connect programme.

During 2024 we received further legacies in the names of Christopher Robin Bampton and Jane Marjorie Robinson. In addition, Young Sounds UK was the beneficiary of several funeral collections.

Our support community

Our community of supporters are committed to giving their time and expertise in working with the organisation’s staff team to help us meet our objectives and make a considerable difference to our impact. For example, our rebranding work was all provided pro bono by young copywriters and graphic designers.

Our Trustees give very significant support to the staff team, providing support across a range of areas including business planning, fundraising, financial management, sector insight, communications, networking and more. Our Patrons also offer valuable support: Thom Gould’s brilliant masterclass for advanced young violinists was a great example in the autumn, and in the spring Alumna Patron Jess Gillam MBE spoke passionately about the power of music and the impact of our work at the launch event for our new name.

Alumna Patron Jess Gillam at our launch event in London

Patron Thomas Gould leading a violin masterclass

Fundraising concerts

We continued to develop our network of donors, volunteers and friends. We held eight fundraising concerts during the year, five in London and one each in Oxford, Surrey and North Yorkshire. Our major autumn concert in November 2024 at Fishmongers’ Hall in London was hosted by Young Sounds Alumni and former Trustees Mahaliah Edwards and Caius Lee. Where possible we aim to source our venues pro-bono with catering often covered by our generous donors too.

Photos from our autumn fundraiser at Fishmongers’ Hall

We continued our annual participation in three national campaigns: Arts for Impact, the Big Give Christmas Challenge, and Remember a Charity. Our Arts for Impact match funding campaign raised £13,605 whilst we exceeded our Big Give target, raising a fantastic £94,753.

We held our second legacy event for Remember a Charity Week, encouraging our supporters to share their stories about why they’re leaving a legacy.

Fundraising for Young Sounds UK

We are grateful to corporate supporters, community groups, students and amateur orchestras who have fundraised for us by holding charity concerts. In 2025 we’ll be launching a brand-new fundraising kit with all the information and assets needed for those who’d like to fundraise for us in future.

Young Sounds UK’s fundraising practices

We carry out the majority of our fundraising in house by employing a full time Development Manager who oversees fundraising through individuals and Trusts and Foundations. Young Sounds UK’s Chief Executive writes large strategic and public funding applications. We also have a part time Development Administrator to support the Development Manager. Occasionally we use the services of freelancers to assist with Trust and Foundation fundraising. Committed supporters also fundraise on our behalf.

We are a member of the Fundraising Regulator and pay a flat fee of £55 per year. We subscribe to their Code of Conduct and review our practices annually to ensure they remain aligned.

There were no incidents of non-compliance in 2024 and we received no complaints about our fundraising practice. Our fundraising activities are monitored:

• Monthly, through our Major Gifts sub-committee. The sub-committee group’s members comprise the Chief Executive, the Development Manager, Development Administrator and a minimum of two Trustees.

• Quarterly, through Trustee meetings: Fundraising is always an agenda item at every meeting and progress is reviewed.

• Quarterly, through a fundraising strategy review: the Chief Executive and Development Manager review activities and targets as set out in our fundraising strategy.

We have a privacy notice, published on our website (updated and ratified annually by Trustees, most recently in June 2024) which states how supporters and other members of the public can control how communications with them are managed. In compliance with GDPR, we are also responsive to all communications preference updates and act according to the wishes of the supporter. We do not make persistent direct requests for donations and aim to achieve the correct balance between updating and thanking supporters and appealing for donations.

We also aim to create personal relationships with our supporters and aspire to make them comfortable to know that they can raise any concerns directly with the Development Manager and/or Chief Executive. As we have had no complaints about our fundraising practice in 2024 we believe this suggests that we have managed to achieve this balance.

Governance

Objects of the charity

As stated in our formal objects, we were established to advance public education and appreciation of the art and science of music, with particular emphasis on the promotion of specialist music education amongst children and young persons under the age of 18 years old in particular but not exclusively by the establishment and maintenance of scholarships and other awards. Our aims fully reflect the purposes for which the charity was established: to give musically talented young people between the ages of 5 and 18 the opportunity to realise their full creative potential where this may be limited by the financial circumstances of their parents or guardians. With the Charity Commission’s consent we made some changes to our Memorandum and Articles of Association during the year including limiting Trustee terms to nine years, with the option to re co-opt a Trustee for up to 24 further months if in the best interests of the charity. We also added reference to Alumni Trustees and the scope of their terms on the Board.

Organisational structure

Young Sounds UK employs Hester Cockcroft as its full time Chief Executive; she is responsible for overseeing the charity’s programmes and for making ongoing organisational decisions. The Chief Executive makes strategic recommendations to Trustees and delivers strategy according to decisions reached by the Trustees on these recommendations. Madelyn Brown is our Finance and Operations Director, Sophia Loizou is Producer for our Discover Programme, Neil Phillips is Programme Director for our Connect programme and Hannah Turner is Thrive Programme Manager. Sanpreet Janjua is our Development Manager and Matthew Tiller is our Marketing and Communications Manager. Charlotte Lincoln is our full time Thrive Administrator and Katherine Rigg is our part time Development Administrator. In autumn 2024 Nick Daniels joined us as our first parttime Data Officer.

Our staff team are joined by key freelance colleagues, all working part time for Young Sounds, as follows: Lee Marchant and Katie Walker are Programme Producers for Connect, Jessica Burroughs is our Events Producer, Maria Hemmings is our Finance Officer and Oliver Humpage is our Systems Consultant. The charity has never had a physical office in its 26 years. All staff and freelance colleagues work from their respective homes.

Trustees

Young Sounds UK is committed to increasing the diversity of its Board of Trustees. During the year five new Trustees joined the Board and three retired, including two of our longest serving Trustees, Fiona Harvey and Laurie Watt. Alumna Trustee Ella McCoshan stood down in June to start a PhD at Yale University. The recruitment of new Board members is part of our succession planning process, enabling a transition period for long term Trustees to handover to newer Trustees, balancing continuity of knowledge with new thinking.

All new Trustees, including Alumni Trustees, undertake an induction process and ongoing training is arranged as necessary for good practice purposes and to ensure full compliance (e.g. safeguarding updates). In 2024 Morro Barry who is studying Tuba at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, joined the Board as an Alumnus Trustee, supporting the work of the charity for two years alongside his fellow Alumnus Trustee Max Brown. At the time of writing they have begun to co-chair our EDI committee.

The current Trustees represent a significant asset to the charity and will remain a major component of our future success. All Trustees give their time voluntarily and none have any beneficial interest in the company. All are members of the company and guarantee to contribute £1 in the event of a winding up.

Sub-committees

Young Sounds UK runs five sub-committees comprising staff and Trustees (the Chief Executive attends all of them); these take place online. We’re currently running three monthly: Audit and Risk, Major Gifts, and Communications and two quarterly: EDI and Board Nominations.

Review of activities and public benefit

The impact of our support for the young people we help has considerable public benefit. By enabling young musicians to overcome the financial, social and other obstacles they face, our work not only benefits the recipients but also their families, schools and wider communities. Musical achievement opens doors for young people which would otherwise be closed to them. Many of the children we help go on to gain full scholarships to highly regarded schools and often on to music college and top-tier universities: this has a transformative impact on their social mobility and life chances. It also helps to create a more diverse and inclusive music industry.

We review our aims, objectives and activities annually; we ensure these are carried out effectively through our business plan, in order to make certain that our work continues to be of benefit to the public, in particular to children and young people, as set out in our Objects. We monitor all our beneficiaries on the basis of voluntary declarations so that we can continue to improve our equity and diversity outcomes.

Safeguarding

Young Sounds UK ensures that all the young people it supports are kept safe. All staff, Trustees, freelancers and volunteers are regularly DBS checked. Our Safeguarding policy is reviewed annually and ratified by Trustees (most recently in September 2024). Staff and Trustees are required to participate in safeguarding training.

Financial review

The results for the year show a total in-year surplus of £285,105. Overall income rose by 38% from £1,403,828 in 2023 to £1,931,843 in 2024. Expenditure also increased by 11% from £1,511,047 to £1,672,985 in 2024.

Increased costs were attributable to expansions in programme delivery. Cost of raising funds and support costs both reduced slightly year on year but remained relatively stable at 5% and 4% of total expenditure (5% and 5% in 2023).

The charity receives both unrestricted and restricted income. Restricted funds are given with the understanding that they will be used for a specific stated purpose. Unrestricted funds are free to use in line with the charity’s aims and objectives.

Unrestricted income increased to £705,602, while expenditure fell by 7% (£42,064 decrease on 2023) due to improved cost allocation practices.

Restricted income increased by 28% to £1,218,218. A significant factor in this was the commencement of the DfE Music Opportunities Pilot grant. The grant model requires costs to be incurred prior to claiming the reimbursement and being able to recognise the corresponding income.

Restricted expenditure grew in line with increased income and the expansion of programme activities, increasing to £1,074,717 (up 23%).

Reserves policy

In addition to the £113,867 surplus on unrestricted funds, during the year the trustees exercised the charity’s power to apply the expendable endowment for general purposes, transferring £285,220 from endowment to unrestricted funds. This resulted in a £399,087 increase to the carried forward unrestricted funds to £454,296 in 2024 (£55,209 in 2023). This brings the fund back in line with the charity’s reserves policy.

The carried forward restricted funds of £388,837 are to be used by our Connect programme and for work within elements of our Thrive programme, including for financial award grants for young people.

Investment policy

Trustees have decided that unrestricted funds including expendable endowment funds, the use of which is not foreseen for at least six months and which includes any free reserves designated under the reserves policy, may be invested in low-risk funds managed by specialists in handling charitable investment portfolios. Such investments must be capable of liquidation at relatively short notice.

Risk factors

The risks affecting the charity are assessed by Trustees via a Risk Register, overseen and updated quarterly by the charity’s Audit and Risk Committee before being tabled at Board meetings. All necessary steps are taken to mitigate the risks identified as priorities in terms of likelihood and impact.

Asset cover for funds

Note 12 sets out an analysis of the assets attributable to the various funds. These assets are sufficient to meet the charity’s obligations on a fund-by-fund basis.

Young Sounds UK owns six high-quality violins remaining from Robert Lewin’s original legacy. They are currently being held by Florian Leonhard Fine Violins prior to their intended sale: the monies raised will support the development of more talented young musicians from low-income families. We have received written confirmation from Florian Leonhard that the instruments are appropriately insured and will be carefully maintained until they are sold.

Statement of responsibilities of the Trustees

The Trustees (who are also directors of the charity for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102: The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

The Trustees are required to prepare financial statements for each financial year, which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and the group and the incoming resources and application of resources, including the net income or expenditure, of the charity and the group for the year.

In preparing those financial statements the trustees are required to:

• Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;

• Observe the methods and principles in the applicable Charities SORP;

• Make judgements and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent;

• State whether applicable accounting standards and statements of recommended practice have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and

• Prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in operation.

The Trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and the group and which enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006.

The Trustees are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

In so far as the Trustees are aware:

• there is no relevant audit information of which the charitable company's auditors are unaware; and

• the Trustees have taken all steps that they ought to have taken to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the auditors are aware of that information.

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

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 Trustees are members of the charity but this entitles them only to voting rights. The Trustees have no beneficial interest in the charity.

Auditors

Albert Goodman Chartered Accountants were re-appointed as the charitable company's auditors during the year and have expressed their willingness to act in that capacity.

This report was approved by the Board of Trustees on 10 June 2025.

Philip Jones, Chair of Trustees

Fintan Canavan, Trustee

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Independent Auditors' Report to the Members and Trustees For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Awards for Young Musicians (the 'charitable company') for the year ended 31 December 2024 , which comprise the Statement of Financial Activities, Balance Sheet and Notes to the Financial Statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice, including Financial Reporting Standard 102: The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion the financial statements:

• give a true and fair view of the state of the charitable company's affairs as at 31 December 2024 and of its incoming resources and application of resources for the year then ended;

• have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and

• • have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

Basis for opinion

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

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustee’s 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 the entity’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least 12 months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

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

Other information

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

In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether there is a material misstatement in the financial statements or a material misstatement of the other information. 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.

44

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Independent Auditors' Report to the Members and Trustees For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

Opinion on other matter prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

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

• the information given in the Trustees’ Report, which includes the Directors' Report prepared for the purposes of company law for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and

• the Directors' Report included within the Trustees’ Report have been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

In the light of our 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 Directors' Report included within the Trustees’ Report.

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters where the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

• adequate and proper accounting records have not been kept, or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or

• the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or

• certain disclosures of trustees’ remuneration specified by law are not made; or

• we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.

• the trustees were not entitled to prepare the financial statements in accordance with the small companies’ regime and take advantage of the small companies’ exemptions in preparing the Trustee Directors’ Report and from the requirement to prepare a Strategic Report.

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the Statement of Trustees' Responsibilities set out on pages 42-43, 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

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

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

45

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Independent Auditors' Report to the Members and Trustees For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

The extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities including fraud

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

• the engagement partner ensured that the engagement team collectively had the appropriate competence, capabilities and skills to identify or recognise non-compliance with applicable laws and regulations;

• we identified the laws and regulations applicable to the company through discussions with management, and from our commercial knowledge and experience of the charity sector;

• we focused on specific laws and regulations which we considered may have a direct material effect on the financial statements or the operations of the company, including the Companies Act 2006, Charity Act 2011, employment, data protection and health and safety legislation;

• we assessed the extent of compliance with the laws and regulations identified above through making enquiries of management and inspecting legal correspondence; and

• identified laws and regulations were communicated within the audit team regularly and the team remained alert to instances of non-compliance throughout the audit.

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

• making enquiries of management as to where they considered there was susceptibility to fraud, their knowledge of actual, suspected and alleged fraud; and

• considering the internal controls in place to mitigate risks of fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations.

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

• performed analytical procedures to identify any unusual or unexpected relationships;

• tested journal entries to identify unusual transactions;

• assessed whether judgements and assumptions made in determining the accounting estimates were indicative of potential bias; and

• investigated the rationale behind significant or unusual transactions.

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

• agreeing financial statement disclosures to underlying supporting documentation;

• reading the minutes of meetings of those charged with governance;

• enquiring of management as to actual and potential litigation, claims and breaches of relevant legislation; and

• reviewing correspondence with the Charity Commission and other relevant regulators including the company’s legal advisors and insurers.

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

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

46

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Independent Auditors' Report to the Members and Trustees For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

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

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the charitable company’s members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charitable company’s members and trustees 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 and the charitable company’s trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Michelle Ferris BSc (Hons) FCA DChA (Senior Statutory Auditor) for and on behalf of Albert Goodman LLP Chartered Accountants Statutory Auditor

Goodwood House Blackbrook Park Avenue Taunton Somerset TA1 2PX

Date: 10 June 2025

47

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Statement of Financial Activities (including Income & Expenditure account) For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

Notes Income Donations and legacies 2 Charitable activities 3 Investments Total income Expenditure Raising funds 4 Charitable activities 4 Total expenditure Net income / (expenditure) before other recognised gains / (loss) Other recognised gains	Endow- ment £ - - 8,023 8,023 - - - 8,023	£ 356,303 349,299 - 705,602 92,221 506,046 598,267 107,335 Unres- tricted	£ 773,718 444,500 - 1,218,217 249 1,074,469 1,074,717 143,500 Re-stricted	£ 1,130,020 793,799 8,023 1,931,842 92,470 1,580,515 1,672,984 258,858 2024 Total	Endow- ment £ - - 5,215 5,215 - - - 5,215	£ 184,348 259,309 - 443,657 100,105 540,227 640,332 (196,675) Unres- tricted	£ 839,556 115,400 - 954,956 320 870,395 870,715 84,241 Re- stricted	£ 1,023,904 374,709 5,215 2023 Total
								1,403,828
								100,425 1,410,622
								1,511,047
								(107,219)
Net gain/ (loss) on
investments Net income / (expenditure) for the year before transfers Transfers 11 Net movement in funds Reconciliation of funds Total funds brought forward Total funds carried forward	19,714 27,737 (285,220) (257,483) 354,329 96,846	6,533 113,868 285,220 399,088 55,209 454,297	- 143,500 - 143,500 245,336 388,836	26,247 285,105 - 285,105 654,874 939,979	18,750 23,965 (15,000) 8,965 345,364 354,329	6,217 (190,458) 15,000 (175,458) 230,667 55,209	- 84,241 - 84,241 161,095 245,336	24,967
								(82,252) -
								(82,252) 737,126
								654,874

The results for the year derive from continuing activities and there are no gains or losses other than those shown above.

The statement of financial activities incorporates the income and expenditure account.

48

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Company Registration Number: 03602851 Balance sheet As at 31 December 2024

----- Start of picture text -----
Notes 2024 2023
£ £
Fixed assets
Tangible fixed assets 7 35,326 35,857
Investments 8 444,520 418,273
479,846 454,130
Current assets
Debtors 9 381,071 86,608
Cash at bank and in hand 260,962 327,943
642,033 414,551
Creditors
Amounts falling due within one year 10 (181,900) (213,808)
Net current assets 460,133 200,744
Net assets 939,979 654,874
Funds
Restricted funds 11 388,836 245,336
Unrestricted funds
Expendable endowment funds 11 96,846 354,329
Unrestricted funds 11 454,297 55,209
551,143 409,538
Total charity funds 939,979 654,874
----- End of picture text -----

Approved by the Board for issue on 10 June 2025 and signed on its behalf by:

P Jones (Chair) F Canavan Trustee Trustee

49

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Statement of Cash Flows As at 31 December 2024

----- Start of picture text -----
2024 2023
£ £
Notes
Cash flows from operating activities
Net expenditure for the year 285,105 (82,252)
Adjustments to cash flows from non-cash items:
Dividends and interest from investments (8,023) (5,215)
(Gain)/loss on investments (26,247) (24,967)
Depreciation and amortisation 7 531 941
251,366 (111,493)
Working capital adjustments
Decrease / (increase) in debtors 9 (294,463) 58,325
Increase / (decrease) in creditors 10 (31,908) 49,590
Net cash flow from operations (75,005) (3,579)
Cash flows from investing activities
Purchase of tangible fixed assets 7 - (974)
-
Disposal of tangible fixed assets 15,000
Dividends and interest from investments 8,023 5,215
8,023 19,241
Net increase in cash and
cash equivalents (66,982) 15,662
Cash and cash equivalents at the 327,943 312,281
beginning of the reporting period
Cash and cash equivalents at the 260,962 327,943
end of the reporting period
----- End of picture text -----

50

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

1 Accounting policies

1.1 General information and basis of accounting

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities in preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019) - (Charities SORP (FRS 102)), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Companies Act 2006.

Awards for Young Musicians meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102. Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy note.

1.2

Going concern

The accounts have been prepared on the assumption that the charity is able to continue as a going concern, which the trustees consider appropriate having regard to the current level of unrestricted reserves and expendable endowment. There are no material uncertainties about the charity's ability to continue as a going concern.

The trustees recognise that the steps taken in 2024 as outlined in the 2023 accounts, including exercising the power to apply the expendable endowment for general purposes, have brought the unrestricted reserves back into line with the charity’s reserves policy.

1.3

Income

Income is recognised when the charity has entitlement to the funds, any performance conditions attached to the item of income have been met, it is probable that the income will be received and the amount can be measured reliably.

Income from the 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 to the Trust 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 treated as a contingent asset and disclosed if material.

1.4 Donated services and facilities

Donated professional services and donated facilities are recognised as income when the charity has control over the item, any conditions associated with the donated item have been met, the receipt of economic benefit from the use by the charity of the item, is probable and the economic benefit can be measured reliably. In accordance with the Charities SORP (FRS 102), general volunteer time is not recognised.

On receipt, donated 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.

Donated services and facilities are shown in note 2 as Gifts in Kind. They include in-kind support in the form of tuition, venue hire, instrument hire and other services that are necessary to fulfil the requirements of the charity's programmes. The value is based on commercial rates provided by the suppliers.

51

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

1.5 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.

• 1.6 Funds accounting

Unrestricted funds are available to spend on activities that further any of the purposes of the charity. Designated funds are unrestricted funds of the charity which the trustees have decided at their discretion to set aside to ·use for a specific purpose. Restricted funds are donations which the donor has specified are to be solely used for particular areas of the charity's work or for

specific projects being undertaken by the charity.

Endowment funds relate to a collection of violins bequeathed to the charity, and investments transferred to the charity. These are able to be sold to raise funds at the discretion of the trustees, and hence are treated as an expendable endowment. Proceeds from the sale of any instruments have been invested. Subsequent increases and decreases in value of these investments are shown in the Statement of Financial Activities as part of those funds.

During the year, the Trustees exercised their right to transfer the funds to the unrestricted fund as required.

• 1.7 Expenditure and irrecoverable VAT Expenditure is recognised once there is a legal or constructive obligation to make a payment to a third party, it is probable that settlement will be required and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably.

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

• 1.8 Grants payable

Grants payable are charged in the year in which the offer is conveyed to the recipient except in those cases where the offer is conditional.

• 1.9 Fixed assets

Fixed assets are valued at cost less depreciation. No assets are capitalised under £1,000. Depreciation is calculated to write off the cost or valuation of fixed assets over their estimated useful lives at the following rate:-

Computer equipment – 33% straight line

Musical instruments contain a collection of musical instruments bequeathed to the charity in 1998 are held at probate value and not depreciated. Musical instruments are reviewed annually for impairment.

1.10 Allocation of support and governance costs

Support costs are those functions that assist the work of the charity but do not directly undertake charitable activities. Governance costs are the costs associated with the governance arrangements of the charity, including the costs of complying with constitutional and statutory requirements and any costs associated with the strategic management of the charity's activities. These costs have been allocated between cost of raising funds and expenditure on charitable activities based on staff cost percentages as follows:

2024 2023 General fundraising 25% 25% Charitable activities 75% 75%

52

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

1.11 Investments

Investments in quoted shares, traded bonds and similar investments are measured initially at cost and subsequently at fair value (their market value). The statement of financial activities includes the net gains and losses arising on revaluations and disposals throughout the year.

• 1.12 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.

• 1.13 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.

• 1.14 Creditors

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.

• 1.15 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 recognised at amortised cost using the effective interest method.

• 1.16 Pension costs

The company operates a defined contribution pension scheme for its employees. There are no further liabilities other than that already recognised in the SOFA.

• 1.17 Accounting estimates and key judgements

In the application of the charity's accounting policies, the trustees are required to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and underlying assumptions are based on historical experience and other factors that are considered to be relevant. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised if the revision affects only that period, or in the period of the revision and future periods if the revision affects both current and future periods. The key sources of estimation uncertainty that have a significant effect on the amounts recognised in the financial statements are described below.

1.18 Gifts in kind

The charity receives in kind support in the form of tuition, venue hire, instrument hire and other associated services. If these services and facilities were not donated, the charity would need to procure them in order to fulfil its programmes. The value of the donated services and facilities has been estimated based on the equivalent commercial sales price provided by the supplier.

53

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

2 Income from donations and legacies

Grants > £5,000: The Karlsson Játiva Charitable Foundation Garfield Weston Foundation Swire Charitable Trust Scops Arts Trust The Thistle Trust Reed Foundation The Finderman Charitable Trust Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Martin Charitable Trust The D'Oyly Carte Charitable Trust The Childhood Trust Middle Way Trust Kaye Music Trust The Alan Brentnall Charitable Trust Kirby Laing Foundation Margaret Engering Music Trust Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland The Patricia Routledge Foundation New Philanthropy for Arts & Culture The Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation The 29th May 1961 Charity The Margaret and David Walker Trust Cecil King Memorial Foundation Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation Colwinston Charitable Trust Mayfield Valley Arts Trust Grants < £5,000 Donations Donation income Gift aid Gifts in kind Legacy income Other income	£ - 60,000 30,000 - - - - - 2,000 - - 10,000 10,000 - - - - 5,000 5,000 - 5,000 - - - - - 10,258 97,098 37,653 - 83,944 350 356,303 Unres- tricted	£ 50,000 - - - - 15,000 10,000 - 6,000 - - - - 10,000 10,000 30,000 6,233 - - 15,000 - 5,000 5,000 5,000 - - 18,669 103,095 - Res-tricted	Total 2024 £ 50,000 60,000 30,000 - - 15,000 10,000 - 8,000 - - 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 30,000 6,233 5,000 5,000 15,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 - - 28,927 200,192 37,653 484,721 83,944 350 1,130,020	£ - - - - - 15,000 - - - - - 5,000 - - - - - - 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 - - - 19,530 71,971 47,423 Unres- tricted	Res- tricted £ 50,000 - - 20,000 15,000 - 10,000 10,000 8,000 6,000 6,536 - - - - - - - - - - - - 5,000 5,000 25,504 233,361 2,500	Total 2023 £ 50,000 - - 20,000 15,000 15,000 10,000 10,000 8,000 6,000 6,536 5,000 - - - - - - 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 - 5,000 5,000 45,034 305,332 49,923
		484,721		-	437,655	437,655
		- -		5,000 424 184,348	5,000 -	10,000 424
		773,718			839,556	1,023,904

54

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

3 Charitable activities

Grants > £5,000: Arts Council England Department for Education Connect Hubs National Foundation for Youth Music Bradford Greater Manchester Hull Lewisham Liverpool Manchester City North West Midlands Sheffield Sunderland Worcester Grants < £5,000*	£ Unres- tricted	£ Restricted	£ 400,000 230,478 22,500 90,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 821 793,799 Total 2024	£ Unres- tricted	£ Res- tricted	£ Total 2023
	348,478 - - - - - - - - - - - - - 821	51,522 230,478 22,500 90,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 -		261,359 - - (3,000) - - - - - - - - - - 950	38,643 - - 18,097 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 8,660	300,002 - - 15,097 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 9,610
	349,299			259,309
		444,500			115,400	374,709

*denotes amounts received from government

Income from government grants comprise grants made by local authorities and government grants to fund the principal activities and objectives of the charity via core funding and funding for specific restricted projects. No performance related grants recognised in income have had any unfulfilled conditions or any other contingencies attaching to them. See note 2 and 3 for more information. Government grants received during the year amounted to £702,978 (2023: £350,002).

55

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

4 Direct charitable expenditure

	£ Unres- tricted	£ Res-tricted	Total 2024 £ 76,136 - - 16,334 92,470 228,407 41,032 30,351 1,083,800 79,461 36,933 31,529 49,002 1,580,515 15,589 6,898 33,120 2,101 531 7,097 (65,336) - 1,672,984	£ Unres- tricted	£ Res- tricted	Total 2023 £
Raising funds
Staff costs Event costs	76,136 -	- -		79,759 -	- 320	79,759 320
Other freelance costs Allocation of support and governance costs Charitable activities Staff costs Event costs Other freelance costs Programme delivery Grants payable Travel and subsistence Marketing Allocation of support and governance costs	- 16,085	- 249		2,000 18,346 100,105 235,637 33,629 41,761 67,899 45,972 38,914 21,377 55,038	- -	2,000 - 18,346
	92,221 215,964 34,032 30,351 80,110 29,745 36,385 31,204
		249			320	100,425
		12,443 7,000 - 1,003,690 49,716 548 325			3,640 - 200 791,271 71,752 2,508 -	239,277 33,629 41,961 859,170 117,724 41,422 21,377
	48,256	746			1,024	56,062
	506,046	1,074,469		540,227	870,395	1,410,622
Support and governance costs Office and IT Subscriptions, licences and charges Audit and accountancy Bank charges Depreciation Miscellaneous costs Allocation of support and governance costs	14,594 6,898 33,120 2,101 531 7,097	995 - - - - -		18,558 4,816 31,644 1,874 941 15,551	11 - 1,013 - - -	18,569 4,816 32,657 1,874 941 15,551
	(64,341)	(995)		(73,384)	(1,024)	(74,408)
	-	-		-	-	-
Total	598,267			640,332
		1,074,717			870,715	1,511,047

Grants payable of £79,461 (2023: £117,724) consists of grants up to £2,000 awarded to individuals only. The grants assist with a range of musical costs e.g. the purchase of instruments, to fund musical tuition, travel etc. and do not include any contributions to support costs.

56

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

5 Wages and salaries

Wages and salaries
Wages and salaries Social security costs Pension Staff costs included in programme delivery	2024 £ 267,935 29,376 7,231 304,542 55,527 360,069	2023 £ 286,696 25,436 6,904
		319,036 -
		319,036

One employee earned between £90,000 and £100,000 during the year, including employers national insurance but excluding employers pension contribution (2023: one employee earned between £80,000 and £90,000).

The key management personnel of the charity is considered to be the chief executive. The total costs to the charity of employee benefits for the key management personnel were £93,382 (2023: £88,830).

The average number of employees for the year was as follows:

----- Start of picture text -----
Number of staff 10 9
6 Net incoming resources before transfers
2024 2023
£ £
This is stated after charging:
- Statutory audit - current accountants 12,240 11,700
- Accounts preparation - current accountants 2,820 2,700
-
- Other work - previous accountants 1,013
----- End of picture text -----

57

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

7 Tangible assets

Cost As at 01.01.2024 Additions Disposals As at 31.12.2024 Depreciation As at 01.01.2024 Charge for year As at 31.12.2024 Net book value As at 31.12.2024 As at 31.12.2023 8 Investments Market value at 1 January 2024 Additions Disposals Unrealised gains / (losses) Realised losses Market value at 31 December 2024 Historical cost at 31 December 2024	Musical Computer instruments equipment Total £ £ £ 35,000 5,448 40,448 - - - - - - 35,000 5,448 40,448 - 4,591 4,591 - 531 531 - 5,122 5,122 35,000 326 35,326 35,000 857 35,857 2024 2023 £ £ 418,273 393,306 - - - - 26,247 24,967 - - 444,520 418,273 367,588 367,588 2024 2023 £ £ 1,271 1,250 378,294 84,247 1,506 1,111 381,071 86,608	Musical Computer instruments equipment Total £ £ £ 35,000 5,448 40,448 - - - - - - 35,000 5,448 40,448 - 4,591 4,591 - 531 531 - 5,122 5,122 35,000 326 35,326 35,000 857 35,857 2024 2023 £ £ 418,273 393,306 - - - - 26,247 24,967 - - 444,520 418,273 367,588 367,588 2024 2023 £ £ 1,271 1,250 378,294 84,247 1,506 1,111 381,071 86,608	Total £ 40,448 - -
			40,448
			4,591 531
			5,122
			35,326
			35,857
9 Debtors Trade debtors Accrued income Other debtors		2024 £ 1,271 378,294 1,506 381,071

58

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

10 Creditors - amounts due in less than one year

Trade creditors Accruals Social security and other taxes	2024 £ 60,117 54,282 11,653	2023 £ 38,562 92,453 8,876
Grants payable	55,848	73,379
Other creditors	- 181,900	538
		213,808

11 Statement of Funds

11 Statement of Funds
	Balance		Expend-	Gains / (losses) on		Balance
	01.01.2024	Income	iture	investments	Transfers	31.12.2024
Expendable endowment funds Robert Lewin bequest	£ 34,109	£ 8,023	£ -	£ 19,714	£ -	£ 61,846
Robert Lewin instruments Des Clayes bequest Total endowment funds Restricted funds DfE Music Opportunities Pilot Attune project Engering Music Creators Project Named Awards Thrive Catalyser Fund Gifts in kind Total restricted funds Unrestricted funds General Total unrestricted funds Total funds	35,000	-	-	-	-	35,000
	285,220 354,329 - 13,985 - 130,075 - 101,276 - 245,336 55,209 55,209 654,874	- 8,023 292,977 - 30,000 86,320 91,900 232,299 484,721 1,218,217 705,602 705,602 1,931,842	- - (301,489) (13,985) - (62,316) - (212,206) (484,721) (1,074,717) (598,267) (598,267) (1,672,984)	- 19,714 - - - - - - - - 6,533 6,533 26,247	(285,220) (285,220) - - - - - - - - 285,220 285,220 -	-
						96,846
						(8,512) - 30,000 154,079 91,900 121,369 -
						388,836
						454,297
						454,297
						939,979

59

Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

Statement of Funds - prior year

Statement of Funds - prior year
	Balance		Expend-	Gains / (losses) on		Balance
	01.01.2023	Income	iture	investments	Transfers	31.12.2023
Expendable endowment funds Robert Lewin bequest Robert Lewin instruments Des Clayes bequest Total endowment funds Restricted funds Furthering Talent Talent to Talent Attune project Charanga Named Awards Identifying Talent Catalyser Fund Gifts in kind Total restricted funds	£ 10,144 50,000 285,220 345,364 - - 13,048 (7,519) 50,275 15,291 90,000 161,095	£ 5,215 - - 5,215 123,110 10,000 7,519 151,551 3,254 221,867 437,655 954,956	£ - - - - (123,110) (9,063) - (71,751) (18,545) (210,591) (437,655) (870,715)	£ 18,750 - - 18,750 - - - - - - - - -	£ - (15,000) - (15,000) - - - - - - - - -	£ 34,109 35,000 285,220
						354,329
						- - 13,985 - 130,075 - 101,276 -
						245,336
Unrestricted funds General Designated - Furthering Talent	230,667 -	443,657 -	(640,332) -	6,217 -	15,000 -	55,209 -
Total unrestricted funds Total funds	230,667 737,126	443,657 1,403,828	(640,332) (1,511,047)	6,217 24,967	15,000 -	55,209
						654,874

Purposes of restricted funds

• DfE Music Opportunities Pilot

Funding to expand our Connect programme, working collaboratively to support young people from low income families sustain their musical learning. The pilot aims to test, refine and promote the most effective interventions.

• Attune

Partnership with City of London Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, to give award winners the chance to develop their chamber music skills.

• Engering Music Creators project

A programme of support for young creators, including mentoring and workshops.

• Named Awards

We offer a number of special named Awards each year which are funded by private individuals or in partnership with other trusts and organisations.

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Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

• Thrive

Funding to support our wider programme of work with our Award recipients, including musical opportunities such as workshops, mentoring and creative projects.

• Gifts in Kind

Gifts in Kind are resources that are gifted to the charity in relation to instrumental hire and music lessons.

• Furthering Talent

This programme finds young people with emerging talent, giving them targeted and sustainable support (programme became Connect in 2024).

• Catalyser

This fund is the latest in a series of long-term grants Young Sounds UK have received from Youth Music to support the continued scaling up of our Furthering Talent (now Connect) programme. It aims to support young people facing the most barriers to music-making.

• Charanga

Young Sounds is working with Charanga, the UK’s award-winning music education platform to help young people sustain their musical learning through the development of an interactive Individual Learning Plan.

• Identifying Talent

This programme trains music leaders to spot early musical potential in children who might never have had the chance to play an instrument because their family can't afford it (programme became Discover in 2024).

Expendable endowment funds

Expendable endowment funds relate to a collection of violins bequeathed to the charity, and investments transferred to the charity. These are able to be sold to raise funds at the discretion of the trustees, and hence are treated as an expenditure endowment. Proceeds from the sale of any instruments have been invested. Subsequent increases and decreases in value of these investments are shown in the Statement of Financial Activities as part of those funds.

During the year, the Trustees exercised their right to transfer the funds to the unrestricted fund as required.

Analysis of net assets between funds £ Tangible assets 35,000 Investments 61,846 Net current assets - 96,846 Endow- ment	£ 326 382,674 71,297 454,297 Unres- tricted	£ - - 388,836 Res-tricted	£ 35,326 444,520 460,133 939,979 Total 2024	£ 35,000 319,329 - 354,329 Endow- ment	£ 857 98,944 (44,592) Unres- tricted	£ - - 245,336 245,336 Res-tricted	£ 35,857 418,273 200,744 Total 2023
		388,836			55,209		654,874

12 Analysis of net assets between funds

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Young Sounds UK (The working name for Awards for Young Musicians) Notes to the Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 December 2024

13 Financial instruments at fair value

----- Start of picture text -----
2024 2023
£ £
Financial assets measured at fair value 444,520 418,273
Income Expense Net gains Net losses
£ £ £ £
2024
Financial assets measured at 8,023 - 26,247 -
fair value
- -
8,023 26,247
2023
Financial assets measured at 5,215 - 24,967 -
fair value
- -
5,215 24,967
----- End of picture text -----

Financial assets measured at fair value comprise listed investments.

14 Related party transactions

During the year, three trustees donated a total of £2,850 to the charity (2023: £5,820 from 3 trustees). Four trustees were reimbursed travel expenses totalling £1,699 (2023: £2,222 to 3 trustees)

15 Company limited by guarantee

The company was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee and has no share capital. The guarantee to the company is £1 per member on the winding up of the company. At 31 December 2024 the company had twelve members and the total amount guaranteed was therefore £12.

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