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2022-03-31-accounts

2021/22 Trustees’ report and financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

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Equally Ours was formerly called the Equality and Diversity Forum Company Number: 06464749 Charity Number: 1135357

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Contents

Page
Trustees’ annual report 4
Reference and administrative information 24
Financial review 25
Independent examiner’s report 27
Statement of financial activities 28
Balance sheet 29
Statement of cash flows 31
Notes to the accounts 32

We would like to thank all our funders for their commitment and support:

– AB Charitable Trust, Access the Foundation for Social Investment, Advent of Change, Barrow Cadbury Trust, City Bridge Trust (via projects with Media Trust and Inclusion London), Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Funders for Race Equality Alliance (via Barrow Cadbury Trust), John Ellerman Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, The Legal Education Foundation, MOPAC, National Lottery Community Fund, Trust for London, and all those who commissioned our consultancy services during the year (details in the report).

And to thank Age UK and Herbert Smith Freehills for their generous pro-bono support.

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Equally Ours Trustees’ annual report 2021/22

1. Our ten highlights of the year

We are proud of everything we achieved over the year. Here are just ten highlights.

  1. We stood up for people’s rights and worked hard to protect them by convening and directly supporting over 50 organisations to respond to the reviews of the Human Rights Act and Judicial Review. While these protections are particularly relevant for those of us who experience inequality, discrimination and abuse of our rights, they underpin the basic rights and freedoms that we all rely on and exercise every day.

  2. Our expert four-year convening and advocacy on hate crime laws contributed to the Law Commission’s final report on its review of hate crime legislation. This included key measures that will ensure equal treatment for different groups.

  3. We sought to ensure the UK Government’s response to emergencies meets the needs and rights of us all, through engagement with the Cabinet Office and detailed submissions to both the consultation on a National Resilience Strategy and the draft terms of reference for the independent UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

  4. We made sure that equality and human rights are better embedded at all levels of civil society emergency planning and response, through chairing the Equality Steering Group of the Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership and serving on its national programme board.

  5. We launched Levelling up: Firm foundations, setting an agenda for levelling up to advance people’s equality and human rights. Our work contributed to a crucial shift in key policyinfluencers’ approach.

  6. As an active member of the Civil Society Group, we ensured that equality and human rights were included in sector-wide priorities. This included championing the findings from our Levelling up report with UK Government ministers.

  7. We expanded our policy network membership to include more grassroots organisations, providing them with increased access to policy influence, and helping broaden our network’s grassroots evidence-base.

  8. We enabled 40 trusts and foundations to come together to catalyse change and improve investment in racial justice in the UK, by providing the Secretariat and thought leadership for the Funders’ Alliance for Race Equality.

  9. We supported 47 organisations working on race, disability, women’s, and LGBT+ equality, and pan-equality issues to develop trading activities, drive income diversification and build financial resilience, through our Equality Sector Enterprise Development Programme.

  10. 10.The new evidence-based narrative to build support for a better vision of social care that we developed with the Social Care Future network was adopted and adapted by political parties and public and voluntary sector organisations in the UK and influenced campaigners across the Europe and in the USA.

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2. About Equally Ours

Equally Ours brings together people and organisations working across equality, human rights and social justice to make a reality of these in everyone’s lives. Through our members and networks, we join up research, policy and communications to shift public opinion and policy in positive and powerful ways.

We believe that a good and strong society is a just and inclusive one. One where we are free from harm and can all contribute and flourish, whoever we are and whatever we do or don’t have. A society that is equally ours.

Equally Ours also works with public bodies, the private sector, think tanks, and lawyers. We value the relationships we have with ministers and civil servants and with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, contributing through dialogue, collaboration and, where needed, constructive challenge.

3. Our strategy

The Board decided to continue with the three strategic goals from our previous strategy (2016-2020) as these remain relevant:

  1. Increase public and political support for equality and human rights

  2. Create solutions to advance an equal and diverse society

  3. Strengthen the capacity of civil society to progress these goals.

The priority policy themes agreed with members for 2021/22 were:

This report sets out the progress we made against our strategic goals in 2021/22.

In 2021/22 we began developing our new ten-year strategy, which we’ll launch in November 2022 when we celebrate our twentieth anniversary.

4. Our networks and members

Our policy network continues to be at the core of what we do, playing an active and vital role in influencing and driving social change. Our policy network includes members and associate members from the voluntary sector, and observers from governmental or statutory organisations who engage constructively with Equally Ours’ work.

Together with our members, we identify shared policy issues, and develop, agree and recommend shared policy solutions that can benefit many communities, as well as take into account intersectionality. Using our combined voice, we raise these shared issues and solutions with policy makers, as well as highlight issues that are specific to

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individual groups, so that policy makers can take a comprehensive and holistic approach. This helps prevent ineffective piecemeal or divisive policymaking.

We welcomed 11 new organisations to the policy network this year, bringing the total number of members to 89 (29 members, 42 associates and 18 observer organisations).

New members included: Black South West Network, Inclusion North, National Survivor User Network, Northern Ireland Council for Racial Equality, Race Equality First, Restorative Justice for All International Institute, and Voice for Change England joined us as members. They were offered a year’s free membership as part of our Covid-19 community engagement project, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.

The Fairness Foundation, Migrant Centre NI, National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers, and Why Me? joined as associate members.

These organisations help us to broaden our grassroots evidence-base so we can make sure we’re effective in both capturing and reflecting the full range of communities’ views and needs, and in developing responses to the pandemic that meet everyone’s needs and rights.

Our member retention rate remained high, as in previous years: only two members left in 2021/22, and one moved from full to associate member. We offered payment holidays to members struggling due to Covid: one took up this offer.

We continued to engage with our members remotely, as this enabled the active participation of more organisations from across the UK.

5. What we achieved in 2021/22

Goal 1. Increase public and political support for equality and human rights

This year we continued to pioneer the use of evidence-based strategic communications to change how people think and feel about equality, human rights and social justice for the better.

The ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as increased attempts to foment a ‘culture war’, and rising concerns around the cost of living, all contributed to a continued time of flux for narratives. Working together with partners across the sector we used our deepening expertise in strategic communications to help develop new narratives that will lead to better solutions to our shared social problems.

Reframing ageing: Centre for Ageing Better

We completed the final stages of this project commissioned by the Centre for Ageing Better, in partnership with research consultancy, Savanta ComRes. The final report provided in-depth evidence of public attitudes to ageing, older people and demographic change, analysed through the lens of values-based strategic communications techniques. It reported on the qualitative and quantitative testing of the alternative new frames and messages that we developed, and made recommendations for their application across the Centre for Ageing Better’s work. In December, the Centre for Ageing Better published a guide to talking about

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ageing and older age, which incorporates these evidence-based recommendations.

Building public support to transform social care: Social Care Future

This year we worked with the Social Care Future network to co-produce and promote an evidence-based practical guide to building public support for a better vision of social care, based on our extensive attitudinal and framing research in the previous year. Social Care Future published this guide, alongside a summary of the research and an easy read version in April.

Using these research insights, we delivered two two-part paid workshops for 31 communicators and campaigners in September and October, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to frame care and support in their work. Workshop participants gave us strong positive feedback.

The new narrative has taken root and is spreading. As well has being used by organisations already involved in Social Care Future, it’s been adopted and adapted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Adult Social Care, Labour Party, Alzheimer’s Society, various local authorities across England, and the Government in the White Paper on adult social care published in December. The insights have also been adopted by campaigners across Europe and in the USA.

As Bryony Shannon, Strategic Lead for Practice Development at Doncaster Council, and Social Care Future member said, ‘The #socialcarefuture public audience research provides the evidence to demonstrate just how much difference the words we choose can make, and the guide for communicating about social care offers us a new narrative to help transform social care.’

Reframing trans rights in Scotland: Scottish Trans

We were commissioned by Scottish Trans, Stonewall Scotland and LGBT Youth Scotland for a year-long research and messaging project seeking effective ways to talk about trans issues to the Scottish public. We worked closely with the organisations to research existing ways of thinking on the issue, through focus groups, a literature review, and a discourse analysis of online discussion. And we trained the organisations’ staff in strategic communications and worked with them to train up community members in turn.

With a solid base of research on the current picture in public thinking, next year we will be testing and refining new messages through focus groups, workshops, and a large-scale public survey, before developing the findings into useable resources for the organisations and their wider community members.

Framing the movement for young people’s mental health: YoungMinds

We wrapped up our research and messaging project with YoungMinds, producing a practical, evidence-based guide to help them effectively message about young people’s mental health, and delivering a talk to their wider department and senior staff to help them understand and use the research. In this year we completed focus groups to test and refine reactions to our tested messages, as well as wide-scale quantitative testing to better evidence what does and doesn’t work at scale to communicate about the issue.

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Reframing the debate on social security: Commission on Social Security

We secured funding from Trust for London to work with the Commission on Social Security (led by experts by experience) for a framing research project to frame the Commission’s plan for a decent social security system in a way that builds public support for the proposals. We met with both the Commission and the project’s steering group and fed into their communications strategy for 2021-2022. We began the literature review of existing relevant framing and attitudinal research, but had to pause the work due to unavoidable staff absence.

Reframing disability rights: Inclusion London

We were partners in a coalition with Deaf and Disabled people’s organisations, led by Inclusion London and Inclusion Barnet, that successfully secured development funding from City Bridge Trust for an exploratory phase of reframing work. This phase looked at the potential for reframing public attitudes towards disability, disabled people and the organisations run by and for them. It included introductory training on strategic communications, and strategising around the key issues and audiences in London.

As a result of this work, we secured second-stage funding for a robust two-year reframing research project that will begin in 2022-23. This will include message co-production, in-depth message testing, and building the capacity of people and organisations working in this space to apply the resulting research insights in practice.

Goal 2. Create solutions to advance an equal and diverse society

Working alongside our members, Research Network and the wider charity sector and civil society, we continued to shape policy and practice to advance equality and human rights throughout the year. Evidence-based and directly informed by the needs of people who are disadvantaged and discriminated against, our work is always focused on seeking solutions to the issues we face through expert analysis, and constructive dialogue and challenge.

As an Equally Ours member said, ‘Bringing together a wide range of organisations with diverse interests and uniting them in a common defence of equality and human rights is a huge achievement.’

Covid-19 response

In May, we reviewed and updated our strategy on Covid-19, using the Policy Forum meeting to revisit our own and our members’ response to Covid-19. We invited members and grassroots organisations to share their research and experiences, and agreed two priorities for Equally Ours.

Reaching marginalised communities

We continued to work with NHS Test and Trace and the Department of Health to inform their response to the pandemic. This included sharing our members’ intelligence on self-isolation at a roundtable with the responsible Ministers, and participating in a Test and Trace ‘test’ engagement event, giving feedback on how the content and roll out could be improved. We systematically shared information with our members for onward dissemination through their

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extensive grassroots networks. This helped to make sure that vital public health messaging reached marginalised people and communities.

Improving the Government’s response to future emergencies

We sought to ensure that our considerable evidence-base and lessons from the pandemic inform the Government’s approach to future emergencies in two key ways:

  1. We produced a detailed submission to the Government consultation on a National Resilience Strategy. As part of this, we held a joint roundtable with our members and senior Cabinet Office officials. This vital work with the Cabinet Office continues.

  2. We made a submission to the consultation on the draft terms of reference for the independent statutory Covid-19 inquiry. This made the case for the terms of reference to fully cover the barriers faced by many communities and the unequal impacts of the pandemic. We also raised concerns about how the consultation had been carried out, and pressed for better engagement with those groups most affected by the pandemic as an essential means of building trust.

Sector collaboration on Covid

Civil Society Group

Launched in November, the Civil Society Group (CSG) aims to increase collaboration across the charity sector and wider civil society. We sat on both the CSG’s Strategic Objectives Group and Strategic Oversight Group, and were involved in delivering all three of CSG’s objectives. For example, we participated in a workshop on Levelling Up at the Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport. The recommendations of our Levelling up: Firm foundations report – in particular, the need to put equality at the heart of both the design and outcomes of the – Government’s Levelling Up work were at the core of our discussion at this meeting.

Funders

We shared our learning from Covid-19 with funders, including by contributing to research on the next stages of development of the Funders’ Collaborative Hub, which the Association of Charitable Foundations initially set up in response to the pandemic (we participated in the steering group in 2020/21), and with the UK Community Foundation’s new equality, diversity and inclusion lead.

Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership

Equally Ours became a formal member of the Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership (VCSEP), and one of our Co-CEOs joined the national programme board to ensure that equality and human rights are embedded at strategic level.

We chaired the VCSEP’s monthly Equality Steering Group, which began to explore how partners can better build equality into emergency needs assessments and responders’ planning. This work had to be paused when VCSEP staffing reduced. The Group then reconvened in November 2021 with a focus on ensuring that the VCSEP’s capability training programme focuses on the common issues associated with any emergency (for example, how to do an inclusive needs assessment) not just the type of emergency.

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Protecting our legal rights

It was important to continue work on our key pre-pandemic priorities during the year, so that potentially harmful changes didn’t go unchallenged while people’s attention was focused on the pandemic. The pandemic also demonstrated how central our legal rights are to tackling the unequal impact of such events.

We helped set up the new UK-wide Civil Society Alliance, funded by the Legal Education Foundation, which will bring together a wide range of organisations from the four UK administrations. The Alliance will seek to amplify our advocacy around the protection of legislative rights.

The landscape around constitutional reform changed considerably during the year. And our work on rights showed Government, Parliament and other policy makers how ostensibly technical and legal changes impact on and matter to a wide range of communities. Supported by the Legal Education Foundation, we focused on two specific areas: the threats to the rule of law arising from the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, and proposals to amend or replace the Human Rights Act 1998.

Judicial Review

Following the publication of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill in the summer, which proposed to limit access to Judicial Review and to meaningful remedies if a public body or agency has been found to have acted unlawfully, we consulted our members and collaborated extensively with the Public Law Project and Liberty. We coordinated our lobbying, developed shared messages based on strategic communications good practice, met with then Shadow Justice Secretary, David Lammy MP, and briefed MPs for the Bill’s second reading debate, and the Committee and Report stages.

We were pleased that Lords’ amendments overturned the Government’s proposals, and that the Government subsequently conceded and removed the ‘presumption’ that judges must use prospective only remedies (that is, any unlawful action by the Government or public body would not be remedied retrospectively). This was a significant achievement for all those involved.

The Human Rights Act 1998

The shift in language from ‘updating’ to ‘overhauling’ the Human Rights Act (HRA) ultimately led to a Government consultation on HRA reform and a proposal to replace the HRA with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ that would limit people’s ability to enforce their legal rights and hold public authorities to account. This shift galvanised our own and the wider sector’s already extensive and intensive work on promoting and protecting our human rights.

Prior to their own consultation, the Government set up an Independent Review of the HRA. Alongside Amnesty UK, Liberty and three Equality and Human Rights Commissioners, we shared evidence at a series of roundtables held by the Review panel. And we also participated in separate roundtables in Wales and Northern Ireland. We continued to collect case studies of the HRA in practice, and we supported our members with briefing materials on the substance of the consultation and on how to talk about human rights and the HRA in a way that builds public support and political will, based on our own extensive framing research.

While awaiting the report of the Independent Review, we continued to coordinate and support members, drafting a collective response to the Review report based on an analysis of possible

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outcomes. We led a workshop at the Law Centres Network annual conference in November, engaging Law Centres with experience of human rights in strategies for protecting the HRA. We also continued to engage with MPs, making the case that changes to the HRA are unnecessary and unwelcome.

We participated in a Ministry of Justice roundtable on the Government consultation, made our own submission to the consultation, and supported members to do the same. This included updating our messaging guide and producing a targeted ‘policy tips’ paper, identifying the key equality issues and providing members with analysis and key lines to address them.

The focus and recommendations of the Independent Review panel’s report and the – – Government’s consultation report both published in December didn’t tally, and we provided our members with expert advice on the content and inconsistencies of the consultation document.

Our collective strategizing and work in this vital area continues.

‘Levelling up’ and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund

We integrated our work on building a more equal society following the pandemic with our response to the Government’s Levelling Up agenda and our continued focus on protecting our rights following Brexit. This enabled us to expand our relationship with the Government Equalities Office/Equality Hub to include their wider work. For example, the Government’s Disability Strategy, response to the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, and Equality Data Programme.

In December, we published and launched Levelling up: Firm foundations, which set an agenda for levelling up that would advance people’s equality and human rights, especially people from the most marginalised communities. Caroline Noakes MP, Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, and Anneliese Dodds MP, Labour Party Chair and Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, both spoke at the launch.

Engagement with members at and after the launch led to our establishing a new strategy group on levelling up. And, taking forward the policy recommendations from the report, in January we were invited to meet with Kemi Badenoch, Minister for Levelling Up and Women and Equalities, to discuss how we would like to see Government act on the findings of our report.

The long-awaited White Paper on Levelling Up, published in February, focused primarily on inequalities between places not places and people; the previous plan, which had a focus on helping people into the labour market, was postponed until 2024-25. We published a statement and a blog post in response, and held the first meeting of our Levelling Up Strategy Group to begin developing a detailed strategy based on our Levelling up: Firm foundations recommendations.

We continued work on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), building relationships with new officials at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). We participated in a stakeholder meeting led by MHCLG, DWP and the Department for Education, contributing our analysis on the necessity of placing equality at the centre of any new framework. We also shared this analysis at a Scottish Human Rights Consortium meeting, and with the Employment Related Services

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Association and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), who we continue to work with.

Alongside NCVO, we also represented England at a UK-wide meeting on ‘Life after EU – membership what next for civil society in the UK?’ We took this opportunity to use our work on the UKSPF to focus on our wider agenda of what levelling up should look like across the UK.

While we were unable to change the Government’s position on levelling up, we were successful in achieving a shift in key policy-influencers’ approach, away from a sole focus on place-based inequality, to looking at inequality among people and places, highlighting issues such as discrimination and structural racism. This means that there is now a stronger, more allied influencing approach into government for future advocacy on these issues.

As well as our work to influence the design of the UKSPF, we continued our work on protecting rights and standards post-Brexit. We teamed up with the European Movement and contributed a section on equality to their Stories of Brexit publication to mark the first 100 days after Brexit. We also spoke at the publication launch.

We also responded to a government consultation on the Trade and Cooperation Agreement to set up a Civil Society Forum and a Domestic Advisory Group.

Hate crime

Equally Ours’ hate crime programme combines knowledge exchange with policy advocacy. We facilitate the only national cross-equality group that brings together frontline and member-led and/or policy-focused organisations working on hate crime. As a member of our hate crime strategy group said, ‘The hate crime strategic group as been key to coordinating our campaign for legislative change.’

Over the past four years, we have been advocating for improvements to hate crime protections, making the case for parity and clarity in the law. Crucially, this included extensive collaboration with the Law Commission on its review of hate crime legislation and with leading academics, including Professor Mark Walters of the University of Sussex.

The Law Commission published its recommendations to reform hate crime legislation into a single law in December. In line with our recommendations, this includes ensuring that disabled and LGBT+ victims of hate crime receive the same protection as victims with other protected characteristics (race and religion), and is a significant achievement.

In addition to this work on the Law Commission review, during the year we engaged with Stella Creasey MP on her campaign to make misogyny a hate crime. She attended our July Policy Forum meeting to discuss the campaign.

At the end of March, the (London) Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime appointed Equally Ours as the coordinator of its Hate Crime Stakeholder Reference Group. The group will help ensure statutory partners respond effectively to hate crime.

Equally Ours member meetings

Our member meetings provide a platform for pan-equality and human rights dialogue between members, other civil society organisations, think tanks, academics, government

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departments and non-governmental bodies.

In response to the increased pressure our members have been facing due to the pandemic, our Forum meetings now take place once every two months. We also reshaped the Brexit Strategy and Human Rights Act Strategy groups into one Human Rights and Equality Strategy Group, which also meets one every two months. These changes have allowed us to sustain key relationships, reduce pressure on our members and maximise their time, while ensuring members still have the opportunity to convene once a month. We now also have the flexibility to call ad-hoc meetings for urgent issues.

Our meetings continue to take place online. The level of member engagement was the same as the previous year: there was an average of 25-30 participants per meeting, with some meetings attended by over 50 participants.

As part of the National Lottery Community Fund Covid-19 community engagement project, we had funding available to work with SignHealth to translate a number of core documents into British Sign Language. This developed into a larger piece of work with our members to become truly inclusive of D/deaf and disabled people and their organisations, which started with a statement of commitment. As this work develops, it will continue to strengthen our membership and capacity to support our members.

Research Network

We started work on re-invigorating the Research Network during the year, but this was delayed by the need to focus on the more immediate priorities of Covid response, the reviews of the Human Rights Act and Judicial Review, and the Government’s Levelling Up agenda.

In the meantime, the Research Network engaged with our research into structural inequalities and levelling up, and we secured agreement from the lead on the Government’s Equality Data Programme and Parliament’s Knowledge Exchange Unit to attend an event with the network. We also joined the Knowledge Exchange Unit’s informal network of ‘knowledge mobilisers’, with the possibility of future collaboration as the Research Network becomes more active again.

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Research Network Co-Chair, Professor Colm O’Cinneide, provided expert legal insight and analysis to our Human Rights and Equality Strategy Group, which informed our strategy on addressing the threats to the Human Rights Act.

Future of Legal Gender: As partners in the King’s College London five-year research project on the Future of Legal Gender, we worked with them to develop and deliver a final seminar in November for members of our policy and research networks. This was an opportunity to discuss and offer input on the research findings prior to the report’s finalisation and publication (in May 2022). Around 40 participants attended from a range of LGBT+, women’s and other equality organisations, as well as academics from a number of disciplines. With careful preparation we created a positive, accessible space for dialogue. We will support dissemination of the final research products in May 2022.

Goal 3. Strengthen the capacity of civil society

We continued to support civil society to advance equality, human rights and social justice by disseminating relevant, up-to-date and accessible information; and by building its expertise, resilience and strength. We did this through our strategic communications programme, the Equality Sector Enterprise Development Programme, and by providing the secretariat to the Funders for Race Equality Alliance.

Information dissemination

We continued to actively inform thousands of people of the latest developments across human rights and equality policy and practice. Our website and social media channels were viewed more than 200,000 times between them this year.

One of our highest drivers of traffic continues to be our newsletter, which is emailed out to almost 5,000 subscribers fortnightly. These subscribers are highly engaged, and this newsletter is one of the main ways we inform the sector, recruit participants for our workshops and events and share resources.

The most popular pages on our website this year provided information on the Funders for Race Equality Alliance, advice on the equality and human rights impacts of Covid-19, resources on strategic communications, and news items on issues such as migration and poverty.

Strategic communications capacity building

We continue to see a growing demand for our highly-respected capacity-building work in strategic communications, with our broader training programmes hugely oversubscribed. Through our funded training programmes and consultancy work, this year we trained more than 150 people to communicate for change.

– Our tailored training workshops have received overwhelmingly positive feedback for example, our training session for the Media Trust Stronger Voices programme was the highest rated out of all the training offered as part of this programme this year, with 100% rating both the quality of training delivery and the facilitator’s subject knowledge as ‘very good’. For our flagship Communications for Change training, 100% this year said they would recommend

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the training to others.

We also ran multiple training workshops on a consultancy basis for individual organisations and coalitions.

Communications for Change training programme for London-focused poverty and inequality organisations

This year we delivered the final year of activity for our flagship Communications for Change programme, funded by Trust for London. We trained 45 individuals from London-based poverty and inequality organisations to reframe their communications to win hearts and minds on poverty and inequality.

Specific feedback included that the training was ‘brilliantly designed, researched, managed and run’, ‘incredibly informative’, and ‘truly fantastic’, and that it ‘offered transformative ideas, clearly communicated, and made actionable’. Multiple participants commented that they were already planning how to change their communications approach off the back of the training.

We delivered the final evaluation report for this three-year grant, and worked with Trust for London to successfully secure funding for a further three-year grant to build the capacity of London’s poverty and inequality charities. The new grant will be deeper in scope, focusing on more sustained learning for a smaller number of organisations, including elements such as peer support and drop-in mentoring sessions.

Strengthening the voices of London equality organisations

Once again we partnered with Media Trust on their City Bridge Trust-funded Stronger Voices programme, strengthening the communications capacity of 15 London equality organisations. We were actively involved in recruiting the cohort and shaping and advising on the programme, and delivered the programme’s Communications for Change workshop. Due to capacity issues, we were unable to run one of the Charity Challenge Days this year, but are hoping to return to delivering these in 2022-23.

Headlining Mental Health training programme

We delivered our introductory level Communications for Change workshop as part of Media Trust’s Bally’s Foundation-funded Headlining Mental Health programme. We trained 18 representatives of diverse mental health charities to frame their communications in a way that will build public support and political will on the specific issues they work on.

Advising Shelter on messaging DSS discrimination

After training some members of Shelter’s legal advice team through our Communications for Change programme, they commissioned us, through funding from the Nationwide Foundation, to redevelop their resources on DSS discrimination. To do this we worked with their communications and advice teams to train them up in strategic communications, critique their existing resources, and workshop new ways to message these using strategic communications principles. Finally, we redrafted one of their key resources based on the workshop outputs. These are now being used on their website to help rental tenants challenge DSS discrimination.

Training staff from the office of Clive Lewis MP in strategic communications

Following one of their team coming to our Communications for Change training in a previous role, we were commissioned to develop and deliver a tailored workshop to help this MP’s office better communicate to win hearts and minds on their issues. Feedback was hugely

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positive: ‘The team is really enthusiastic and raring to go with our new-found knowledge and tools’.

Training staff from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in strategic communications

We were commissioned by staff at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to give their team a broad grounding in strategic communications theory and practice with an introductory level session. The team were engaged and feedback was very positive, with our lead contact commenting that ‘the training was excellent and I appreciated how you tailor-made some of the content for our team and work’, and that they were keen to book a longer session when time allowed.

Funders for Race Equality Alliance (the Alliance)

Equally Ours provides the Secretariat for the Alliance, helping to shape and deliver on its ambitious strategy. We work to the Alliance steering group, drawn from a range of funders, and we ran five steering group meetings over the year.

We hosted four Alliance meetings with 146 participants from both our Alliance members and beyond within the philanthropy sector. Meeting topics included preserving, protecting and progressing racial diversity in the arts; strengthening civil society; legacies of British slaveownership; and how to move the Alliance forward through an online presence and by refreshing its theory of change.

In November, the Alliance released the second cohort of the racial justice audit results. Twenty funders who audited either a sample, or their entire portfolios, shared their data on the Equally Ours website. In all, the Alliance audited over £271 million-worth of grants, approximately 9% of the value of the total given by the top 300 foundations in the UK as of 2019.

One member fed back that, ‘Being part of the Alliance has challenged us in ways that we were not prepared for, but it was the push that we needed to start making real change. The audit showed us the lack of funding going to race equality issues and organisations, and we created a ringfence fund. But this is not enough, it is just the beginning but thank you for your support, spaces and expertise!’

We commissioned a mapping of the race equality sector in England, and used the significant amount of data collected to produce a resource for funders to use in analysing existing funds and developing new ones. One of the main outputs of this mapping exercise was a directory – of organisations to raise funders’ awareness of race equality organisations especially Black – and Minoritised-led organisations in England. Two funders used this data to create a racial justice fund, which will be released in 2022.

The Alliance also ran a three-part workshop series with 15 funding organisations and Migration Exchange, exploring the intersection between racial justice and migration justice. The three sessions covered the history of migration and racism in Britain, and the intersection with gender; current areas for attention and action; and resourcing and sustaining work on race and migration, to help inform and challenge funder practice. The series received very positive feedback, including appreciation of the unique space the Alliance provides: ‘The best thing about this series was that this was the first time that I had been in a space with funders talking about race and migration through an intersectional lens. It was long overdue and needs to be focused on.’

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In response to Covid-19, the Secretariat shared the findings of the Alliance’s first report (in collaboration with Future Foundations UK and the Ubele Initiative), A quantitative analysis of the emergency funding allocated to the UK Black and Minority Ethnic Voluntary Sector during - Covid 19 at events, such as Runnymede Trust’s Shared Futures Online Conference and UK Community Foundations’ Learning from the BAME Infrastructure Fund event. This report was published online and received over 2,000 views.

The Alliance expanded its membership over the year, with four new members joining: Access to Justice Foundation, Youth Futures, Justice Together and The Legal Education Foundation.

Equality Sector Enterprise Development Programme

– With funding from Access the foundation for social investment, the Equality Sector Enterprise Development Programme (ESEDP) continued to go from strength to strength during the year. The ESEDP contributes to a wider initiative, Equality Impact Investing Programme (EIIP) that seeks to increase social investment in advancing equality across a range of platforms in the UK.

We supported a portfolio of 47 organisations working on race, disability, women’s, and LGBT+ equality, and pan-equality, issues to develop trading activities, drive income diversification and build financial resilience, all of which are increasingly important as we emerge from the pandemic. We work closely with organisations, supporting them with a mixture of early-stage development grants and in-depth and bespoke learning support around business development, product development and market research, as well as facilitating a series of peer-to-peer action learning sets.

The ESEDP provided a further £647,000 in development grants to programme participants during the year, bringing the total grant provision to just over £1.1 million since 2019. We delivered 32 workshops around enterprise development in the equality sector, and led the delivery and content curation of two cross-sector peer learning conferences for the wider ESEDP partnership.

Feedback from the programme is incredibly positive, with 91% of participants reporting that they feel EDP has helped them further grow their confidence and skills around enterprise development, and 81% noting an increase in generated income since joining the programme – an impressive statistic given the current economic environment.

One founder and CEO of an organisation noted that, ‘The ESEDP community has offered me a safe space to seek guidance, advice and grow my understanding of enterprise development. Social enterprise and founding an organisation from scratch can at times feel isolating and Equally Ours and the community making up the programme have felt like peers for life, and the impact, both social and financial on our organisation has been amazing. Since joining ESEDP in mid-2020, we’ve grown our Business Development team by 150% and brought in more than £120,000 in sales.’

Equally Ours led on exploring various types of social finance, looking at the effectiveness of seed capital grants and match-trading grants. We also engaged in partnership work with the Diversity Forum, Good Finance and Big Society Capital to create greater synergies and understanding between the social investment space and the equality sector. The first of a series of partnership events took place in June, and comprised an introduction to social

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investment alongside a day of one-to-one social investment surgeries.

Our pro-bono legal partnership with Herbert Smith Freehills continued to bring immense value to the programme, with seven of the organisations taken on as long-term pro-bono clients to support them on areas like contract negotiation and setting up a trading subsidiary.

Equally Ours continues to lead the ESEDP partnership’s learning and commitment to EDI and is now chairing the partnerships EDI working group and holding the group accountable to their co-created action plan. This piece of work is ongoing and will develop iteratively throughout the programme’s lifecycle and legacy.

Goal 4. Strengthening our own capacity

Organisational resilience and development

2021/22 was the hardest year in our history, due to a combination of the cumulative impacts of Covid-19, and a high proportion of staff experiencing close family bereavements and/or having significant caring responsibilities. We put in place a range of support measures in discussion with the team.

While staff and the organisation coped remarkably well, and to most on the outside the difficulties were not visible, inevitably it had an impact at times on our profile and level of activity, and on getting ahead on longer-term income generation.

In addition, as a result of the pandemic, we lost our peppercorn rented office space and free IT. Over the course of the year we identified new premises and contracted with a new IT provider, which required whole system change.

Despite these challenges, we sustained a focus on organisational and staff development, including:

We commissioned the Sheila McKechnie Foundation to work with us on developing our new ten-year strategy. With them we held a workshop for Trustees and staff, and an event for member CEOs and Chairs.

It was fantastic that we were a partner and beneficiary of the Advent of Change initiative for the third year running. This helped our external profile and secured some £2,534 to support our work.

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Governance

We were delighted that, following an open recruitment process, Jess McQuail became our new Chair, and Ibrahim Ali our new Treasurer, and were co-opted onto the board. Kayvan Ravandi (Royal National Institute of Blind People), Sue Coe (Trades Union Congress) and Andrea Simon (End Violence Against Women Coalition) were elected by members.

6. The beneficiaries of our work in numbers

In the last year we:

7. Future plans

Over the next year, we will develop an ambitious ten-year strategy, setting out a bold agenda for social justice. It will focus on how, together, we can advance people’s equality and human rights by influencing national policy on the big, long-term, structural issues of the law, climate, and investment.

In the shorter term, our priorities for 2022/23 are:

  1. launching the new strategy, and reflecting back on everything we’ve achieved by celebrating our twentieth anniversary

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  1. continuing to protect and advance our hard-won rights, by making sure that the views of the wide range of people and communities that we and our members are part of and represent are put forward as the UK Government continues with its plans to replace the Human Rights Act

  2. publishing innovative participative research into community priorities. This will provide a blueprint for a people’s equality strategy, and help focus our public policy advocacy in a complex socio-economic context, and as we head towards a general election in 2023 or 2024

  3. delivering exciting new strategic communications initiatives including reframing disability through co-production with a partnership of Deaf and Disabled People’s organisations led by Inclusion London and Inclusion Barnet.

  4. increasing racial justice, through our work providing the Secretariat to the Funders for Race Equality Alliance, including launching a new three-year strategy, and through our internal anti-racism programme

  5. developing the next phase of the Equality Sector Enterprise Development Programme, and conducting new research into barriers to social investment for equality organisations

  6. reviewing and taking steps to improve our own financial sustainability.

8. Structure, governance and management

Trustee board

Up to eight Equally Ours’ Trustees are elected by the members of the Equally Ours policy network; up to six can be co-opted. The Board and Equally Ours members are committed to ensuring that the Board has a diverse membership and possesses the skills and knowledge to enable Equally Ours to operate successfully, and we conduct an audit every year to help inform the elections and co-options processes.

The trustees bring extensive knowledge of equality and human rights together with experience of senior management and governance within the voluntary sector and other sectors. They meet four times a year and are responsible for the organisation’s overall strategy and governance and for proper use of its resources. Trustees pay close attention to the views of the member organisations but act independently.

Equally Ours is both a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. It is governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association, which were approved and adopted in January 2008 (upon registration as a charitable company) and as amended in November 2018.

Staff team

The staff in 20/21 were:

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Key management personnel were the Co-Chief Executives and Communications Director. Their pay and remuneration were set at the time of their recruitment by benchmarking similar roles in comparable organisations.

All fundraising activity for Equally Ours was carried out by the staff, except for the drafting of two applications delivered by a consultant.

We also valued the contributions of the following contributors funded through specific projects:

9. Public benefit

In carrying out its work Equally Ours pays due regard to Charity Commission guidance concerning public benefit. The Trustees are satisfied that all Equally Ours’ activities in 2021/22 were of public benefit and that the charity’s funds were spent to achieve public benefit.

10. Membership list

Members

Members of the Equally Ours policy forum are formally members of the charity and play a governance role.

Age UK brap British Institute of Human Rights Children’s Rights Alliance for England Disability Rights UK Discrimination Law Association End Violence Against Women Coalition Equality Trust Fair Play South West Fawcett Society Friends, Families and Travellers Gender Identity Research & Education Society Humanists UK

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Law Centres Network Maternity Action Mind National Alliance of Women’s Organisations Race on the Agenda Royal National Institute for Deaf People Royal National Institute of Blind People Runnymede Trust Scope SignHealth Stonewall Trades Union Congress Traveller Movement UK Race and Europe Network UNISON Women’s Budget Group Women’s Resource Centre

Associate members

Amnesty International UK Black South West Network British Muslims for Secular Democracy Business Disability Forum Carers UK Caritas Social Action Network Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales Child Poverty Action Group Chronic Illness Inclusion Citizens Advice Consortium of LGBT Voluntary and Community Organisations Employers for Carers Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion Equal Rights Trust EqualiTeach Faith-based Regeneration Network FiLia Galop HEAR Inclusion London Inclusion North Just Fair Law Society Liberty Migrants’ Rights Network National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers National Survivor User Network Northern Ireland Council for Racial Equality Refugee Council René Cassin Restorative Justice for All

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Royal College of Nursing Stop Funding Hate Unite The Union Voice 4 Change England Why Me? YESS Law Young Women’s Trust

Observers

Centre on Migration, Policy and Society Equality and Human Rights Commission Government Equalities Office Greater London Authority Independent Police Complaints Commission Inter Faith Network Joint Committee on Human Rights of the UK Parliament JUSTICE Local Government Association Macmillan Cancer Support Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministry of Justice Office of the Committee for Employment & Social Security, States of Guernsey Scottish Human Rights Commission The Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England UN Women UK Unicef UK Women and Equalities Select Committee

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11. Reference and administrative information

COMPANY NUMBER 06464749 CHARITY NUMBER 1135357 Sarah Veale, Chair, co-opted, until July 2021 TRUSTEES AND DIRECTORS Jess McQuail, Chair, co-opted from July 2021 Julie Bishop, Vice-chair, elected Jean Scott, Treasurer, co-opted, until July 2021 Ibrahim Ali, Treasurer, co-opted, from July 2021 Chris Whitwell, co-opted Magdelene Davis, co-opted Clare Moody, elected, until May 2021 Wanda Wyporska, elected, until July 2021 Janet Veitch, elected, until October 2021 Andrea Simons, elected in July 2021 Kayvan Ravandi elected in July 2021, until October 2021 Asif Afridi, elected, until January 2022 Sue Coe, elected in July 2021, until April 2022

REGISTERED OFFICE The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London, SE11 5RR INDEPENDENT EXAMINER Heather Wheelhouse (ACA), BDO LLP, 55 Baker Street, London, W1U 7EU

BANKERS Unity Trust Bank plc, Nine Brindleyplace, 4 Oozells Square, Birmingham, B1 2HB

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12. Financial review

During 2021/2022 Equally Ours secured income of £559,624 (2021: £596,122), made up of £383,760 (2021: £386,130) for specific projects and £175,864 (2021: £209,992) of unrestricted income. This represents a decrease in total income of £36,498 (2021: increase of £229,285) compared to the prior year. Expenditure over the year was £570,613 (2021: £444,122), resulting in an overall net expenditure of £10,989 (2021: surplus of £152,000). At the end of 2021/2022 the unrestricted funds balance increased to £77,487 (2020/2021: £129,220), whilst the balance of £214,729 (2021: £173,985) on the restricted fund balance has all been committed for expenditure during the forthcoming period.

Reserves policy

The funds of the charity are held in the accumulated fund for use in line with the objectives of the trust. The Trustees have established a policy whereby the unrestricted funds not committed (the free reserves) held by the charity should aim to be three months of planned expenditure, which is currently £127,143. Closing down costs will be significantly less than this. The free reserves have decreased during the year to £77,487 (2021: £129,220).

Risk management

The Trustees continued to review the risks facing the charity, in particular the difficult funding climate and the challenge of securing sufficient income to cover both core and project costs. Core costs increased in 2021/22 due to the loss of our previously free IT, financial operations and preparation of management accounts, as well as the cost of living crisis. The Trustees continued to review and monitor the action plan for addressing the risk.

There was continued uncertainty in connection with core income, in part due to Covid-19 and the emerging cost of living crisis, but there is reasonable confidence that any financial risk can be managed within the charity reserves, whilst continuing to actively support partners in their work and in their response to the pandemic.

The Trustees reaffirmed that Equally Ours’ other main assets are its reputation and relationships and that consequently some of its main risks lie in these areas. Management of these risks is in many cases a matter of style and tone in relationships.

The Trustees believe that it is appropriate to prepare the accounts on a going concern basis. More details of this are included in note 1.

Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities in relation to the financial statements

The Trustees (who are also the directors of Equally Ours for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the Trustee’s annual report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations. Company law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year. Under that law the Trustees have elected to prepare financial statements in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards and applicable law). Under company law, the Trustees must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and the results of the charitable company for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

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The Trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the charitable company’s transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. 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.

In preparing the Trustees’ report advantage has been taken of the small company’s exemption.

Approved by the Trustees and signed on their behalf by:

Julie Bishop

Vice-Chair

Date: 6 December, 2022

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13. Independent examiner’s report to the Trustees of Equally Ours

I report to the charity’s Trustees on the accounts of the company for the year ended 31 March 2022.

This report is made solely to the charity's Trustees, as a body, in accordance with Regulation 31 of the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008. My work has been undertaken so that I might state to the charity's Trustees those matters I am required to state to them in an independent examiner's report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, I do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charity's Trustees as a body, for my work, for this report, or for the statement I have made.

Responsibilities and basis for report

As the charity’s Trustees of the Company (and also its directors for the purposes of company law) you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 (‘the 2006 Act’).

Having satisfied myself that the accounts of the Company are not required to be audited under Part 16 of the 2006 Act and are eligible for independent examination, I report in respect of my examination of your charity’s accounts as carried out under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the 2011 Act’). In carrying out my examination I have followed the directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5) (b) of the 2011 Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

Since the Company’s gross income exceeded £250,000 your examiner must be a member of a body listed in section 145 of the 2011 Act. I confirm that I am qualified to undertake the examination because I am member of the ICAEW, which is one of the listed bodies. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe:

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Heather Wheelhouse ACA

Date: 09 December 2022

BDO LLP, 55 Baker Street, London, W1U 7EU

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EQUALLY OURS

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES (including THE INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT) FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Notes
INCOME
Donations
3
Income from charitable
activities
Other income
3
TOTAL INCOME
EXPENDITURE
Expenditure on charitable
activities
4-7
TOTAL EXPENDITURE
Net (expenditure) /
income in funds
Total funds at 1 April 2021
Total funds at 31 March 2022		 Unrestricted
Funds
£
111,284
-
64,580		 Restricted
Funds
£
336,260
47,000
500		 Total
this year
£
447,544
47,000
65,080		 Total
Last year
£
535,834
-
60,288
175,864 383,760 559,624 596,122
204,764 365,849 570,613 444,122
204,764 365,849 570,613 444,122
(28,900)
129,220		 17,413
173,985		 (10,989)
303,205		 152,000
151,205
100,320 191,398 292,216 303,205

The statement of financial activities includes all gains and losses recognised in the year. All incoming resources and resources expended derive from continuing activities. The notes on pages 38 to 47 form part of these financial statements.

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EQUALLY OURS

BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31 MARCH 2022

Note
FIXED ASSETS
Tangible fixed assets
7
CURRENT ASSETS
Debtors
8
Cash at bank and in hand
CREDITORS
Amounts falling due within one year
9
TOTAL NET ASSETS
FUNDS
Unrestricted funds
Restricted funds		 Total this year
Total last year
£
£
5,837
-
91,001
84,943
267,970
331,679
358,971
416,622
72,592
113,417
292,216
303,205
100,320
129,220
191,398
173,985
292,216
303,205

The charitable company is entitled to exemption from audit under Section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 for the year ended 31 March 2022.

The members have not required the charitable company to obtain an audit of its financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2022 in accordance with Section 476 of the Companies Act 2006.

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EQUALLY OURS

The Trustees acknowledge their responsibilities for:

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the provisions of Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

These financial statements were approved by the Trustees on 6 December, 2022 and signed on their behalf by:

Julie Bishop Vice-Chair of Trustees

Company registration number: 06464749

The notes on pages 39 to 42 form part of these financial statements.

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EQUALLY OURS

STATEMENT OF CASHFLOWS AS AT 31 MARCH 2022

Net (expenditure) / income for the year
Adjustments for:
Depreciation of tangible fixed assets
Increase in debtors
(Decrease) / increase in creditors
Net cash generated from operating activities
Purchase of tangible fixed assets
Net cash used in investing activities
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the
reporting period
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the
reporting period
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the
reporting period		 This year
Last year
£
£
(10,989)
152,000
1,735
-
(6,058)
(36,108)
(40,825)
27,451
(56,137)
143,343
(7,572)
-
(7,572)
-
(63,709)
143,343
331,679
188,336
267,970
331,679

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EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22

1 ACCOUNTING POLICIES

General information

Equally Ours is a registered charity, number 1135357, and a charitable company limited by guarantee, number 06464749, incorporated in England and Wales. The address of its registered office is The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London, SE11 5RR.

Basis of accounts

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention with items recognised at cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant note(s) to these accounts. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial – Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS102) (effective 1 January 2019) (Charities SORP(FRS102)), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS102) and the Companies Act 2006.

The financial statements are prepared in pound sterling (£) and the figures are rounded to the nearest £.

Equally Ours constitutes a public benefit entity as defined by FRS 102.

At the time of approving the accounts, the Trustees have a reasonable expectation that the charity has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. The Trustees believe that whilst there is uncertainty, this does not pose a material uncertainty on the charity's ability to continue as a going concern. The Trustees therefore believe that it is appropriate to prepare the accounts on a going concern basis.

At the end of August 2022, the charity had approximately £199,000 of cash available.

The Trustees have prepared a stress test and this confirms that, based on confirmed income streams for the coming 12 months, the charity is able to meet liabilities as they fall due for at least another 12 months from the date of approval of the financial statements. Salaries make up a significant portion of the overall forecast expenditure for the next 12 months, however grant income is often directly linked to this. Staff are allocated to specific projects and the charity would be reactive to changes in staff requirements arising from project changes.

Company status

The charitable company is a company limited by guarantee. The members of the company are the Trustees named on page 29. In the event of the charitable company being wound up, the liability in respect of the guarantee is limited to £1 per member of the company.

Incoming resources

Income is recognised in the period in which the fund is entitled to receipt, it is probable that the income will be received and the amount can be measured with reasonable certainty.

Government grants

Government grants are recognized when it is reasonable to expect that the grants will be received and that all related conditions will be met usually on submission of a valid claim for payment. This includes the Government Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (‘Furlough’).

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Donated services and facilities

Donated services and facilities are recognised as income when any conditions associated with the donated item have been met, the receipt of economic benefit from the use by the charity of the item is probable, and that economic benefit can be measured reliably. On receipt, donated services and facilities are recognised on the basis of the value of the gift to the charity, which is the amount the charity would have been willing to pay to obtain services or facilities of equivalent economic benefit on the open market; a corresponding amount is then recognised in expenditure in the period of receipt.

Resources expended

Expenditure is included on an accruals basis. Expenditure is allocated directly to the activity to which it relates, including support costs which can be identified as being an integral part of direct charitable expenditure.

Operating leases

Rentals applicable to operating leases are charged to the Statement of financial activity over the period in which the cost is incurred.

Financial instruments

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

Fund accounting

Unrestricted funds - These are funds which can be used in accordance with the charitable objects at the discretion of the Trustees.

Restricted funds - These are funds that can only be used for particular restricted purposes within the objects of the charity.

Pension

Contributions to the charity’s defined contribution pension scheme are charged to the statement of financial activities account in the year in which they become payable. The assets of the scheme are held separately from those of the charity in an independently administered fund.

Tangible fixed assets

Depreciation is calculated to write off the cost less estimated residual value of fixed assets over their estimated useful lives.

– Computer equipment 25% reducing balance

Significant judgments and estimates

In the application of the charity's accounting policies, the directors are required to make judgments, estimates and assumptions about the carrying amounts 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 a

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estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised if the revision affects only that period, or in the period of the revision and future periods if the revision affects both current and future periods.

There were no judgment or material estimation uncertainties affecting the reported financial performance in the current or prior year.

2 TRUSTEES’ REMUNERATION

No Trustee has received any remuneration during the year (2021: £nil). See Note 5 for Trustee expenses.

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EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22

3
Membership fees,
training, furlough
payments, etc.		 UNRESTRICTED INCOME from
Donations
Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
John Ellerman Foundation
Advent of Change
Equality Trust (Institute for Fiscal Studies)
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
The AB Charitable Trust
RESTRICTED INCOME
Barrow Cadbury Trust
Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
Baring Foundation
Centre for Ageing Better
Comic Relief
Access Foundation
Aziz Foundation
National Lottery Community Fund
Trust for London
The Legal Education Foundation
Media Trust (City Bridge Trust)
OTHER INCOME		 This year
Last year
£
£
33,750
45,000
35,000
35,000
2,534
4,904
-
4,800
20,000
60,000
20,000
-
111,284
149,704
124,500
115,930
13,464
13,464
-
5,000
-
15,000
-
582
140,796
80,296
-
4,000
-
67,608
-
50,250
55,000
27,500
2,500
6,500
336,260
386,130
65,080
60,288

Government grants of £12,911 (2021: £5,350) relate to amounts receivable under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

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EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22

4 ANALYSIS OF EXPENDITURE ON CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES

Salaries
Other staff costs
General office costs
Independent examination &
accountancy fees
Legal fees
Bank charges
Insurance
Service charge & rent
Events venues & related costs
Research & publications
Campaigning
Website
Consultancy
Travel & subsistence
Depreciation
Bad debt provision		 Unrestricted
Restricted
This year
Last year
£
£
£
£
139,671
274,458
414,129
351,657
16,267
7,171
23,438
-
(12,151)
24,428
12,277
13,307
13,300
-
13,300
7,867
192
-
192
-
176
-
176
-
1,084
-
1,084
1,030
6,970
-
6,970
5,176
600
13,496
14,096
28,235
6,214
9,299
15,513
1,533
6,825
36,633
43,458
30,314
2,131
216
2,347
4,791
21,700
-
21,700
-
-
148
148
212
1,735
-
1,735
-
50
-
50
-
204,764
365,849
570,613
444,122

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EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22

5 EXPENSES AND FEES

5.1 Trustees’ expenses

This year Last year
Number of Trustees who were paid expenses 0 1
Nature of the expense Travel Travel
Total amount paid £nil £4
This year
£		 Last year
£
Independent examination 2,450 2,454
Accounts preparation 2,144 -
Total amount paid 4,594 2,454

6 STAFF

6.1 Staff costs

6.1
Staff costs
This year
£		 Last year
£
Gross wages, salaries and benefits in kind 357,354 303,696
Employer's National Insurance costs 31,513 25,832
Pension costs 25,262 22,129
Total amount paid 414,129 351,657

No members of staff received emoluments over £60,000, (2021: 1 member of staff received emoluments of £60,000 to £69,000)

6.2 Average number of full-time equivalent employees in the year.

Key management personnel included the Trustees, none of whom received any Remuneration. The Co-Chief Executives for whom the total amount of benefit was £74,055. The Communications Director received total amount of benefit of £65,827. The total benefit being £139,882, including employer’s National Insurance and employer’s pension contributions.

This year Last year
Average number of staff 10.3 8.9
Average number of fte staff 9.8 7.0

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EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22

7 TANGIBLE FIXED ASSETS

7 TANGIBLE FIXED ASSETS
Computer equipment Total
£ £
Cost
At 1 April 2021 - -
Additions 7,572 7,572
At 31 March 2022 7,572 7,572
Depreciation
At 1 April 2021 - -
Charge for the year 1,735 1,735
At 31 March 2022 1,735 1,735
Net book value
At 31 March 2022 5,837 5,837
At 31 March 2021 - -

8 DEBTORS

8 DEBTORS
Analysis of debtors Amounts falling due within one year
This year
£		 Last year
£
Prepayments and accrued income 51,993 9,093
Aged debtors 39,008 75,850
Total 91,001 84,943

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EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22

9 CREDITORS AND ACCRUALS

Analysis of creditors Analysis of creditors Amounts falling due within one year Amounts falling due within one year Amounts falling due within one year
This year
£		 Last year
£
Accounts payable 46,472 3,662
PAYE & pension creditor - 66,583
Accruals 15,820 22,272
Deferred income* 10,300 20,900
Total 72,592 113,417
*Analysis of deferred income – all amounts related
year for works to be carried out in future period.		 to grants/other income received in the current
b/f 1 April 2021 Esmée Fairbairn – yearly grant of £40K received 2020 –
apportioned to cover 6 months
Strategic communications training invoiced in full for two
sessions at £900 – second session held May/Jun 2021		 £20,000
£900
Total b/f & reversed in full £20,900
c/f 31 March 2022 Scottish Trans Alliance – instalment 2 of 3 for communicating
trans rights in Scotland
LGBT Youth Scotland – instalment 2 of 3 for communicating
trans rights in Scotland		 £4,200
£6,100
Total c/fwd £10,300

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EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22

10.1 FUNDER PURPOSE– NOTE THIS LIST TO BE UPDATED
AB Charitable Trust Core funding
Access Foundation Grant funding for enterprise development
Advent of Change Core funding
Barrow Cadbury Trust Grant funding towards Co-Chief Executives’ salaries
Barrow Cadbury Trust Funders for Race Equality Alliance
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation Contribution towards core costs of Equally Ours
John Ellerman Foundation Core funding
Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust Contribution towards core costs of Equally Ours with additional
Covid funding
Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust Grant funding - influencing EU funding after Brexit
Legal Education Foundation Grant funding - protecting rights
Media Trust (City Bridge Trust) Grant funding - Stronger Voices programme
National Lottery Community Fund Grant funding for community engagement
Trust for London Communications for Change strategic communications capacity-
building programme

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EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22

10.3 MOVEMENT OF RESTRICTED FUNDS (EARNED INCOME)

Fund balances
brought
forward		 Incoming
Resources		 Resources
expended		 Resources
expended		 Fund
balances
carried
forward
The Mayor's Office for Policing And
Crime (MOPAC)		 - 47,000 (5,408) 41,592
Total funds - 47,000 (5,408) 41,592
EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22
10.2 MOVEMENT OF RESTRICTED FUNDS (DONATIONS)
Fund balances
brought
forward		 Incoming
Resources		 Resources
expended		 Fund balances
carried forward
Barrow Cadbury Trust (1) 13,500 28,500 (32,833) 9,167
Trust for London 33,034 - (33,034) -
Access 23,789 140,796 (100,668) 63,917
Emergence Foundation 2,633 - (2,633) -
Media Trust (City Bridge Trust) 6,500 2,500 (9,000) -
Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust 3,558 13,464 (17,022) -
National Lottery Community Fund 47,210 - (47,210) -
Legal Education Foundation 13,000 55,000 (46,498) 21,502
Barrow Cadbury Trust (2) 30,761 96,000 (71,541) 55,220
Total funds 173,985 336,260 (360,439) 149,806

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11 ANALYSIS OF NET ASSETS BETWEEN FUNDS

Fixed assets
Current assets
Current liabilities
Total
Current assets
Current liabilities
Total		 Unrestricted
Funds
£
5,837
167,075
(72,592)
100,320
Unrestricted
Funds
£
242,637
(113,417)
129,220		 Restricted funds
£
-
214,729
214,729
Restricted funds
£
173,985
-
173,985		 2022 Total
£
5,837
359,731
(72,592)
292,216
2021 Total
£
416,622
(113,417)
303,205

EQUALLY OURS NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31.3.22

12 OPERATING LEASE COMMITMENTS

At 31 March 2022 the Charity had future minimum lease payments due under non-cancellable operating leases for each of the following periods:

This year
£		 Last year
£
Not later than 1 year 17,585 -
Later than 1 year and not later than 5 years 68,873 -
86,458 -

13 RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

Clare Moody, the Co-Chief executive of the Charity received amounts totaling £13,032 and charged £13,256 during the year for consultancy services. Equally Ours owed Clare Moody £224 at the year-end date.

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