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2025-12-31-accounts

Charity registration number 1130567 (England and Wales) Company registration number 06849844

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE

LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

Trustees Damien Régent – Chair (Appointed Interim Chair 6 October 2025
and Permanent Chair 18 February 2026)
Jenny Scott – Vice-Chair (Appointed Vice-Chair 12 March 2026)
Dr Rubina Ahmed
Matthew Brumsen (Vice-Chair until 12 March 2026)
David Gregson
Edward Humpherson
Jonathan Loynes
Charity number 1130567
Company number 06849844
Registered office The Clarence Centre
6 St. George’s Circus
London
SE1 6FE
Auditor Alliotts LLP
3 London Square
Cross Lanes
Guildford
GU1 1UJ
Bankers Barclays Bank PLC
Leicester
M60 4EP

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE CONTENTS

Page
Chair and CEO’s statement 1
Trustees’ report 2 - 13
Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities 14
Independent auditor’s report 15 – 17
Statement of financial activities 18
Balance sheet 19
Statement of cash flows 20
Notes to the financial statements 21 - 32

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE CHAIR AND CEO’S STATEMENT (CONTINUED)

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

2025 was a year of contrast for PBE. We are proud of the considerable impact we achieved – in terms of both the volume of charities we supported and the range and reach of national policy decisions our work helped influence – but the markedly more difficult financial backdrop we faced meant it was a year in which we had to make some tough decisions too.

Across our core areas of activity, PBE delivered a significant programme of work. We supported 163 charities directly through tailored analysis, advice and training; published research that shaped debate on issues ranging from children and young people’s mental health to the effective matching of supply and demand in the charity sector; and continued to build constructive relationships between the social sector and policymakers at a time of political change. Taken together, these activities reflect an organisation that remained focused on its mission and effective in its delivery.

Alongside this strong operational performance however, the organisation faced a sharp financial test. Several significant multi-year funding arrangements concluded during the year and, combined with reduced senior fundraising capacity and a general tightening of the funding environment, contributed to a deterioration in our near-term financial outlook in the middle part of the year. In response, we took the difficult but necessary decision to undertake a restructuring. This was approached deliberately and strategically, with the aim of bringing the organisation’s cost base back into line with a more constrained income outlook while protecting our core work supporting charities with economic analysis and evidence.

The changes implemented during 2025 were not ones we would have chosen in different circumstances, and they involved saying goodbye to valued colleagues whose contributions to PBE’s work were substantial. We are hugely grateful for the professionalism and dedication shown by staff throughout this period, for the support and oversight provided by the board, and for the understanding and steadfast commitment offered by several of our funding partners. Difficult though the process was, we are proud of how all parts of the organisation pulled together to navigate a complex and sensitive transition.

We now enter the next phase of PBE’s development with more confidence. The actions taken during the year have placed the organisation on a more sustainable footing, while preserving the activities that are most central to our charitable purpose. At the same time, the need to secure the next wave of funding remains a clear priority, and work is ongoing to build a more resilient and diversified income base that can support PBE’s ambitions over the medium term.

We are optimistic about the period ahead. PBE continues to benefit from a strong reputation, a committed group of supporters and partners, and a clear sense of where it can add most value. Leaning into our organisational values of rigour, determination and collaboration, we believe the charity is well positioned to deliver another strong period of impact in pursuit of its mission.

Damien Ré ent g

~~..............................~~ Damien Regent (Jul 15, 2026, 3:52pm) Damien Régent Chair 15 Jul 2026 Dated: .........................

Matt Whittaker

~~..............................~~ Matt Whittaker (Jul 15, 2026, 5:22pm) Matt Whittaker CEO 15 Jul 2026 Dated: .........................

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PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE

TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

The Trustees present their annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025.

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the accounting policies set out in Note 1 to the financial statements and comply with the charity's governing document, the Companies Act 2006 and "Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019)".

Objectives and activities

The objectives of the charity are to:

In setting the objectives and planning the work of the charity for the year, the trustees confirm that they have completed their duty under Section 17 of the Charities Act 2011 with regards to Charity Commission guidance on public benefit.

About PBE

PBE seeks to improve outcomes for people in the UK who experience persistently low wellbeing. To support this, we use economic analysis and our unique connection to the social sector to help charities, funders, firms and policymakers to collectively tackle the causes and consequences of low wellbeing across the country. We do this through three main routes: (i) empowering the nation’s charities; (ii) unleashing civil society’s potential; and (iii) driving the use of economics for good.

On the first of these, we provide impact advice and analysis to individual charities to help them to measure, understand and communicate their impact. On the second, we produce ‘bigger picture’ analysis and insight that helps to direct investment in infrastructure that can support a more effective social sector. On the third, we use networking, training and volunteering opportunities to help expose economists in the private and public sectors to the activity of the social sector and to mainstream a focus on wellbeing in economic and policy thinking.

How we work (i): empowering the nation’s charities

Through a combination of in-house, expert associate and volunteer economist resource, we deliver three main service lines for the UK’s charities: Data First Aid; Unlocking Impact workshops; and analysis and advocacy projects.

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

Delivering support across these three different service lines allows us to work with charities and social sector organisations of all different levels of data ‘maturity’, while embedding a culture and appreciation of impact evaluation across the sector more broadly. In doing so, we highlight and support effectiveness in organisations focused on delivering wellbeing improvements for individuals across the UK.

In 2025, we engaged with a total of 283 unique social sector organisations – a new high and more than three times the number recorded in 2019, ahead of the Covid pandemic. While demand continues to exceed our capacity, we delivered services to a total of 163 organisations over the course of 2025 and received an average recommendation score of 9.2/10 in the process.

How we work (ii): unleashing civil society’s potential

Alongside our direct work with charities across the country, we undertake dedicated ‘upstream’ policy and research projects designed to support a more effective civil society more broadly. Much of the work is informed by the in-depth exploration of the sector’s potential that we engaged in while running the two-year Law Family Commission on Civil Society that concluded in 2023.

The Commission, supported by experts and practitioners from across the public, private and social sectors, identified five key themes which continue to form the focus of our approach: (i) improved data by, for and about civil society; (ii) a more equal and more fruitful relationship with government; (iii) closer collaboration with business; (iv) increased and higher quality funding of the social sector; and (v) an enhanced infrastructure that supports a more effective matching of demand for action with the supply of activity and effort.

We deliver this work primarily through our in-house team, though we additionally commission work from external providers and experts and we work in partnership with other research and policy organisations when appropriate. Where resources allow, the work is further supported by a programme of free, public events and webinars. These provide us with an opportunity to showcase our own work and open debate around issues of importance to the social sector. We invite a diverse range of experts and practitioners to speak on our panels and emphasise interaction with the audience by way of stimulating discussion and understanding.

How we work (iii): driving the use of economics for good

PBE strives to be the economists’ charity. During our first decade of operation, our work empowering the nation’s charities was delivered overwhelmingly by volunteer economists drawn from across the private, public and social sectors. Over the subsequent six years, we have built an in-house economist team alongside an expert panel of associates to expand significantly our reach, our range of product lines and our volume of activity. We nevertheless continue to work closely with our wider network of economist volunteers and partners, deepening our engagement with them to cover three key areas:

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

Alongside our direct engagement with economists, we seek to drive the use of economics for good more broadly by mainstreaming a focus on wellbeing in policymaking at the local and national levels in the UK. This involves both publishing our own expert analysis of wellbeing trends (with a particular emphasis on the details of the population enduring persistent periods of low wellbeing and the causes and consequences of this condition) and providing a platform for others to engage in debate on ongoing developments in the study of wellbeing economics (through events and blog hosting for example).

Organisational changes during the year

At both board and staff level, PBE experienced some notable changes in 2025.

Board changes

Having replaced Lord Gus O’Donnell (now PBE Honorary President) as PBE Chair at the start of the year - and following an impactful period at the head of the board – Tera Allas concluded in October that the time commitment was more than she had originally appreciated and so opted to step down. In doing so, she made clear her intention to remain a keen supporter of the organisation from the outside, and we have continued to enjoy a warm relationship in the subsequent period.

Following Tera’s departure, long-standing PBE trustee Damien Régent stepped in as Interim Chair, providing the organisation with welcome continuity and significant governance experience. Damien’s functions as PBE Treasurer and Chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee were immediately handed over to Ed Humpherson. Board members subsequently agreed to appoint Damien as permanent Chair from 18 February 2026.

The board additionally took the decision to appoint Jenny Scott as Vice-Chair (from 12 March 2026). Jenny replaces Matthew Brumsen in this role, providing continuity beyond Matthew’s scheduled departure in March 2027 and providing him with the opportunity to focus more exclusively in his final 12 months with PBE on his ongoing role as Chair of the Development Committee.

Staffing changes

PBE entered 2025 with a headcount of 20; a total that was a little below our intended equilibrium following the nearsimultaneous departure of both our Director of Development and Director of Research, Policy and Communications at the end of 2024.

High quality replacements joined in the first quarter of the year (in the form, respectively, of Charlotte Stevens and Jake Eliot), but the inevitable lag in securing and onboarding those replacements meant the organisation experienced a gap in senior fundraising and income generation capacity in the early part of the year. As anticipated in last year’s Annual Report, a large proportion of PBE’s existing multi-year funding arrangements were scheduled to conclude in 2025 and 2026. The hiatus in senior fundraising capacity in the early part of 2025 therefore represented a significant risk point for the organisation.

Despite the new recruits – and the PBE team more broadly – moving at pace to restock our funding pipeline from the spring onwards, ongoing tightness in charity sector funding meant that our near-term financial outlook became increasingly uncertain over the summer months. Our reserves fell below our stipulated policy floor of three months’ operational costs, and we recognised that any significant new funding wins flowing from the conversations started in the spring would only land with a lag. In September, we therefore concluded that we needed to lower our structural cost base. As a lean organisation with minimal operating costs, this meant redundancies.

Rather than salami-slicing across the organisation, we took a deliberate, strategic decision to restructure in a way that protected our core analytical work for charities. That meant retaining most of our in-house economist resource but

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

significantly scaling back our policy and communications capacity. In total, we made ten roles redundant (with two of these being full-time positions that subsequently became part-time roles). We ended 2025 with a headcount of 12.

While the restructure is not something we would have wanted to undertake if circumstances didn’t demand it, we’re pleased to note that the combination of a structural reduction in our costs plus our success in securing funding at the end of 2025 and start of 2026 rapidly brought our expenditure back into line with our income. We’re pleased also to note that the team has navigated the restructure with great skill and resilience. Team morale is good, our 2026 work programme is well-established, and our funding pipeline is significantly fuller than was the case in the first half of 2025. Alongside boosting our income total, we continue to work towards further diversifying our funding base and securing the multi-year anchor funding that is so important for medium-term predictability and sustainability.

Achievements and performance

While 2025 brought a financial challenge, it was nevertheless a year in which we again achieved a significant amount of impact across our three focus areas.

Achievements and performance (i): empowering the nation’s charities

Through our mix of workshops, advice, analysis and advocacy work, we supported a total of 163 social sector organisations to measure their impact, secure funding and drive systemic change. It marks the third year in a row in which the number we have helped has topped 150 and means nearly two-thirds of the total 754 pieces of support we have provided in our 16-year history have been delivered in the period from 2023.

Despite this step-change in activity, the quality of our service remains as highly valued as ever. Among the 80 charities that completed a post-support survey in 2025, 100% agreed that the service they received was “relevant”, 96.3% said it was an “effective use of time” and the same proportion described the resources provided as “useful”.

We welcomed 94 organisations along to one of our Unlocking Impact workshops, where charities working in similar spaces come together to understand the principles and practicalities of economic evaluation. Organisations like The Girls’ Network – the national charity that seeks to inspire and empower girls from the least advantaged communities by connecting them with mentors and professional role models who are women – worked with our economists and dedicated facilitators to explore different approaches to measuring impact, the importance of credible data that corresponds to available evidence pathways, and the means by which evidence can be used to support policy change.

The workshop gave us increased understanding, clearer next steps for improving data collection, and a valuable networking opportunity. Alexa was an excellent, engaging facilitator – we only wished for even more time for discussion!

Caroline Appleton, MERL Manager, The Girls’ Network

We also supported 32 organisations via our Data First Aid (DFA) offer, connecting charities needing quick turnaround analytical support to skilled economist volunteers. By working with the organisations to understand just what support they need and then making a careful match from within our volunteer pool we provide a service that can be truly transformative for some organisations.

The DFA service is often especially impactful for smaller charities that lack the capacity for undertaking analytical work in-house. As we heard from The Renewal Trust, a Nottingham-based charity which nurtures happier, healthier and more connected local communities, a little investment in data management can go a long way.

PBE worked really closely with The Renewal Trust to understand our needs and define the volunteer brief, which meant the match was perfectly aligned to what we required. The volunteer created a bespoke data management programme that not only collects and manages our data but also allows us to interrogate it by different parameters while ensuring GDPR compliance. This has greatly improved our ability to evidence impact for trustees and funders and to target our work more effectively.

Cherry Wells, CEO, The Renewal Trust

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

DFA also provides a route to engage institutional volunteers to work on some of the more-involved requests for support. PBE serves as a broker in these instances, helping charities to shape their data requests before matching them with corporate partners that can supply not just dedicated teams of skilled volunteers but also first-rate project management.

It’s an approach that was highly valued by Works+, an employability charity operating in the Scottish Borders region that we matched with PA Consulting.

This project has had a huge impact on us as a small organisation. Like many in the third sector, we often focus so much on delivering our work that we don’t always take the time to highlight the impact we’re making. Limited resources make it challenging to step back and tell our story, so this opportunity has been invaluable.

The support from PBE was outstanding, and partnering Works+ with PA Consulting was a perfect match. The team worked incredibly hard, and their communication was always clear, relevant, and effective. We are absolutely delighted with the outcome – both our board and I are extremely pleased with the insights and recommendations provided.

The report itself is fantastic – I was genuinely surprised by the depth of research and the level of detail included. It has provided us with valuable insights that we can use to strengthen our work and demonstrate our impact more effectively.”

Scott Wight, Project Manager, Works+

In 2025, we additionally supported 46 social sector organisations through some mix of data advice, economic evaluation and advocacy and insight projects.

Highlights included our evaluation of PTSD Resolution’s mental health therapy on the wellbeing of military veterans that showed reliable recovery from anxiety, depression, and psychological distress which was broadly sustained in the year after treatment. Even under cautious assumptions – and without considering potentially sizeable longer term benefits – we estimated that the programme was likely to be delivering between £1.50 and £3.40 of economic benefits for every £1 spent on it. Crucially, the work highlighted the benefits of taking a veteran-specific approach to mental health therapy with client retention rates that exceed those recorded in comparable services.

Elsewhere, we worked with partners in the #BeeWell team at the University of Manchester to quantify the self-reported wellbeing benefits enjoyed by young students in Greater Manchester who get to take part in weekly sessions with professional artists as part of the Factory International Schools Programme. With the programme delivering an effect that is equivalent to the increase in life satisfaction that adults record when they move from unemployment into work, the work adds to growing evidence on the positive impact that engagement with arts and culture has on the wellbeing of our young people. It is a theme we are keen to continue exploring.

Looking more broadly at trends in local authority-funded support for children, our analysis for the Children’s Charities Coalition showed that – despite some signs of a welcome recent change in direction – early intervention spending remains 42% down in real terms on 2010/11 levels. The deepest cuts have occurred in the areas of the country where children are most in need and are all the more frustrating when put alongside PBE’s work with Power2 exploring the potential school attendance benefits associated with the charity’s one-to-one programmes for pupils feeling disengaged from school life. Time and again our work has shown that investing in early support pays off for the individual and for the Exchequer.

This was perhaps especially evident as PBE’s analysis played a central role in securing £13.6 million of government funding for food banks, helping to ensure that support reached the communities facing the most acute hardship.

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Meanwhile, our research for anti-poverty charity Z2K made a similarly important and timely contribution to the debate around disability benefit reform. The seminal analysis showed that recipients typically value their awards at significantly more than their cash value, reflecting the transformative effect of financial stability, offering predictability, dignity and the means to participate in community life. The report gained wide media coverage, including in The Independent and The Guardian, and was picked up in parliamentary debate. The findings were also presented to the DWP, supporting policymakers to better understand how disability benefits influence quality of life, while also opening the door to incorporating wellbeing measures and assessing the wider wellbeing impacts of other welfare benefits.

Achievements and performance (ii): unleashing civil society’s potential

We continued to enjoy progress in 2025 on many of the policy ideas generated as part of our work on the Law Family Commission on Civil Society. Most eye-catchingly, we were delighted to co-host (alongside the Lloyds Bank Foundation) a major summit at which the Prime Minister and Cabinet colleagues launched the Civil Society Covenant, part of a pre-election pledge to establish a genuine partnership with the sector.

The details of the Covenant were shaped by a coalition of sector bodies and umbrella organisations, in consultation with DCMS. But the principle tracks directly back to the work of the Law Family Commission, with the Prime Minister explicitly linking the Covenant to a promise he made in early-2024 at PBE’s Labour and Civil Society summit.

We played an even more hands-on role in 2025 in advancing Law Family Commission work on the data needs of the sector. Following an 18-month engagement programme with charities, funders, academics, research organisations and policymakers, we published a detailed, practical business plan for a new Civil Society Evidence Organisation (CSEVO).

Our ‘hub and spoke’ model positions a relatively lightly staffed CSEVO as a broker between the demand for evidence that exists across all who interact with civil society and the supply of insight that can be sourced from a wide range of different stakeholders. By coordinating activity, applying economies of scale and shaping data standards and best practice, CSEVO has the potential to transform civil society’s evidence base. In doing so, it can facilitate better decision-making across the sector – for individual charities hoping to operate more effectively, for funders looking to deliver maximum impact, and for policymakers interested in better understanding the challenges they need to meet across the country and the actions that can make a difference.

Because the advantages of a better-informed civil society are so widely felt and because of the importance of developing something that has longevity, we recommended that the funding of CSEVO should be cross-sectoral and that it should be established in the first instance as a five-year pilot. It’s an approach that has been warmly received within government, with our colleagues at DCMS hosting a well-attended post-publication roundtable towards the end of 2025 to dig more deeply into the plan and to encourage sector funders to join with them in developing the pilot idea.

Turning to the broader support frameworks that connect civil society actors across the country, 2025 was also the year when PBE – in collaboration with Ipsos UK, the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University, and the University of the West of Scotland – published a major review on behalf of DCMS on local civil society infrastructure across England.

The work was commissioned in response to a recommendation from the Law Family Commission, one that recognised the potential benefits associated with supporting coordination and collaboration across the social sector, while ensuring that existing strengths were reinforced rather than replaced. The subsequent review highlighted large definitional differences across locations, along with correspondingly high variability in the approaches taken and outcomes achieved. Yet, despite the complexity of the issue, we were pleased to work with our consortium partners to identify three key components supporting the development of ‘strong’ local infrastructure: (i) addressing key challenges within the funding system (including the quality, quantity and effectiveness of funding); (ii) enhancing strategic buy-in (recognising the value of the local social sector and the role of local champions for infrastructure); and (iii) building on good-quality relationships to develop more formal structures, enhancing regular contact and information sharing between stakeholders.

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

The findings and opportunities identified in the final report are now forming the basis for further discussion, with the DCMS and the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA) co-hosting a major roundtable in February 2026 designed to explore the collective action all organisations can take to strengthen the impact and future sustainability of the sector.

Alongside our other system building efforts in 2025, we contributed significantly to improving the evidence base on trustee demographics and the governance of civil society organisations. In partnership with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, we ran a major national survey of more than 2,000 trustees – the most comprehensive such undertaking since 2017 – to build a richer understanding of who sits on charity boards today, the pathways through which people enter trusteeship, and the barriers that still limit diversity.

The findings in our ‘Trusteeship - a positive opportunity’ report painted a nuanced picture: pockets of strength and strong trustee satisfaction, alongside clear areas where boards remain unrepresentative of the communities they serve, particularly in relation to age, ethnicity, socioeconomic background and disability. The work had immediate cutthrough, with the Charity Commission swiftly updating its guidance on recruiting charity trustees to provide practical suggestions on how organisations can move beyond personal networks, develop skills audits, reconsider role descriptions, and utilise technology.

We paired the research with active sector engagement, with our June webinar on the topic sparking constructive discussion and debate about what more might be done to improve board diversity and broaden access to trusteeship. In October, we additionally published deeper dive analysis on trustee demographics within grantmaking foundations, shedding further light on the composition of an influential segment of the sector’s leadership. Taken together, this programme has provided charities, funders and policymakers with the most authoritative picture in years of the state of charity governance – and a clearer sense of where progress is most needed.

Achievements and performance (iii): driving the use of economics for good

Economists from all sectors continue to volunteer with PBE in large numbers. Indeed, our active volunteer base broke through the 1,000 mark in 2025 when Iseoluwa Adejumo was matched with Welcome to Badminton – a charity that offers sports sessions for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants to help support wellbeing.

These highly skilled professionals provide valuable support to the charities they work with. But the flow of benefits runs both ways, with volunteers greatly enjoying the assignments they take on. In 2025, our volunteers scored their likelihood of recommending working with PBE at an average of 9.5/10.

Overall, I had a great experience throughout the project with adequate support from the PBE team ranging from setting up introductory calls, regular check-ins and spelling out clear expectations. My biggest thanks to Nadine and Ruth for this amazing opportunity. I definitely would take up another volunteering project with PBE!

Iseoluwa Adejumo, PBE’s 1,000th volunteer

Exposure to the social sector also helps economists to become more rounded in their outlook and therefore better placed to make good – and wellbeing-enhancing – decisions back in their day jobs. That’s why we’ve developed new forms of engagement in recent years and we’re pleased to note that we worked with a record number of 174 economists in 2025 across our range of volunteering, networking, roundtables and training opportunities. It marks a 46% year-on year increase, and a more than sixfold jump from 2022.

The public events and wider work on low wellbeing that we undertook in 2025 were also designed to help mainstream understanding of, and concern for, an agenda that goes beyond GDP. Our second annual low wellbeing audit, ‘Caught in a trap? Low wellbeing in the UK 2025’, included our first attempt to model a wellbeing projection.

The work combines what we know about historical interactions between wellbeing and different economic and social trends with what official forecasters and others anticipate might happen to those metrics over the coming years, to map a potential trajectory for wellbeing poverty. It showed that, without policy action, we appear to be on course to add a further 300,000 people to the total living in wellbeing poverty by 2030, with an impact equivalent to a national

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

pay cut of £9 billion. By shining a light on the expected path through the report and associated event, we aimed to highlight the links between policy choices and lived experience, encouraging action that would ultimately prove our forecast wrong.

We also published a series of short guest articles under our Economics to improve lives series. This collection of essays and commentaries brought together leading thinkers from across the profession, policymaking, civil society, media and business to reflect on a central question in our mission: how can wellbeing become the organising principle of economic decision making? Contributors included Lord David Blunkett, Hetan Shah (British Academy), Sarah Davidson (Carnegie UK), Asha Musoni (CBI), Diane Coyle (Bennett School of Public Policy), Ed Humpherson (Office for Statistics Regulation) and Hannah Pearsall (Hays UK&I). Though their perspectives vary, a common thread runs through the series: conventional economic metrics alone are no longer sufficient to guide effective public policy.

Financial review

As described above, 2025 presented a financial challenge for PBE, culminating in a decision to restructure the organisation and make ten roles redundant.

A combination of a gap in our senior income-generation capacity in the early part of the year, the co-incidence of the near-simultaneous conclusion of a large proportion of our multi-year funding arrangements, and a generally tight funding environment, led to our reserves falling in the summer someway below the minimum threshold of three months’ operating expenses stipulated in our reserves policy.

We responded by prioritising securing short-to-medium-term income and curtailing spending where feasible. Following little immediate improvement in the outlook by the end of the summer however, we made moves to restructure our team. As described above, close to half of the roles within the team were made redundant, following a process that was informed by a decision to concentrate our resources on our direct support for charities.

Income

By end-2025, our total income amounted to £1,430,713, sourced from grants, donations, consultancy and gift aid, compared to £1,736,973 in 2024. Both current and past trustees generously donated a total of £139,000 in 2025.

Restricted income for the year was £203,945 (2024: £527,394), with ongoing support from Porticus, City Bridge Trust, Spirit of 2012, AL Philanthropies, and CAF.

Our in-house Development team is responsible for generating income opportunities, and we are regulated by the Fundraising Regulator. We employ neither professional fundraisers nor commercial participators, and no public complaints have been received regarding our fundraising activities.

We wish to express our sincere gratitude to the grant‑making trusts and foundations that continued to support us during 2025, including Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), City Bridge Trust, the Golden Bottle Trust, Law Family Charitable Foundation (via AL Philanthropies), Mohn Westlake Foundation, Porticus and Spirit of 2012. We also thank our corporate supporters — FTI Consulting LLP, PA Consulting Services Ltd, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, OakNorth Bank PLC, Pendragon International Media Ltd and Nest Insight — and all our major donors for their invaluable contributions.

We were also grateful for significant gifts‑in‑kind during the year. In particular, we benefited from pro bono legal support provided by Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, as well as in‑kind support from the Leathersellers’ Company. These contributions supported a range of activity, including work on grant agreements, governance documentation and events.

Expenditure

Total expenditure for 2025 reached £1,862,973 (2024: £1,701,418), with the increase in costs primarily attributed to the staff restructure and consequent redundancy payments.

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

Reserves

The net result of our income and expenditure outturns was a significant deficit of £432,260. This comprised a deficit of £106,550 in restricted activities and a deficit of £325,710 in unrestricted activities.

Our reserves policy targets maintaining a level of free reserves (unrestricted funds minus any fixed and intangible assets) that at any time covers our unrestricted operating expenses for at least three months, with an upper limit of six months. The policy is designed to mitigate a key risk to PBE, namely periods of reduced income caused by our, at-times, ‘lumpy’ funding model. Given the 12-month rolling forecast unrestricted expenditure profile at the end of 2025, the policy dictates that we should hold somewhere between £231,000 and £462,000 in free reserves. At the end of 2025 our free reserves totalled £95,632.

The charity maintained restricted reserves of £100,864 at year-end, to be expended in 2026 on Porticus and Spirit of 2012 projects. The charity maintained no designated funds.

In 2026, we have been working to bring our reserves back above the three months threshold. In subsequent years we plan to raise our unrestricted reserves by one month a year, such that they rise to six months by the end of 2029. This reflects the risk of long lead times for grant, research and major donor funding. This will be achieved as cashflow allows. The board remains satisfied that the fundraising strategy supports a recovery in income over the short-tomedium-term.

The reserves policy is reviewed annually by the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee and by the board. The board carries out regular reviews of the charity’s financial performance and reserves position. It considers that the charity has adequate financial reserves to continue to deliver its plans. It has a reasonable expectation that it will have adequate resources to continue to operate for the foreseeable future. The trustees believe that there are no material uncertainties that call into doubt the charity’s ability to continue its operations. The accounts have therefore been prepared on the basis that the charity is a going concern.

Risk management

The trustees are responsible for ensuring that the charity has an appropriate system of risk management and controls. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity, and for taking reasonable steps to prevent fraud and other irregularities.

The Finance, Audit and Risk Committee works closely with the executive to identify, manage and mitigate appropriate risks through a risk register, and to report progress to board meetings. Trustees have a programme of controls to manage financial risks through management account reporting and consideration of liquidity, cash flows and going concern status.

Entering 2025, our top ranked risks related to our financial position (potential loss of income and reserves inadequacy). Monitoring of the risk register through the first half of the year subsequently provided an early warning of the need for trustees and the executive to come together to take action to restabilise PBE’s finances.

We undertook a comprehensive review of the risk register following the organisational restructure at the end of 2025. This exercise confirmed the efficacy of our existing approach, with only a small number of new risks being identified and added to the register. While both the near-term financial outlook of the organisation and the fullness of the funding pipeline are much improved relative to mid-2025, we entered 2026 with a relatively low level of multi-year funding in place. Income and reserves risks therefore remain at the top of the register’s rankings for the moment. Risks relating to staff morale and retention have also been identified as elevated, reflecting the potential destabilising impact of the 2025 restructure.

Future plans

Despite delivering one of the most impactful years in our history, funding pressures that are all too familiar across the charity sector meant we were forced to scale back our operations towards the end of 2025. As a lean organisation, that involved making difficult decisions about redundancies and saying goodbye to highly valued colleagues.

10

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE

TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

By moving quickly and in a collaborative way across our executive, board and core funding partners, we were able to take a strategic approach to the restructure. We have protected our core economist capacity and thereby minimised the impact on our ability to empower the UK’s charities through our advice, analysis and advocacy services. Having supported just over 150 social sector organisations in each of the last three years, we have set ourselves a target for 2026 of 125+. We are likewise well-placed to maintain our focus on driving the use of economics for good across the profession more generally, not least through further growing our individual and corporate volunteer network.

Having scaled back our policy and communications capacity, we expect to be a little less active in 2026 on our third theme of unleashing civil society’s potential. Nevertheless, we will continue to take opportunities to direct our analytical expertise to drive and to support work that can inform wider policy debates within the social sector. In particular, we are determined to retain our role as economic commentators and translators for the sector – helping individual organisations, coalitions of charities and sector umbrella bodies to better understand what a fast-changing global and domestic economic backdrop might mean for the demand they are likely to face, the funding they can hope to access and the operational costs and sector-wider trends they must contend with.

To ensure we secure maximum impact with the reduced capacity we now have, we will be doubling down on our emphasis on collaboration. In how we work internally, in the connection we create between economists and charities, and in our partnership with practitioners across the social sector, we have always recognised the potential of achieving more when working together. In 2026, we’ll look for even more opportunities to connect our specialist skills and insights with the perspectives and talents of others across the impact economy to ensure we continue to do all we can to improve outcomes for people with the lowest wellbeing.

It’s a task that spans a wide range of issues, and we will remain open to working with charities with a diverse range of focus areas. But, building on our understanding of what drives low wellbeing in the UK and with the benefit of the connections we’ve established over recent years, we’ll continue to work especially closely on the challenges surrounding children and young people’s mental health and on rising loneliness. We also plan to expand our focus on households’ financial health.

PBE enters 2026 as a smaller organisation than we were, but one that remains as sharply focused as ever on working with charities, funders, firms and policymakers to collectively tackle the causes and consequences of low wellbeing across the UK.

Structure, governance and management

Pro Bono Economics, trading as PBE, is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee and is governed by its memorandum and articles of association. The company was incorporated on 17 March 2009 and registered as a charity on 15 July 2009.

The trustees, who are also the directors for the purpose of company law, and who served during the year and up to the date of the signature of the financial statements were:

Tera Allas – Chair (Appointed 2 January 2025; resigned 2 October 2025) Matthew Brumsen (Acting Chair 2 to 6 October 2025; Vice-Chair until 12 March 2026) Damien Régent (Appointed Interim Chair 6 October 2025 and Permanent Chair 18 February 2026) Jenny Scott (Appointed Vice-Chair 12 March 2026) Dr Rubina Ahmed David Gregson Akiko Hart (Resigned 3 June 2026) Edward Humpherson Jonathan Loynes Belinda Phipps (Resigned 3 June 2026) Michele Oliver (Resigned 30 June 2025)

11

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE

TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

PBE is governed by a board of trustees which meets up to four times a year. Trustees are appointed by board resolution. In selecting new trustees, the board utilises a Nominations Committee to consider the skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective running of the charity. Since 2017, Trustees are initially appointed for a term of three years and may be reappointed at the annual retirement meeting for up to two further terms.

The board is responsible for the strategic direction of PBE and for appointing the Chief Executive. Charity staff are accountable to the trustees through the Chief Executive and carry out the day-to-day operations of the charity in accordance with the policies and procedures approved by the board. The board has three sub-committees, and all trustees sit on at least one committee:

One sub-committee was disbanded in September 2025, in light of the organisational restructure and a scaling back of our focus on policy and external communications:

In 2025, trustees updated, reviewed and approved the charity’s risk register, delegation of authority, investment, accounting and safeguarding policies.

Prior to their appointment, new trustees go through an induction process and are provided with a copy of the Memorandum and Articles of Association, the Trustees’ Annual Report and Financial Statements, together with other relevant information. New trustees are given a trustee mentor and are invited to spend time with the charity executive.

None of the trustees has any beneficial interest in the company. All of the trustees are members of the company and guarantee to contribute £1 in the event of a winding up. Indemnity insurance is held for the trustees.

12

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE

TRUSTEES’ REPORT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

Disclosure of information to auditor

Each of the trustees has confirmed that there is no information of which they are aware which is relevant to the audit, but of which the auditor is unaware. They have further confirmed that they have taken appropriate steps to identify such relevant information and to establish that the auditor is aware of such information.

The Trustees' Annual Report was approved by the Board of trustees.

Damien Régent Damien Regent (Jul 15, 2026, 3:52pm) Damien Régent

Chair 15 Jul 2026 Dated: .........................

13

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE

STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES’ RESPONSIBILITIES

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

The trustees, who are also the directors of Pro Bono Economics for the purpose of company law, are responsible for preparing the Trustees' Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

Company law requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for that year.

In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:

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

14

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT (CONTINUED)

TO THE TRUSTEES OF PBE

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of PBE (the ‘charity’) for the year ended 31 December 2025 which comprise the statement of financial activities, the balance sheet, the statement of cash flows and notes to the financial statements, including significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including 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:

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 charity in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

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

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

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

Other information

The other information comprises the information included in the annual report other than the financial statements and our auditor's report thereon. The Trustees are responsible for the other information contained within the annual report. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon. Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit, or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

15

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT (CONTINUED)

TO THE TRUSTEES OF PBE

Responsibilities of Trustees

As explained more fully in the statement of Trustees' responsibilities, the Trustees, who are also the directors of the charity for the purpose 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 charity’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditor's responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

We have been appointed as auditor under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 and report in accordance with the Act and relevant regulations made or having effect thereunder.

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

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

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

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

16

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - trading as PBE

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT (CONTINUED)

TO THE TRUSTEES OF PBE

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

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

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.

A further description of our responsibilities is available on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at: https:// 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 charity’s trustees, as a body, in accordance with Part 4 of the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charity’s 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 charity and the charity’s trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Ste hen Meredith p

Stephen Meredith (Jul 15, 2026, 5:44pm) Stephen Meredith BA FCA DChA (Senior Statutory Auditor)

For and on behalf of Alliotts LLP, Statutory Auditor Chartered Accountants Cross Lanes Guildford GU1 1UJ 15 Jul 2026 Date: .........................

Alliotts LLP is eligible for appointment as auditor of the charity by virtue of its eligibility for appointment as auditor of a company under section 1212 of the Companies Act 2006.

17

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES INCLUDING INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

Unrestricted
Restricted
funds
funds
2025
2025
Notes
£
£
Income from:
Donations and
legacies
3
1,057,805
203,945
Charitable activities
4
163,090
-
Investments
5
5,873
-
Total income
1,226,768
203,945
Expenditure on:
Raising funds
6
296,638
17,023
Charitable activities
7
1,255,840
293,472
Total expenditure
1,552,478
310,495
Net (expenditure)/income
for the year/
Net movement in funds
(325,710)
(106,550)
Fund balances at 1 January
2025
421,343
207,413
Fund balances at 31
December 2025
95,633
100,863		 Total
Unrestricted
funds
2025
2024
£
£
1,261,750
1,011,388
163,090
188,176
5,873
10,015
1,430,713
1,209,579
313,661
263,106
1,549,312
922,956
1,862,973
1,186,062
(432,260)
23,517
628,756
397,826
196,496
421,343		 Restricted
funds
2024
£
527,394
-
-
527,394
69,300
446,056
515,356
12,038
195,375
207,413		 Total
2024
£
1,538,782
188,176
10,015
1,736,973
332,406
1,369,012
1,701,418
35,555
593,201
628,756

The statement of financial activities includes all gains and losses recognised in the year.

The statement of financial activities includes all gains and losses recognised in the year. All income and expenditure derive from continuing activities.

The statement of financial activities also complies with the requirements for an income and expenditure account under the Companies Act 2006.

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

BALANCE SHEET

AS AT 31 DECEMBER 2025

2025
Notes
£
Fixed assets
Tangible assets
13
Current assets
Debtors
14
62,473
Cash at bank and in hand
252,060
314,533
Creditors: amounts falling due within
one year
15
(128,544)
Net current assets
Total assets less current liabilities
Income funds
Restricted funds
17
Unrestricted funds		 £
10,507
185,989
196,496
100,863
95,633
196,496		 £
98,554
601,728
700,282
(79,758)		 2024
£
8,232
620,524
628,756
207,413
421,343
628,756

The charitable company is entitled to the exemption from the audit requirement contained in section 477 of the Companies Act 2006, for the year ended 31 December 2025, although an audit has been carried out under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011.

The trustees acknowledge their responsibilities for ensuring that the charitable company keeps accounting records which comply with section 386 of the Act and for preparing financial statements which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company as at the end of the financial year and of its incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure, for the financial year in accordance with the requirements of sections 394 and 395 and which otherwise comply with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 relating to financial statements, so far as applicable to the charitable company.

The members have not required the charitable company to obtain an audit of its financial statements under the requirements of the Companies Act 2006, for the year in question in accordance with section 476.

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime.

15 Jul 2026

The financial statements were approved by the Trustees on .........................

Damien Ré ent g

Damien Regent (Jul 15, 2026, 3:52pm).............................. Damien Régent (Chair from 6 October 2025) Chair

Company registration number 06849844

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

Notes
Cash flows from operating activities
Cash absorbed by operations
23
Investing activities
Purchase of tangible fixed assets
Investment income received
Net cash (used in)/generated from
investing activities
Net cash used in financing activities
Net decrease in cash and cash equivalents
Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of year
Cash and cash equivalents at end of year		 2025
£
£
(346,649)
(8,892)
5,873
(3,019)
-
(349,668)
601,728
252,060		 2024
£
(7,507)
10,015		 £
(6,825)
2,508
-
(4,317)
606,045
601,728

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

1 Accounting policies

Charity information

Pro Bono Economics - trading as PBE is a private company limited by guarantee incorporated in England and Wales. The registered office is The Clarence Centre, 6 St George Circus, DC G06, London, SE1 6FE, England.

1.1 Accounting convention

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the charity's governing document, the Companies Act 2006, FRS 102 “The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland” (“FRS 102”) and the Charities SORP "Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102)" (effective 1 January 2019). The charity is a Public Benefit Entity as defined by FRS 102.

The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the charity. Monetary amounts in these financial statements are rounded to the nearest £.

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention. The principal accounting policies adopted are set out below.

1.2 Going concern

The Trustees are confident the charity has the resources to meet its liabilities as they fall due for at least 12 months from date of signing the accounts. Hence, they consider the charity to be a going concern.

1.3 Charitable funds

Unrestricted funds are available for use at the discretion of the Trustees in furtherance of their charitable objectives.

Restricted funds are subject to specific conditions by donors or grantors as to how they may be used. The purposes and uses of the restricted funds are set out in the notes to the financial statements.

1.4 Income

Income is recognised when the charity is legally entitled to it after any performance conditions have been met, the amounts can be measured reliably, and it is probable that income will be received.

Cash donations are recognised on receipt. Other donations are recognised once the charity has been notified of the donation, unless performance conditions require deferral of the amount. Income tax recoverable in relation to donations received under Gift Aid or deeds of covenant is recognised at the time of the donation.

1.5 Expenditure

Expenditure is recognised on the accruals basis. Liabilities are recognised as soon as there is a legal constructive obligation to pay.

1.6 Tangible fixed assets

Tangible fixed assets are initially measured at cost and subsequently measured at cost or valuation, net of depreciation and any impairment losses.

Depreciation is recognised so as to write off the cost or valuation of assets less their residual values over their useful lives on the following bases:

Fixtures and fittings 3 years
Computers 3 years

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

1 Accounting policies

(Continued)

The gain or loss arising on the disposal of an asset is determined as the difference between the sale proceeds and the carrying value of the asset, and is recognised in the statement of financial activities.

Items are capitalised where the net expenditure value is greater than £500 and the expense is capital by nature.

1.7 Impairment of fixed assets

At each reporting end date, the charity reviews the carrying amounts of its tangible assets to determine whether there is any indication that those assets have suffered an impairment loss. If any such indication exists, the recoverable amount of the asset is estimated in order to determine the extent of the impairment loss (if any).

1.8 Cash and cash equivalents

Cash and cash equivalents include cash in hand, deposits held at call with banks, other short-term liquid investments with original maturities of three months or less, and bank overdrafts. Bank overdrafts are shown within borrowings in current liabilities.

1.9 Financial instruments

The charity has elected to apply the provisions of Section 11 ‘Basic Financial Instruments’ and Section 12 ‘Other Financial Instruments Issues’ of FRS 102 to all of its financial instruments.

Financial instruments are recognised in the charity's balance sheet when the charity becomes party to the contractual provisions of the instrument.

Financial assets and liabilities are offset, with the net amounts presented in the financial statements, when there is a legally enforceable right to set off the recognised amounts and there is an intention to settle on a net basis or to realise the asset and settle the liability simultaneously.

Basic financial assets

Basic financial assets, which include debtors and cash and bank balances, are initially measured at transaction price including transaction costs and are subsequently carried at amortised cost using the effective interest method unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the transaction is measured at the present value of the future receipts discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial assets classified as receivable within one year are not amortised.

Basic financial liabilities

Basic financial liabilities, including creditors and bank loans are initially recognised at transaction price unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the debt instrument is measured at the present value of the future payments discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial liabilities classified as payable within one year are not amortised.

Debt instruments are subsequently carried at amortised cost, using the effective interest rate method.

Trade creditors are obligations to pay for goods or services that have been acquired in the ordinary course of operations from suppliers. Amounts payable are classified as current liabilities if payment is due within one year or less. If not, they are presented as non-current liabilities. Trade creditors are recognised initially at transaction price and subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method.

Derecognition of financial liabilities

Financial liabilities are derecognised when the charity’s contractual obligations expire or are discharged or cancelled.

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

1 Accounting policies

(Continued)

1.10 Employee benefits

The cost of any unused holiday entitlement is recognised in the period in which the employee’s services are received.

1.11 Retirement benefits

Payments to defined contribution retirement benefit schemes are charged as an expense as they fall due.

2 Critical accounting estimates and judgements

In the application of the charity’s accounting policies, the Trustees are required to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying amount of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and associated 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 where the revision affects only that period, or in the period of the revision and future periods where the revision affects both current and future periods.

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

3 Donations and legacies

Unrestricted
Restricted
funds
funds
2025
2025
£
£
Donations and gifts
516,404
-
Grants
500,000
203,945
Donated goods and
services
41,401
-
1,057,805
203,945
Donations and gifts
Major gifts
464,380
-
General donations
9,953
-
Events income
4,305
-
Gift Aid
37,766
-
Other
-
-
516,404
-
Grants receivable for
core activities
Porticus
-
118,994
Law Family Charitable
Foundation
200,000
-
City Bridge
-
59,300
Mohn Westlake
Foundation
300,000
-
Charities Aid Foundation
-
-
Other
-
25,651
500,000
203,945		 Total
Unrestricted
funds
2025
2024
£
£
516,404
424,288
703,945
550,300
41,401
36,800
1,261,750
1,011,388
464,380
388,500
9,953
2,889
4,305
23,506
37,766
15,238
-
(5,845)
516,404
424,288
118,994
-
200,000
250,000
59,300
300
300,000
300,000
-
-
25,651
-
703,945
550,300		 Restricted
funds
2024
£
10,000
517,394
-
527,394
-
-
10,000
-
-
10,000
110,694
155,000
57,000
-
125,000
69,700
517,394		 Total
2024
£
434,288
1,067,694
36,800
1,538,782
388,500
2,889
33,506
15,238
(5,845)
434,288
110,694
405,000
57,300
300,000
125,000
69,700
1,067,694

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

4 Charitable activities

Supporting Supporting
Charities Charities
2025 2024
£ £
Fees for Services 163,090 188,176

Fees for services relate to consultancy income. As part of our work to diversify our funding base we have increased the amount of consultancy work we undertake and have subsequently become VAT registered.

5 Investments

Interest receivable Unrestricted
Unrestricted
funds
funds
2025
2024
£
£
5,873
10,015		 Unrestricted
Unrestricted
funds
funds
2025
2024
£
£
5,873
10,015		 Unrestricted
Unrestricted
funds
funds
2025
2024
£
£
5,873
10,015
Raising funds
Unrestricted
Restricted
funds
funds
2025
2025
£
£
Fundraising
Staging fundraising
events
54,671
567
Staff costs
199,992
15,225
Support costs
41,975
1,231
Fundraising
296,638
17,023
296,638
17,023		 Total
Unrestricted
Restricted
funds
funds
2025
2024
2024
£
£
£
55,238
46,175
20,496
215,217
173,949
47,686
43,206
42,982
1,118
313,661
263,106
69,300
313,661
263,106
69,300		 Total
2024
£
66,671
221,635
44,100
332,406
332,406

6 Raising funds

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

7 Charitable activities

Supporting
Charities
£
Staff costs
351,685
Consultancy
17,495
Economic associates
33,189
Other service delivery costs
19,151
421,520
Share of support costs (see note 8)
47,252
Share of governance costs (see note
8)
20,247
489,019
Analysis by fund
Unrestricted funds
418,602
Restricted funds
70,417
489,019
For the year ended 31 December 2024*
Unrestricted funds
344,115
Restricted funds
130,767
474,882		 Supporting
Charities
£
Staff costs
351,685
Consultancy
17,495
Economic associates
33,189
Other service delivery costs
19,151
421,520
Share of support costs (see note 8)
47,252
Share of governance costs (see note
8)
20,247
489,019
Analysis by fund
Unrestricted funds
418,602
Restricted funds
70,417
489,019
For the year ended 31 December 2024*
Unrestricted funds
344,115
Restricted funds
130,767
474,882		 External
Affairs
Research &
Policy
£
£
222,462
685,457
4,742
-
-
-
28,304
9,729
255,508
695,186
24,490
52,233
10,494
22,382
290,492
769,801
237,643
599,595
52,849
170,206
290,492
769,801
171,653
407,188
112,412
202,877
284,065
610,065		 Total
2025
£
1,259,604
22,237
33,189
57,184
1,372,214
123,975
53,123
1,549,312
1,255,840
293,472
1,549,312		 Total
2024
£
1,013,677
62,611
30,158
87,647
£
351,685
17,495
33,189
19,151
421,520
47,252
20,247
489,019
418,602
70,417
489,019
344,115
130,767
474,882		 £
222,462
4,742
-
28,304
255,508
24,490
10,494
290,492
237,643
52,849
290,492
171,653
112,412
284,065
1,194,093
147,973
26,946
1,369,012
922,956
446,056
1,369,012

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

8
Support costs
Depreciation
Rent
Office supplies
Computer running costs
Travelling and
entertainment expenses
Insurance
Bank charges
Other staff costs
HR consultancy (Gift
In Kind)
Audit fees
Accountancy
Legal and professional
(Gift In Kind)
Analysed between
Fundraising
Charitable activities		 Support
costs
Governance
costs
£
£
6,618
-
30,000
-
9,258
-
81,805
-
918
-
9,148
-
109
-
16,364
-
-
-
-
11,560
-
6,875
-
47,648
154,220
66,083
36,631
6,575
123,975
53,123
160,606
59,698		 2025
£
6,618
30,000
9,258
81,805
918
9,148
109
16,364
12,405
11,560
6,875
47,648
220,302
43,206
177,098
220,304		 Support
costs
Governance
costs
£
£
7,585
-
30,000
-
9,996
-
57,094
-
4,699
-
7,171
-
114
-
34,933
-
-
-
-
9,847
-
7,044
-
16,630
154,512
30,321
38,051
6,049
147,973
26,946
186,024
32,995		 2024
£
7,585
30,000
9,996
57,094
4,699
7,171
114
34,933
-
9,847
7,044
47,648
224,867
44,100
174,919
219,019

Governance costs include payments to the auditors of £9,150 plus VAT (2024 - £8,650 plus VAT) for audit fees.

Other staff costs relate to staff recruitment and staff training costs for the year.

9 Net movement in funds
Net movement in funds 2025 2024
£ £
The net movement in funds is stated after charging/(crediting):
Fees payable for the audit of the charity's financial statements 10,980 10,380
Depreciation of owned tangible fixed assets 6,617 7,585

10 Trustees

None of the Trustees (or any persons connected with them) received any remuneration or were paid expenses during the year.

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

11 Employees

The average monthly number of employees during the year was:

Employment costs
Wages and salaries
Social security costs
Other pension costs		 2025
Number
20
2025
£
1,243,635
152,423
78,763
1,474,821		 2024
Number
20
2024
£
1,043,514
118,806
72,992
1,235,312

During the year, the charity made redundancy payments totaling £147,336 (2024: £0) following a restructuring within the organisation. All payments were made in accordance with contractual terms and statutory requirements. At the balance sheet date, £34,571 was outstanding in creditors.

The number of employees whose annual remuneration was more than £60,000 is as follows:

is as follows:
2025 2024
Number Number
£60,000 - £69,999 3 -
£70,000 - £79,999 1 2
£80,000 - £89,999 1 1
£130,000 - £139,999 - 1
£140,000 - £149,999 1 -

12 Taxation

The charity is exempt from taxation on its activities because all its income is applied for charitable purposes.

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

13
Tangible fixed assets
Fixtures and
fittings
£
Cost
At 1 January 2025
6,841
Additions
2,925
At 31 December 2025
9,766
Depreciation and impairment
At 1 January 2025
6,296
Depreciation charged in the year
1,357
At 31 December 2025
7,653
Carrying amount
At 31 December 2025
2,113
At 31 December 2024
545
14
Debtors
Amounts falling due within one year:
Trade debtors
Prepayments and accrued income
15
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
Other taxation and social security
Trade creditors
Accruals and deferred income
16
Retirement benefit schemes
Defined contribution schemes
Charge to the Statement of Financial Activities in respect of defined
contribution schemes		 Computers
£
42,822
5,967
48,789
35,135
5,260
40,395
8,394
7,687
2025
£
27,586
34,887
62,473
2025
£
48,560
5,751
74,233
128,544
2025
£
78,763		 Total
£
49,663
8,892
58,555
41,431
6,617
48,048
10,507
8,232
2024
£
31,785
66,769
98,554
2024
£
35,955
11,752
32,051
79,758
2024
£
72,992

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

16 Retirement benefit schemes

(Continued)

The charity operates a defined contribution pension scheme for all qualifying employees. The assets of the scheme are held separately from those of the charity in an independently administered fund.

17 Restricted funds

The restricted funds of the charity comprise the unexpended balances of donations and grants held on trust subject to specific conditions by donors as to how they may be used.

Movement in funds Movement in funds Movement in funds in funds
Balance at Balance at Incoming Resources Balance at
1 January
2024		 Incoming
resources		 Resources
expended		 1 January
2025		 resources expended 31 December
2025
£ £ £ £ £ £ £
Charities Aid Foundation 62,860 125,000 (160,677) 27,183 5,651 (32,834) -
City Bridge - 57,000 (57,000) - 59,300 (59,300) -
The Law Family
Charitable Foundation 15,821 155,000 (135,273) 35,548 - (35,548) -
Porticus 116,694 110,694 (82,706) 144,682 118,994 (171,299) 92,377
Lloyds Bank Foundation - 10,000 (10,000) - - - -
Benefact Group and
Henry Smith - 69,700 (69,700) - - - -
Spirit of 2012 - - - - 20,000 (11,514) 8,486
195,375 527,394 (515,356) 207,413 203,945 (310,495) 100,863

The Charities Aid Foundation funded a programme to put the case of civil society at the forefront of policymakers' minds before and after the General Election. Funds were spent in the year, with the balance carried forward as restricted reserves to be spent in 2025.

The City Bridge Trust project supports charities providing services in London. The grant received was spent within the year.

The Law Family Charitable Foundation funded a programme of research around specific recommendations from the Law Family Commission on Civil Society. The grants received in 2024 were largely spent during the year, with the balance carried forward as restricted reserves to be spent in 2025.

Porticus granted funds to support the project, IntegratED bridge: economics of wellbeing for children in adversity. The grants received in 2023 and 2024 were largely spent during the year, with the balance carried forward as restricted reserves to be spent in 2025.

The funds granted by Spirit of 2012 supported our work on identifying best practice for measuring wellbeing for those that have learning disabilities and those who are neurodiverse.

PRO BONO ECONOMICS - TRADING AS PBE

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025

18 Unrestricted funds

The unrestricted funds of the charity comprise the unexpended balances of donations and grants which are not subject to specific conditions by donors and grantors as to how they may be used. These include designated funds which have been set aside out of unrestricted funds by the trustees for specific purposes.

At 1 January Incoming Resources At 31
2025 resources expended December
2025
£ £ £ £
General funds 421,343 1,226,768 (1,552,478) 95,633
Previous year: At 1 January Incoming Resources At 31
2024 resources expended December
2024
£ £ £ £
General funds 397,826 1,209,579 (1,186,062) 421,343

19 Analysis of net assets between funds

Unrestricted
Restricted
funds
funds
2025
2025
£
£
At 31 December 2025:
Tangible assets
10,507
-
Current assets/(liabilities)
85,125
100,864
95,632
100,864
Per balance sheet
95,633
100,863
Balance to allocate
1
(1)
Unrestricted
Restricted
funds
funds
2024
2024
£
£
At 31 December 2024:
Tangible assets
8,232
-
Current assets/(liabilities)
413,111
207,413
421,343
207,413		 Total
2025
£
10,507
185,989
196,496
196,496
-
Total
2024
£
8,232
620,524
628,756

Issuer

Alliotts LLP

Document generated Tue, 14th Jul 2026 12:20:29 BST

Document fingerprint a686ec72335a2b8191ed9c4756dba6fe

Parties involved with this document

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Wed, 15th Jul 2026 15:52:12 BST Wed, 15th Jul 2026 17:22:41 BST Wed, 15th Jul 2026 17:44:28 BST Wed, 15th Jul 2026 17:44:28 BST Wed, 15th Jul 2026 17:44:28 BST

Damien Regent - Signer (f871c14cb6e763921f0536128857ba97) Matt Whittaker - Signer (eebebaac80cba275baa06d397562a447) Stephen Meredith - Signer (b211b9faadabd5107c6a2f738a451369) Samantha Merchant - Copied In (eca44e506d3875bb2be237f762e68416) Cassia Dingall - Copied In (62539fbde7cdaba8751f60487115d055)

Audit history log

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Tue, 14th Jul 2026 12:20:30 BST

Tue, 14th Jul 2026 12:20:31 BST

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Tue, 14th Jul 2026 12:27:43 BST Wed, 15th Jul 2026 15:46:53 BST Wed, 15th Jul 2026 15:47:03 BST Wed, 15th Jul 2026 15:52:12 BST Wed, 15th Jul 2026 15:52:12 BST

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