2022-03-31-accounts

Disability Rights UK (A Company Limited by Guarantee)

Company No. 7314865 Charity No. 1138585

Report and financial statements

For the year ended

31 March 2022

Disability Rights UK Report and financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

Contents	Page
Reference and administrative information	1
Trustees’ annual report	2 - 45
Independent auditors' report	46 - 48
Statement of financial activities	49
(incorporating an income and expenditure account)
Balance sheet	50
Statement of cash flows	51
Notes to the financial statements	52 - 63

Disability Rights UK Reference and administrative information For the year ended 31 March 2022

Reference and administrative information

Trustees: Martin Stevens OBE Chair, resigned 31 December 2021 Liz Leach Murphy Chair, appointed 4 January 2022 Frances Hasler Vice Chair Lesley Baliga Treasurer Atif Choudhury Madeline Close Rob Trent Resigned 31 December 2021 Mostafa Attia Joanne Becker Greg Smith Laura Swainbank Shelley Simmonds Company Secretary: Nick Spencer Chief Executive: Kamran Mallick Company number: 7314865 Charity number: 1138585 Registered office: Plexal 14 East Bay Lane Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Stratford London E20 3BS Auditors: Goldwins Limited 75 Maygrove Road West Hampstead London NW6 2EG www.goldwins.co.uk Bankers Unity Trust Bank Nine Brindley Place Birmingham B1 2HB

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Trustees Annual Report

The trustees, who are also directors under company law, present their report and financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2022.

The trustees confirm that the financial statements comply with current statutory requirements, the memorandum and articles of association and the Statement of Recommended Practice - Accounting and Reporting by Charities: SORP applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with FRS 102.

A message from Liz Leach Murphy, Chair of Trustees

This has been my first year as Chair of Disability Rights UK, officially commencing the role on the 4th January 2022.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the members who supported my selection as Chair, in the time I have been with DR UK I have grown into the role and my confidence in serving the members, the team and the whole organisation continues to develop.

I came into position just as the country was coming out of the pandemic with the many challenges this had posed for DR UK, as it had the rest of the nation. It is testament to the strong will and sense of purpose that underpins DR UK that not only has DR UK survived the harsh realities of the pandemic but it continues to go from strength to strength.

This is due to the strong direction and leadership provided by the previous Chair, Martin Stevens and our CEO Kamran Mallick alongside the team, the board of trustees and the members.

Since I have been Chair I have had the opportunity to meet many of the team members and volunteers and I have appreciated the level of energy, focus and dedication demonstrated to achieving the purpose of DR UK, for this I would like to thank everyone involved. We celebrate the 10th year of DR UK in 2022 and will hold a celebration at our office in Stratford. This will be an opportunity for people to come together and share in the progress of DR UK

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

and partners towards upholding and strengthening rights for Disabled people across the UK. It is celebrations like this that bring people closer together in their sense of purpose and commitment to continue to make positive change.

We, however, continue to face unprecedented times with the ever-increasing cost of living, policy positions that do not support the achievement of an inclusive society and continued financial decisions that prevent an infrastructure that can truly provide the support required for people to live full and purposeful lives.

It’s more important than ever that we have a unified voice. This means we need the voices of Disabled Peoples Organisations to come together with our allies and create a strong, united challenge to the systemic inequalities in society today.

In light of this and to mark the 10th year of DR UK, 2022 will also see the development of a new strategy to shape the direction of travel over the coming years with a clear and purposeful vision of an inclusive society. Together we look forward to moving towards this vision as we begin to deliver on the strategy that will be shaped by members of DR UK alongside the team and the trustees.

In the rest of this report Kamran will present further information about the positive impact of the work of DR UK.

I would like to take this opportunity again to say thank you to our dedicated and visionary CEO Kamran Mallick, our trustees, the team, volunteers, ambassadors and our partners for all your dedication to realising the purpose and vision of DR UK.

I offer particular thanks to Frances who is stepping down from the board for her lifetime’s commitment to disability rights, with her sits the knowledge of history of the movement. I also offer thanks to Laura and Lesley who are also stepping down from the board this year.

I look forward to bringing my energy and support to DR UK as we work towards the delivery of our strategy for an inclusive society.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Liz Leach Murphy Chair

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Objectives and activities

As detailed in our last report, we are developing a Theory of Change (ToC) and an Impact Framework to measure the success of our strategy, and this will be completed in the current financial year.

The current plan is called Equal Participation for All the executive summary is below:

Vision

To create a society where Disabled people have equal power, rights and equality of opportunity.

Mission

We campaign for the rights of all disabled people to be included in every aspect of life. We bring the lived experiences of disabled people to everything we do. We challenge policy makers, institutions and individuals to remove the barriers that exist for us.

The trustees review the aims, objectives and activities of the charity each year. This report looks at what the charity has achieved and the outcomes of its work in the reporting period. The trustees report the success of each key activity and the benefits the charity has brought to those groups of people that it is set up to help. The review also helps the trustees ensure the charity's aims, objectives and activities remain focused on its stated purposes.

The trustees have referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission's general guidance on public benefit when reviewing the charity's aims and objectives and in planning its future activities. In particular, the trustees consider how planned activities will contribute to the aims and objectives that have been set.

Highlights of the year

Speaking up

Having added capacity, our policy work was considerable in the year. We challenged the lack of ambition in the Governments National Disability

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Strategy which launched in July. Our report, “We Belong” set out

recommendations for priorities for the strategy but we found these were for the large part not included in the strategy. In February 2022, the High Court found the National Disability Strategy to be unlawful.

We submitted responses to government consultations on mental health, emergency evacuation plans and many others and held debates on topics such as assisted dying.

In 2020, as we went into lockdown and closed the office, we set up a weekly meeting of CEOs and Policy staff from Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs). The group, called Our Voices, continued to meet throughout 2021 sharing knowledge and speaking with a unified voice on the inequalities that continued through the pandemic. The following organisations came together on a weekly and then monthly basis:

Disability Positive	Disability Sheffield
Spectrum CIL	Leicestershire CIL
Disability Peterborough	Asian People with Disabilities Alliance
Wiltshire CIL	Devon Living Options
Wheels for Wellbeing	Disability North
WECIL	Breakthrough UK
Disability Cornwall	Centre for Independent Living Kent

The group engaged with government departments, the Cabinet Office and Disability Unit on a range of topics impacting on Disabled people and our organisations.

This is a small sample on the range of issues the group spoke out on and tackled:

Digital Divide, Government Disability Strategy, Legal Action / Public Law Cases, Accessible Transport, Self-Directed Support/Social Care Charging/Individual Service Funds, Assisted Dying, Trading Arms/Social Enterprise, Collaborative working of DPOs, Low Pay Commission.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

In the final months of the year we got together with other DPOs to respond to the scope of the Covid Public Inquiry and instructed a law firm to act on behalf of the group seeking core participation status. The voice of Disabled people, those who have lived through the pandemic and through family and friends the voice of those who sadly lost their lives must be heard.

Advice and Information

Disabled people drive our organisation, our lived experiences inform what we do, say and write. The information we provide through our website and helplines is written and provided by Disabled people for Disable people.

Our helplines cover independent living, education and advice for benefit advisors. In the year we supported over 7,000 individuals answering their inquiries on a wide range of topics. Some of the issues covered included the loss of or reductions in care packages and the increasing inconsistencies of support as Personal Assistants or care workers isolated/shielded.

Our website received over 2.4 million page views, with visitors downloading fact sheets on a range of topics. The most popular over the year were Work Capability Assessment/Descriptors and Coronavirus.

Our new website

The current DR UK website was created back in 2012, now 10 years old it has needed to be overhauled for several years. The site is not mobile friendly and it has become difficult to navigate the significant amount of information contained. Thanks to a generous donation, we began the work of creating a new modern website.

With a focus on accessibility and useability, we carried out significant testing as development has progressed. The site will be launched in the 3rd quarter of 2022/23 and we can’t wait for you to try it.

In the following section you can read detailed information on our activities and outcomes during 2021/22.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Achievements and performance

Policy

April 2021 marked the lifting of Covid restrictions, but the direct and indirect consequences of the pandemic were far from over. Disability Rights UK continued to speak up and speak out to protect existing rights of Disabled people and to make the case for social justice and improvements to rights, policies and services.

The scope of our influencing work during 2021 to 2022 was considerable and included: challenging the lack of ambition in the Government’s National Disability Strategy; responding to the Green Paper on benefits and employment support; submitting responses to government consultations on mental health, women’s health, emergency evacuation plans, flexible working and workforce monitoring; enabling Disabled people to engage in policy debates on Assisted Dying and the Government’s record in implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; working with partners to launch the Disability Employment Charter; lobbying the House of Lords to remove care charges for Disabled people under 40 and making representations on the terms of reference of the Covid Public Inquiry.

We left the Disability Charities Consortium, to align Disability Rights UK with Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) more clearly. We convened and developed DR UK Our Voices and became an active member of the DPO Forum for England. We grew collaboration with allies, to strengthen our reach and influence.

Our policy work was greatly supported by our growing media voice, with major broadcasters and newspapers seeking our comment on a range of policy issues. This was particularly evident in the strong coverage of our views on the National Disability Strategy.

Rights

We supported Inclusion London’s work to prepare and promote a civil society report, in advance of the inspection of the UK Government on its implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

with Disabilities (UN CRPD). We held an online event in November 2021, seeking the views of Disabled people on the implementation of the UN CRPD. In March 2022, we organised a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Disability, to share civil society findings across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In March 2022, we brought DPOs, statutory organisations and academics together, to develop a Disability Hate Crime Charter. This work is on-going. We wrote to the Secretary of State for the Home Office, asking that Disability Hate Crime be made a criminal offence, following the Law Commission’s recommendation that this should happen.

In September 2021, we held an event on Assisted Dying, to enable Disabled people to hear the views of Disabled campaigners from both sides of the debate. Following the event, trustees decided that Disability Rights UK would maintain its neutral position.

We responded to the Government consultation on the British Bill of Rights – and were involved in campaigning with Liberty and others to extend the consultation deadline after the Government failed to provide accessible formats.

Covid Public Inquiry

In February 2021, we held a meeting of DPOs to consider the scope of the Covid Public Inquiry. Following this event, we worked with a lawyer and a group of DPOs to submit representations on the draft Terms of Reference for the Inquiry. We sought to ensure that the disproportionate impact on Disabled people was fully explored, and that the Inquiry was run in an accessible way. The final Terms of Reference signed-off in June 2022, included a commitment to examine the experience of those groups most affected.

Disability Strategy

In July 2021 the Government published its National Disability Strategy. It was a one-year action plan without ambition for fundamental change. However, some individual commitments were positive such as to improve engagement with Disabled people, improve the monitoring of disability, review the extra costs of disability and renew the Strategy on an annual basis.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Earlier in 2021, we had produced a report “We Belong”, which set out recommendations to Government on the priorities for the Disability Strategy. In the lead up to the Strategy, we met with the Minister for Disabled People and officials, to highlight areas for change. Whilst there were a handful of actions which echoed recommendations in “We Belong” the majority of our recommendations were not taken forward.

On the launch of the Strategy, we were critical of its lack of ambition and transformational change and spoke out on the media including BBC TV and radio, Sky TV, Times Radio and newspapers, about its failings.

Since the launch of the Strategy, we have contributed to various activities, including the review of Disability Confident, the design of a disability awareness campaign, proposals for a new technology centre and the review of stakeholder engagement.

In February 2022, The High Court found the National Disability Strategy to be unlawful due to the Government claiming its online survey constituted consultation. The Government is seeking to appeal the decision and has stopped some areas of work.

Social Security

During 2021/2022 we regularly met with the DWP in relation to the migration to Universal Credit (UC), its Health Transformation Programme initiative as well as issues relating to the work capability assessment and Personal Independence Payment. In addition we met with the Social Security Advisory Committee as well as Disability Benefits Consortium and DPO Froum England partners.

In October 2021, we responded to “Shaping Future Support” the DWP’s Green Paper on health and disability. We also contributed to responses by the Disability Benefits Consortium and the DPO Forum for England. We called for greater improvements to benefit processes, the removal of sanctions and improvements to Access to Work. We rejected proposals to merge extra costs and benefits with Universal Credit.

We coordinated a meeting between young Disabled people and the Minister for Disabled People in June 2021 to discuss how employment support could

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

be improved. We also organised a meeting in September 2021 between young Disabled people and DWP officials, to specifically respond to the employment aspects of the Green Paper.

Throughout 2021, we joined with partners to call for the £20 uplift to UC, to be extended to legacy benefits. We also highlighted DWP’s failure to safeguard vulnerable claimants, following several Coroner reports on benefit related deaths. DWP failed to respond positively in either of these areas.

In December 2021, we wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, highlighting the negative impact new regulations preventing disabled students from claiming UC, would have on their ability to attend University. We provided a witness statement in support of a legal challenge to these regulations. Although the case was unsuccessful, permission to appeal has now been granted.

Living Standards

At the beginning of 2022, the cost-of-living crisis began to have major consequences for Disabled people. In January 2022 we gained significant media attention for the dire situation being caused by increasing energy prices. Some Disabled people do not have a choice about how much energy to use, as it is essential to maintain health and sometimes life itself. We wrote to the Business Secretary asking him to support and protect Disabled energy consumers. We also drew attention to growing levels of food insecurity and participated in a major event organised by the Food Foundation. The most severely Disabled people experience 6 times as much food insecurity, as non-disabled people.

Social Care

Following our campaign with Liberty, Inclusion London and Mind, to restore Care Act Rights removed by the Coronavirus Act, in March 2021 the section of the Coronavirus Act that limited rights to social care was withdrawn.

In summer 2021, we worked with DPOs to produce a Social Care Statement and gained a number of signatures. We forwarded the Statement to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. We also wrote to the Minister for Care and Mental Health, asking that Disabled people be put at the heart of

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

the reform process. The Social Care White Paper published in December 2021 failed to set a new direction for social care or to tackle enormous under investment.

From January to March 2022, we worked with Inclusion London, Mencap and other partners to support efforts in the House of Lords to amend the Health and Care Bill, to enable free social care for Disabled people under 40, as recommended by the Dilnot Commission. The Government’s proposed care cap applied to all Disabled adults, requiring £86,000 to be contributed before care became free. We prepared parliamentary briefings and mounted a letter writing campaign, arguing that the charges prevented younger Disabled people from building their lives. Baroness Jane Campbell and others in the House of Lords gained considerable support for the proposal but ultimately it was defeated.

We fed into the Archbishops’ Commission on Re-imagining Care. In January 2022, we organised a workshop between the Commission and Disabled people’s led organisations, to ensure that our ambitions for social care were fed into this important Inquiry, which will report in Autumn 2022.

Health

We worked with the Kings Fund to explore what good engagement between Disabled people and health and care services looked like. We ensured participation from a range of DPOs and Disabled people. The report was published in July 2022, highlighting that a shift in values and priorities was needed on the part of health and care services, to ensure good engagement.

We continued to make the case for specific protections for those clinically vulnerable to Coronavirus either due to their condition or their inability to be vaccinated for medical reasons. In December 2021, we wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, asking that action be taken to provide medical, emotional and practical support, to those extremely vulnerable to coronavirus, and to ensure their employment protection.

In June 2021, we responded to the Government’s consultation on Women’s Health. We ran virtual discussion groups with Disabled women to inform our Response. We highlighted the lack of belief that women experience, the poor knowledge of certain health conditions, the failure to listen, the inaccessibility

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

of health services and the discrimination faced by Disabled NHS staff. The Women’s Health Strategy was published in July 2022 and includes the issues of disbelief and health inequalities faced by Disabled women.

We submitted a response to the Mental Health White Paper in April 2021, challenging the practice of compulsory detention and seeking a growth in community support services. We asked for monitoring to demonstrate the shift to community provision and regular reporting of incidents of restraint, seclusion and segregation.

We contributed to work being undertaken by Health Watch England to review the implementation of the NHS Accessible Information Standard. The Health Watch report was published in February 2022 and showed widespread systemic failures in implementing the Standard.

Education

We supported a Disabled school student to challenge the inadequate adjustments being offered by examination boards for her A-Level exams. This included an advocacy meeting and letter to the exam boards, as well as communication with the All Party Parliamentary Group for disability. Through doing this work we have recognised that using memory as a competency standard for assessments is discriminatory. We intend to build a campaign to challenge this issue.

We have responded to Government consultations and Education Select Committee requests for evidence. These include responses to consultations on attendance, behaviour and exclusions guidance; and select committee requests on the future of post-16 qualifications and careers advice.

Employment

In March 2021, supported by the Department For Education, we established a Disabled Apprentices Network, to understand how apprenticeships could be improved. The Network met monthly over 2021 and a report was produced for National Apprenticeship Week in February 2022.

In October 2021, a coalition including Disability Rights UK, UNISON, Shaw Trust, Leonard Cheshire, Scope and Disability at Work, launched a Disability

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Employment Charter at the Shaw 100 event. The Charter outlines actions that Government needs to take to close the disability employment gap. Actions include, improved employment programmes, timely provision of Access to Work, strengthened rules for securing reasonable adjustments and the representation of Disabled workers. The Charter continues to gain signatories and now has over 100. The Charter has been discussed with the Minister for Disabled people and officials.

In early December 2021, we submitted a response to the Government consultation on flexible working. We called for flexible working to be promoted in job adverts and to be available from day one of employment.

In March 2022, we submitted our response to the Government consultation on workforce monitoring, asking that for organisations with over 250 employees, the monitoring of Disabled staff should be mandatory. In addition, we proposed that a template for the collection of data on Disabled staff be produced, to be completed on a voluntary basis.

Housing

We supported the recommendation from phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, to place a legal duty on building owners and managing agents, to prepare Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) for Disabled people unable to self-evacuate in the event of fire. In summer 2021, we contributed to the Government’s Fire Safety Unit consultation on PEEPs. We, alongside Grenfell Next of Kin and the Disabled Leaseholders Action Group, submitted a response to the consultation. We also held a joint meeting between the AllParty Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Disability and the APPG on Fire Safety, to consider the Government consultation. This meeting was expertly chaired by Sir David Amess and heard the very moving testimony of a Grenfell Tower survivor. In April 2022 the Government rejected the recommendation to implement PEEPs.

We worked with the Housing Made for Everyone Coalition, to continue to press for improved accessibility standards for new build homes. A consultation on this issue closed in December 2020. Following a long delay in responding, the Government announced in July 2022 its intention to improve accessibility standards for new build homes.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Public Transport

We have been very active in pressing for a range of improvements to rail travel, including improved passenger assistance, travel and ticketing information in all formats, physical improvements to the accessibility of train stations and an improved response to disability hate crime. We have strong connections with the Department of Transport, Network Rail, Office for Rail and Road and the Rail Delivery Group.

In September 2021, to support Bus Service Improvement Plans, we worked with Bus Users UK to deliver online workshops targeted at Bus Companies, Local Authorities and Disabled bus users, to promote improved accessibility and passenger assistance. We also supported Bus Users UK to shape an audit of Bus Companies on the accessibility of service provision.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Information and Advice

We supported 635 disabled enquirers to our Independent Living helpline. We provided advice on accessing funding from social services, managing personal budgets, employing Personal Assistants, and what to do if things go wrong. Callers are often nervous about speaking to social services directly because they fear further loss of support, or they are overwhelmed by the complexity of the issues. Typically, our adviser speaks to or messages with an enquirer a few times over a couple of weeks to help them understand their rights and decide the most appropriate action.

Some major enquiry themes have included:

• The recruitment and retention of personal assistants (PAs). This has been a huge issue since the first lockdown in 2020 and many Disabled people reliant on social care still do not have consistent support. This is both in terms of familiarity, with the same PA working with the care recipient, but also in terms of time of provision delivery, and activities PAs will and will not carry out, through interpretation of the individual’s care plan.

• Employing your own PA. While this has always been an area of interest to Disabled people, and is an initiative we advocate fully, enquiries have increased during the pandemic. This is due to inconsistency and confusion over existing provision directly from local authority or their nominated provider, meaning Disabled people are exploring their options to address this.

• How to make a complaint against the local authority. Sadly, as above, many Disabled people have no option but to make a formal complaint to their local authority or council. Our helpline adviser is able to explore the steps taken by a Disabled person, and guide them through the process, should a formal complaint be the only available next option.

Turning to our survey, on each of the ‘before and after’ questions:

• ‘thinking about your own life and personal circumstances after you contacted the personal budget helpline, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole’;

• ‘how many opportunities did you feel that you had in life before you contacted the helpline’;

• ‘how free were you to decide how to live your life’;

• ‘how much of a say do you have over how you spend your free time’;

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

The respondents answers consistently increased by more than 1 point ie 10% after calling our helpline.

We also receive written feedback on the positive effects, for example:

• One enquirer, who had been given our helpline contact information by her daughter’s MP, said “It will change my daughter’s life as she will be able to claim the proper DRE from her County Council.”

• “I want to say a huge thank you to you personally - always on the ball and each of the councils mentioned above have had you quoted to them and they have all, without exception, backtracked as soon as I quote your advice, even if it takes them a good long while to accept it. What really bugs me is there must be thousands of people just accepting a NO from a council and don’t know they can challenge it and that organisations like yours actually exist to help. Anyway, I can’t fix the world, but I can help individuals now and again when backed by an organisation that knows its stuff. So thanks.”

• “brilliant service wish it were more prominent in google searches as it took me a while to find the info I was looking for”

Running the service has enabled our adviser to use their knowledge and understanding of the barriers Disabled people are facing to update our suite of factsheets. These cover independent living and practical issues such as housing, transport, Personal Budgets and finance. Our factsheets on Employment and Support Allowance and the Work Capability Assessment each attracted over 50,000 downloads last year. We have used them to underpin the work of our member Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs), Citizens Advice Bureaux and Law Centres and ensure they continue to have access to information they can trust to be relevant and accurate.

Our members’ advice line supported 552 enquiries from organisational members over the past 12 months. Our members include advice agencies, Law Centres, DPOs and other disability charities. This service is strategically important to the advice sector in the UK. It is of particular value to advisers from smaller advice agencies when clients present with complex welfare cases. We enable them to keep up with the pace of change in welfare rights and legislation and maintain their skills. Some smaller organisations draw upon our support up to 20 times per year.

Example enquiries:

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

• DWP refusing to backdate an income support and carer’s allowance award following a successful mandatory reconsideration. We were able to identify legislation to support this to be rectified.

• Disagreement over how self-employed earnings are averaged when assessing whether someone has stayed within permitted work rules. We identified means by which this should be calculated, which would back up the fact that the client’s average earnings were within the permitted work limits.

• Support to identify the difference between ‘NHS Continuing Healthcare’ and ‘NHS Funded Nursing Care’ in the context of PIP daily living component eligibility.

Each adviser that uses the helpline shares our information and advice with an average of three colleagues. One respondent to our survey estimated our advice supports 100 of his clients per year. The survey also suggests each member interaction results in an average of 17 people receiving support at local level. On this basis we calculate approximately 9,300 disabled people were indirect beneficiaries of the service over the past year.

Members have advised that interaction with our helpline saves an average of 1-2 hours of research per enquiry.

Many members calculate the value to them of the service as being thousands of pounds worth of time and money saved on research and training, for which smaller user-led DPOs would simply not have the budget. Similarly, many members said there were cases where the DR UK members’ line had helped them to engage with decision makers in cases of unfair practice or interpretation of policy.

We also receive written feedback on the positive effects, for example:

• “The service is an invaluable lifeline for us to be able to carry out casework efficiently and effectively.”

• “Mrs A applied for PIP and her claim was disallowed. Her appeal was unsuccessful and she scored 6 points for daily living and 4 points for mobility. We identified an error in law and drafted grounds for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal. This was accepted and a decision was made that the appeal should be heard again by a different tribunal. The client now has an opportunity to have her appeal to be heard again and with more time to get medical evidence.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Our Student Helpline assisted 1,608 enquiries during the period, well above the KPI set with Department for Education. The breakdown of the main subjects was as follows:

Funding for fees and living costs as a student	30%
Getting support with studies	16%
Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs)	15%
Equality Act	14%
Complaints	13%
Assessments/Exams	3%

We received feedback as below:

• “So helpful, wouldn’t have started the course without their advice

• “It was incredibly helpful, and the university took my complaint more seriously”

• “The person I spoke to was wonderful, so enthusiastic, knowledgeable and kind. She took the time to call me back, as was in another call when I rang, never does that happen so promptly.

• “The advice we were given was extremely helpful and gave my son the confidence to go through the appeals process, get the help and support from the Uni he should have had in the first place and get backing his course.”

Our main Information Line supported more than 7,200 enquirers across the year. This is despite operating at a reduced level for several months due to staffing issues. Some of the main, recurring themes encountered were:

• Parking

• The longstanding issue of extended delays in decisions on Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments

• Lack of access to advice

• The increasing issue of the loss of face to face and telephony services

• Poor accessibility or lack of support for Disabled people to festivals/events/theatres

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Career opportunities

The Leadership Academy Programme (LAP)

The LAP has now reached its 8th year and because of the pandemic we had to reconsider how we deliver and still meet the overarching objectives of the programme.

The 2022 cohort saw our first year of paid places being oversubscribed. With 21 delegates applying for LAP. We also secured some additional bespoke programmes, with The London Greater Authority (LGA), The Moorfields NHS Trust and Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust. The new partnerships and full cohort mean that LAP, has moved beyond a break-even position and has become a fully self-sustaining model.

80% of Delegates reported significant impact in their confidence, motivation, and ability to be open about their disability and the support that they need to advance and develop their careers. One of our former Delegates and now mentor, received an MBE because of his contribution to Leadership and Learning for Disabled people. We continue to see delegates having career progression, whilst on the programme and after completing the course.

Bridge to Work

We commissioned two external evaluators to support the overall evaluation of the programme, which draws to a close in December 2022. Over the year, with the support of the consultants, we have been engaging with the six project partners, their participants and employers, to gather data and insight that will feed into the final evaluation. The consultants have also analysed the data from across the first four years of the programme. We are planning two reports for Q4 (March 2023) – one internal for DR UK, City Bridge Trust (CBT) and the six project partners, and one external for recommendations for employers and policy makers. We are looking at how we might use the external report to create impact.

Owing to our involvement with the programme, Anna Denham has been part of the Research Advisory Group for the Work Foundation and Lancaster University’s recent research (funded by CBT), into hybrid and remote working

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

practices for Disabled people post-pandemic. The policy team is now picking up the learning and the recommendations from the report.

Disability and Skills Unit

The Disability and Skills Unit supports behaviour change amongst providers, employers and disabled people themselves and aims to share best practice, raise awareness and understanding of ways to make learning, apprenticeships, traineeships and supported internships inclusive.

Training

We delivered 16 online workshops/training events. Attendees consisted of careers and enterprise advisers/leads, job coaches, employment support officers, teachers, training providers, employers, disability advisers, NHS, local and regional authorities, parents, organisations working with Disabled people, and other stakeholders.

Webinars included: Assistive Technology; Introduction to Understanding Autism; Transitioning back to education and getting into good learning shape; Disability Awareness and Inclusive Practice; Supporting Disabled Apprentices in the Workplace and joint sessions with Amazing Apprenticeships.

Some Feedback:

• Thank you an excellent session and I will bring this information back to the Disabled members Committee.

• This was a useful session, gave me a better understanding & also passed on some useful contacts & websites to look into for further support.

• A very good session with some really good tips and learning to take forward.

Some issues raised:

• There is a lack of knowledge and awareness (about hearing loss)

• It would perhaps be best for employers to ask if any additional support is required rather than ask if someone is ‘disabled’, as disability does not always equal a need for additional support.

• Reasonable Adjustments being made to help with the disability. Too many times having to fight for something that I should be entitled to under the Equality Act 2010.

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Some participants were asked how they will be able to utilise what they heard in their delivery content?

• Will use the content in the delivery to SEND schools and the resources for employers.

• Having a little more knowledge around the subject just helps me read my audiences a little more & hopefully pass on that understanding in the way I deliver the apprenticeship information.

• The information will help me when completing the planning aspect of the session and will further inform my delivery of SEND sessions.

• Broadly speaking, able to deliver with greater appreciation of the varying needs of people with autism. More awareness of how language can be interpreted literally.

Annual conference

Get ahead: Post -16 options for Disabled young people

The conference was attended by 146 people. The conference addressed some of the challenges Disabled young people face on their journey through education, training, and work and featured presentations from different government departments, organisations, careers advisers and members of the Disabled Apprentice Network.

Some feedback from the conference:

• Thank you so much for an informative and inspiring day. Lots to mull over and practical ideas to take away. thank you all.... marvellous conference

• Thank you so much Disability Rights UK Team for organising today's webinar. I found the presentations hugely helpful as a parent

• All the information and links will be so useful for my role working with young people who are NEET to remove barriers.

• Many thanks to all the presenters and guests and young people sharing their Apprenticeship experiences. Really engaging day, Thank you.

• Thank you, brilliant information and resources

• Once again, fantastic event, thank you

Final Combined feedback from the webinars shows:

• 86% of participants said their knowledge of the support that is available in education, training and employment had increased.

• 85% of participants reported an improvement in their understanding of

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• disability and equality.

• 94% of participants said they had a better knowledge of relevant resources.

Get Ahead

To reach out and inform Disabled young people about post 16-options, resources and have their voices heard, we have created the Get Ahead project and resource/toolkit.

The subscription list is over 1000 consisting of Disabled young people and their support network, careers and enterprise advisers, job coaches, teachers, training providers, local and regional authorities, employers, parents, NHS, organisations working with Disabled people, and other stakeholders.

• “It has been a fabulous year working with you. The students have really grown in confidence, ability and experience and I want to say a massive thank you for such an amazing opportunity.” Louise W. teacher Daventry Hill School

• “

• ● Extremely helpful, we have had lots of people contact us through our

• mention in Get Ahead. It has allowed us to connect with people and organisations with the shared values and aims .” Natalie B from SuperPeople

• “This is the first issue since subscribing and I am very impressed! I found the articles very interesting and informative and will share with my colleagues.” Learning & Organisational Development Practitioner, Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust

Get Ahead has been promoted on other websites including Thurrock Council, Ealing Local offer newsletter, Ican and Amazing Apprenticeships

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/get-ahead

Disabled Apprentice Network (DAN)

Disability Rights UK has convened the Disabled Apprentice Network to support the Department for Education to improve the diversity and accessibility of Apprenticeships.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

The aim of the network is to gather feedback and ideas from Disabled apprentices and former apprentices to address any issues, barriers and solutions to make apprenticeships more accessible and inclusive. The network had 15 people signed up and met monthly.

A report was published during National Apprenticeship Week, including an Easy Read summary and text only version.

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/how-we-can-help/special-projects/disabledapprentice-network

We published a video of some of the apprentices sharing their experiences.

= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v MK21LLjGIXs

The report was also published on other websites including Jobs and Careers: https://www.jobsandcareersmag.com/new-report-shows-the-way-fordisabled-people-and-apprenticeships/

Advisory groups

We attended and contributed to different advisory groups including the YEG groups, DWP National Info & Advice service, the ‘Young Lives Young Futures' ESRC project Advisory Panel, BEIS roundtable discussion, Skillsbuilder SEND meetings, T-level, SEND advisory group and AtW Forum.

Other activities

We have provided feedback, suggestion and links to the Disabled Apprentice Network, the National Careers Service, Cabinet Office/Social Mobility Commission toolkit: “Apprenticeships that work for all”.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/1025237/SMC-Apprenticeships-Toolkit.pdf

Kickstart

We employed a young Disabled person for 6 months through the Kickstart programme.

“I started work at Disability Rights through the Kickstart programme, my job role is Project Assistant. Working on the Get Ahead Magazine and Newsletter

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

I research for different articles, write articles, and edit both publications. I also work on social media, both Instagram and Twitter. Also attending webinars and participating in the Disability Right conference, giving my own presentation on what it is like to be on the Autistic Spectrum and talk about my own personal experiences. I have learnt both research and editing skills, public speaking, social media, and article writing as well as putting together a publication. These skills I hope to take with me in my next position of employment.” Caroline

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Influencing public attitudes and behaviours

Media coverage

We had 128 print/digital media mentions between January and August 2021. In 2019, we had 34 mentions all year.

Pandemic

The pandemic saw the need for the Disabled voice to be amplified in the national press, as our community was affected in greater numbers than other communities, while at the same time, noise about the virus threatened to drown out our voice. It was a slog to get the range of issues into the national press, and to punch up to ensure that we were heard on everything from care home standards and visits, PPE, vaccinations, disproportionate deaths, hardship, and government comms and signposting.

We worked hard to get the social issues into the media – food supply for Disabled people was a big issue in 2021, and comms focussed both on advising supermarkets of what works for Disabled people, and trying to get the scale of the problem into the national conversation.

During the pandemic we set up an online one stop shop of information, updated as the Government and local resources were updated, signposting Disabled people to what they needed – from money, to food and medical resources.

Advising Government

We were part of the Government’s roundtable advisory groups on Covid communications, advising on formats, channels, locations and clarity and reminding Government of its obligations to Disabled people, holding departments to account on making accessible comms a lesser priority, and succeeding in helping them speed up production of accessible comms.

Media Trust

We worked with Media Trust to encourage the media to adopt better tone and content when it comes to coverage of disability issues, and to understand the

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importance of a representative workforce, containing, and where possible, led by disabled people when reporting on disability issues. We put together a strong bid for Dreamfund funding to enhance DPO media coverage. Unfortunately, DR UK was not chosen, but the groundwork can be used for future bids.

Daily Mirror

We continued to work with the Daily Mirror by attending its Reach Group (the owner of the Mirror, Express and a large swathe of UK regional media) senior leadership editorial meetings twice a year to advice on accessibility of print and digital channels, voice, tone and content, advising strongly that they move away from the victims and scroungers tone that tabloids use. The upshot of these meetings is that now (in 2022) they are rolling out training on how to write about disability, they ran a week of articles on disability led by Disabled people (for which we were a primary advisory resource and contributed to online material and a print double page spread) and Anna Morell our Comms Manager has now been taken on as a weekly columnist for Mirror Online, with a DR UK hat on.

Channel 4

We commenced work with Channel 4’s diversity leadership, which has culminated in a new disability strategy (released in 2022) for the organisation. We also worked closely with its lead on the Paralympics, discussing tone, voice, and on screen talent. Channel 4 is a very listening organisation and a strong disability ally and we have a strong relationship with key people within the organisation.

National Disability Strategy

Our We Belong work, which gathered together the views of disabled people into a strong set of recommendations for Government formed the basis of our comms campaign work which gained coverage on BBC TV and radio, Sky TV, Times Radio and newspapers. We were heavily critical of the Government’s released Strategy, and the unlawfulness of its consultation period.

Ad hoc work

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

We continued to act as a resource for a range of charities, lobbying groups NGOs and media companies looking for steer on language, tone and content on a range of disability issues.

We advised a number of film and documentary companies on disability issues and how best to cover them. We presented facts and figures to a range of TV and digital media looking to run stories on disability.

We continued to push the social model angle of coverage, over a focus on individual conditions, and to encourage journalists who use a single point of focus personal story to widen their lens to speak about the social model as part of their coverage of disability.

In 2021 there was considerable overlap between press and comms in terms of managing workload. With the hiring of new policy staff in 2022, there is now greater scope to develop new strategies, in terms of deepening existing media relationships, and exploring new channels.

Get Yourself Active (GYA) The next phase

The GYA team worked together with allies to develop a bid to become a System Partner of Sport England, alongside approximately 120 other organisations from across a range of sectors.

This means an investment of £1,773,068 over four years and nine months, allowing us to continue our existing work and to expand our reach and potential impact. It should also mean greater autonomy and better collaboration with other organisations that are working in the sector.

In the last year we have appointed a Communications Officer to the team. This additional capacity will enable the team to take on more policy, advocacy and influencing work, and to link it in more closely with DR UK’s strategic priorities and wider policy work.

Together Fund

At the start of this period, we were awarded an additional £250,000 to award to DPOs and small/micro community-based organisations via the third phase

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of the Tackling Inequalities Fund (now known as the Together Fund). This enabled organisations to continue to deliver sport and physical activities at a local level for Disabled people and people with long-term health conditions, and for us to support them with resilience as they recovered from the pandemic.

We continue to learn from these organisations about their activity offers, and the barriers and challenges they face at a local level. This will support our policy function and wider aim of building a movement.

To-date we have funded 103 projects through the Together Fund, with a total of £467,369.83 fund money.

Advocacy, Influencing and Communications

We worked with National Outdoors for All Working Group (NOfAWG) and the newly established Blue Spaces Forum, to influence decision makers working in sectors that impact on Disabled people’s access to green (parks, woodlands), and blue (lakes, coasts) spaces, which for many are spaces for physical activity. As a result of close partnership working with Groundwork over the past two years, as part of the NOfAWG, DR UK partnered with them and other organisations, on New to Nature, a project that will see young people aged 18-25 given new, full-time, temporary jobs in nature and landscape organisations across the UK, increasing diversity and representation.

We remain a Partner of the Coalition for Personalised Care and in addition to having a place on the Programme Board and the Co-production Subgroup, we worked with the Coalition and Think Local Act Personal on their new Care Communicators network. The aim is to influence other partner organisations on working in co-production and striving to bring Lived Experience into communications.

Our new and improved website launched in March 2022, and we have seen an increase in visits to the site and greater engagement with our social media. We release one new blog per week and many of these are coproduced or written by a partner organisation or guest writer. We worked with the Centre for Ageing Better and some of our Together Fund partners, on a project called Picture Yourself Active to produce a significant “bank” of photos

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

showing older (50+) Disabled people being active such as exercise classes or walking outside. This has improved the imagery that we are using across our website and comms.

Moving Social Work (MSW)

MSW is a partnership between Durham University and DR UK with support from Sport England, National Institute for Health Research and a range of partners. The project team will produce the first co-produced, research-led teaching and community-based training materials and resources on physical activity for social workers..

The project team developed and piloted evidence-based modules and learning resources for social workers through a Delphi study and a series of knowledge cafes in the North East. DR UK have supported the research team with joint project oversight and facilitation of the Moving Social Work Collective, a group of individuals with lived and learned experience with a specific remit around co-production for the project. The next step is to explore approaches for rolling out the education programme across England and tackling emergent barriers to social workers promoting physical activity.

Social Care Activity Pack

Following positive feedback from social care providers on the Social Care Activity Pack, we worked with Spectrum Centre for Independent Living to design and pilot some training sessions for frontline social care workers. This was delivered across 5 social care providers (Ivy Care Homes, Nottingham Council, Sense, United Response, Walsingham Support) to social care workers in varying roles. We received positive feedback on the training, that it increased confidence in promoting physical activity to the people they support. We will see more social care provider partners to support the role out of the pack and training.

Together with partners at Skills for Care and filmmakers Rainbow Collective, we are creating video case studies of Disabled people getting active in social care environments which supports this work.

GYA Co-production

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

We have continued to work with local organisations to deliver co-production training to the sport sector including Inclusion Gloucestershire, Disability Action Haringey and West of England Centre for Independent Living.

We increased our work to advocate for co-production and share its importance with other organisations. We have increased our communications around co-production with the support of our new communications officer. This has included writing blogs to promote co-production approaches within the sport and physical activity sector, and writing guest blogs for other organisations, such as the Co-production Collective. We connected with Leonard Cheshire to deliver a podcast around co-production in January. In addition, we worked with the Moving Social Work co-production team to develop an animated translation of the co-production paper written by Brett Smith from Durham University.

We have continued to develop the sounding board group who we engage with on a number of issues arising through the GYA programme. In the next year we will recruit more members and create a page on the GYA website with their biographies.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Training and Consultancy 2022

During the pandemic we started delivering online training and this took off in a bigger way in 2021/22, delivering an operational profit of over £40,000. DR UK worked with over 70 private and public sector organisations to promote and create inclusive environments, products and services. Disability Confidence training remained our primary product, mainly training managers and HR teams. These businesses included:

• Amplify

• Beauty Pie

• Berkeley Group

• Commonwealth Scholarship Commission

• DanceXchange

• Freedom Leisure

• Innocent drinks

• Jo Cox Foundation

• Joseph Rowntree Foundation

• Liberty

• LSE

• Musicians Union

• Netcompany

• NHS

• Pregnant Then Screwed

• Quakers

• Sadler's Wells

• SEGA

• Siemens

• UCL

We also continued to expand the other ways we work with businesses, such as access audits and Disability Confident Level 3 Leader validation. We continued to deliver ad hoc consultancy to ALDI, South Western Railways and Oxford University Press. amongst others and utilised our in-house expertise for external speaking opportunities.

In total our training and consultancy delivered an operational surplus of £40,050, a profit increase more than one third up on the previous year.

Sales

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

We launched a digital version of our Disability Rights Handbook and made it available on Child Poverty Action Group’s AskCPAG platform. In the first year we attracted over 300 subscribers. Fully searchable and linked internally, you can skip to the next piece of relevant information with one mouse click. The platform is updated every two months which means the Handbook keeps pace with social security reform and changes to the law – so advisors around the country can ensure Disabled people get the benefits they are entitled to.

Feedback:

• “A very welcome addition due to the automatic updates and easy accessibility”

• “Allows me to copy and paste information to share with clients and colleagues”

• “The best information source I have found in the 19 years I've been doing this job”

Sales of Radar keys soared to their highest ever level. The keys provide independent access to over 9,000 accessible public toilets around the UK. We work in partnership with Nicholls & Clarke, who invented the Radar locks that are still fitted and used today, on the National Key Scheme. The number of keys sold in the financial year was 16,142, which represents a huge 50% increase on 2020/21.

Fundraising

We invested in a dedicated Fundraising Manager post last year, and this has paid dividends. We have had notable fundraising success which led to an increase in our Policy Team capacity by nearly 300%. This has enabled us to enhance our service to Disabled People’s Organisations and to develop our overall equalities commitment. We have also been able to ramp up our partnership work with a view to this having a longer-term impact on our joint fundraising capacity. In line with our values, we are looking to maximise our ability to co-produce funding bids – not simply because it is the right thing to do, but also because it is increasingly expected by funders.

During this year we secured funding from a variety of sources, described below.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

The Three Guineas Trust awarded £250,000 to expand our policy function, creating an agile team which works in a flexible and creative way, collaborating across the whole policy spectrum whilst individually taking on specific responsibility for different areas such as education, transport and health and social care. This enables both focus on specific campaigns as well as flexibility across the policy team.

Securing this funding meant that we were eligible to apply for an extra £10,000 for specific equality and diversity work over two years. We have secured this additional resource and are using it to focus on race and racism in recognition of the work we need to do as an organisation for people with Disabilities, many of whom will be from Black and minoritised communities and who are not currently accessing our services. This is something we are committed to addressing, and we want to do it properly and ‘go deep’ rather than attempt to address all inequities at once. We nevertheless see this work as key in our journey towards full diversity, equality and inclusion.

The Legal Education Foundation (LEF) awarded £285,000 over three years to work with 60 Disabled People’s Organisations to strengthen them and render them able to offer better quality advice and information. This will lead to better financial and wellbeing outcomes for Disabled people and to Advice Quality Standard accreditation for a quarter of the organisations we work with. We have also agreed with the funder to progress towards the establishment of a better referral network with improved capacity.

In addition to our Trusts and Foundations work we are also developing our digital fundraising strategy in tandem with the update of the website and considering ways in which we can utilise our resources to increase giving through digital means.

We secured a £25,000 contract from the Local Government Association to design and deliver a bespoke new leadership development programme for elected councillors who have disabilities, providing those who participate with unique networking opportunities and support. Our methodology and overall approach ensure that Disabled people are not merely involved, they are actively shaping, experiencing and evaluating the programme throughout all its stages.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

We also received a modest amount of funding from the University of Sheffield to participate in a project to embed equality, diversity and inclusion into usability testing. We hope this will be a gateway to further partnership work with them in the future.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Plans for the future

Policy Priorities for 2022 to 2023

Policy priorities were agreed as part of our 2020 to 2023 strategy and they will continue to guide our policy work for the coming year. However a new priority relating to defending and securing rights has been added to include work on the Human Rights Act, hate crime and climate change. We have also added a priority on ensuring the voices of Disabled people are heard in all inquiries into the impact of the Covid pandemic. We have extended the employment priority to include education.

• To protect and secure rights for Disabled people

• To ensure the voices of Disabled people are heard during inquiries into the impact of the Covid pandemic

• To influence the level of benefits and improve benefit processes.

• To improve health and social care

• To influence the National Disability Strategy

• To improve education and employment opportunities

• To influence digital accessibility and inclusion

• To improve participation and representation

• To influence transport, housing and the built environment

Refreshing our strategy

We will refresh our current strategy which has run for longer than we originally intended. The trustees extended the strategy as we worked through the two years of the pandemic. In 2022/23 we will refresh our Theory of Change (ToC) and the strategy to deliver this. The ToC helps us understand our goal of arriving at an inclusive society and what the determinants of this are and what role we can play in achieving this. This will take us all year as we want to work in a collaborative way with our trustees, staff and volunteers and then to engage with stakeholders and Disabled People's Organisations. Central to our thinking is the idea of a community made up at its core by Disabled people and our organisations. A movement that will speak up on key issues with a unified voice, speaking truth to power. The power of collective

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

action and creating allyship with others with whom our vision overlaps and intersects.

The strategy review will include work to establish robust monitoring and evaluation of our impact and the underlying structures and funding needed.

General Election

With the General Election now on the horizon we will connect with political parties to put forward the views of Disabled people and to understand what each party is planning for its manifesto. We will in partnership with other look for ways to support Disabled people who are interested in better understanding the political landscape and what it take to be involved on a local and national level.

UNCRPD

We contributed to the Civil Society report in 2021/22. We will continue to support colleagues in Inclusion London and the other nations as this progresses to the UNCRPD committee. We will seek funding to support a delegation of representative organisations and individuals to be present when the committee carries out its review.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI)

We appointed Fearless Futures to work with us in continuing our work in this area. We have set out our challenge for DR UK to be an anti-racist organisation, we will scrutinise ourselves and be open and transparent on what we find and what we are doing to bring about lasting change. It is a journey we are on and committed to. EDI must be a thread in the way we work, who we work with, how we work and how we speak out. As the work progresses, we will be engaging with our DPO colleagues to support them on their journey.

Review our Ambassador programme

Our strategic review will also include a review of our ambassadors. We had planned to carry this work out in 2021/22 but capacity issues meant that we were not able to.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Cost of living crisis

As we entered 2022 it was clear that the cost-of-living crisis was going to deepen and have a significant negative impact on Disabled people. We will in the year continue to speak out strongly on the support that must be provided to Disabled people to make it through. No Disabled person should have to choose between heating their home or having food to eat. We will work in partnership with other DPOs and allies in this work.

Disabled Peoples Organisations

We will continue to build on our work with DPOs through the creation of a new role that will directly engage with and support the sector. We want to support our DPO organisations enabling them to continue the important role they play in their communities.

Website

Work will continue in the year on our new website. A strong focus has been accessibility of the site. We want to be accessible to all those who visit regardless of the device and accessibility software used.

We aim to launch in October/November 2022.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Financial review

The charity had a positive movement in funds of £8,720 (2021 £125,623). This has improved the balance sheet which now shows net assets of £314,215 (£305,495), of which unrestricted are £241,568.

This was the second year of the Covid pandemic and the charity planned for it to be more challenging than the first. Last year the charity was fortunate to receive one off donations and grants in response to the pandemic and was able to make cost savings. But as in the previous year the charity continued to look for new income streams and keep costs down. And the small surplus was a pleasing outcome.

The handbook had sales of 9,165 down slightly on previous years but still made a significant contribution. A digital handbook is now available and although sales are around £8k it is important to offer this as an alternative to the traditional hard copy version and could provide additional growth.

Key sales had their best year with sales of just over 16,000 and these strong figures are continuing in the current year.

We continued to work on projects with the Department of Health, City Bridge Trust, Sport England and received donations and grants from funders who are listed separately in this report.

Training and consultancy performed strongly and the Leadership Academy continued with both the internal and external courses. The current cohort is fully booked.

We were awarded a grant from the Three Guineas Trust, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts. It is for £250,000 over three years and the funding is primarily designed to increase our capacity to influence policy change.

At the end of the year we received a one off unrestricted grant from Step Change of £30,000.

We were also awarded a grant from the Legal Education Foundation which will start in April 2022 and run for three years . The grant is for building quality and capacity in Disabled People’s organisations.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

The Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) was paid off in November 2021. This was a momentous occasion and the pension deficit, first as an actual deficit and then as a CVA, has now been cleared. This has been with the organisation for all its existence and is a great way to celebrate the 10 year anniversary.

Financial planning and building reserves will be much more straightforward without the monthly CVA payments.

The active pension arrangements for staff are all now defined contribution and the charity has complied with its obligations under auto enrolment. This has included the second three year anniversary re-enrolment which was completed in July 2022.

The Finance team supports the charity’s activities by providing financial analysis, reporting to funders and giving administration support. The charity does not hold material financial investments.

Reserves policy

As at 31 March 2022, net assets are £314,215, of which unrestricted reserves are £241,568.

The reserves policy is reviewed annually by the Finance Committee and the main Board.

In reviewing the policy, the following matters were considered:

The core running costs for 3 months are around £250,000.

The charity has a variety of income streams which are both long and short term. And like many charities some income is uncertain and there are always income targets that need to be met.

The current cost of living crisis and economic climate has created further uncertainty with high inflation and a possible recession. This will undoubtedly feed through to higher costs. The Board have requested an additional £50,000 to cover this.

The policy is therefore to try to build up unrestricted reserves to £300,000.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Going concern

The charity manages its cash position very carefully. The 2022/23 budget was developed on a prudent basis taking into account any potential future impacts of Covid and the uncertain economic climate. The budget, cash flow and financial plans are closely monitored with any negative variances being quickly addressed to ensure the financial viability of the organisation over the longer-term.

The trustees have considered the going concern issue and are confident that there are sufficient resources and plans in place to ensure the charity is a going-concern for the twelve months following the signing of these accounts.

Principal risks and uncertainties

The principal risks faced by the charity are the failure to secure new grant and trust funding and a reduction in unrestricted income through sales, donations or training and consultancy.

The trustees are fully aware of this and there is a constant drive to find new sources of income. At the same time costs are monitored as closely as possible. The Leadership Team review the top risks regularly, and these are presented to every Board of Trustees meeting. In addition, the Risk Register itself has been reviewed and improvements made around actions and controls.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

With thanks to our Funders

We would like to thank our funders and supporters for their funding and kind donations throughout the year:

• Care Quality Commission

• City Bridge Trust

• Department for Education

• Department of Health

• Edinburgh Trust

• Edward Gosling Foundation

• Elizabeth and Prince Zaiger Trust

• Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

• GD Herbert Charitable Trust

• Joseph Levy Foundation

• National Lottery Community Fund

• Nicholls and Clarke

• Snowdon Trust

• Sport England

Some special thanks to those who took the time to fundraise for us during the year, including:

• Ashden Tredgold

• Becky Roberts

• Mia Hadfield-Spoor

• Bikeworks CIC

And finally thank you to our members.

All our funders, supporters and members enable us to deliver our priorities and strengthen our voice.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

Structure, governance and management

The charitable company was established under a memorandum of association and is governed under its articles of association which are available on the website.

As per the Articles of Association, the board must consist of a minimum of six trustees and a maximum of 16 of whom 75% must be Disabled people. No fewer than three quarters of the board shall be elected by the membership and no more than one quarter appointed by the board. Currently the board comprises 10 Trustees of whom 9 were elected with the treasurer being appointed by the board. The board manages the business of the charity and exercises all the powers of Disability Rights UK. It seeks to ensure the charity is compliant with charity and company law and works with its charitable objectives.

We have two sub committees accountable to the main board, each with agreed terms of reference and delegated authority from the board. They are the Finance Committee and the People and Governance Committee. A member of the management team is responsible for each committee. These committees can have co-opted members who are not trustees, at the discretion of the main board. These individuals are subject to the same declaration of interest policy as trustees.

The trustees delegate the day-to-day running of the organisation to the Chief Executive, supported by the Leadership Team, who are the Financial Controller, Head of Policy, Head of Advice and Information, Head of Programmes and Impact, and Head of Development.

The organisation is a private company limited by guarantee, incorporated on 14 July 2010 and registered as a charity on 26 October 2010. Members of the charity guarantee to contribute an amount not exceeding £1 to the assets of the charity in the event of winding up.

All trustees give their time voluntarily and receive no benefits from the charity. Any expenses reclaimed from the charity are set out in note 7 to the accounts.

Appointment of trustees

New trustees are appointed through a fair and open process ensuring, as far as possible, diverse representation from a cross section of society, including

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

different experiences of disability and skills. Trustees are elected on a threeyear cycle.

Trustee induction and training

New trustees spend a day meeting key management personnel and other members of staff to learn about the projects and programmes delivered by the charity.

Remuneration policy for key management personnel

Remuneration for all staff, including key management personnel, is considered in the December/January period before year-end when the budget for the next year is set. There is union consultation via a member of staff under a voluntary trade union agreement between the charity and the union.

Final decisions on remuneration are made by the People Committee and Financial Performance Committee and then ratified by the main board. This policy applies to all staff, including key management personnel.

Statement of responsibilities of the trustees

The trustees (who are also directors of Disability Rights UK for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the trustees’ annual report including the strategic 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 charitable company and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:

• Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently

• Observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP

• Make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent

• State whether applicable UK Accounting Standards and statements of recommended practice have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements

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

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

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2022

safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

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

Statement as to disclosure to our auditors

In so far as the trustees are aware:

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

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

Auditors

Goldwins were re-appointed as the charitable company’s auditors during the year and have expressed their willingness to continue in that capacity.

The trustees’ annual report has been approved by the trustees on September 22[nd] 2022 and signed on their behalf by;

…………………………………….

Lesley Baliga Treasurer

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Independent auditors’ report To the members of Disability Rights UK For the year ended 31 March 2022

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Disability Rights UK (the ‘Charity’) for the year ended 31 March 2022 which comprise the Statement of Financial Activities, the Balance Sheet, statement of cash flows and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom 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:

• give a true and fair view of the state of the Charityʼs affairs as at 31 March 2022 and of its income and expenditure for the year then ended;

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

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

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditorʼs 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 FRCʼs 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 directors with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

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

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

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Independent auditors’ report To the members of Disability Rights UK For the year ended 31 March 2022

misstatements, we are required to determine whether there is a material misstatement in the financial statements or a material misstatement of the other information. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

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

• the information given in the trusteesʼ report (incorporating the directorsʼ report) for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and

• the trusteesʼ report (incorporating the directorsʼ report) have been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the Charity and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the Trustees’ Annual Report.

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

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

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

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

• we have not obtained all the information and explanations necessary for the purposes of our audit.

Responsibilities of the trustees

As explained more fully in the trusteesʼ responsibilities statement, the trustees 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 they 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 Charityʼs 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 Charity or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditorʼs 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.

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Independent auditors’ report To the members of Disability Rights UK For the year ended 31 March 2022

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

In identifying and assessing risks of material misstatement in respect of irregularities, including fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations, our procedures included the following:

• We enquired of management, which included obtaining and reviewing supporting documentation, concerning the charity's policies and procedures relating to the internal controls established to mitigate risks related to fraud or non-compliance with laws and regulations.

• We inspected the minutes of meetings of those charged with governance.

• We reviewed the financial statement disclosures and tested these to supporting documentation to assess compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

• In addressing the risk of fraud through management override of controls, we tested the appropriateness of journal entries and other adjustments, assessed whether the judgements made in making accounting estimates are indicative of a potential bias and tested significant transactions that are unusual or those outside the normal course of business.

Because of the inherent limitations of an audit, there is a risk that we will not detect all irregularities, including those leading to a material misstatement in the financial statements or non-compliance with regulation. The risk is also greater regarding irregularities occurring due to fraud rather than error, as fraud involves intentional concealment, forgery, collusion, omission or misrepresentation.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Councilʼs website at: [www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities]. This description forms part of our auditorʼs report.

This report is made solely to the Charityʼs members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the Charityʼs members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditorʼs 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 Charityʼs members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Anthony Epton (Senior Statutory Auditor) for and on behalf of Goldwins Limited Statutory Auditor Chartered Accountants 75 Maygrove Road West Hampstead London NW6 2EG

3 October 2022

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Disability Rights UK Statement of financial activities

(incorporating an income and expenditure account)

For the year ended 31 March 2022

Note Income from: Donations and legacies 3 Charitable activities: 4 Member Services Promoting social inclusion Advice and publications Training and sponsorship Total income Expenditure on: Raising funds Charitable activities: Member Services Promoting social inclusion Advice and publications Training and sponsorship Total expenditure 5 Net movement in funds Reconciliation of funds: Total funds brought forward Total funds carried forward	Unrestricted funds £ 156,236 28,715 155,381 253,033 104,410 697,775 69,478 76,923 186,853 251,615 102,528 687,397 10,378 231,190 241,568	Restricted funds £ - - 753,182 - - 753,182 1,658 - 753,182 - - 754,840 (1,658) 74,305 72,647	2022 Total funds £ 156,236 28,715 908,563 253,033 104,410 1,450,957 71,136 76,923 940,035 251,615 102,528 1,442,237 8,720 305,495 314,215	2021 Total funds £ 114,994 26,845 1,016,139 244,726 62,726
				1,465,430
				60,422 34,003 963,665 224,923 56,794
				1,339,807
				125,623 179,872
				305,495

All of the above results are derived from continuing activities. There were no other recognised gains or losses other than those stated above. The attached notes form part of these financial statements.

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Disability Rights UK Balance sheet As at 31 March 2022

Note Fixed assets: 9 10 Current assets: 11 Liabilities: 12 14 Funds General funds Total charity funds Unrestricted funds: Creditors: amounts falling due after one year Restricted funds Tangible and intangible assets Investments Cash at bank and in hand Creditors: amounts falling due within one year Net current assets Total net assets Total assets less current liabilities Debtors	£ 160,490 574,236	2022 £ 13,126 6,057	£ 204,374 585,593	2021 £ 176 6,057
		19,183 295,032		6,233 299,262
	734,726 (439,694)		789,967 (490,705)
		314,215 -		305,495 -
		314,215		305,495
		72,647 241,568		74,305 231,190
		314,215		305,495

Approved by the trustees on 22 September 2022 and signed on their behalf by:

Lesley Baliga Treasurer

Liz Leach Murphy Chair of Trustees

Company registration no. 7314865

The attached notes form part of the financial statements.

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Disability Rights UK Statement of cash flows For the year ended 31 March 2022

Net income for the reporting period (as per the statement of financial activities) Depreciation Disposal of fixed assets Decrease in debtors Increase / (decrease) in creditors Net cash provided by operating activities Change in cash and cash equivalents in the year Purchase of fixed assets Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year	2022 £ 8,720 3,051 - 43,884 (51,011) 4,644 2022 £ 4,644 (16,001) 585,593 574,236	2021 £ 125,623 5,588 1,258 52,576 16,129
		201,174
		2021 £ 201,174 - 384,419
		585,593

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

• 1 Accounting policies

a) Basis of preparation

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102 - effective 1 January 2015) - (Charities SORP FRS 102) and the Companies Act 2006.

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

b) Going concern

The trustees consider that there are no material uncertainties about the charitable company's ability to continue as a going concern. The trustees do not consider that there are any sources of estimation uncertainty at the reporting date that have a significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities within the next reporting period.

c) Income

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

Income from government and other grants, whether ‘capital’ grants or ‘revenue’ grants, is recognised when the charity has entitlement to the funds, any performance conditions attached to the grants have been met, it is probable that the income will be received and the amount can be measured reliably and is not deferred. Income received in advance for the provision of specified service is deferred until the criteria for income recognition are met.

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

d) Donations of gifts, services and facilities

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

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

e) Interest receivable

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

f) Fund accounting

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

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

1 Accounting policies (continued)

g) Expenditure and irrecoverable VAT

Expenditure is recognised once there is a legal or constructive obligation to make a payment to a third party, it is probable that settlement will be required and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably. Expenditure is classified under the following activity headings:

• Costs of raising funds comprise of costs incurred by the charitable company in inducing third parties to make voluntary contributions to it, as well as the cost of any activities with a fundraising purpose.

• Expenditure on charitable activities includes the costs of delivering services undertaken to further the purposes of the charity and their associated support costs.

• Other expenditure represents those items not falling into any other heading.

Wholly irrecoverable VAT is charged as a cost against the activity for which the expenditure was incurred. Partially irrecoverable VAT is charged in one figure to overheads.

h) Allocation of support costs

Support costs are those functions that assist the work of the charity but do not directly undertake charitable activities. Support costs include administration, IT, finance, HR, payroll and governance costs which support the charity and its and activities. These costs have been allocated between cost of raising funds and expenditure on charitable activities. The bases on which support costs have been allocated are set out in note 5.

i) Operating leases

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

j) Tangible fixed assets

Items of equipment are capitalised where the purchase price exceeds £500. Depreciation is provided at rates calculated to write down the cost of each asset to its estimated residual value over its expected useful life. The depreciation rates in use are as follows:

Computer equipment 33% Fixtures and fittings 33%

k) Investments in subsidiaries

Investments in subsidiaries and other unlisted investments are stated at fair value.

l) Debtors

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

m) Cash at bank and in hand

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

n) Creditors and provisions

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

o) Pensions

The charity operates a defined contribution scheme to satisfy stakeholder pension requirements. The employer's contributions are charged to the Statement of Financial Activities as incurred.

p) 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.

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

2 Detailed comparatives for the statement of financial activities Income from: Donations and legacies Charitable activities: Member Services Promoting social inclusion Advice and publications Other trading activities Total income Expenditure on: Raising funds Charitable activities: Member Services Promoting social inclusion Advice and publications Other Total expenditure Net movement in funds Total funds brought forward Total funds carried forward 3 Income from donations and legacies £ Donations 121,247 Legacies 34,989 156,236 Unrestricted	2021 £ 114,994 26,845 144,311 244,726 62,726 593,602 60,122 34,003 71,451 224,923 56,794 447,293 146,309 84,881 231,190 £ - - - Unrestricted Restricted	2021 £ - - 871,828 - - 871,828 300 - 892,214 - - 892,514 (20,686) 94,991 74,305 2022 Total £ 121,247 34,989 156,236 Restricted	2021 Total £ 114,994 26,845 1,016,139 244,726 62,726
			1,465,430
			60,422 34,003 963,665 224,923 56,794
			1,339,807
			125,623 179,872
			305,495
			2021 Total £ 69,671 45,323
			114,994

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

4 Income from charitable activities

Organisational members Individual members Total for member services Government grants Trust and foundation grants Contracts Key sales Total for promoting social inclusion Publications Advice services Contracts Total for advice and publications Training & consultancy and courses Partnerships and projects Total for training and consultancy Total income from charitable activities	Unrestricted £ 23,325 5,390 28,715 18,088 - 56,378 80,915 155,381 247,203 5,830 - 253,033 86,135 18,275 104,410 541,539	£ - - - 160,000 593,182 - - 753,182 - - - - - - - 753,182 Restricted	2022 Total £ 23,325 5,390 28,715 178,088 593,182 56,378 80,915 908,563 247,203 5,830 - 253,033 86,135 18,275 104,410 1,294,721	2021 Total £ 21,602 5,243
				26,845
				264,394 676,828 22,831 52,086
				1,016,139
				244,476 250 -
				244,726
				49,826 12,900
				62,726
				1,350,436

The main Government Grant was from the Department of Education. This is described in more detail in note 16.

Other receipts included in Government grants were £2,400 for furlough payments, £3,441 under the Access to Work support scheme, £1,500 for one kickstarter and £4,500 from the Care Quality Commission.

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

5 Analysis of expenditure

				Charitable	activities
		Cost of		Promoting
	Basis of	raising	Member	social	Advice and	Training &	Support
	allocation	funds	services	inclusion	publications	sponsorship	costs	2022 Total	2021 Total
		£	£	£	£	£	£	£	£
Staff costs	Direct	43,376	35,410	277,045	109,289	-	326,456	791,576	740,148
Direct project costs	Direct	10,454	3,968	429,155	84,480	43,681	-	571,738	535,709
Office running costs	Direct	-	-	-	-	-	21,903	21,903	23,808
Premises costs	Direct	-	-	-	-	-	57,020	57,020	40,142
		53,830	39,378	706,200	193,769	43,681	405,379	1,442,237	1,339,807
Overhead salaries		14,120	31,133	185,040	42,035	54,128	(326,456)	-	-
General overheads		884	1,779	13,542	4,388	1,310	(21,903)	-	-
Rent & rates		2,302	4,633	35,253	11,423	3,409	(57,020)	-	-
Total expenditure 2022		71,136	76,923	940,035	251,615	102,528	-	1,442,237	1,339,807
Total expenditure 2021		60,422	34,003	963,665	224,923	56,794	-	1,339,807

Of the total expenditure, £687,397 was unrestricted (2021: £447,293) and £754,840 was restricted (2021: £892,514).

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

6 Net income / (expenditure) for the year

This is stated after charging:	2022	2021
	£	£
Operating lease rentals:
Property	57,000	51,303
Other equipment - photocopier	553	553
Depreciation	3,051	5,588
Auditor's remuneration - audit fees	6,000	6,000

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

Staff costs were as follows: Salaries and wages Social security costs Employer’s contribution to defined contribution pension schemes	2022 £ 704,127 70,366 17,083	2021 £ 663,232 61,968 14,948
	791,576	740,148

There were no other employee benefits other than those listed above.

The following number of employees received employee benefits (excluding both employer's NIC and pension contributions) during the year between:

		2022	2021
		Number	Number
£70,000	- £79,999	1	1

The total employee benefits including Employer's NIC and pension contributions of the key management personnel were £275,401 (2021 £270,785).

The charity trustees were not paid or did not receive any other benefits from employment with the charity in the year (2021: £nil). No charity trustee received payment for professional or other services supplied to the charity (2021: £nil).

Trustees' travel travel and subsistence expenses totalled £2,700 (2021: £116). Some trustees do not claim any expenses for travel and subsistence.

Staff numbers Raising funds Member Services Promoting Social Inclusion Advice and publications Training and consultancy	2022 2021 Number Number 0.9 0.6 1.8 1.7 13.8 12.4 4.5 5.2 1.3 0.9 22.3 20.8 Average number of staff employed during the year	2022 2021 Number Number 0.9 0.6 1.8 1.7 13.8 12.4 4.5 5.2 1.3 0.9 22.3 20.8 Average number of staff employed during the year	2022 2021 Number Number 0.8 0.5 1.6 1.5 12.1 10.6 3.9 4.4 1.2 0.9 19.6 17.9 employed during the year Average number of FTE staff	2022 2021 Number Number 0.8 0.5 1.6 1.5 12.1 10.6 3.9 4.4 1.2 0.9 19.6 17.9 employed during the year Average number of FTE staff
	22.3	20.8	19.6	17.9

Average number of staff is based on head count and FTE is based on hours worked compared with full time.

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

8 Taxation

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

9 Tangible & intangible fixed assets Cost At the start of the year Additions in year Disposals in year At the end of the year Depreciation At the start of the year Charge for the year At the end of the year Net book value At the end of the year At the start of the year All of the above assets are used for charitable purposes.	£ - 10,681 - New website (intangible)	£ 26,493 5,320 - Computer equipment	£ 2,170 - - Fixtures and fittings	Total £ 28,663 16,001 -
	10,681	31,813	2,170	44,664
	- 1,658	26,493 1,217	1,994 176	28,487 3,051
	1,658	27,710	2,170	31,538
	9,023	4,103	-	13,126
	-	-	176	176

10 Investments Investments at fair value: Preference shares in Santander UK plc Investment in Helpcard Holdings Ltd Investment in subsidiary undertakings incorporated in the UK	2022 £ 913 5,142 2	2021 £ 913 5,142 2
	6,057	6,057

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

11 Debtors

Debtors
Trade debtors Other debtors Prepayments Accrued income	2022 £ 104,470 9,473 46,373 174	2021 £ 166,372 19,691 13,311 5,000
	160,490	204,374

12 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year

Trade creditors Taxation and social security Other creditors Accruals Deferred income CVA payments Deferred income Balance at the beginning of the year Amount released to income in the year Amount deferred in the year Balance at the end of the year 47th Handbook pre-orders, invoices raised and online payments received Handbook published end of April 2022 Grants subject to performance-related conditions (shown as deferred in restricted note) Training and consulting projects	2022 £ 57,038 29,749 1,924 41,463 309,520 -	2021 £ 32,854 26,062 24,821 59,901 293,734 53,333
	439,694	490,705
	2022 £ 293,734 (293,734) 309,520	2021 £ 176,148 (176,148) 293,734
	309,520	293,734
	2022 £ 62,599 199,845 47,076	2021 £ 107,147 145,131 41,456
	309,520	293,734

The grants above are "grants subject to performance-related conditions received in advance of delivering the services required by that condition". These are "accounted for as a liability and shown on the balance sheet as deferred income" in accordance with the Charities SORP para 5.24. The income, when released, flows through the restricted funds part of the SOFA and the grants are referred to as "deferred" in the restricted funds note.

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

13 Analysis of net assets between funds Year ended 31 March 2022 Tangible fixed assets Investments Net current assets Long term liabilities Net assets at the end of the year Year ended 31 March 2021 Tangible fixed assets Investments Net current assets Long term liabilities Net assets at the end of the year	General unrestricted £ 13,126 6,057 222,385 -	Restricted £ - - 72,647 -	Total funds £ 13,126 6,057 295,032 -
	241,568	72,647	314,215
	General unrestricted £ 176 6,057 224,957 -	Restricted £ - - 74,305 -	Total funds £ 176 6,057 299,262 -
	231,190	74,305	305,495

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

14	Movements in funds			Incoming	Outgoing
			At the start of	resources &	resources &	At the end of
			the year	gains	losses	the year
	Year ended 31 March 2022		£	£	£	£
	Restricted funds:
	Department for Education	Apr - Mar	-	160,000	(160,000)	-
	Sport England - Get Yourself Active	Deferred	-	222,344	(222,344)	-
	Sport England - Durham	Deferred	-	54,188	(54,188)	-
	Sport England - Tackling Inequalities	Deferred	-	212,790	(212,790)	-
	City Bridge Trust - Bridge to Work	Quarterly	-	18,860	(18,860)	-
	City Bridge Trust - advice work in London	Quarterly	-	35,000	(35,000)	-
	DSA QAG	Ongoing	74,305	-	(1,658)	72,647
	Three Guineas	Half yearly	-	50,000	(50,000)	-
	Total restricted funds		74,305	753,182	(754,840)	72,647
	General funds - unrestricted		231,190	697,775	(687,397)	241,568
	Total charity funds		305,495	1,450,957	(1,442,237)	314,215
				Incoming	Outgoing
			At the start of	resources &	resources &	At the end of
			the year	gains	losses	the year
	Year ended 31 March 2021		£	£	£	£
	Restricted funds:
	DoH - Health and Wellbeing Alliance	Apr - Mar	-	80,000	(80,000)	-
	Department for Education	Apr - Mar	-	160,000	(160,000)	-
	Sport England - Get Yourself Active	Deferred	-	201,035	(201,035)	-
	Sport England - Tackling Inequalities	Deferred	-	195,093	(195,093)	-
	Sport England - Durham	Deferred	-	35,333	(35,333)	-
	West Midlands Combined Authority	Finished	-	2,500	(2,500)	-
	Disability Action NI - DRILL project	Finished	10,703	37,722	(48,425)	-
	DRILL 4 Nations project	Finished	9,683	-	(9,683)	-
	City Bridge Trust - Bridge to Work	Quarterly	-	14,145	(14,145)	-
	City Bridge Trust - advice work in London	Quarterly	-	35,000	(35,000)	-
	National Lottery Community Fund	Finished	-	111,000	(111,000)	-
	DSA QAG		74,605	-	(300)	74,305
	Total restricted funds		94,991	871,828	(892,514)	74,305
	General funds - unrestricted		84,881	593,602	(447,293)	231,190
	Total charity funds		179,872	1,465,430	(1,339,807)	305,495

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

Purposes of restricted funds

Department of Health - Health and Wellbeing Alliance. This project was not renewed at 1 April 2022. The costs incurred are staffing costs for April and May which have been absorbed by the charity.

Department for Education (previously Business Information and Skills). To support disabled people's skills for employment, to advise on policy development and to run the Disability and Skills Unit.

Get Yourself Active. A Sport England funded programme to create opportunities for Disabled people and people with Long-Term Health Conditions to be physically active in a way that is right for them, by working with local and national partners. The project started in February 2015 and runs to 30 June in its present form. The project is being renewed 1 July for a further 5 years. At the year end £72,415 of the grant has been deferred.

Durham. A Sport England project that aims to develop research led teaching and community-based training materials and resources on physical activity to influence social work practice of today and tomorrow and improve disabled people’s health. £19,812 of the grant was deferred at year end.

Tackling Inequalities Fund. A Sport England funded project to support organisations to support Disabled people and people with Long-Term Health Conditions to be active during the pandemic. To date £500,000 has been received from Sport England to distribute to the organisations. £92,117 of income was deferred at year end.

City Bridge Trust - Bridge to Work. To provide evaluation on the Supporting Disabled Londoners into Employment, Bridge to Work project.

City Bridge Trust - advice work in London. We received the first quarterly instalment of £35,000 per year restricted funding from City Bridge Trust, the funding arm of The City of London Corporation’s charity, Bridge House Estates (1035628). The grant is towards the salaries, operating and management costs of the London element of our Independent Living Helpline and Members’ Advice Line. The annual grant award will run until FYE 2025.

DSA QAG. In March 2020, we received a restricted donation of £80,000 from DSA-QAG, following that organisation's closure. The donation is restricted to work associated with assisting disabled students to enter and succeed in higher education.

Three Guineas. We received the first £50,000 of a £250,000 grant over three years from the Three Guineas Trust, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts. The funding is primarily designed to increase our capacity to influence policy h

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2022

15 Operating lease commitments

Total future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable operating leases are as follows:

Less than 1 year 1 - 5 years	Equipment 2022 £ - -	2021 £ 415 -
	-	415

The lease relates to the photocopier which ran for 5 years and finished in January 2022. The quartely rentals were £138. We are currently discussing with the provider extending the contract on a yearly rolling basis.

On 1 May, the charity moved to a smaller office within the building at Plexal. The contract is still on a rolling one year basis. The new rent from 1 May is £3,812 a month plus VAT.

16 Legal status of the charity

The charity is a company limited by guarantee and has no share capital. Each member is liable to contribute a sum not exceeding £1 in the event of the charity being wound up.

17 Related party transactions

There are no related party transactions to disclose for 2022 (2021: none).

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