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2023-03-31-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 2023

Disability Rights UK Report and financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

Contents
Page
Reference and administrative information 1
Trustees’ annual report 2 - 49
Independent auditors' report 50 - 52
Statement of financial activities 53
(incorporating an income and expenditure account)
Balance sheet 54
Statement of cash flows 55
Notes to the financial statements 56 - 67

Disability Rights UK Reference and administrative information For the year ended 31 March 2023

Reference & administrative information

Trustees: Liz Leach Murphy Chair Madeline Close Vice Chair/Acting Treasurer Atif Choudhury Mostafa Attia Joanne Becker Greg Smith Shelley Simmonds Claire Nevin Appointed 03/01/2023 Clenton Farquharson MBE Appointed 03/01/2023 Dr Naomi Lawson Jacobs Appointed 03/01/2023 Frances Hasler Resigned 30/11/2022 Lesley Baliga Treasurer Resigned 23/03/2023 Laura Swainbank Resigned 22/09/2022 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 2023

Trustees’ Annual Report

The trustees, who are also directors under company law, present their report and financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2023. 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

2023 has been another productive and purposeful year at DR UK where the team and the trustees have worked positively together to bring about clarity on strategy and future direction.

Last year the team commenced work on strategy development, creating the opportunities to talk to members of DR UK and other Disabled People's Organisations about what we need to address, the current issues we face as well as work towards a positive future. Now we have a completed an aspirational strategy to drive DR UK and its members into 2026.

As a key part of the strategy development a review and renewal of the Vision, Mission, Principles and Organisational Structure were undertaken, meaning that we continue to remain purpose driven and aligned in values and actions.

DR UK renewed vision; ‘ To create an inclusive society where Disabled people have equal power, rights and equality of opportunity’ . Everything we deliver moving forward will be to work towards this vision.

One way we are making progress towards this vision is through DR UKs newly launched website. This is now managed by the DR UK communications and digital team. As a result of this, in the last 6 months we have seen a significant increase in the number of visitors to the site and the length of time for each visit. People are making use of the site to access information and advice on issues regarding their rights in terms of welfare benefits as well as general information about the cost-of-living crisis faced by Disabled people.

The influence and presence of DR UK in policy and campaign work has increased over the last year, we are a core participant in the Covid 19 General

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Enquiry which is significant in recognising the negative experiences of Disabled people throughout the pandemic.

DR UK has also worked closely with other DPOs around England to present collective experience to the United Nations as it gets ready to review the progress made by the UK government in its obligations to the UN CRPD treaty.

As a nation, we continue to face inequalities and hardships, which is especially demonstrated through the cost-of-living crisis and the proposed changes to public transport ticket offices, DR UK remains hot on each topic in making sure that Disabled people’s voices are heard.

We have achieved all this whilst remaining a financially robust and sustainable charity, during one of the hardest periods economically, we have even experienced growth in this period. DR UK is in a strong position to continue to advocate for change as well as play an active part in the DPO networks across the UK.

In the coming year, we look forward to implementing the new strategy and making progress towards a more inclusive society.

I would like to recognise the dedication and energy given to the work of DR UK by our CEO Kamran Mallick, our trustees, the team, volunteers, ambassadors, and our partners. It is through this that we can begin to release our ambitions for the future, Thank you.

Liz Leach Murphy Chair

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Objectives and activities

A great deal of the 2022/23 was spent building on the previous years' work to develop our Theory of Change. This work led to the development of our new strategic areas, a new Vision and Mission and set of values. The new strategy is detailed in the Plans For The Future section and will be launched officially in 2023/34.

The current plan is called Equal Participation for All which we are reporting on for the period covered by this report. 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.

Our Values:

The trustees review the charity's aims, objectives and activities 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.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Highlights of the year

Speaking up

Our policy work again was considerable, and as in the previous year we were able to increase our capacity by bringing in another full-time position to the team in the fourth quarter.

We collaborated with the charity Liberty to defend the Human Rights Act and challenge the Government’s Bill of Rights. Working with over 170 human rights organisations, we opposed the Illegal Migration Bill and brought our campaign content to TikTok.

We have taken up the challenge of bringing the voice of Disabled people to respond to the Climate Crisis. Bringing together an international coalition of individual Disabled people and Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs). We submitted a policy statement on behalf of the coalition and distributed this at COP27 in Egypt. We have developed relationships with Green Peace and Extinction Rebellion to ensure that they understand the impact on Disabled people. We spoke at their events and launched the “Dis-Able the climate conversation” campaign. We have built an ongoing collaboration with NPC, a think tank, contributing to a long-term project on disability and climate change.

At the start of the year, we established the Disability Poverty Campaign Group (DPCG). A group led by DPOs to take action on issues related to disability poverty and bring this to the attention of those in power. We challenged and criticised the Government’s White Paper setting out proposed reforms to the benefits system. The changes have the potential to deny Disabled people the additional health component of Universal Credit (UC) through the scrapping of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA).

Social Care services have continued to worsen in the year, with long waiting lists, inadequate support and increasing charges. The number of people receiving a Direct Payment fell for a fifth year. We continued to speak out on this but bringing about change has been and continues to be challenging. Working with the Kings Fund we produced a report on the importance of health and care services engaging with Disabled people.

We have strengthened the voice of Disabled people on housing issues. We have raised concerns regarding inaccessibility, unaffordability, and disrepair. We joined calls for a rent freeze for private tenants.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

The Our Voices group, set up in 2020 as a direct response to the pandemic, continued to meet monthly throughout the year. The group of CEOs and Policy staff from Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) have formed a trusted group and meet to share knowledge, and information and speak with a unified voice when needed. The following organisations are part of the group:

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
Wheels for Wellbeing Inclusion Gloucestershire

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 Disabled 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 advice on Disabled Students Allowance, the Equality Act, advise on challenging decisions for Personal Independent Payment (PIP) and support with financial assessment carried out by local authorities.

Our website received over 2.5 million page views by 1.1 million users. Visitors downloaded fact sheets on a range of topics, the most popular over the year was on the Work Capability Assessment.

New area of work

Following a successful bid to the Legal Education Foundation, we appointed to the role of DPO Manager. This role and its additional capacity will support our new strategic aim of firmly placing DR UK in the Disability Rights Movement and strengthening our collaboration with DPOs. As a membership organisation, we want to develop resources, support and create connections for DPOs to ensure their long-term stability and capacity.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Our new website

We launched our new website in January 2023, replacing the previous one that was built in 2012. The new site was co-produced with Disabled people who supported us with user testing at different stages of development. With a core focus on accessibility, it took longer to complete but has been worth the time taken. The sight is modern, accessible and flexible. Compliant with different screen sizes and resolution, it is now achieving higher ranking in search engines. We will continue to develop the site, and already have plans to add a section for DPOs with targeted content.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Achievements and performance Policy

Rights and Participation

In collaboration with Liberty

We worked to defend and retain the Human Rights Act and challenge the Government’s Bill of Rights in collaboration with Liberty. We believe the latter would dilute protections, weaken the duties of statutory organisations, and reduce Disabled people’s ability to challenge injustice. The Bill of Rights was withdrawn in Autumn 2022, was later reinstated, and then withdrawn again in Summer 2023. Our opposition to the Bill of Rights included joint briefings with over 100 organisations and speaking on a parliamentary panel with Equally Ours and other interest groups.

Alongside over 170 human rights organisations, we opposed the Illegal Migration Bill – and collaborated with Liberty on some intersectional TikTok campaign content.

In support of Disabled people’s right to protest, we opposed new legislation that restricted freedoms. With Liberty, we produced information materials for Disabled people, on how the new legislation works, including how the Equality Act 2010 applies to police conduct and protest organisers.

In June 2022, we published a Disability Hate Crime Charter, following work with a coalition of Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) and Disabled activists. The Charter set out actions that need to be taken by the Police, Crown Prosecution Service, housing and educational bodies and others, to tackle ableism, hate crime and support Disabled victims. We spoke at the first-ever Disability hate crime conference in June 2022 at Leicester University, to present the Charter, which was backed by delegates.

To highlight the unjust treatment of Disabled people during the COVID pandemic and to ensure lessons are learnt, we applied to be a Core Participant in the COVID Inquiry. We were successful in respect of Module 2 on Government decision making, alongside Inclusion Scotland, Disability Wales and Disability Action Northern Ireland. Our applications for Modules 1 on pre-pandemic planning and 3 on health services, were unsuccessful. Our Core Participant status for Module 2 enabled us to press for inequalities to be a focus of the Inquiry and to ensure that issues relevant to Disabled people are addressed by witnesses and the Inquiry Team. We sought to influence the work of the communications team, to ensure that the Inquiry’s hearings,

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

communications and engagement are made fully accessible to Disabled people.

We began work to ensure that Disabled people are engaged in every aspect of climate change, including disaster planning and the development of environmental solutions. We joined forces with UK and international partners, to raise our voice and influence within climate change arenas. We prepared a policy statement on behalf of a disability coalition we created and ensured this was distributed at events and conferences, including COP 27 held in November 2022. We developed relationships with Green Peace and Extinction Rebellion (XR) and met with the World Bank, to discuss how it could better promote disability inclusive climate change policies. We spoke on the Greenpeace and XR stages in London at the “Big One” climate event in April 2023. Prior to this we engaged in a week long social media and press campaign called “Dis-Able the climate conversation” which led to media attention, with spots on the BBC and interviews with the Big Issue magazine.

We have built an ongoing collaboration with NPC, a think tank, where we are contributing to a long-term project on disability and climate change.

Following the introduction of photo ID for voting, we worked with the Electoral Commission to ensure the best possible disability equality advice to electoral officers and voters. However, we do not believe that this advice was made available prior to the May 2023 local elections, which saw many Disabled citizens being disenfranchised. In April 2023 We gave evidence to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee on barriers to voting for Disabled people.

Benefits and Poverty

From April 2022 to March 2023 those on means-tested benefits were forced to live on even more inadequate benefit levels, as the uprating in April 2022 was just over 3% whilst throughout the year, inflation ran at over 10%. Alongside others, we made representations to Government to increase benefit levels, but these were not acted on.

In terms of benefit processes, we continued to highlight the poor practice and injustice experienced by Disabled benefit claimants. We also spoke out against the proposed forced migration of those on Employment and Support Allowance to Universal Credit, arguing that the process would be difficult for some Disabled people, and that in the longer term, it would leave people worse off once any ‘transitional protection’ was eroded.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

In March 2023, we strongly criticised the Government’s White Paper setting out proposed reforms to the benefits system. The changes included, linking an additional health component of Universal Credit (UC) to receipt of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), scrapping the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) without putting an alternative assessment in place, and strengthening the sanctions regime. These reforms would start to come into effect in 2026 should the Conservatives win the next election. We made the case that the changes have the potential to deny Disabled people the additional health component of UC and make millions of Disabled people subject to harsh and unjust sanctions.

In spring 2022, we worked to establish the Disability Poverty Campaign Group (DPCG), led by DPOs. DPCG has a wide membership of DPOs and allies such as Scope, Trussell Trust and JRF. DPCG took a range of actions across the year to highlight disability poverty to Government, MPs, regional Mayors and Think Tanks.

The spiralling cost of energy - prices doubling between autumn 2021 and autumn 2022, led to incredible hardship for Disabled people, who rely on heating and or health and mobility equipment, to keep safe and healthy. DPCG made representations to Government and regularly met with Ofgem, to highlight the dire situation and make the case for targeted support. DPCG called for the forced fitting of prepayment metres (PPMs) to be banned by use of a social media campaign, press release and a letter individuals could send to their MP via the action network. Following media stories on the appalling practices of energy companies and the courts, forced fitting of PPMs were temporarily banned by Ofgem in February 2023. DPCG called for a social tariff for energy for those on the lowest incomes and the November 2022 budget committed to developing targeted support. DPCG met with the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero to discuss how a social tariff could operate and how Disabled people experiencing the highest energy costs could receive additional financial support. The DPCG reached out to and began a long-term relationship with Energy UK, the trade association for the energy industry. The Government is due to issue a consultation on a social tariff for energy in summer 2023.

Social Care

Social care services have continued to worsen, with long waiting lists, inadequate support and steeply increased charges. Institutional abuse in closed settings continue to be exposed, the transfer of autistic people and those with learning disabilities out of hospital settings is making little progress, and the incorrect use of Do Not Attempt Resuscitation Notices, persists. The number of people receiving Direct Payments has fallen for the

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

fifth year and recruiting Personal Assistants is proving extremely challenging, due to low pay rates and a shrinking pool of care workers. Whilst we have raised the many problems with social care, influencing meaningful change has proved almost impossible. The year saw two reports on social care being published, “A Gloriously Ordinary Life” from a House of Lords Select Committee and one from the Archbishops Commission on reimagining care. We gave evidence to the House of Lords Committee and organised a meeting between the Archbishops Commission and the DPO Forum. We spoke at the launch of the archbishop’s report in January 2023. We organised a meeting to discuss the future of social care, between The Fabian Society and DPO Forum. The Fabian Society were preparing a report for the Labour Party. Following an initial meeting with the Fabians in autumn 2022, a follow-up meeting was held in early 2023 to provide feedback on emerging findings. The Fabians report was launched in June 2023. We are lobbying Labour MPs on the front and back benches, to seek meaningful commitments in this area.

In July 2022, following the launch of Integrated Care Systems, The Kings Fund and Disability Rights UK produced a report on the importance of health and care services engaging with Disabled people and their representative organisations. The report was based on input from Disabled people, DPOs and Disabled health professionals. We participated in a session on engagement with Disabled people at the Kings Fund Conference in November 2022.

Housing

In April 2022, the Government announced its rejection of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommendation on implementing Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) for Disabled people unable to self-evacuate in the event of fire. We joined with Grenfell United and the Disabled leaseholder's group CLADDAG to voice our support for PEEPs – this included media coverage, letters to ministers, and a parliamentary petition.

We were honoured to attend events on 14 June, to mark the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire – including an invitation from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to attend the service at Westminster Abbey, and from Grenfell United to attend their memorial at Grenfell Tower. In our response to the Government’s consultation in summer 2023 on Emergency Evacuation Information Sharing, we again repeated our calls for PEEPs to be implemented. We visibly showed our support for a judicial review by Disabled leaseholders brought in December, to challenge the Government’s failure to implement PEEPs. We raised the importance of engagement with Disabled people with the new Building Safety Regulator,

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

responsible for the inspection of high-rise blocks. We also supported the Royal Institute of British Architects, to call for additional safety features, including second staircases, for new high-rise blocks.

We continued to press for the accessibility standards of new build homes to be improved through the Homes Made for Everyone coalition. In July 2022 the Government announced that new standards would be introduced but no implementation plans have been forthcoming. We are pushing forward accessibility and standards in social housing through the Homes for Us alliance, and have begun a fruitful relationship with New Economics Foundation – a key think tank.

During the year we strengthened the disability voice on housing issues. Only 9% of UK homes are accessible. Disabled people are major users of social housing and have much lower levels of owner occupation. The link between damp/disrepair and ill health in social housing, became a public scandal following the coroner’s verdict on the death of a Disabled child.

We raised concerns regarding inaccessibility, unaffordability, disrepair and the need for advocacy support, in consultations relating to renter's reform, decent home standards and social housing rents. We also joined calls for a rent freeze for private tenants. In August 2022, we responded to the S36 consultation on reasonable adjustments to the common parts of buildings, seeking increased rights for Disabled residents but without costs falling on them. We are lobbying for a series of amendments to the Renters Reform Bill, to protect Disabled tenants in the private rented sector.

Education and Employment

Support for school age Disabled children continues to deteriorate, with many children not receiving the additional support they need and even those with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) struggling to receive the services they are entitled to. In spring 2022 the Government produced a Green Paper on Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND), which tinkered with the current system, provided no additional funding for SEND budgets and committed to increasing the number of Special Schools. Following consultation with Disabled young people, we submitted a response to the consultation, calling for schools to become more inclusive environments, SEND funding to be increased and greater accountability to all pupils requiring additional support including those with EHCPs. The Government’s SEND White Paper was published in March 2023, which reflected the earlier proposals, including no radical reforms or additional SEND funding.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

We engaged with government consultations throughout the year on education – including consultations on attendance, behavioural management, post-16 routes and careers advice provision.

During the year, we continued to support the Disabled Apprentices Network and published a report “Speaking from Experience” during National Apprenticeships Week in February 2023. The report has been well received, and the Minister for Disabled People and the Minister for Skills and Apprenticeships both spoke at its virtual launch.

We continued to promote the Disability Employment Charter, which now has over 150 signatories. We contributed to the development of a government website to inform small and medium size employers how best to support Disabled employees. In spring 2022, we responded to the Government’s consultation on disability workforce monitoring, calling for such monitoring to be mandatory.

Disability policy

Through the DPO Forum for England, we had regular meetings with the Minister for Disabled people and monthly updates with the Disability Unit. These enabled issues including the cost-of-living crisis, energy bills, Access to Work and social care to be highlighted.

Due to a high court ruling in January 2022, finding the Government’s National Disability Strategy (NDS) to be unlawful, in summer 2022. 14 actions in the NDS were paused, as they were only initiated as a result of the Strategy. We continued to ask that the remaining NDS actions be reported on, work is underway to do this but so far no updates have been shared.

Working with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Disability, we organised a drop-in for MPs to mark International Day of Disabled People (IDDP). over 30 MPs attended including the Minister for Disabled people. We advised MPs on the key issues and shared a briefing on the major policy changes required. We also supported Marsha de Cordova MP with information and data on challenges facing Disabled people, for a debate on IDDP.

To mark IDDP 2022, the Minister for Disabled People announced his intention to publish a Disability Action Plan. A list of possible areas of focus were shared with the DPO Forum in February 2023, which were subsequently withdrawn following criticism. A consultation on the Disability Action Plan is due in summer 2023 and the Plan is set to be produced in December 2023.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

In March 2023 we gave evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee on the inadequacy of the NDS, in particular the Government’s failure to engage with Disabled people and the failure of the NDS to be strategic, long term and tackle systemic oppression and inequality.

Transport

We continued to campaign for improved accessibility of rail and bus services. We spoke out against Government and rail industry plans to close ticket offices, cut staffing and move to driver only trains. We advocated for improved communications across public transport to be in all formats, and for journey planning and ticket purchase to be equally and fairly available through non-digital channels and for the best deals on rail fares and time table information to be available through all information channels, not just smart phone and APP technology.

We continued to promote the inclusion of all Disabled people in public transport with our voice being an active part of stakeholder access groups and panels including the Office for rail and Road, the Rail Delivery Group, the Rail Ombudsman, various train operating companies and the Dft rail and bus groups, and Bus Users UK.

We worked closely with Network Rail, to ensure provision of correctly informed Disability Impact Assessments for repair and refurbish contracts In February 2023, we worked with Sophie Morgan to launch the Rights on Flights campaign, highlighting the appalling treatment of Disabled people by airports and airlines in relation to passenger assistance, passenger communication and the safeguarding of mobility equipment. In April 2023 the Civil Aviation Authority launched a consultation on plans to inspect airlines on a range of disability equality measures and in June 2023 the Government announced that it would legislate to improve protections for Disabled people.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

DPO Capacity Building Project

The disability rights movement and the sector of Disabled People's Organisations (DPOs) have been subject to the challenges of an evolving political and socio-economic landscape, increased barriers and the survival pressures of the human rights/voluntary sector. Within this context of increased competition for funding, higher demand for services, and ongoing uncertainty, Disability Rights UK recognised the need to initiate the DPO Capacity Building Project.

The project aim is to support the DPO sector by providing shared resources, targeted training and opportunities to connect with each other. Working together to make the case for the importance of DPOs to government, funders and society. We will support DPOs to navigate these uncertain times.

Project Overview

The project began in March 2022, with the training for DPOs delivered with Inclusion London and Child Poverty Action Group. In September 2022, the project appointed a DPO Development Manager. She carried out a rapid evidence review of current literature within the DPO sector.

Subsequently, a mixed-method research project was undertaken, encompassing qualitative and quantitative research into the DPO sector's development. This study involved 61 participants from 32 DPOs, through focus groups, interviews, and financial report analysis. The research was followed by thematic analysis of the DPO sector. Four overarching themes and 17 subthemes emerged. These findings provided valuable insights into the sector's context, capacity-building needs. A steering group for the project comprised of nine DPOs and one ex-CEO of a DPO consultant was created.

Through co-production with the group and guided by the research report, three action priorities were designed to develop the sector:

  1. DPO Sector-wide promotion: Through strategic partnerships, the project will lobby for the value and expertise of the DPO sector, creating strategies for the recognition of the sector.

  2. The DPO Support Hub & training: Generating digital resources and training to capacity build and facilitate the sector's resilience.

  3. DPO Connectivity, growth & Synthesis: Promoting the connectivity, growth, and diversity of the DPO sector and disability movement.

Project achievements

1. DPO Sector-wide Promotion:

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Funding Position Statement : A funding manifesto was co-produced with the steering board and DPOs in the "Our Voices" network. It advocated for funders to prioritise DPOs in their funding decisions, enhancing resources and funding accessibility for DPOs.

Compensation Framework : Developed in collaboration with DPOs, this framework outlined the minimum compensation required for services and expert consultancy. It is instrumental in promoting the sector's expertise and recognition.

Connecting with Young Disabled People : Partnerships with academic institutions were established to introduce the DPO sector to young Disabled individuals, fostering the sector's future workforce.

2. DPO Support Hub & Training:

DPO-E News : Launched as a dedicated email newsletter for DPOs and Disabled people-led consultancies, providing essential information on funding opportunities, tenders, and sector advertisements.

The DPO Support Hub project , an online toolkit for development resources and training, was launched.

3. DPO Connectivity, Growth & Synthesis:

DPO Map : Regeneration of a DPO map to aid DPOs in identifying potential partners and collaborators.

Intersectional DPO Forum : Established to amplify the voices of Disabled people from diverse backgrounds, providing them with a platform to share their experiences and insights.

Moving Intersectionality Project launch : Collaboration with Durham University led to the launch of the Moving Intersectionality Research project exploring intersecting perspectives of disablement. A diverse team of 13 Disabled individuals with intersecting marginalised identities and an intersectional DPO were brought together to form the coproduction board.

Next year the programme includes

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

In conclusion, the DPO Capacity Building Project is progressing with significant milestones achieved. The project aims to empower DPOs, enhance their impact, and foster a more inclusive and resilient sector to benefit Disabled people and the broader movement. DR UK remains committed to this vital work, strengthening the DPO sector and advancing the rights of Disabled people in the United Kingdom.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Information and Advice

Personal Budgets Helpline:

Some enquirers were refused permission to use direct payments funds for transport costs to access community/day centre/leisure services. They were told to use their own PIP/DLA mobility element to pay towards transport costs although it was clear in their care and support plan that accessing community/recreational services was an eligible care and support need. One enquirer with down syndrome and a heart condition was allowed to use services in the community centre which is located far from her house but was told to use her own money to pay for transport costs – a cost she could not afford.

Many callers complain about the unfairness of the financial assessment and the high contribution that they are struggling to pay due to Disability Related Expenditure (DRE) which is not fully considered and leads to debts due to unpaid arrears. One enquirer from Birmingham complained on behalf of her daughter who has multiple disabilities, severe learning difficulties, epilepsy and autism. She was asked to pay £358 from the £608 PIP towards the care and support of her daughter.

Insufficient Direct Payment funds to pay high costs of care agencies, this affects the ongoing care provision and its adequacy. An enquirer is caring for her ex-husband who has complex needs. The care agency is charging £30 an hour but the LA is only offering £10.96 for several subsequent years with no increase of the hourly rate.

A few callers are self-funders who expressed their concerns that they do not receive any support because their savings are above threshold. One was concerned that his wife was denied any kind of support or information because of their high savings. She was even refused a care needs assessment and was not signposted to any other services. She was not informed on other means of getting support/information or advocacy. In total we responded to nearly 700 queries.

Feedback

“Without this extraordinary help that Banane intervened with her expert knowledge on Disability Rights, we could not have solved our issue as we were totally desperate, with the threat of a thousands of pounds bill that was not correct, and also that the local council are not even aware of any disability rights that people have.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Even with the mention that an organisation such as the Disability Rights was in the background helped us without measure, we could not have succeeded without this intervention .

When there are vulnerable adults with disabilities in the family, one feels like one is alone as there is really not much in the way of support and understanding out there, it is a daily struggle to even stay sane and feel the will to carry on.

Disability Rights UK gives us the support and the confidence to stand up for our rights and is a God send for us in these difficult times for Disabled people.

Ms S

Members Welfare Rights Helpline

This service provides expert advice to DPOs and other organisational members for complex welfare rights cases. This year we had a total of 448 enquiries.

Most enquiries concerned Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Universal Credit (UC). PIP enquiries centre mainly on eligibility issues, assessments, and challenging decisions. UC enquiries cover the same areas, however also include the move from legacy benefits such as ESA onto UC; whether someone is better off through claiming UC. There are also problems with the award of the limited capability for the work element.

There are also issues around people in higher education losing UC in the academic year due to student income, but then being denied it during summer. We are in discussions with DWP regarding this.

An issue we are investigating involves self employed artists and the impact on benefits of payments to them for art work sold, but also work put into exhibitions.

Feedback

MSA Trust – insurance policy surrender value and PC, HB, CT reduction eligibility

Huge thanks as always! I have just passed on your guidance to a very relieved couple. Good learning for me too.

Richmond and Kensington ME Group – recording PIP assessment

Many thanks Ken. I think our member will be pleased because, according to the information I have about his sister's care, this does seem to leave her entitled to PIP daily living component.

Richmond and Kensington ME Group – PIP and care home

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

That’s great, thank you for clarifying that for me. My client would also like to thank you for the information.

Disability Cornwall - recording PIP assessment

Thank you so very much for taking the time to look into this so thoroughly for my client and sending this information. It is very helpful.

Disabled students helpline

From April 2022 to March 2023 the helpline dealt with 1,697 phone and email enquiries. Enquiries covered a variety of learning areas which we categorise as follows: Further Education (FE) and Adult Education (30.5%), Undergraduate study (49.5%) Postgraduate study (12%) and Apprenticeships and other work-based training (8%).

The top 5 subject areas were: Funding for fees and living costs as a student (34.5%)

Getting support with studies (16%), Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) (13%), Complaints (11%), Equality Act (9%).

Between April 2022 and March 2023, 92.5% of our helpline users rated our information and advice as useful to their needs.

New challenges for Disabled students

Recently there has been a rise in emails and calls relating to schools and colleges refusing to apply for access arrangements for young Disabled or failing to make requests for access arrangements well in advance of exams to allow exams boards to review and respond in time for the actual exam concerned.

There is a legal requirement to make reasonable adjustments for exams under the Equality Act. Young people and their families are unable to apply for access arrangements directly with the exam boards themselves and relying on the schools and colleges to do their part.

One parent explained told us ‘ Unfortunately, the school are not being particularly helpful and are refusing to implement reasonable adjustments and access arrangements, despite the fact that they have a letter from her paediatrician outlining what she needs, and she has a progressive condition and disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010.’

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Another told us that despite the college being aware that the young person would need access arrangements based on his normal way of working, they insisted on a diagnostic assessment for ADHD. Once this was provided to the school, he was told by the school that there was insufficient time to collect evidence from teachers to support the request before the Join Council for Qualifications (JCQ) deadline.

With the rise in rent, bills, and food prices, we have heard from Disabled students who have wanted to know about what their funding options are to maximise their income. Disabled people often face higher living costs than non-disabled people for example needing more heating to stay warm whilst other use extra electricity to charge up items of assistive technology and electrical equipment such as powered wheelchairs. They have expressed concerns about their ability to manage as a Disabled student and are cutting back on heating, food and even travelling to their place of study to save on transport costs.

With the increase in cost of living, young people no longer being eligible to establish UC claims, the yearly increase in maintenance loans not matching inflation, the reality for many is to withdraw from their courses. For the 2023/24 academic year, maintenance loans to help with living costs is increasing by 2.8%. This falls extremely short of the current rate of inflation, which stands at 10.7%. Meanwhile, the Welsh Government has increased loans by 9.4% and in Northern Ireland by 40%.

Prospective and current Disabled students have sought advice on whether universities should be charging higher rent for specialist accommodation required because of disability. The cost makes going to university unaffordable for them.

One adviser wrote to us ‘I have recently had an enquiry from a student and social worker about a student who is living on campus in halls accommodation and is likely to for the next 2 years. Their medical needs have changed and now require a carer to live on campus this will change the type and cost of room. There is a dispute between the local authority, the university and the student on who should meet the cost of the additional room.’

A young person said ‘I am a student with Crohn's Disease that is going to start university in September. Due to my condition, I have had to apply for accommodation with an ensuite, which costs extra. My maintenance loan is unable to cover the entire cost of accommodation, let alone food and other

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expenses. The university said it is not possible to reduce the price of the accommodation, or even let me pay the price of a non-ensuite room.’

A parent writing on behalf of their young person stated ‘We felt that he needed accommodation which is quiet due to the fatigue he suffers from and a room with an ensuite due to the frequency and length of time he needs the bathroom. We didn't think it would be fair to others or fair to my son to use shared facilities. The room available to our son costs a lot more than standard accommodation. The university will not make a reasonable adjustment to the cost of the accommodation. Is there any type of funding he can access for this?

Young Disabled people with mental health impairments have reached out to take advice on how to best convince their sixth form colleges to adjust their policies and allow a reduction to the number of A levels they take. The students advised that they are unable to manage full-time study hours due to mental health worsening and are missing classes and work, finding it hard to catch up and experiencing more anxiety and stress.

Our helpline users explained that the main reasons provided by sixth forms and colleges against reduction of A levels are:

Website

Between April 2022 to March 2023 there were 133,977 visits to our education factsheets and guides.

The most popular factsheets were: Applying for Disabled students’ allowances (22,341 page visits), Access to Work (21,339), Careers and work for Disabled people (17,630), Adjustments for Disabled students (14,858), Understanding the equality act: info for students (10,190), Funding further education for Disabled students (8,216). In addition, our Student FAQs page had a total of 15,710 visits.

96% of users of DR UK factsheets and guides who report wider awareness of the options and increased confidence in choosing their own career path.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Next Steps

We have been working on reaching young Disabled people, parents and professionals with advice and information through other channels and intend to grow and develop this further.

We have worked with partners such as Amazing Apprenticeships, Oakwood Specialist College and Undershaw to deliver workshops/webinars to inform young people and their families of various post 16 options and the support that is available. There have been discussions with Undershaw to work on podcasts this year.

Following the success of our TikTok video on Disabled Students Allowance, we are working on a series of Tik Tok videos covering different post 16 options and the support available, including supported internships, traineeships, apprenticeships, full-time study in a mainstream setting and higher education.

We recently connected with colleagues at the Association of Colleges and are discussing ways in which we can work closer and use their network to disseminate our resources and reach more young people, parents and professionals.

In April we conducted a survey to explore the reasons Disabled people decide to share or not share information about their impairment or health condition, with education providers, training providers and employers. We’ve had 633 responses to our survey and are in the process reviewing the data. By the end of Q2 we aim to produce a report with our findings.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Career opportunities

The Leadership Academy Programme (LAP)

The LAP has now reached its 9th year and since pivoting the programme from an in-person delivery to online, one of the major benefits has been the breakdown of geographical barriers. With the programme being delivered online, we can reach a wider pool of talent and more organisations. Delegates have told us that the move to online has been beneficial, and better enabled their participation and ability to commit to the duration of the programme.

Learning from the LGA programme (The Disabled Councillors Leadership programme) last year, we had a complete redesign of our main LAP delivery. We now offer module days on conflict resolution, managing difficult conversations, and co-production on a new ‘Inclusive Leadership Tool’. The future for LAP is to establish ourselves as market leaders for the delivery of Leadership Training for Disabled people. We hope to secure funding to offer various leadership pathways.

The most significant impact that the programme has each year, is the increases in confidence for delegates, who go on to apply for more senior posts or have the confidence to change roles altogether. But beyond this we hear that delegates feel supported and for the first time able to really share their ‘lived experience’ as Disabled employees. This makes them feel heard and affords them the opportunity to learn from and share experiences with each other in a safe environment. This is unique in that their usual experience has been attending training where they do not feel they can be open and share in the same way.

This year we have included a new measurement tool, ‘The Inclusive Leadership Charter’, the focus of which is the use of co-production methodology to include the opinions and thoughts of all our LAP participants. Whether it is our main LAP cohort or one of our bespoke programmes, we have included a module, where delegates work together to share ideas, experience, expertise and good practice on ‘what is authentic leadership for a Disabled employee’. The tool, along with the delegates reports, is to create an online tool that we can use to support employers and employees, to enact, good inclusive practices in the workplace, in their policies and procedures and as a guide for good practice.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Participant feedback

“I’ve found this entire journey incredibly rewarding and confidence building, so I’m very grateful to have taken part.

… being partnered with Yani as my mentor has been absolutely fantastic. She’s been a brilliant source of support, guidance and clarity, and it was great to be partnered with someone also working in the EDI arena. So, huge shoutout to Yani!”

I have some great news; I was 2[nd] nationally out of 548 nominees for an Inspirational Woman award from the British Association for Woman in Policing this week.

Zoey has gone on to create a Neurodiversity Support Network in her workplace, reaching out to colleagues with lived experience of these conditions to ensure a well-rounded and effective support network. She also fought for her workplace to train Peer Supporters, through Mind charity, establishing a team of Neurodiversity Specialist Peer Supporters. This network has since supported over 60 colleagues in just a year. As her workplace put it, ‘Zoey is an inspirational woman and thoroughly deserving of formal recognition.” The full story can be read here:

Social Media

We continue to reach the Disabled and wider leadership communities through social media. Our Facebook and Twitter communities are more recent and are steadily growing. Our LinkedIn community now has a reach of 5,939 connections and 6,051 followers. We continue to share our learning with the wider community, so we impact the lives of moreDdisabled employees and provide information, and guidance for employers.

Communications

We have created an online community for delegates, partners, mentors, facilitators and other interested parties. Some channels are open, and others are locked and can only be accessed by invitation. This platform is a communication channel for all our LAP participants to continue to dialogue and share their ongoing success stories, disability specific or related articles, opportunities for Disabled employees, changes and development in legislation and much more. To date we have 98 participants.

Building on our existing partnerships with businesses we continue to form new partnerships and this year we are in discussions with a new partner

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Vodafone. We hope to extend the offer of LAP beyond their regional branches to their international sites.

Due to the success of our 2022-23 Disabled Councillors Leadership Programme, with the LGA last year, we have been commissioned to deliver a second cohort for their 2024 programme.

The 2024 LAP will see a mixture of partners placing delegates onto our main programme between February and September 2024 and further Bespoke Programmes, including Hull University Hospital.

Mentoring

We grow our mentorship programme each year, and we still acknowledge that the volunteering of senior leaders to support the delegates on LAP, continues to play an essential role in the overall programme's success, but more importantly, the personal one-to-one experience for each delegate. This year we welcomed 3 new mentors to add to our existing pool.

Achievements

In May 2023, the Leadership Academy Executive, Katrina Morris, was nominated for the Diverse Board Awards – Rising Star. We extended the opportunity to ask their Chief Operating Officer (COO) to not only mentor, but to also continue to support us with new mentors for each cohort year and as the COO of the Diversity Group, which is a Recruitment Consultancy, they have kindly agreed to provide a one-day workshop each year on CPD and what Employers look for on your CV and LinkedIn profile. The delegates really found this to be beneficial.

Disability and Skills Unit

Disabled Apprentices Network (DAN)

The Disabled Apprentice Network (DAN) and the Department for Education (DfE) are working together to understand the current barriers Disabled people may face in undertaking an apprenticeship, identify what works and codevelop solutions which support Disabled people to undertake apprenticeships.

During National Apprenticeship Week we held a Lunchtime Q & A session with 2 schools and DAN members. Students were able to ask questions about apprenticeships and Dan members explained some of the benefits of doing an apprenticeship.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

We launched the 2023 DAN report Speaking from Experience: Getting It Right for Disabled Apprentices on February 8th. The report considers what works well through collecting and analysing young Disabled people’s experiences of how they receive information about apprenticeships; their engagement with training providers and employers, and the support they have received. We also collected the views from various stakeholders who work with Disabled young people.

Round table discussions

We held three online round table discussions, individual meetings and online communications sessions with careers advisers, job coaches, training providers, education professionals, local and regional government representatives, employers and other stakeholders working with apprentices. Some issues raised:

Get Ahead

Get Ahead is a toolkit and resource. The newsletter and magazine helps Disabled young people and their circle of support navigate the wide range of information and resources available in post-16 education, training, and work. - https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/get ahead

We published information on the National Apprenticeship Week, support for Disabled apprentices, Disability confident employer scheme, Good Youth Charter, DAN, the Education and Training Foundation and the DR UK Student Helpline.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Webinars

We delivered a webinar with Amazing Apprenticeships ‘Time for change’ on October 17[th] , 2022. 150 people watched live and over 130 on catch up. A few resources were requested including networking, workshops, support for line managers, useful hints and tips and guides.

We delivered a webinar with the Apprenticeship Support & Knowledge for schools and colleges programme (ASK). This was for Disabled people, parents and key advisers. The webinar covered a range of topics including: sharing information about disability with employers and training providers, reasonable adjustments to make the training accessible and access to work.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Influencing public attitudes and behaviours

Media coverage

The rising cost of living dominated media coverage in 2022 to 2023 including, the just over 3% increase in benefit levels in April 2022 (whilst inflation was over 10%), spiralling energy bills and food costs, and rising rents. These were all issues that we commented on in press, radio and TV.

In November 2022, following rumours that Personal Independence Payment (PIP) was to be means tested, we supported a coalition of major recognisable faces within the Disabled community, to spearhead a campaign to prevent this happening. We worked at a fast pace, leading a small working group and developing a campaign including a schedule of media coverage. In the event the Government confirmed that there were no plans to ‘means test’ PIP, however, the work done to build relationships with Disabled celebrities will assist future high profile campaigns.

We spoke at the Channel 4 internal Paralympics launch about how best to represent Disabled people. Most of Channel 4’s senior executives were present.

We continued to write a dedicated column on disability in the Mirror – Dis Life – which gives us a dedicated weekly outlet to hold those in power to account, to highlight our campaign work, or to highlight the struggles and wins of Disabled people in daily life. The Mirror was nominated for, and won, national awards in the past year for its Disabled Britain series, within which we had a strong advisory and editorial role, and produced a significant amount of copy. We continue to attend bi-annual senior editorial board meetings to advise on how best to represent Disabled people across Reach PLC.

We worked with broadcaster, presenter and author Sophie Morgan to launch a Rights on Flights campaign to bring about better conditions for Disabled people who use air travel. We co-ordinated responses for submission as part of a petition to Number Ten Downing Street. The campaign received a huge amount of national press coverage and contributed to policy change, with positive announcements from the Civil Aviation Authority and the UK Government on improving equality of access for Disabled passengers.

We continue to work to gain coverage for issues affecting Disabled people in the national press and broadcast media by sending out press releases, responding to requests and making links with journalists.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

E-news moved to a fortnightly distribution in summer 2022, including a wide range of news stories commenting on Government announcements, research reports or that promote DR UK perspectives. The Christmas and New Year editions carried messages from our CEO to our readers. A survey of readers was undertaken in March 2023, which has informed further changes.

Digital communications

Website

Top pages:

  1. DR UK homepage

  2. Radar Key

  3. Work Capability Assessment

  4. How We Can Help

Social Media

Twitter and LinkedIn don’t record analytics from prior to 12 months ago. The below stats are from September 30[th] 2022 – March 31[st] 2023

Twitter:

LinkedIn:

Facebook:

For the 1[st] April 2022 – 31[st] March 2023: 8,039 reach, 2,720 page visits and 846 likes

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Since then, for reference, 19,800 people were reached by our posts in the last 90 days, up 89% from the previous 90 days.

E-News

Between these dates, our e-news was opened 212,692 times, averaging 6,647 opens per e-news (32 e-news bulletins were sent out in this time).

Get Yourself Active comms

The GYA website continues to perform well. Our latest stories have strong engagement metrics, and returning user levels are maintained. In this time period, we managed to secure 10,000 new users to the website, who spent an average of one minute on the GYA website. In this period, the most effective pages were:

On social media, our Twitter presence continued to grow. We have found that gym and leisure resources perform particularly well, with our guide on inclusive gyms doubling our average retweet score for tweets and getting lots of views on the website.

Our funding guidance is also popular. This may be due to them being for a more DPO/organisational audience - who are more able to use these resources. Our monthly newsletter continues to be effective with an open rate of 30%.

We continued to collaborate successfully with DPOs and other organisations that support Disabled people to get active. Over the period, we've worked with many new and exciting partners to create over 30 new stories and guides with organisations such as Rethink Mental Illness, Groundwork UK, Khalsa Football Academy and many more.

Get Yourself Active (GYA)

In July 2022 GYA moved to the next phase of work with Sport England as a System Partner. This means an investment of £1,773,068 over five years, allowing us to continue our existing work and to expand our reach and potential impact.

Our first year working as a system partner has been a process of integrating GYA’s work to tackle inequalities in physical activity across DR UK. We have taken an outcomes led approach towards internal change which has enabled

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us to develop a robust Theory of Change (ToC) based on evidence and lived and worked experience. The new ToC has enabled us to develop a series of integrated posts which will be able to meet the outcomes we have mapped out. We have aligned this process with the redevelopment of the DR UK strategy and structure. This provided us with an opportunity to think strategically as well as practically about how multiple staff members feed into our work with Sport England.

We created a GYA Policy and Campaigns post which sits in our policy team. This post has focussed on policy and campaigns on social care, health and Integrated Care Systems (ICS); benefits and the activity trap; active travel for DPOs and green and blue spaces. We will also be recruiting a Relationships manager and Data and Insight manager later in the year.

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. Moving Social Work aims to upskill and empower the social work profession and its numerous stakeholders to take ownership of movement advocacy for and alongside Disabled people to create lasting change. The first phase of this programme ended in April 2023 and we are currently going through the process of moving on to phase two in Autumn 2023.

In the first phase of Moving Social Work, we conducted rigorous research to find out how best to educate and train people who are doing a social work degree, and those working as social workers, in how to promote physical activity to and for Disabled people. Phase one of MSW delivered 21 lectures to 301 social work students and 10 training sessions to social workers across 6 local authorities. The results of this feasibility trial demonstrated that Moving Social Work impacts on social workers by upskilling and empowering social workers to promote physical activity in their daily work.

In the next phase of work, with support from Sport England, Disability Rights UK and Durham University will:

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Social Care

Following our initial pilot social care training in early 2022, we have continued to roll out training to better support the social care sector to support Disabled people to be active.

The training packages have been updated and have just started phase 2 on the initial pilot site, Nottingham. We have also identified 3 new localities where this will be rolled out. The feedback has been invaluable, and the pilot sites are keen to still be involved.

We want to look at how to capitalise the motivation and drive immediately after receiving the training and find levers to embed this into day-to-day practice. DPOs are still under a great deal of pressure of finances and time.

We are in constant conversations with them and the development of the DPO support hub responds to their concerns and needs. We foresee this helping to build resilience in the sector so we can continue to work with them. We have identified potential DPOs that will assist with the new pilot areas.

Co-production

From delivering pilot co-production training to the sport sector in the last phase of GYA, we know there is more work we need to do around improving knowledge and confidence in the sector.

We are currently developing a ‘shared narrative’ around co-production and what it means in practice, in order to improve knowledge, guide action and influence policy and practice. We held four round table events that brought a broad selection of organisations together to shape a shared narrative of coproduction that may be used by multiple organisations as a guide.

From these roundtables, we were able to gather insight into how organisations currently implement co-production into their day-to-day work. The document will be broken into segments when finished, making this an easy-to-use guide for co-production.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Together Fund

Since August 2020 DR UK has been a national delivery partner for Sport England’s Together Fund (previously known as the Tackling Inequalities Fund).

The fund aimed to reduce the negative impact of Covid-19, the associated cost of living crisis and any widening of inequalities in participation rates in sport and physical activity. Data from the Sport England commissioned “Physical Activity attitudes and behaviours” survey during Covid-19, shows widening gaps in activity levels across certain communities: people from Lower Socio-Economic Groups; Culturally Diverse Communities; Disabled People and People with Long-Term Health Conditions.

We focused on promoting the fund to two of the four priority audiences above (Disabled people and people with long term health conditions) and split the application process into two separate routes.

Small grants of up to £3,000 and large grants of up to £10,000. Small Community Organisations that were not Disabled people led and did not have a project idea that was led by Disabled people could apply for up to £3,000. Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) that could demonstrate that their project idea was Disabled people led could apply for up to £10,000 from us.

From April 2022 to March 2023, we funded 59 projects totalling £231,485, supporting more than 3,000 individuals identified as Disabled and/or having a long-term health condition to be physically active. Of these 59 projects, 14 were from DPOs that had a Disabled people-led project idea, which made up 48.3% of the total amount of funds awarded in the 12-month period. Most of these projects provided either a single organised physical activity (such as cycling, swimming, walking and horse riding) or a mix of different sports (such as climbing and archery, or a multi-week programme of different activities). Projects that provided yoga or dance tended to take a holistic approach to improving physical and mental well-being, of which physical activity played an important role. Below is a map of the geographical spread of projects.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Figure 1: A map showing the geographical spread of the organisations Disability Rights UK funded via the Together Fund between April 2022 and March 2023.

Quotes from Together Fund projects:

“Get Active Together’ has made me realise I do have something to offer others and the self-worth and esteem that gives me is priceless” – Living Options Devon participant

“We have always found the TIF grant programme staff at DR UK extremely helpful and appreciate the regular newsletters and training opportunities etc.” - Living Options Devon’s Impact and Evaluation Manger

“Since starting DanceSyndrome J has a whole new routine to her Saturdays and as a direct result has seen improvement in her college work (foundation skills) which means she has shown enough improvement to continue her

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

classes, something which may not have happened without this routine.” - DanceSydrome participant’s parent

“ Always very helpful staff at DR UK who have introduced us to a variety of very informative resources. We have learnt tremendously on language pertaining to disability and ways to encourage active lifestyle among our audience.” – Misgav’s Development Manager

“I really value having the support of DR UK. As the critical activity we provide does not readily fit “standard” application forms, and DR UK has the ability to understand the needs / barriers this community faces and apply pragmatism. Thank you”. – Head of London Wayfarer Flyerz

“I just wanted to say we attended the meet and greet session and really enjoyed it. What a lovely well run site and lovely staff - thank you” – Wakefield Riding for the Disabled Association participant.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Training and Consultancy

We sold a record 23,000 Radar keys last year. The keys provide independent access to over 9,000 accessible public toilets around the UK. We continue to work in partnership with Nicholls & Clarke, who invented the Radar lock that is still fitted and used today. Monthly highs are a continuing trend.

The scale of growth surprised us somewhat, and we cannot account for all of it, but factors include; the launch of the new online shop in March 2022, the revamped website, carefully planted messages about the history of the National Key Scheme and influencing of partners to re-direct their websites to us.

Maintaining the price at £5 including postage has also undoubtedly helped us gain a higher market share.

The Disability Rights Handbook and other publications were up £23k on budget. The digital version of the Handbook, which sits on the Child Poverty Action Group AskCPAG platform, attracted over 600 subscribers, and brought in £16k – which was additional income since book sales also increased slightly compared to the previous year.

During the pandemic we started delivering online training and this continued to grow. DR UK worked with over 80 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 organisations included:

Chelmsford Council Nottingham University
Climate X Nuffield Foundation
Department for Transport Penguin Random House
Dounreay Royal Astronomical Society
Eversheds Sutherland Royal College of Psychiatrists
Francis Crick Institute Siemens
Health Education England Town and Country Homes
Local Government Association Women in Prison
Literacy Pirates York Business Improvement
Mind District
Netcompany

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

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

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 £49,068 in 2022/23, a profit increase of 11% compared to the previous year.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Fundraising

During this year we undertook a review of our funding streams and made definitive links between these and our new Strategic Goals. This has helped to crystallise our messaging to funders about how the resources they award help to achieve our aims. The findings of the review have been fed into a regularly updated spreadsheet which is sent to our Finance Committee for consideration in advance of quarterly meetings, and provides the opportunity for more detailed feedback, including that which we receive from funders, and questions to staff by the Committee.

We further developed our partnership approach to funding, leading to money from the Disrupt Foundation for our work with People’s Voice Media to gather and curate stories for the Covid Inquiry. This is an area on which we continue to build and regularly expand our ‘potential partners’ portfolio. It is also in line with our ongoing commitment to co-production, with the aim that one day all the funding bids we submit are co-produced.

The addition of a Digital Content Officer to the our team has made an appreciable difference both to our digital ability and capacity. We have trialled QR codes which are now included on our published materials and running vests, and also on the festive cards which we sold via the shop in the winter. We have engaged Enthuse as our giving platform which gives us access to useful data.

During the year we also benefited from the fundraising activities of our Marathon and Asics runners and from the regular donations from trusts and foundations such as the Snowdon Trust and the Elizabeth and Prince Zaiger Trust.

In terms of monies raised, it has been a mixed bag during this year with some successes but also a considerable number of rejections, underlining that the funding environment continues to be challenging. We do, however, have a considerable amount of high quality written material which can be repurposed.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Plans for the future

Our New Strategy for 2023

Vision

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

Mission

To support the Disability Rights movement campaigning for the rights and justice of all Disabled people.

We work together to build the capacity of Disabled People’s Organisations including DR UK, engaging and networking to speak with a unifying voice on the inequality that affects our lives.

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 as Disabled people.

Values Statements

Disabled people matter because we are here, because we belong, and because we are part of human diversity. Human beings are wondrously different in so many ways and we celebrate this.

Strategic Goals

  1. Support, build and engage in the Disability Rights movement We are a part of the movement and will work with it in partnership and solidarity. We will work with others to support our organisations to build capacity and to fight for the rights of all Disabled people.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

2. Grow ourselves and the DPO sector

Survival of our rights-based organisations is important to continue our fight for change as we work towards an inclusive society.

3. Advocate for change

We will continue to speak truth to power, create campaigns and lobby with members. Listening to the lived experience of all Disabled people, we will advocate for the changes we need to live equal lives, with the right support at the right time.

4. Develop our knowledge and understanding

Better understand our impact through strategic and targeted evaluation. We will work with the DPO sector to build an evidence base that we can use to influence funders and governments, to better understand us and our organisations and the role they play.

5. Advise and inform

Providing high quality advice and information, written by Disabled people for Disabled people and DPOs.

Policy Priorities for 2023 to 2024

Policy priorities will be reviewed as part of our new strategy launched in 2023. We will build on the previous areas of focus, as the work is ongoing and the inequality experienced by Disabled people continues to worsen.

Our priority to defending and securing rights continues to be central to all we do. We will continue to work on the Human Rights Act, hate crime, climate change, benefits system, transport, house.

We are core participants to the Covid-19 Public Inquiry, and will work with our colleagues at Inclusion Scotland, Disability Wales and Disability Action Ireland to bring the voices of Disabled people the hearings. We will ensure that we engage with the wider community paying special focus to intersectional DPOs.

Our other priority areas are:

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

General Election

With the General Election now on the horizon we will work with the DPO Forum members and other Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisation to unify our asks of political parties. We will work together to put forward the views of Disabled people and to understand what each party is planning for its manifesto.

In partnership with others, we will look for ways to support Disabled people who are interested in better understanding the political landscape and what it takes to be involved on a local and national level. We will continue to push for a replacement for the Elected Office Fund and the EnAble fund.

UNCRPD

We contributed to the Civil Society report in 2021/22 and then in 2022/23 to the special protocol review report. 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 will continue the work we started in 2022/23 in this area. Having appointed two Disabled consultants, we will scrutinise ourselves, develop our understanding, learn about areas of development and get on with the work. It is a journey we are on and committed to.

Promoting Physical Activity - Moving Social Work

Building on the work we started in 2022/23, the next phase of work, with support from Sport England, and in partnership with Durham University we will scale the programme nationally, and engage social workers and Disabled people in championing the benefits of physical activity. We will develop and evaluate place-based models in collaboration with others.

Disabled Peoples Organisations

Our new strategy has a specific focus on supporting and working with DPOs. The funding secured from Legal Education Foundation in 2022/23 will allow us to continue the work which will include a new DPO Hub on our website. The hub will have shared resources, training material and a place to collaborate. We will based on the research carried out by the DPO Manager

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

in 2022/23 develop new offers to DPOs and improve our connections with intersectional DPOs.

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Financial review

The charity had a positive movement in funds of £18,943 (2022 £8,720). This has improved the balance sheet which now shows net assets of £333,158 (£314,215), of which unrestricted reserves are £275,463 (£241,568).

This year represents a return to more familiar operating circumstances after two years affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. As there was little certainty around trading activity entering the year, a cautious breakeven budget was set yet the executive achieved a small surplus.

Income from Trusts and Foundations increased year on year. The programme to support Disabled People’s Organisations funded by the Legal Education Foundation began and funding from the Three Guineas Trust was for a full year instead of half a year in 2022. The charity was also successful with a bid to the Social Enterprise Fund.

Trading activity was strong with the launch of a new online shop boosting sales. The flagship Disability Rights Handbook publication increased sales year on year for the first time since 2019 and Radar Key sales had another record year, 23,000 being sold.

Training and consultancy turnover increased by 35% with the return of inperson training supplementing a growing online offer. The charity delivered training to a diverse pool of over 60 customers across the year including local and central government departments, large corporate partners and several NHS properties.

The charity continued to work with it’s long term partners at the Department for Education, Sport England and City Bridge Trust.

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 2023 the unrestricted reserves are £275,463 (2022: £241,568).The reserves policy is reviewed annually by the Finance

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

Committee and the main Board of Trustees. The core running costs (excluding project expenditure) for 3 months are approximately £280,000 (£250,000), which is the level of reserves the Board consider appropriate. 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.

Last year an additional £50k was added principally to cover the cost of living crisis, but this is not included now. The policy is therefore to try to build up unrestricted reserves to £280,000. With unrestricted reserves at £275k, we are £5k below target.

Going concern

The charity manages its cash position very carefully. The 2023/24 budget was developed on a prudent basis taking into account any potential future impacts of 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 2023

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 Legal Education Foundation City Bridge Trust Lloyds of London Foundation Department for Education Netcompany Disrupt Foundation Snowdon Trust E-surv Social Enterprise Support Fund Edinburgh Trust Sport England Elizabeth and Prince Zaiger Trust Three Guineas Trust GD Herbert Charitable Trust

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

Marathon runners: John Butcher, Dan White, Jessica Jones, Jennie Reid, Kian Ardalan

And finally, thank you to our members.

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

Page | 46

Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

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

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

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. Incoming trustees are buddied with an existing member of the board.

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:

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 safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking

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Disability Rights UK Trustees’ Annual Report For the year ended 31 March 2023

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:

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 28[th] September 2023 and signed on their behalf by;

…………………………………….

Madeline Close Acting Treasurer

Page | 49

Independent auditors’ report To the members of Disability Rights UK For the year ended 31 March 2023

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Disability Rights UK (the ‘Charity’) for the year ended 31 March 2023 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:

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 2023

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:

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:

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 2023

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:

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

18 October 2023

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Disability Rights UK Statement of financial activities

(incorporating an income and expenditure account)

For the year ended 31 March 2023

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
£
106,517
19,799
179,460
278,252
132,700
716,728
71,812
76,030
136,687
274,880
123,424
682,833
33,895
241,568
275,463		 Restricted
funds
£
-
-
909,818
-
-
909,818
14,952
-
909,818
-
-
924,770
(14,952)
72,647
57,695		 2023
Total
funds
£
106,517
19,799
1,089,278
278,252
132,700
1,626,546
86,764
76,030
1,046,505
274,880
123,424
1,607,603
18,943
314,215
333,158		 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

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.

Page | 53

Disability Rights UK Balance sheet As at 31 March 2023

Note
Fixed assets:
9
10
Current assets:
11
Liabilities:
12
15
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
Funds
General funds
Total charity funds
Unrestricted funds:		 £
155,186
652,906		 2023
£
31,371
6,057		 £
160,490
574,236		 2022
£
13,126
6,057
37,428
295,730		 19,183
295,032
808,092
(512,362)		 734,726
(439,694)
333,158
-		 314,215
-
333,158 314,215
57,695
275,463		 72,647
241,568
333,158 314,215

Approved by the trustees on 28/09/2023

and signed on their behalf by:

Madeline Close Acting Treasurer

Liz Leach Murphy Chair of Trustees

Company registration no. 7314865

The attached notes form part of the financial statements.

Page | 54

Disability Rights UK Statement of cash flows For the year ended 31 March 2023

2023 2022
£ £
Net income for the reporting period 18,943 8,720
(as per the statement of financial activities)
Depreciation 9,401 3,051
Disposal of fixed assets - -
Decrease in debtors 5,304 43,884
Increase / (decrease) in creditors 72,668 (51,011)
Net cash provided by operating activities 106,316 4,644
2023 2022
£ £
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the year 106,316 4,644
Purchase of fixed assets (27,646) (16,001)
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year 574,236 585,593
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year 652,906 574,236

Page | 55

Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

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

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.

Page | 56

Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

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:

● 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 2023

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
91,449
Legacies
10,392
Bank interest
4,676
106,517
Unrestricted
2022
£
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
Unrestricted		 2022
£
-
-
753,182
-
-
753,182
1,658
-
753,182
-
-
754,840
(1,658)
74,305
72,647
2023
Total
£
91,449
10,392
4,676
106,517
Restricted		 2022
Total
£
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
2022
Total
£
120,688
34,989
559
156,236

Page | 58

Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

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
£
16,602
3,197
19,799
7,941
-
53,354
118,165
179,460
273,189
5,063
-
278,252
116,600
16,100
132,700
610,211		 £
-
-
-
120,000
789,818
-
-
909,818
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
909,818
Restricted		 2023
Total
£
16,602
3,197
19,799
127,941
789,818
53,354
118,165
1,089,278
273,189
5,063
-
278,252
116,600
16,100
132,700
1,520,029		 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

Page | 59

Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

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 2023 Total 2022 Total
£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £
Staff costs Direct 55,532 38,238 368,776 116,504 - 326,136 905,186 791,576
Direct project costs Direct 15,577 3,914 401,892 92,582 53,769 - 567,734 571,738
Office running costs Direct - - - - - 87,051 87,051 21,903
Premises costs Direct - - - - - 47,632 47,632 57,020
71,109 42,152 770,668 209,086 53,769 460,819 1,607,603 1,442,237
Overhead salaries 11,263 24,467 186,328 41,325 62,753 (326,136) -
Office running costs 2,839 6,083 57,853 15,815 4,461 (87,051) -
Rent & rates 1,553 3,328 31,656 8,654 2,441 (47,632) -
Total expenditure 2023 86,764 76,030 1,046,505 274,880 123,424 - 1,607,603 1,442,237
Total expenditure 2022 71,136 76,923 940,035 251,615 102,528 - 1,442,237

Of the total expenditure, £682,833 was unrestricted (2022: £687,397) and £924,770 was restricted (2022: £754,840).

Page | 60

Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

6 Net income / (expenditure) for the year

This is stated after charging: 2023 2022
£ £
Operating lease rentals:
Property - rent 47,632 57,000
Other equipment - photocopier - 553
Depreciation 9,401 3,051
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		 2023
£
797,929
85,838
21,419		 2022
£
704,127
70,366
17,083
905,186 791,576

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:

2023 2022
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 £274,899 (2022 £275,401).

The charity trustees were not paid or did not receive any other benefits from employment with the charity in the year (2022: £nil). No charity trustee received payment for professional or other services supplied to the charity (2022: £nil).

Trustees' travel travel and subsistence expenses totalled £2,700 (2022: £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		 2023
2022
Number
Number
0.8
0.9
1.7
1.8
15.9
13.8
4.4
4.5
1.2
1.3
24.0
22.3
Average number of staff
employed during the year		 2023
2022
Number
Number
0.8
0.9
1.7
1.8
15.9
13.8
4.4
4.5
1.2
1.3
24.0
22.3
Average number of staff
employed during the year		 2023
2022
Number
Number
0.7
0.8
1.5
1.6
14.3
12.1
3.9
3.9
1.1
1.2
21.5
19.6
Average number of FTE staff
employed during the year		 2023
2022
Number
Number
0.7
0.8
1.5
1.6
14.3
12.1
3.9
3.9
1.1
1.2
21.5
19.6
Average number of FTE staff
employed during the year
24.0 22.3 21.5 19.6

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

Page | 61

Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

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		 £
10,681
25,489
-
New website
(intangible)		 £
31,813
2,157
-
Computer
equipment		 £
2,170
-
-
Fixtures and
fittings		 Total
£
44,664
27,646
-
36,170 33,970 2,170 72,310
1,658
7,215		 27,710
2,186		 2,170
-		 31,538
9,401
8,873 29,896 2,170 40,939
27,297 4,074 - 31,371
9,023 4,103 - 13,126

All of the above assets are used for charitable purposes.

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		 2023
£
913
5,142
2		 2022
£
913
5,142
2
6,057 6,057

Page | 62

Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

11 Debtors

Debtors
Trade debtors
Other debtors
Prepayments
Accrued income		 2023
£
118,555
4,126
31,505
1,000		 2022
£
104,470
9,473
46,373
174
155,186 160,490

12 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year

Trade creditors
Taxation and social security
Other creditors
Accruals
Deferred income
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
48th Handbook pre-orders, invoices raised and online payments received
Handbook published end of April 2023
Grants subject to performance-related conditions (shown as deferred in restricted note)
Training and consulting projects		 2023
£
62,621
37,168
2,061
40,545
369,967		 2022
£
57,038
29,749
1,924
41,463
309,520
512,362 439,694
2023
£
309,520
(309,520)
369,967		 2022
£
293,734
(293,734)
309,520
369,967 309,520
2023
£
57,824
252,754
59,389		 2022
£
62,599
199,845
47,076
369,967 309,520

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.

13 Pension scheme

The charity operates a defined contribution pension scheme with Friends Life which is a qualifying scheme for auto-enrolment.

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

14
Analysis of net assets between funds
Year ended 31 March 2023
Tangible fixed assets
Investments
Net current assets
Long term liabilities
Net assets at the end of the year
Year ended 31 March 2022
Tangible fixed assets
Investments
Net current assets
Long term liabilities
Net assets at the end of the year		 General
unrestricted
£
31,371
6,057
238,035
-		 Restricted
£
-
-
57,695
-		 Total
funds
£
31,371
6,057
295,730
-
275,463 57,695 333,158
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

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Disability Rights UK

Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

15 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 2023 £ £ £ £
Restricted funds:
Department for Education Apr - Mar - 120,000 (120,000) -
Sport England - Get Yourself Active Finished - 83,414 (83,414) -
Sport England - System Partner To 31 March 166,254 (166,254)
Sport England - Moving Social Work Deferred - 59,237 (59,237) -
Sport England - Tackling Inequalities Deferred - 218,270 (218,270) -
City Bridge Trust - Bridge to Work Quarterly - 20,645 (20,645) -
City Bridge Trust - advice work in London Quarterly - 35,000 (35,000) -
DSA QAG Ongoing 72,647 - (14,952) 57,695
The Three Guineas Trust Half yearly - 100,000 (100,000) -
The Legal Education Foundation Deferred 68,392 (68,392) -
Disrupt Foundation Deferred 9,918 (9,918) -
Social Enterprise Fund Deferred 28,688 (28,688) -
Total restricted funds 72,647 909,818 (924,770) 57,695
General funds - unrestricted 241,568 716,728 (682,833) 275,463
Total charity funds 314,215 1,626,546 (1,607,603) 333,158
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 - Moving Social Work 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
The Three Guineas Trust 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

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

Purposes of restricted funds

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

Sport England - 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 finished on 30 June 2022. The project was renewed on 1 July for a further 5 years as detailed below.

Sport England - Get Yourself Active System Partner. A continuation of the Get Yourself Active programme detailed above with Disability Rights UK becoming a System Partner of Sport England. It started on 1 July and runs for 4 years 9 months to 31 March 2027. The year end was moved to be in line with our own year end.

Sport England - Moving Social Work Parts 1 & 2. A Sport England project, in partnership with Durham University 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. This project ended 30 April 2023 and is being replaced with stage 2 starting in September/October.

Sport England - Together Fund (was Tackling Inequalities). A Sport England funded project to help organisations to support Disabled people and people with Long-Term Health Conditions to be active during the pandemic.

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. The grant is 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.

The Disabled Students' Allowance Quality Assurance Group (DSA-QAG). In March 2020, we received a restricted donation of £80,000 from DSA-QAG, following the closure of that organisation. The donation is restricted to work associated with assisting disabled students to enter and succeed in higher education.

The Three Guineas Trust. The Three Guineas Trust is one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts. The funding is to increase our capacity to influence policy change across areas such as the welfare benefits system, education, employment and social care.

The Legal Education Foundation. The Legal Education Foundation (LEF) have funded our work to build capacity within Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) over a three year period. We have created a Steering Group made up of DPO senior staff, as well as disabled people. The aim of the work is to make DPOs, and the sector, more sustainable and more able to apply for and obtain funding. We will be building a DPO Hub and interactive map of DPOs across the country, with the aim of directing disabled people to their nearest DPO, but also to enable more joined up working between DPOs. This will maximise reach and minimise duplication.

Disrupt Foundation. This funding enabled us to work in partnership with People’s Voice Media to gather stories from disabled people about their experiences during the Covid pandemic.

Social Enterprise Support Fund. This grant offer was made by the Key Fund with funding from the National Lottery Community Fund. Over a 12 month period from June 2022, it has paid towards existing staff time to develop and start the implementation of core strategies around business development and the digitisation of fundraising. The funding has also included money for marketing materials and consultancy.

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Disability Rights UK Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

16 Operating lease commitments

There are no future lease payments under operating leases.

The only operating lease was on the photocopier which ran for 5 years and finished in January 2022. We are currently just paying for the paper and printer ink costs.

The contract for the office in Plexal finished on 30 June 2023. It has been renewed at the same rate of £3,812 a month plus VAT for a further year.

17 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.

18 Related party transactions

There are no related party transactions to disclose for 2023 (2022: none).

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