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2024-03-31-accounts

ACCESSART 2024

Annual report and Financial Statements of AccessArt (A company limited by guarantee) Company number 05110197 Charity Number 1105049

For the year ending 31 March 2024

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

NAME ACCESSART

REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 1105049

COMPANY NUMBER : 05110197

REGISTERED ADDRESS

6 West Street, Comberton, Cambidge, CB23 7DS

TRUSTEES & DIRECTORS

The following served as both directors and trustees during the period:

Ms T S Wimhurst (Resigned 9 January 2024) Ms Susan Coles Mr Chris Owen Ms Anne Morten Ms Kate Williams (Joined 3 July 2024)

COMPANY SECRETARY

Ms P Briggs

BANKERS

The Co-operative Bank 75 Burleigh Street Cambridge CB1 1DF

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER

Missieki Martin Limited, Chartered Management Accountants, 10 Parkway Crosby Liverpool L23 0ST

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REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH 2024

The Trustees of AccessArt present their Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31st March 2024.

Report of the Trustees

The directors of AccessArt Limited (“the charitable company”) are its trustees for the purpose of charity law and throughout this report are collectively referred to as its trustees. The financial statements comply with current statutory requirements, the Statement of Recommended Practice 2005 “Accounting and Reporting by Charities” and the Companies Act 2006.

The trustees have pleasure in presenting the charitable company’s report and financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2024.

Governing Document

AccessArt Limited is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association.

Appointment of Trustees

The number of trustees shall not be less than two but shall not be subject to a maximum. At each annual general meeting one third of the trustees or, if their number is not a multiple of three, the number nearest to one third must retire from office. They can be reappointed.

All trustees are members of the company and guarantee to contribute a maximum of £10 in the event of a wind up.

When a vacancy for a trustee becomes available, the position will be advertised via reputable and relevant agencies such as Arts Jobs and the Voluntary Arts Network, and by word of mouth. Potential trustees will be interviewed and voted at the next trustees meeting.

Objectives and Activities

The principal object of the charitable company is the advancement of education in the visual arts.

The aims of AccessArt are:

  1. to position itself as the innovative publisher of digital and physical visual arts learning experiences and teaching ideas which broaden and deepen visual arts education;

  2. to nurture meaningful relationships between practitioners and learners, which ensure that through practice and dialogue, a climate of cross-fertilisation is celebrated and shared;

  3. to act as a beacon on behalf of those who learn best visually, spatially and actively, and to advocate their needs to strategic local, regional and national organisations across the UK;

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  1. to pursue the opportunities presented to us by new technologies and to exploit their potential to deliver powerful and accessible visual learning experiences;

  2. to raise funds through public funding and commercial activity with the aim of ensuring that a significant proportion of the material we distribute is free of charge to the end user.

In the exercise of our powers to that end we have paid due regard to the published guidance from the Charity Commission on the operation of the Public Benefit requirement under the Charities Act 2006.

Overview

AccessArt is a UK charity (founded in 1999) which aims to ‘further the advancement of teaching and learning in the visual arts’. AccessArt advocates the importance of high quality, visual arts teaching and learning to ensure as many people as possible are able to work towards their creative potential. This is achieved through the creation and sharing of resources via www.accessart.org.uk.

In addition to the resources, we organise events and CPD to help build understanding amongst our audience of teachers, educators, creative practitioners and learners. We also place great emphasis on creating a sense of community which is as inclusive and diverse as possible.

The 25 year anniversary of the founding of AccessArt.

AccessArt was proud to celebrate 25 years in 2024. Our community is now so large that it would take two O2 stadiums to hold all our members. Our Team and Trustees are very proud of all that has been achieved, and we're excited about what's ahead. Explore our tmeline to learn more about how we evolved into being the largest provider of visual arts education resources in the UK.

AccessArt is a truly digital organisation – we have no offices and all team members work remotely in different parts of the UK. In early 2024 Trustees and the team members took the opportunity to spend two days together in York to reflect on this significant milestone. The conversation was far reaching, insightful, celebratory and ambitious. We reached our 25th year with nearly 23,000 members and now have over 42,000 email subscribers. You can find out more about how we have celebrated our anniversary at htps://www.accessart.org.uk/accessart-celebrates-25-years/

As a self-sustaining arts organisation (a Charity, Limited Company and Subject Association),and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we have taken the time to remember and redefine 8 core values which have always helped shaped AccessArt, and which we commit to going forward. To help us do this we have been commissioning artists to help illustrate these ideals.

These organisational values are important at every level. Their meaning is enriched by their context; they are the values by which we act as a team, they impact the work we deliver, and our relationships with users.

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They are values which not only describe the way AccessArt endeavours to exist in the world, but also describe how best creativity might be allowed to flourish in the world, and to this end we hope our values resonate with our users.

Achievements, Performance and Future Plans

It’s been an incredibly exciting and productive time for AccessArt and we would like to thank the team and all contributors for helping to continue to make our vision a reality.

The AccessArt Primary Art Curriculum

The AccessArt Primary Art Curriculum was launched in May 2022, ready for use in September 2022, which means that we are now seeing schools which have used our resources for a full academic year, as well as many more new schools signing up to try our resources for the first time.

In the summer of 2023 we invited users to complete a survey to feedback their experience of using our Primary Arts Curriculum in their school. We would like to thank the 447 teachers who responded on behalf of their school. You can read the full report here:

htps://www.accessart.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AccessArt-Primary-Art-CurriculumSurvey-Report-2023-1.pdf

Our resources are continually being updated and developed in response to users’ needs, for example:

Our intention is always that we help teachers to better understand “why” as well as “how”, and to this end we continue to offer high quality Zoom CPD for teachers and share examples of how teachers are adapting our resources to make them relevant for their pupils.

As schools send us images of work produced in schools, we have also created a series of galleries to inspire other schools.

Teenage Enquiry-Based Learning

Building on the success of the AccessArt Primary Art Curriculum, we have started work on creating an innovative approach for Key Stage 3 (ages 11 to 14). This is at an early stage in it’s development and will be a long term project, but you can see our intent as shared through animations which can be found at htps://www.accessart.org.uk/enquiry-based-learning-for-teenagers-menu/

Other Resources and Areas of Focus

During this period we created over 100 new resources. In particular, and thinking ahead to the Olympics in 2024, we created a number of resources to help teachers explore sport and the Olympic Values through art.

We also spent considerable time restructuring page hierarchy to aid navigation, creatng new landing pages for all materials and all disciplines.

We also continued to develop the AccessArt map.

Advocacy

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AccessArt’s focus was, as always, also on the importance of advocacy for the importance of arts and arts education. With an election predicted, we turned our focus to working in partnership and supporting other organisations, to lend our voice to the cause. This included:

Statistics

Membership growth continued during 2023/24. At the end of March 2024 membership stood at 22,634, a 33% increase from the previous year. In addition, the number of subscribers on our email mailing list stood at almost 39K who received 17 newsletters from us over the period. Our AccessArt Network Facebook Group reached 5.5K with 3.4 K followers on Instagram and we delivered 29 live events and created and shared over 100 new resources for our community.

Trustees and Team

Trustees

A very special thanks to all our trustees who worked hard to support the organisation: Susan Coles, Chris Owen and Anne Moreton. Tamsin Wimhurst stepped down during this period after 12 years as a trustee.

Team

In the Year 2022/23 AccessArt was directed and supported by Paula Briggs, CEO and Creative Director. Paula is the only member of the team who works full time, directing and managing the organisation, as well as working directly on projects, resources and CPD.

The average head count of employees during this period was 6.25.

Finance

Lydia Hounsell from Missieki Martin Limited provides independent examination and accountancy services for AccessArt.

Website and Web Development

AccessArt site continues to be on the “Digital Ocean” server and is managed by Newtlabs, who continue to be responsible for www.accessart.org.uk development and site care, including keeping plugins, back-up, WordPress updates and keeping security current and updated.

Legal

London based solicitors, CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP (Formally Olswang), continue to advise AccessArt on a pro-bono basis on contracts, IPR, GDPR and permissions.

Cannon Place, 78 Cannon Street, London EC4N 6AF, United Kingdom.

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FINANCIAL REVIEW

Reserves Policy and Risks

The trustees undertook a full review of their reserve policy in 2024. The level of target free reserves can be broken down into four components:

The target reserve is currently 300K and will be reviewed again in April 2025.

Statement of trustees' responsibilities

The trustees, who are also directors of AccessArt, are responsible for preparing the Trustees' Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations. AccessArt has been formed as a company limited by guarantee.

Company law requires the directors to prepare financial statements for each financial period. Under that law the directors have elected to prepare the financial statements in accordance with UK Accounting Standards and applicable law.

The financial statements are required by law to give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources of the charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees have:

The trustees accept responsibility for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and enable them to ensure that its financial statements comply with the Charities Act 1993 and the Companies Act 2006. They have general responsibility for taking such steps as are reasonably open to them to safeguard the assets of the charity and to prevent and detect fraud and other irregularities and to provide reasonable assurance that:

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Status

The company is registered as a charity in the UK, Charity Number 1105049.

Small company provisions

This report has been prepared in accordance with the provisions in Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006 applicable to companies.

This report was approved by the board and signed on its behalf.

Chris Owen (Trustee)

Date

Page 8

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

Notes
Incoming Resources
Incoming Resources from generated funds:
- Voluntary Income
2
- Investment income
2
Incoming resources from Charitable Activities
3
TOTAL INCOMING RESOURCES
Resources expended
Cost of charitable activities
4
Governance costs
5
TOTAL RESOURCES EXPENDED
Net incoming/(outgoing)resources before transfers
Total transfers
NET MOVEMENT IN FUNDS
Fund Balances brought forward
Fund balances carried forward		 Unrestricted
Funds
Restricted
Funds
2024 Total
Funds
2023 Total
Funds
13
0
13
1
1,261
0
1,261
132
339,610
0
339,610
308,249
340,884
0
340,884
308,382
233,026
0
233,026
189,830
10,031
0
10,031
12,573
243,057
0
243,057
202,403
97,826
0
97,826
105,979
0
0
0
0
97,826
0
97,826
105,979
233,750
0
233,750
127,771
331,577
0
331,577
233,750

Page 9

BALANCE SHEET AT 31 MARCH 2024

Notes
6
1
7
Current Assets
Debtors
Cash at bank and in hand
NET CURRENT ASSETS
Creditors
Net current assets
TOTAL NET ASSETS
THE FUNDS OF THE CHARITY
Unrestricted funds
General funds
Designated funds
Restricted funds
TOTAL FUNDS		 2024
2023
£
£
46,667
29,337
291,498
211,345
338,165
240,681
(6,588)
(6,931)
331,577
233,750
331,577
233,750
331,577
233,750
0
0
0
0
331,577
233,750

Registered Company number 05110197

For the year ended 31 March 2024 the company was entitled to exemption from audit under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

Responsibilities of directors/trustees:

(a) The members have not required the charitable company to obtain an audit of its financial statements for the year in question in accordance with section 476 of the Companies Act 2006, however, in accordance with section 145 of the Charities Act 2011 the financial statements have been examined by an independent examiner whose report appears on page 7.

(b) The directors acknowledge their responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 with respect to accounting records and the preparation of accounts.

The accounts have been prepared in accordance with the provisions in Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006 applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime.

The notes on pages 11 to 13 form part of these financial statements.

Approved by the Trustees on 5 November 2024 and signed on their behalf by:

Chris Owen

Trustee

Page 10

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

1 ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Status of the company

The charitable company is limited by guarantee and does not have share capital.

The liability of members is limited to £10 per member

Basis of preparation

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention and in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice

“Accounting and Reporting by Charities” issued in March 2005 (SORP 2005).

Cash flow statement

The trustees have taken advantage of the exemption in Financial Reporting Standard No 1 (revised) from including a cash flow statement on the grounds that the charity is small.

Funds

General accumulated funds are unrestricted funds available for general purposes and include funds designated for a particular purpose; the use of such funds remains at the discretion of the trustees.

Incoming resources and charitable expenditure

All incoming resources are included in the Statement of Financial Activities when the charitable company has entitlement, there is certainty of receipt and the amount can be quantified with reasonable accuracy.

Liabilities are recognised as resources expended as soon as there is a legal or constructive obligation committing the charitable company to the expenditure. All expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis and has been classified under headings that aggregate all costs related to the category.

Interest receivable

Bank interest is shown on the basis of amounts received in the year

Tangible fixed assets

Depreciation is provided at a rate calculated to write off the cost on a straight line basis over the estimated useful life of the asset as follows:

Recording and office equipment - 4 years Computer equipment - 3 years

Fixed assets are capitalised depending on their value at the discretion of the trustees.

Irrecoverable VAT

Irrecoverable VAT is allocated to the expense heading to which it relates in accordance with standard accounting practice.

Taxation

As a registered charity no provision is considered necessary for taxation.

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2 INCOMING RESOURCES - Voluntary Income

Other income
Donation
Investment income
TOTAL		 Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
Funds
Total 2024
Total 2023
£
£
£
£
0
0
0
13
13
1
1,261
1,261
132
1,274
0
1,274
133

3 INCOMING RESOURCES - Charitable Activities

Monthly Revenue
Project
Online CPD
Annual Subscriptions
Online Courses
Student Membership
Paula's book
Clay Play
Workshop
TOTAL		 Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
Funds
Total 2024
Total 2023
£
£
£
£
80,304
80,304
75,972
0
0
0
9,940
9,940
26,846
248,413
248,413
204,585
0
0
0
888
888
845
0
0
0
0
0
0
65
65
0
339,610
0
339,610
308,249

4 CHARITABLE ACTIVITY COSTS

Artists, Educators and consultants fees
Cost of materials
Salaries
Software and internet costs
Marketing
Travel Expenses
Insurance and office costs
Legal fees
Miscellaneous		 Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
Funds
Total 2024
Total 2023
£
£
£
£
22,355
22,355
19,224
200
200
58
182,274
182,274
149,713
14,717
14,717
10,926
2,866
2,866
1,859
3,194
3,194
677
1,136
1,136
2,007
824
824
600
5,461
5,461
4,766
233,026
0
233,026
189,830

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5 GOVERNANCE COSTS

Accountancy fees
Independent examiners fee
Book-keeping fees
TOTAL
6 Debtors
Income receivable
TOTAL
7 Creditors
Trade creditors
TOTAL		 Total 2024
Total 2023
£
£
1,216
1,159
150
150
8,665
11,264
10,031
12,573
Total 2024
Total 2023
£
£
46,667
29,337
46,667
29,337
Total 2024
Total 2023
£
£
6,588
6,931
6,588
6,931

8 Controlling Interests

The charity is a company limited by guarantee and is controlled by the Trustees, who are also directors of AccessArt for the purposes of company law. The liability of each member in the event of winding up is limited to £10.

Page 13

Signed By

Chris Owen

Date Signed 2024-12-05 11:18:15 Email chris.owen@aru.ac.uk Printed Name Chris Owen IP Address 80.5.198.167 Browser User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:132.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/132.0 Name of signatory Christopher Owen