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2023-03-31-accounts

ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN THE UK (TRADING AS JUST FATR)

TRUSTEE’S REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

CONTENTS Page
Trustees Report 2
Statement ofTrustees’ responsibilities 6
Independent Examiner's Report 7
Statement offinancial activities 8
Balance sheet 9
Notestotheaccounts 10to12

Registered charity number: 1141484 Company no: 07394478

Registered office and principal operating address: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the UK (Trading as Just Fair) c/o Jamie Burton

Doughty Street Chambers 54 Doughty Street London WCIN 2LS

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ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN THE UK (TRADING AS JUST FAIR)

TRUSTEE’S REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

TRUSTEES' REPORT

The Trustees present their accounts for the year to 31 March 2023.

The following individuals are Trustees of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the UK (trading as Just Fair) under charity law (directors under company law):

Our aims and objectives

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the UK (trading as Just Fair) is a civil society organisation working on economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) in the UK.

We specialise in ESCR policy, research, and practice, have an established track record, extensive networks, and strong partnerships. Our vision is for a fairer and more just society for all, and our mission is to use ESCR asa tool for social change, leading and inspiring work to respect, protect and fulfil ESCR in the UK.

Our goal is for ESCR to be incorporated into domestic law, and for the UK Government and public authorities to be effectively held to account in relation to their human rights obligations. If we are successful, these rights will be better respected, protected and fulfilled, and everyone will be guaranteed the basic requirements of a decent life in which they can thrive, with dignity.

Our funding

In this period, we benefitted from income from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Disrupt Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Tudor Trust, and The Legal Education Foundation. The Trustees are enormously grateful for the support and confidence shown in Just Fair by each of our donors.

Our patrons

We remain indebted to the hard work and commitment of our inspiring patrons, Baroness Jane Campbell, Baroness Ruth Lister, and Professor Paul Hunt.

Our staff

In this period, Jess McQuail continued as Director; Helen Flynn as Head of Policy, Research and Campaigns, Kate Ewing as Administrator and Researcher, and Maddy Lawson as Communications Advisor. Lyle Barker joined as the new Human Rights Officer during 2022 and moved on in February 2023. All staff continued to work remotely.

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Our context

There is no doubt we are living in ever more challenging times. Following Covid-19, 2022 was a disaster for UK living standards. We are now facing growing levels of inequality and the worst cost of living crisis in 40 years. People are experiencing soaring levels of poverty, a health service in crisis, a social security system no longer fit for purpose, poor working conditions, restrictions on the right to strike and discrimination at work and in education, healthcare, and housing.

As with austerity measures and the Covid-19 pandemic before it, this crisis is having a disproportionate impact on some, including people on a low-income and in low-paid households, those with a disabled family member and people of colour.

Alongside, we are facing a hostile UK political environment, with rights and access to rights being significantly undermined and facing further threats.

But we are inspired by the power and confidence that people and communities have when they come together and stand up for their everyday rights, and the tide is turning on ESCR as more and more of us recognise the need for permanent, lasting solutions to poverty and inequality.

Our activities

The activities of the charity described below are for the public benefit and the Trustees have given due consideration to the Charity Commission’s published guidance on the Public Benefit requirement under the Charities Act 2011.

During this year, we developed and published our new Strategy 2023-25. The strategy set out our approach to strengthening our work on ESCR in the UK, and to building a stronger, more united civil society with the capacity and confidence to call for the fulfilment of ESCR.

Key activities of the year have included:

We have continued to act as a thought leader and advocate for ESCR, undertaking specialist monitoring, research, campaigns, advocacy, and communications, so the UK Government and public authorities are more effectively held to account on their existing ESCR obligations. We have also continued to advocate for ESCR to be effectively incorporated into domestic law across the UK.

We continued as members of several civil society coalitions and to convene a number of others. As co-secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), we supported 2open APPG meetings, on NRPF and children, NRPF and housing. We contributed our expertise to coalitions such as the Save our Human Rights Act coalition, the End Child Poverty coalition, the Inequalities in Health Alliance (IHA), Equally Ours and the Lift the Ban coalition. We continued our work on the implications of the UK’s exit from the EU on human rights, as part of the Civil Society Alliance (previously the Brexit Civil Society Alliance).

We are the UK NGO representative on the International ESCR-Net partnership and have increased our support of the new generation ofESCR activists by securing partnerships with the University of Bristol and SOAS, employing paid student interns for dedicated projects. We have also continued to manage students in partnership under the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership ESRC Network Award.This network brings us together with the universities of Sheffield, York and Leeds, and the Overseas Development Institute to support 3 funded PhD studentships to work on informality and citizenship.

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We submitted 16 specialist reports to various UK Parliament committee inquiries, UK CSO and other consultations, and UN treaty and intergovernmental body review processes, with significant results including our evidence being picked up and used as part of UN scrutiny of the UK.

The creation and submission of the independent parallel report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN CESCR) on behalf of civil society in England and Wales was a particular highlight. This project involved capacity building with civil society organisations (CSOs) across England and Wales to encourage engagement in the project, collation of evidence from over 70 CSOs, publication of a report in English, Welsh and Easy Read, publication of a ‘companion guide’ and report launch events in the House of Lords and the Senedd. We also attended CESCR’s Presessional Working Group in Geneva to present the report, supported people with lived experience to present their own evidence to CESCR, coordinated civil society across the UK to assist their input into the process and completed a significant amount of follow up.

We continued to lead and coordinate high profile campaigns, including on the cost-of-living crisis, the UK’s human rights record, Section | of the Equality Act - the socio-economic duty, and no recourse to public funds. Again, we have seen strong results from these campaigns, particularly with regard to the socio-economic duty, where, working with our partners, we supported the voluntary adoption of the duty by 2 local authorities and successfully advocated for the Labour Party to include a commitment to enact the duty in its pre-manifesto proposals.

We continued to work with civil society organisations and activists, supporting them to be more confident and have more capacity to use ESCR as a tool for change. During this year, we delivered over 20 open events and training sessions for CSOs on ESCR, and followed up with many CSOs, supporting them to use ESCR in their own campaigns.

We worked with many community activists, including our Community Researchers to develop their own manifesto for social change, and a film in which they talked about their work in local communities and what taking a rights-based approach means to them, which was launched at a public screening and was widely shared. We continued to support the development of a project which brings together activists and communities to showcase good practice in local advocacy on poverty and human rights. Over the last year, as part of this project, together with, Amnesty International UK, ATD Fourth World and the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex we facilitated a series of events to build bridges between people with lived and learned experience of poverty in the UK.

Alongside, we produced and disseminated a range of tools and resources to support CSOs, including a new cost of living crisis hub on our website with downloadable rights-based resources.

We started scoping the establishment of a new lived experience advisory board which will play a key role in deciding what our organisational priorities and work should be. We are aiming for the board to be comprised of people with lived experience of inequality and injustice (relating to particularly ESCR), who will work collaboratively with us to plan and support Just Fair to be as permeable to lived expertise as it is to learned expertise, informing the development and delivery of all our activities and projects.

Lastly, we commissioned the Institute for Voluntary Action Research to help us develop and implement a new monitoring, evaluation and learning framework and tools, so we can better measure and learn from all our work.

There are no uncertainties about the ability of the charity to continue as a going concern. Financial review and reserves policy

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In this period, we operated with a planned and well managed budget deficit again in 2020/22 made possible by the surpluses achieved in previous periods. The Trustees are also pleased to report that following the balance sheet date additional unrestricted funding was secured for 2023/24.

The Trustees keep the reserves policy under review and implemented a new policy during the period to ensure it is appropriate to the planned activities and the risks the charity faces. The current strong balance sheet with significant income received in advance together with a good relationship with the key funders means that the charity is well placed to continue with the plans outlined above. As per the new reserves policy, the minimum level of acceptable reserves is the midpoint of:

The organisation implements its financial policies and procedures designed to mitigate, to the extent possible, the risks of financial failure and exposure to accidental or intentional actions that could potentially damage the financial good standing of the organisation. The Trustees review the organisation’s policies and procedures on an annual basis to ensure that policies and procedures remain appropriate and proportionate.

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ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN THE UK (TRADING AS JUST FAIR)

TRUSTEE’S REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

Statement of Trustees' Responsibilities In Relation To The Financial Statements

Company law requires the Trustees, who are also directors under company law, to prepare accounts for each financial year. Under that law the Trustees have elected to prepare the Financial Statements in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards and applicable law). Under company law the Trustees must not approve the Financial Statements unless they are satisfied, they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and of the surplus or deficit of the charitable company for that year. In preparing these Financial Statements, the Trustees are required to:

The Trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the charitable company's transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the 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 reasonable steps for prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

Small company provisions

This report has been prepared in accordance with the Companies Act 2006 and the special provisions relating to small companies, the Financial Reporting Standard 102, and the Charities Act 2011.

Independent Examiner

The Trustees consider an audit under section 476 of the said Act was not required and an independent external examination of the accounts on pages8 to 12 was required.

The Trustees confirm that no member or members have requested an audit pursuant to section 476 of the Companies Act 2006.

Approved by the Trustees and signed on their behalf by:

Date: 19 July 2023

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ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN THE UK (TRADING AS JUST FATR)

TRUSTEE’S REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

Independent examiner’s report to the charity Trustees of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the UK (Trading as Just Fair)

I report on the accounts of the company for the period ended 31 March 2023 which are set out on page 8 tol2.

Responsibilities of Trustees and examiner and basis of my report

As Trustees of the Company (who are also the directors of the company for the purposes of company law), you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 (“the 2006 Act’).

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

Independent examiner’s statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect,:

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

Name: Andrew Ledward 19" July 2023 Chartered Accountant 47 Roman Way, Uckfield, East Sussex

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ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN THE UK (TRADING AS JUST FAIR)

TRUSTEE’S REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

2023 2022 (Restated) 2022 (Restated)
Core Restricted Total Core Restricted Total
£ £ £ £ £ £
Incoming resources from
generated funds;
The Joseph Rowntree Charitable
Trust 47,250 - 47,250 50,000 - 50,000
The Tudor Trust - 33,333 33,333 - 35,333 35,333
TheLaw Society Charity - - - - 4,910 4,910
The Legal Education Foundation 50,000 - 50,000 - 25,000 25,000
TheNational Lottery Community
Fund - - - - 56,009 56,009
Disrupt Foundation 55,561 - 55,561 - - -
Equality andHuman Rights
Commission 49,999 - 49,999 - - -
The Baring Foundation - - - - 44,800 44,800
Other Income 3,815 - 3,815 3,200 4,508 7,708
Total voluntary income 206,625 33,333 239,958 53,200 170,560 223,760
Less: Resources expended:
Governance (Note 2) 3,579 3,579 4,915 - 4,915
Charitable Activities (Note 3) 132,737 50,556 183,293 58,865 167,559 226,424
Total resources expended 136,316 50,556 186,872 63,780 167,559 231,339
Netmovement in funds 70,309 -17,223 53,086 -10,580 3,001 -7,579
Funds brought forward 23,158 17,223 45,291 33,738 14,222 47,960
Fundscarriedforward 93,467 - 93,467 23,158 17,223 40,381

The notes on pages 10 to 12 form part of these accounts

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ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN THE UK (TRADING AS JUST FAIR)

TRUSTEE’S REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

BALANCE SHEET AS AT
Restated
2023 2022
Note £ £
Current Assets
Cash at bank 226,593 101,946
Sundry debtors 4 799 320
227,392 102,266
Less: current liabilities
HMRC —PAYE & NI
payable 5,873 5,617
Deferred income 122,775 54,278
Now Pension Control 1,607 1,433
Sundry creditors 5 3,670 557
133,925 61,885
Net current assets 93,467 40,381
Represented by:
Funds carried forward:
General funds 93,467 23,158
Restricted funds - 17,223
93,467 40,381

For the year ending 31 March 2023 the company was entitled to exemption from audit under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

The Trustees acknowledge their responsibility for complying with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 with respect to accounting periods and for the preparation of accounts.

The members have not required the company to obtain an audit of its accounts for the year in question in accordance with section 476.

These accounts have been prepared in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies subject to the small company’s regime.

Approved by the Trustees 19" July 2023 and signed on their behalf by:

Jamie Burton Chair of Just Fair & Trustee Company no: 07394478 Charity number: 1141484

The notes on pages 10 to 12 form part of these accounts

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ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN THE UK (TRADING AS JUST FAIR)

TRUSTEE’S REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

1. Accounting policies

The financial statements have been prepared on the historical costs convention with items recognised at cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant notes to these accounts and in accordance with: Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standards applicable in the UK (FRS102) (effective 1 January 2015) (Charities SORP (FRS 102)), Financial Reporting Standards applicable in the UK and the Companies Act 2006.

A cash flow statement, as required by section 7 of Financial Reporting Standard (“FRS”) 102, has not been prepared on the grounds that it is a small company.

Incoming Resources

Incoming resources are recognised in the statement of financial activities when entitlement has passed to the charitable company and the amounts are certain and measurable. Grants and donations are only included in the accounts when the general income criteria are met, and any such income received in an accounting period that relate exclusively to future periods are treated as deferred as disclosed on the Balance Sheet.

Resources Expended

Expenditure is recognised in the statement of financial activities when a liability is incurred or increased without a commensurate increase in recognised assets or a reduction in liabilities.

Allocation of costs

Direct activity costs and payments comprise those costs that contribute directly to an activity and are allocated to the relevant activity. Governance costs, where applicable, are those costs incurred to meet statutory and constitutional requirements.

Administration costs comprise those costs that are necessary to deliver an activity but in themselves do not produce or deliver an activity.

Funds

Restricted Funds

These represent income received that is subject to specific restrictions for use determined by the donor which are narrower than the charitable company’s general objects.

General Funds

These represent all other funds held for the general purposes of the charitable company.

Deferred Income

Grants and donations are only included in the accounts when the general income criteria are met, and any such income received in an accounting period that relate exclusively to future periods are treated as deferred as disclosed on the Balance Sheet.

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ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN THE UK (TRADING AS JUST FAIR)

TRUSTEE’S REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED)

2. Amounts expended on central administration and governance

2023 2022
£ £
Staffcosts 1,829 1,245
Rental ofpremises - 823
Accountancy 1,625 2;235
General office expenses 125 612
3,579 4,915

3. Amounts expended on charitable activities

2023 2023 2022 2022
£ £ £ £
Core Restricted Core Restricted
Staffcosts 113,726 40,636 56,561 126,387
Consultancy 27,923 600 - 21,323
Previous deferred income released -17,996 - - -
PR/Advertising - - - 3,900
Accountancy 2,877 - - 4,735
IT support and consultancy 944 379 1,562 2,331
Travel and subsistence 1,927 246 244 660
Printing and stationery 171 44 15 138
Subscriptions and donations 297 - 348 458
Workshop & training 611 5,645 84 4,508
General office expenses 2,257 3,006 51 3,119
—132,737
_50,556		 __58,865___167,559

Staff costs comprised the aggregate of gross salaries and employer’s pension and NI (net of HMRC rebates) contributions.

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ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN THE UK (TRADING AS JUST FAIR)

TRUSTEE’S REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2023

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (CONTINUED)

4. Debtors
2023 2022
£ £
Other debtors 446 320
Prepayments 353 -
799 320

5. Sundry Creditors

2023 2022
£ £
Trade creditors 1,660 -
Accruals 1,218 -
Netpay control underpayments 792 557
3,670 557

6. Trustees’ remuneration

There were no Trustees’ or directors’ remuneration or other benefits for the period ended 31 March 2023.

7. Liability of members

The liability of members is limited by guarantee. In the event of the charity being wound up during the period of membership or in the following year, members would be required to contribute an amount not exceeding £1. Total number of members at 31 March 2023 was 7.

8. Restatement of the financial position for the year ended 31 March 2022

A prior year adjustment is a correction of a duplicated grant from the Law Society Charity, the Restricted Funds as previously reported were £22,133 reduced by £4,910 deferred income correction to £17,223.

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