Trustees’ Annual Report for the period
April 2024 To March 2025
Birmingham Community Hosting Network Also known as BIRCH Network
Address; 204 Scott House, The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Deritend, Birmingham, B9 4AA
Charity registration number: 1151763
Trustees: Chris Benfield Katherine Green Kamilla Khalid Emma Hawthorne Nicole Lewis (from 26th July 2023, resigned Oct 2024) Isobel Knowles Fatima Batool (from 15th May 2022, resigned 15th September 2025) David Newsome (from 1st March 2024) Andrew Jolly (from 22nd Nov 2025)
Independent Examiner: Gerald Gurriet
Trustees Report:
Objectives and Activities
Objectives as set out in the constitution:
The relief of financial hardship amongst those seeking asylum in the United Kingdom or who are refugees, and who reside in the West Midlands.
To preserve and protect the physical and mental health of those awaiting and those granted refugee status and their dependents.
Activities:
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Community hosting network for destitute refugees and migrants
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Befriending and advocacy support for separated young refugees
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Sessional activities and support for newly arrived asylum seeking families
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Outreach support to newly arrived asylum seekers living in hotel accommodation
Trustee’s Responsibilities in Relation to the Financial Statements.
The charity trustees are responsible for preparing an annual report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). The law applicable to charities in England and Wales requires the charity trustees to prepare financial statements for each year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs and of the incoming resources and application of resources of the charity for that period. The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 1993, the charity (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the provisions of the trust deed. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
Summary of main achievements
This year was another very busy year and saw staff supporting more sanctuary seekers than the previous 12 months - over the course of the year we supported 649 individuals. Despite there being many changes to the asylum and huge problems with delays, backlogs, policy and legal changes, our staff have remained flexible and responsive in their support. As an organisation we have achieved some fantastic outcomes for our beneficiaries and have increased our advocacy work significantly to fill the gaps left by closures of other services or changing needs. Our team have made referrals to over thirty different agencies across Birmingham and the West Midlands, most notably we have made referrals to: The Bike Project, Refugee Action, Refugee and Migrant Centre, St Chad’s Sanctuary, Birmingham Children’s Trust (for age dispute cases),Brushstrokes, Breaking Barriers and Restore.
The year was very challenging for staff and volunteers and we are prioritising our staff’s wellbeing and have been exploring ways to ensure staff feel supported. Our staff team lead the West Midlands response to the Rwanda detentions during April and May and this was a very intense period for all those involved. Followed quickly by the riots in the summer and some intense support to 100 men who were moved out of a hotel in Rotherham, meant that staff felt quite depleted by Autumn. Staff now meet more regularly for wellbeing sessions and regularly check in with each other and our Development Worker feeds any concerns into the Trustee Board. We will continue to monitor these situations.
Our hosting project remained quiet as per the previous year but we were happy that we were able to support two destitute asylum seekers, providing 30 nights of accommodation despite receiving approximately 20 referrals and enquiries - sadly many did not meet our criteria but where possible, we provided invaluable information to a range of other agencies which enabled them to take action to avoid destitution for their service users.
Our family befriending and advocacy project has been extremely busy, supporting over 161 separated young refugees - 61 of whom were age disputed (the Home Office Border Agency gives them a date of birth making them an adult, despite the young person claiming to be under 18). Much more of our time has been spent on supporting these age disputed young people. Our youth hub has continued to grow and we offered 29 youth hub sessions, recording 393 attendances from - 102 young people. Demand for the youth hub is growing and becoming more of a focus of our work. In response, we have increased the number of volunteers at the hub to support our staff and plan to try to increase staff support going forwards. We are very grateful to the community at St. John’s Sparkhill for their support since we moved to using their Church Hall in January 2025. The youth hub offers a safe and welcoming space for the young people who attend but we also offer a holistic approach to helping to improve the confidence and resilience of the attendees. We continued to offer a lot of one-to-one advocacy support for those who needed it and made many referrals to a wide range of relevant support services. We also continued to offer our befriending support and matched ten young people with family befrienders as well as supporting several historical ongoing matches which go back a number of years. A couple of our volunteers also befriended a group of four young refugees who were struggling in hotels, offering weekly support sessions in the hotels and meeting them as a group for outings. Some of these young people would have struggled in one to one befriending situations and we are keen to develop this group befriending model going forward as an alternative to our traditional befriending model.
Our family support project continued to offer a great deal of advocacy work to the families, single women and couples who live in a city centre asylum hotel. The project supported,166 individuals, 100 adults and 66 children - who made up 44 families and 45 single people/couples. Our project coordinator ran 37 community hubs in the hotel - recording 787 attendances.On average 25 family members attended each hub, a mix of adults and children. The hubs involved a lot of emotional support, sorting our practical issues, advocacy with various agencies, a lot of health advocacy, liaison with GPs etc, help with applying for schools and also guiding family members through the Right to Remain Toolkit to help them prepare for their asylum interviews. We supported 65 children to attend school and 22 young people to go to college/higher education and also secured 12 nursery places for under 5s. We also ran 10 wellbeing trips and activities which included visits to Martineau Gardens for
their spring and summer celebrations, several trips to Botanical Gardens, Think Tank Science Museum, Birmingham Cathedral and Roundhouse Art Sessions.
Our hotel outreach in other asylum support hotels was also extremely busy, and our outreach coordinator supported 311 individuals, the majority single men. Our outreach worker ran hubs in three hotels across Birmingham and currently runs weekly hubs in two hotels and offer remote WhatsApp support to a third hotel. Across the three hotels, our coordinator ran 76 community hubs recording 849 attendances, on average 11 people attended each hub. At the start of the year much of the advocacy work focussed on the Rwanda detentions and providing emotional support to many residents including for those who had fled to another city to avoid possible detention. Over the summer,many hotels appeared to be emptying, so there was a shift to referrals to nationwide organisations as people were dispersed. During Refugee Week in June our coordinator organised a photographic exhibition for Refugee Week in collaboration with The Exchange at University of Birmingham. Sadly, the summer brought riots, a lot of fear and distress and resulted in 100+ asylum seekers being suddenly relocated to a Birmingham hotel from the Holiday Inn Rotherham which had been attacked and set on fire.Our focus changed rapidly to supporting a large number of people of people who had suffered a very violent attack. Our coordinator contacted Victim Support, who provided legal advice and were able to offer therapy sessions, Humans For Rights who offered legal advice, Restore for befriending, Birmingham City Council’s Migration Team to fund St Chad’s Sanctuary for extra clothing.This also included a huge amount of advocacy work to liaise with the Home Office around new addresses, missed asylum interviews, sorting out medication, access to GPs, locating belongings etc. Then in the autumn, the focus shifted again as the Home Office started to process asylum claims and disperse residents very quickly. Since then we have witnessed a high turnover in the hotels which means that we now focus more on support for interviews (travel arrangements and prep) and lots of support for submitting appeals, lots of referrals for successful applicants for moving on support accessing e-visas. We are also having to support more refused asylum seekers and are having to support them to appeals. Over the year we also ran six wellbeing activities which included visits to Martieau gardens, Illuminate Festival at Botanical Gardens and theatre trips.
The Development Worker continues to support staff to develop their projects and explore new funding opportunities. Our worker has drawn in funds from a wide range of funders over the course of the financial year as well as raising awareness of our work, which has resulted in a strong amount raised from community donations. We are in a good financial position going into the next financial year and hope to continue to develop our projects and maintain our reserves.
Structure, Governance and Management
The charity is operated under the rules of its constitution adopted on 5th Feb 2013.
Financial Review
Birmingham Community Hosting (BIRCH) Network has a generous pool of local and regional charitable trusts and funders, as well as support from the National Lottery and good support from individual, and community funders. BIRCH raised £87555 from charitable trusts and
foundations, and £6718 from community donations; we raised £680 in sales from our shop sales. £66,455 was allocated as restricted funding for specific projects, £21,200 was received as ‘core/unrestricted running costs’ funding which was designated to specific projects. £7298 was unrestricted community donations, most of which went into our reserves. We also received £4467 in income for specific items for individuals or for bus tickets for asylum seeking children to attend school. This is separated from other income as this is not spent on staff or project costs.
At the end of the financial year, we had secured total funds of £94,953 during this financial year. We also carried forward £83,861 from the previous financial year. At the end of the financial year we had 83,295 in secured cash funds. Out of these funds £31,158 (unrestricted funds) was designated to reserves (accounting for four months of operating costs), £30,855 (restricted funds) was carried forward and designated to the projects that the funding was restricted to and £21,200 (unrestricted/core funding) was designated to specific future project funding.
Reserves policy
Our reserves policy states that we should hold three months operating costs.
Declarations
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees
| Signatures | Signatures | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name ~~a ee~~ ~~a~~ |
Full name Emma Hawthorne ~~ee~~ ~~ee~~ |
Chris Benfield ~~ee~~ |
| Position ~~a~~ |
Position Chair of Trustees ~~ee~~ |
Trustee and Treasurer |
| Date 01/10/25 ~~a~~ ~~a~~ |
Date 01/10/25 ~~ee~~ |
01/10/25 |
Section A Report to the trustees/directors/ members of On accounts for the yed CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES ndependent examiner's repo n the accoun Independent Examiner's Report Birmingham Community Hosting Network 31 March 2025 Charity no.: 1151763 Company no.: Set out on pages Responsibilities and basis of report Independent examiner's statement I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity for the year ended 31 March 2025 As the charity's trustees of the Charity, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charity Act 2011 ("the 2011 Act"). I report in respect of my examination of your charity's accounts as carried out under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011 ("the 2011 Act"). In carrying out my examination, I have followed the Directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to / attention (other than that disclosed below *) in connection with the examinati lich gives me cause to believe tha 8 Accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or The accounts do not accord with the accounting records I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. onusia Ltd Apt 3%6 Wimbledon Central 21-33 Worple Rood London -5119484 28 June 2025 Date: Signed: Name: Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any): Address: Gerald Gurriet Association of International Accountants Venusia Ltd London, sW19 4BJ Apt 316 Wimbledon Central, 21 - 33 Worple Road IER 1 October 2018
Receipts and payments account
For the year ended 31 March 2025
| RECEIPTS | Unrestricted funds | Restricted funds | Total funds |
Last year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | £ | £ | |
| Funds received | 28,498 | 66,455 | 94,953 | 118,193 |
| Total Receipts | 28,498 | 66,455 | 94,953 | 118,193 |
| PAYMENTS | ||||
| Charitable Activities | 31,674 | 59,450 | 91,052 | 70,629 |
| Payments to individuals/bus tickets |
- | 4,467 | 4,467 | 9,491 |
| Total Payments | 95,519 | 80,120 | ||
| Net of Receipts/(payment s) |
-566 | 38,073 | ||
| Cash funds last year end |
55,534 | 28,327 | 83,861 | 45,788 |
| Cash funds this year end |
52,358 | 30,856 | 83,295 | 83,861 |
Analysis of expenditure
| Project | Total 2024/25 | Total 2023/24 |
|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | |
| Family Fun Sessions | 19,532 | 30,354 |
| Family Befriending | 40.171 | 20,708 |
| Hosting Network | 2,201 | 4,982 |
| Refugee Outreach Project | 19,421 | 15,678 |
| Development Work | 14,276 | 8,399 |
80,120
Total
95,600
Analysis of income 2024/25
| Income | 2024/25 |
|---|---|
| Type of income | Amount |
| Restricted Funding | |
| Archer Trust | 1000 |
| Awards for All National Lottery | 19968 |
| Baron Davenport Charity | 750 |
| Birmingham City Council | 5845 |
| Charitable Aid Foundation | 2859 |
| Comic Relief Fund | 3433 |
| Dudley Trust | 1000 |
| Dulverton Trust | 5000 |
| Edward & Dorothy Cadbury Trust | 2000 |
| Eveson Trust | 3500 |
| George Fentham Charity | 2500 |
| George Henry Collins Trust | 1000 |
| Grimmit Trust | 2000 |
| Hilden Charitable Fund | 5000 |
| Patrick Trust | 1000 |
| Richard Kilcuppe Trust | 1000 |
| Saintbury Trust | 5000 |
| South Birmingham Friends Institute | 2000 |
| Tesco Stronger Starts | 500 |
| William A Cadbury Trust | 1000 |
| Total restricted income | 66355 |
| Unrestricted Income | |
| Anonymous Charitable Trust | 5000 |
| Christmas Shop Sales | 680 |
| Cole Charitable Trust | 1100 |
| Community donations (inc. Gift Aid) | 6466 |
| Eric W Vincent Trust | 500 |
| Gowling Trust | 1000 | ||
| Marsh Charitable Trust | 600 | ||
| Misc | 102 | ||
| Parker Johnson Prentice Trust | 3000 | ||
| Selly Oak Quakers | 150 | ||
| Society of the Holy Child Jesus | 10000 | ||
| Total Unrestricted Income | 28598 | ||
| Total Income | 94953 | ||