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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

TRUSTEES

COUNCIL

Lord Ken Macdonald KC Chair Arifa Akbar until 09/10/23 Stephen Armstrong Michael Callanan until 17/07/24 Gavin Freeguard until 17/07/24 Matt Garraghan until 17/07/24 Kathy Harvey Gavin Kelly Deborah Lincoln Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi until 17/07/24 Sameer Padania Joined 09/10/23 Andrew Peck Liz Sich Su-Mei Thompson Boyd Tonkin Andrew Williams Ruby Alexander Joined as Trainee Trustee 09/10/23 Noah Robinson Joined as Trainee Trustee 09/10/23

Richard Blair Bill Hamilton David Taylor Hugh Tomlinson KC

MANAGEMENT

Professor Jean Seaton Director Liz Wallace Deputy Director Georgina Faulkner Finance Manager Tabby Hayward Youth Prize Manager James Tookey Books Prizes Manager Jeremy Wikeley Communications Manager Graham Self Administrator from 08/01/24

REGISTERED OFFICE

BANKERS

The Orwell Foundation, Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

Barclays Bank, 193 Camden High Street, London NW1 7PJ

INDEPENDENT EXAMINERS

Gravita Audit, First Floor, Park Central 40-41, Park End Street Oxford OX1 1JD

The Trustees present their report and the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 31 August 2024. The accounts have been prepared in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP), Accounting and Reporting by Charities (revised 2015 FRS 102) financial statements and comply with the Charity’s governing constitution.

www.orwellfoundation.com

THE ORWELL FOUNDATION

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024 Registered charity No. 1161563

Images previous page: (from top left to right)

Front cover images: (from top, clockwise)

Back cover images: (from top, anticlockwise)

Photo credits:

1 David James Wood

2 Facundo Arrizabalaga

3 Courtesy of the Orwell Archive, UCL Special Collections

4 The Orwell Foundation team

CONTENTS

Introduction from our Chair .................................................................................................................................... 2
Who was George Orwell and why the need for a Foundation? ...................................................................... 3
Objectives and Activities ........................................................................................................................................... 5
Achievements and Performance .............................................................................................................................. 5
The 2024 Orwell Prizes ....................................................................................................................................... 5
Journalism ................................................... 7
A Special Prize for 2024 ........................ 11
Reporting Homelessness ......................... 8
The Crick Prize ....................................... 11
Political Writing ........................................ 9
The Orwell Youth Prize ....................... 12
Political Fiction ........................................ 10
The Annual Orwell Lecture .............................................................................................................................. 15
The Orwell Festival and other events ............................................................................................................ 16
Future Plans ................................................................................................................................................................ 19
Expanding the International Reach of The Orwell Foundation ................................................................ 19
Volunteers ............................................................................................................................................................ 19
Growing our Membership Scheme ................................................................................................................. 20
Events ..................................................................................................................................................................... 21
The Orwell Lecture ............................... 21
UCL 200 ................................................... 21
The Orwell Gala Dinner ....................... 21
The Orwell Awards Ceremony
The Orwell Festival 2025 ...................... 21
2025 & 2026 ............................................ 21
Our Youth Prize .................................................................................................................................................. 22
Exciting New Work on the Curriculum ................................................................................................... 22
School Outreach ............................................................................................................................................ 23
Structure, Governance and Management ............................................................................................................ 23
Financial Review ......................................................................................................................................................... 26
Summary ................................................... 26
Independent Examiner’s Report ......... 28
Principal Funding Sources ..................... 26
Statement of Financial Activities ......... 29
Going Concern ........................................ 27
Balance Sheet........................................... 30
Reserves Policy ........................................ 27
Notes to the Financial Statements ..... 31
Risk Management .................................... 27

THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

INTRODUCTION FROM OUR CHAIR

It has been another highly successful year for the Orwell Foundation. This is thanks to the hard work and commitment of our staff and my fellow trustees, and to the continuing generosity of our wonderful donors and supporters. I am grateful to you all.

In an age of increasingly damaging disinformation and dark propaganda, there is no more important time to be championing the values of George Orwell. His clarity, and his attachment to truth and to honest writing, remain beacons around the world for political writing at its most incisive and pure.

This year, our annual festival, our prizes and our lectures have spoken once more to his legacy, which is needed now more than ever. With your help, we are proud to continue this work in his honour, remembering always his lifelong ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’.

Lord Ken Macdonald KC Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Orwell Foundation

Photo credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

WHO WAS GEORGE ORWELL AND WHY THE NEED FOR A FOUNDATION?

George Orwell (1903-1950) has become one of the world’s most influential writers. He was the visionary author of Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), non-fiction classics Down and Out in Paris in London, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia and many seminal essays including The Lion and the Unicorn , My Country Right or Left , Why I Write and Inside the Whale as well as thousands of pieces of journalism and criticism.

In Animal Farm , Orwell sought to alert readers to the reality of totalitarianism in Soviet Russia, when many in the West looked the other way. He identified the ways in which tyranny both human and technological destroyed language and the capacity to think. We now live in a world made by Orwell’s ideas, ‘doublethink’ ‘Big Brother’ ‘Room 101’ and the idea of ‘Orwellian dystopia’ shape how people all over the world understand their circumstances. His commitment to verity was luminous and his personal integrity exceptional.

In a world awash with propaganda, new forms of tyranny and in which opinion rather than evidence drives increasingly polarised discussions, Orwell’s work and that of the Foundation – attempting to develop the capacity to disagree well and creatively – is more important than ever. Orwell uniquely is respected across political barriers and our job is to secure that heritage and to reward exceptional and brave thinking wherever it comes from.

The Orwell Prize - as the Foundation was formerly known - was the brainchild of the late Professor Sir Bernard Crick. As Orwell’s first biographer, Crick used the royalties from his George Orwell: A Life (1980) to set up a fund to encourage the work of young writers. In 1994, with support from The Political Quarterly, Crick established an Orwell Prize: annual awards for books and journalism, intended to “encourage writing in good English...of a kind aimed at or accessible to the reading public, not to specialised or academic audiences.” The Political Quarterly was established in 1930 to make expert technical political and policy research written in clear English part of the national conversation and whose early writers included Maynard Keynes, Leonard Woolf, and Naomi Mitchison, the first edition was hand-sewn by Virginia Woolf. The Political Quarterly remains a key partner of the Foundation.

Photo courtesy of the Orwell Archive, UCL Special Collections

The prize had 2 judges and a part time secretary for 3 months of the year.

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

In 2007 Professor Jean Seaton, a member of The Political Quarterly editorial board, was asked by Crick to take over as Director of the Prize. She was working with Martin Moore and Sir David Bell as part of the Media Standards Trust. The prizes were put on a full-time footing and were professionalised. The values, range and consequences of Orwell’s work were explored in lectures and events. A wide programme of literary festivals discussions was developed. Later transformative funding from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, AM Heath, Richard Blair, as well as additional awards from the Arts Council and a wide variety of other funders, meant that ambitious new prizes were launched, all based on Orwell’s work. Innovative public readings and dramatisations of Orwell’s work were mounted. In 2014, a separate youth prize was launched.

Thirty years since their launch, the prizes have grown from these modest beginnings to being among the most prestigious in the English-speaking world, respected both for their independence from the institutions whose achievements they reward and their ability to respond to changes in the media landscape. Our judges are impressive, our lecturers important and we use the convening power of Orwell to influence debate and policy.

What has not changed is the purpose of Orwell Foundation, the registered charity which has overseen its operations since 2017. It continues to use Orwell’s works to celebrate honest writing and reporting, uncover hidden lives, confront uncomfortable truths and encourage all young people to write and think critically and creatively. Through our prestigious prizes for books and journalism, public events and work with young writers, we offer a platform for debate and discussion designed to appeal to the widest possible audience, connecting with everyone to whom George Orwell and his writings are a source of inspiration.

The Orwell Foundation is based at University College London (UCL) in Bloomsbury, an area of central London famous for housing writers and intellectuals and home to Senate House, the imposing art deco building which inspired Orwell’s Ministry of Truth Nineteen Eighty-Four . UCL is also home to the UNESCO-registered Orwell Archive, the most comprehensive body of research material relating to the author’s life anywhere in the world.

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

As laid out in its Constitution, the charitable objective of The Orwell Foundation is the advancement of education in the works and values of George Orwell, for public benefit through the provision of cultural events, debates, online resources and annual prizes.

The Foundation provides online resources, puts on events and provides school outreach workshops. It is also responsible for the award of:

The mission of The Orwell Foundation in 2024 remains true to its origins: to nourish and promote writers who share Orwell’s values of bravery, decency and fidelity to truth.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE

The Orwell Foundation has had an exciting year connecting with audiences up and down the UK and in the United States. In 2023, we launched our membership scheme as a way of engaging with supporters of our work and supporters of the work and values of Orwell. We are grateful to everyone who has joined us as Patrons and Friends as well as those who subscribe to our newsletter, our Substack accounts and all who attend our in-person and livestreamed events.

THE 2024 ORWELL PRIZES

The Orwell Prizes aim to encourage good writing and thinking about politics, with our independent judges asked to find winning entries which best meet Orwell’s own ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. In addition to their prizes each winner also received a Folio Society copy of Nineteen EightyFour signed by George Orwell’s son Richard Blair, in the 75[th] anniversary year of the book’s publication.

Since The Orwell Prize was awarded for the first time in 1994 the original categories for books and journalism have been complemented by individual awards showcasing writing and reporting which draws on the full range of Orwell’s contemporary legacy: for Political Fiction, for social reporting and, in 2023, for Reporting Homelessness. Each Prize is worth £3,000 to the winner.

The Orwell Foundation is grateful to all the judges, our founding patron Richard Blair, founding sponsors The Political Quarterly , prize sponsors the Centre for Homelessness Impact, partners University College London and A. M. Heath and all our Friends, Patrons and volunteers for making these awards possible.

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

On Thursday 27th June, The Orwell Foundation celebrated the finalists and announced the winners of the 2024 Orwell Prizes – the adult prizes - at a wonderful Prize Ceremony at Conway Hall, in Bloomsbury, central London. It was an evening which saw Computer Weekly awarded a Special Prize for breaking and pursuing the story of the Post Office Horizon scandal over more than a decade while a cake was presented to Richard Blair, in honour of his 80[th] birthday.

Photo credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR JOURNALISM

Winner of The Orwell Prize for Journalism : Wendell Steavenson

Reporting for The Economist’s 1843 magazine on an autistic Ukrainian boy whose world was upended by the Russians, a vast Ukrainian cemetery awaiting the casualties of the counter-offensive, how one kibbutz defended itself from Hamas and how Russia has taken thousands of Ukrainian kids, some of whom don’t want to go home.

Photo credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga

The Orwell Prize for Journalism is awarded to a journalist for sustained reportage and/or commentary working in any medium. This year’s judges were Yuen Chan, Senior Lecturer in Journalism at City, University of London; David Gauke, New Statesman and Conservative Home Columnist and ex-Cabinet Minister; Janine Gibson (Chair), Editor of FT Weekend; Helen Lewis, Staff Writer at The Atlantic, author and presenter of BBC R4 podcasts; Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Project Manager at Thomson Reuters Foundation who was held hostage in Iran from 2016 to 2022.

Chair of Judges, Janine Gibson said about the winning entry:

“We were struck by the commitment and versatility of Wendell Steavenson, who contributed two forceful and stark dispatches from Ukraine before pivoting after October 7th to the Gaza conflict and producing a meticulous account of an attack on a kibbutz which is – irrespective of one’s position – unarguably an outstanding piece of reporting. Good prose is like a windowpane, Orwell wrote, and Steavenson’s is admirably clear.”

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR REPORTING HOMELESSNESS

Winners of The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness: Karl Brown, Debbie Cuthbert, Stuart Potts & David Winter

Community Reporting for the Unheard Voices Microsite, with Shelter and On Our Radar: a series of reports sharing insights and experiences of trying to navigate a housing system that is not fit for purpose plus The Manchester Maze: a collection of human stories and an action plan for change.

Photo credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga

Entries are encouraged from established journalists and writers as well as people with lived experience of homelessness. We work closely with charities in the sector, elicit entries from the Prison estate, liaising with prison reading groups, and from community groups via email and phone call. We create posters and advertise in prisons and shelters and we advertise in the Big Issue. We also produce a podcast related to the Prize, in partnership with the Prison Radio Association and we publish entries which do not make the shortlist in an anthology. We also offer individual feedback to entrants with lived experience, to encourage them to pursue their writing further.

The 2024 judges were the BBC’s Paddy O’Connell, poet and playwright Lemn Sissay, inaugural Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness winner, Freya Marshall Payne and campaigner, Fire Chief, author and neuroscientist, Sabrina Cohen-Hatton.

Chair of Judges, Paddy O’Connell said of the shortlist of finalists:

“This is Britain. As entrants, you collectively took us onto the streets and into precarious, temporary and often substandard accommodation. Sometimes, as we were reading, we had to take ourselves off the streets, too. Our eight finalists all artfully and expertly brought human stories to bear on the wider picture - congratulations to every one of them. And to everyone who entered, thank you. We as judges have read and understood each piece: everyone has been seen. Now, it's up to us to make sure you are heard.”

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING

Winner of The Orwell Prize for Political Writing : Matthew Longo The Picnic: An Escape to Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain

The Orwell Prize is the UK's most prestigious prize for political writing and continues to attract judges and entries of the highest quality. Our 2024 judges were Peter Frankopan (chair), historian, best-selling author and broadcaster; Christina Lamb OBE, Chief Foreign Correspondent of the Sunday Times and best-selling author; Sunder Katwala, writer and director of the British Future Think Tank; Rohan Silva, CEO of Second Home, founder of the Libreria bookshop and former senior policy advisor to David Cameron and Lola Seaton, Editor at the New Left Review and contributing writer at the New Statesman.

Judge, Christina Lamb, said of the winning entry:

“In the summer of 1989, a group of Hungarian activists did something unthinkable: they entered the forbidden militarised zone of the Iron Curtain – and held a picnic. They were joined by East German holidaymakers in Ladas rolling up for goulash, beer and brass bands. I did not know this story and I loved the way it surprised me and captured the time, the idealism, and the role of ordinary citizens in the unravelling of the Iron Curtain – as well as its echoes for today. Wonderfully told through extensive interviews with everyone from the human rights activist who came up with the madcap idea, the stubborn young woman who made it happen, to Stasi agents and border guards.”

Photo credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION

Winner of The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction : Hisham Matar My Friends

Our 2024 judges were literary critic, author of author of Romantic Moderns, Virginia Woolf , Weatherland and The Rising Down and Professor of English at the University of Birmingham, Alexandra Harris (Chair); writer of novels including God’s Own Country and A Hunger and winner of the 2024 BBC national short story award, Ross Raisin; Simon Okotie, environmental consultant and novelist and Dr Lara Choksey, a lecturer, specialising in modern and contemporary literature at UCL.

Judge, Simon Okotie, said of the winning entry:

“A novel exploring the fallout of the 1984 shootings at the Libyan embassy in London, and its effect on three friends. The quietness of the prose belies the event’s traumatic drama and its profound personal and political repercussions. The style is old fashioned – genteel almost – and authentic to the point of reading like the most exquisite memoir. A warm and extraordinarily clear-sighted novel that is, in part, about the power of the literary world to effect real-world change.”

Photo credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

A SPECIAL PRIZE FOR 2024

Winner of The Orwell Prize, Special Prize : Computer Weekly

For breaking the Post Office Horizon scandal and sustained investigation and reportage of the story over many years.

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Awarded rarely, certainly not annually, our Prize Committee deemed Computer Weekly’s exceptional reporting to be deserving of this special honour.

Photo credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga

THE CRICK PRIZE

Winner of The Crick Prize : Robert Saunders How Do We Write the History of Brexit?

The Crick Prize, for the best essay in The Political Quarterly magazine, is named after the founder of The Orwell Prizes, Sir Bernard Crick.

All of our Orwell Prize winners receive free subscriptions to The Political Quarterly magazine, which addresses current issues through serious and thought-provoking articles, written in clear jargon-free English.

Photo credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga

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THE ORWELL YOUTH PRIZE - ANOTHER BUMPER YEAR FOR ENTRIES!

This was an almost-record-breaking year for the Prize! We had 815 final entries – only surpassed by the 2020 prize cycle which took in Covid lockdown periods, and up by 250 final entries on the previous year. 593 entrants submitted for feedback.

The Prize, open to all 11–18-year-olds in the UK and those studying from a British curriculum abroad, is unique among young people’s writing prizes. Every entrant can request individual feedback before submitting an improved draft. We have a wide network of expert readers and judges immersed in what young people write and this has been grown over a decade of running the Prize.

This was the first year that we welcomed entrants from Year 7, whose entries made up 15% of the total. 45% of students who made it through to the shortlist (on blind judging) came from non-selective state schools. We ran hugely successful regional hub events, with partner universities in three areas of deprivation, welcoming students from local non-selective state schools in and around Sunderland, Coventry and Portsmouth.

Winners and Runners Up

Our winners and runners up were selected by our judges, Charlie Higson, Patience Agbabi, Polly Toynbee, John Bernard and Vicky Spratt. They selected 2 winners and 3 runners-up from each of the three age categories: Years 7-9, 10-11 and 12-13.

Winners and runners up covered the full range of forms, from stories to essays, journalism and poems. Themes included multicultural identity, climate, migration, war, national identity, inheritance, and family. There was even a standout comedic piece, Macduff the Carrot , selected as a runner up!

My home life is simply riddled with illness. But my family isn’t unique in this regard. In fact, South Asians are six times more likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes than Europeans. One may assume that this may be due to a variety of lifestyle reasons, such as diet, perhaps. South Asian cuisine does tend to consist of foods high in fat and sugar. But what if the reason was far more profound than simply diet? What if it leads back to events occurring decades in the past? What if Mubina was part of it all?

Excerpt from ‘Diagnosing Hunger Then And Now’ by Nethuli Weerakoon, 2024 Orwell Youth Prize winner, Years 10 to 11

We were still catching up on our day spent without each other when I opened the door to the café; eyes instantly drawn to the colour of the deep red roses that occupied every table, and as we walked over to our usual one in the corner, I noticed a label was attached, and I read Phoenix and William through teary eyes.

Phoenix picked up one of the flowers and held it out for me, with slight hesitation, before reaching out and wiping away one of my tears that was glad, like me, to finally be free.

Excerpt from ‘Love Behind Closed Doors’ by Florence Alsop Nethuli Weerakoon, 2024 Orwell Youth Prize winner, Years 12 to 13

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Celebration Day

Our shortlist of 44 entrants were invited to our Celebration Day at University College London on Saturday 6[th] July. 36 young people attended, from as far as the Isle of Jura, Argyll and Bute, with family and teachers, for a workshop with Coventry Poet Laureate and Youth Prize judge John Bernard, readings of extracts from the shortlisted pieces and the prize giving. We were very lucky to have Richard Blair, Orwell’s son, there in person, to congratulate the young people.

Photo credit: Facundo Arrizabalaga

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

The Orwell Youth Fellows

We are particularly proud of our ever-growing cohort of past winners and runners up of The Orwell Youth Prize: The Orwell Youth Fellows. They are an exceptionally collaborative, supportive and creative group. They now range in age from 13 to 21. In their monthly, facilitated virtual meetings, they form ideas, start conversations and develop new writing that is responsive to the society we live in and supports other young writers to engage with the prize. New projects for the 2024 Prize cycle including Songs of Cygnus, an online publication on the theme of ‘Home’ which brought readers regular transmissions from imagined planets.

‘Since becoming an Orwell Youth Fellow in 2021, I have received countless opportunities to develop and share my writing that I would never have had access to otherwise, such as through the Unlock Democracy event we took part in last year. It has been immensely rewarding to work collaboratively with other talented young writers and to see our annual projects grow in ambition. I feel that through my time as a Youth Fellow, and the creative responsibilities that role has allowed me to take on, I have not only grown as a political writer but as a person.’ - Bella Rew, OYP Winner 2021”

Bella Rew, OYP Winner 2021, Orwell Youth Fellow & Trainee Trustee

"I have loved my time as an Orwell Youth Fellow, since 2020. It has been a fantastic opportunity to meet other engaged young people and work together on a broad range of projects. The process of collaboration when writing, in a constructive, friendly environment is fabulous, just like the opportunities to attend the Foundation's events, where we have had some really fascinating speakers - George Monbiot being a particular highlight for me."

Hugh Ludford, OYP Winner 2020 & Orwell Youth Fellow

"I've been a Fellow of the Youth Prize since the project's inception in 2020. I've particularly enjoyed the opportunity to work collaboratively with other Youth Fellows to develop new writing projects, including our zine Axial Tilt and the Digitalis Archives on Substack. It has been really encouraging to have the space and time to create new pieces of work with other young people whilst receiving valuable feedback and support.

It has also been a fantastic chance to get involved with the wider work of the Foundation and shape the future direction of the Youth Prize. I've had the chance to contribute to the school's outreach programme as well as attend one of the Youth Prize's university hub events. The Fellows programme is much more than just helping engagement with the Youth Prize but also allows us to gain broader experience in the charity sector across the Foundation's work.”

Noah Robinson, OYP Runner-Up 2020, Orwell Youth Fellow & Trainee Trustee

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

THE ANNUAL ORWELL LECTURE

Personal bravery is a quality that links all of our lecturers and 2023 saw anti-corruption campaigner, Bill Browder deliver his Orwell Memorial Lecture entitled “In Front of Your Nose: Putin, Russia and What We Failed to See”.

Browder is on Putin’s ‘hit-list’ - a list published by Russian prosecutors of Americans they want to ‘question’ in connection with a series of bogus criminal cases.

As the founder of Hermitage Capital told the packed audience at UCL’s Cruciform Theatre, Browder was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005, when he was denied entry to the country and declared ‘a threat to national security’ for exposing corruption in Russian state-owned companies.

In his lecture, he explained how in 2008, his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, had uncovered a massive fraud committed by Russian government officials involving the theft of US $230 million of state taxes. Magnitsky testified against state officials involved in this fraud and was subsequently arrested, imprisoned without trial and systematically tortured. He spent a year in prison under horrific detention conditions, was repeatedly denied medical treatment, and died in prison on November 16, 2009, leaving behind a wife and two children.

Since then, Bill Browder has sought justice outside of Russia and started a global campaign for governments around the world to impose targeted visa bans and asset freezes on human rights abusers and highly corrupt officials. The United States was the first to impose these targeted sanctions with the passage of the Sergei Magnitsky Accountability Act in 2012, followed by the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act in 2016.

In giving the annual Orwell Memorial Lecture, Bill Browder joined an impressive list of speakers, often leaders in their fields of literature, politics and religion or people with exceptional life stories to tell. Speakers are tasked with discussing any topic ‘Orwell might have been interested in’. Since its inception in 1989 Orwell lecturers have included:

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

THE ORWELL FESTIVAL AND OTHER EVENTS

Our 2024 Festival offered paying guests a diverse range of events between 12[th] – 26[th] June 2024 including several in collaboration with our partners, The Political Quarterly, Waterstones, Foyles and UCL. Events included:

Labour's challenge: Can a Starmer government fix the UK's broken economic model? With Orwell Foundation Trustee and Chair of The Resolution Foundation, Gavin Kelly and panellists Professor of Political Economy, Michael Jacobs of the University of Sheffield and Stephanie Flanders, Head of Economics and Government at Bloomberg.

Photo credit: Graham Self

Orwell Birthday Celebration with Ariane Bankes and DJ Taylor

A celebration of the launch Who is Big Brother: A Reader's Guide to George Orwell (Yale University Press) by DJ Taylor and The Quality of Love: Twin Sisters at the Heart of the Century (Duckworth), Ariane’s book about her mother, Celia Kirwan and aunt, Mamaine Koestler – a book described by Rachel Cooke in the Guardian as telling ‘ the story of Celia and Mamaine Paget and their friends and lovers, including George Orwell – and may prove a useful corrective to some of the claims made by Anna Funder in Wifedom, her recent book about Eileen.

Photo credit: Jeremy Wikeley

A series of Orwell walks

Led by Michael King, experienced tour guide and member of the Orwell Society, these popular walks featured visits to Orwell’s lodgings, favoured haunts and sites of inspiration for his writing.

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

Gower St Presents: The Orwell Prize 2024 Finalists

This event brought together writers working in different forms from the Orwell Prize lists to read from their work and discuss how to 'make political writing into an art'. We were joined by Samantha Harvey ( Orbital ) for the Prize for Political Fiction, Matthew Longo ( The Picnic ) and Jason Okundaye ( Revolutionary Acts ) for the Prize for Political Writing.

Photo credit: Liz Wallace

Orwell and the Future

At the 2024 Charleston Festival, journalist and author of The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984, Dorian Lynskey was joined by ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Back’ actor Louise Brealey and Sandra Newman as well as Dr Lisa Mullen, English Fellow at Fitzwilliam College Cambridge and presenter of Radio 3’s Free Thinking, to discuss Orwell’s ongoing legacy. The event featured the unveiling of the shortlist for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, as announced by judge, Sunder Katwala.

Photo credit: Sunder Katwala

And separately from the Festival, The Orwell Foundation and the Institute of Advanced Studies at UCL were delighted to welcome Dr Débora Tavares (University of São Paulo) and Dr Nathan Waddell (University of Birmingham) for two talks on ‘reading and misreading’ the work of George Orwell across cultures, classes, and continents.Research Trips

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

Excerpts from Youth Prize Manager Tabby Hayward’s 2023 Marrakech dairy:

5[th] November

Next, we drove past the railway station (rain still heavy) where Eric and Eileen arrived (separately from their luggage), then on to the Rialto cinema, where they watched a film on their brief stay

6[th] November

Next, to the hospital which Eileen visited for neuralgia and then to the Cafe Les Negociants, frequented by Eileen and Eric (and where they later stayed in rooms, probably on the first floor) for coffee and more interesting materials to peruse, including the couple’s shopping lists, photographs and letters.

7[th] November

We stopped at Taddert. Many places are called Taddert, or similar, as it means village, but this one had been correctly pinpointed by the group as the location of the Auberges des Noyeurs, the hotel where Orwell and Eileen stayed in Jan 1939 after Orwell had completed his first draft of Coming Up for Air.

Photo credit: Tabby Hayward

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION TRUSTEES’ REPORT - YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2024

FUTURE PLANS

EXPANDING THE INTERNATIONAL REACH OF THE ORWELL FOUNDATION

George Orwell’s remarkable legacy has never been more important to free society. We need the help of those who share his values to secure and strengthen this legacy, in the United States and around the world.

Orwell was fascinated by the USA. Though, in many ways he is quintessentially an English author, it was his reception in the US, which established him as an authority on the international stage. Thanks to US readers and institutions, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four came to define the twentieth centurybut also, alarmingly, the twenty-first.

In the UK, we have created an effective organisation that celebrates Orwell’s legacy and puts his values to work in contemporary contexts. But the issues threatening Orwell’s legacy – from dis-and misinformation to freedom of speech – are global. The use and misuse of Orwell as a cultural figure is especially prevalent in the US where his message can be distorted by extreme voices across the political spectrum. We have the experience and authority to make a difference by extending our programmes into the USA.

Orwell Council member, David Taylor and Orwell Foundation Deputy Director, Liz Wallace undertook a successful reconnaissance visit to New York in September 2024, where there was great interest in the idea of bringing a limited archival exhibition – and Richard Blair – over for the 75[th] anniversary of Orwell’s death in 2025 with plans for a more extensive exhibition in 2027/28. In a series of talks and meetings during their short visit, David and Liz discovered the potential for far more significant fundraising than is possible in the UK currently. We are also speaking to UCL about making the Orwell archive accessible to an international audience and in 2025 we intend to return to the US for a series of talks, some based around archival material, with Richard Blair and David Taylor among others.

We have now developed a visiting Orwell Fellowship at UCL, in collaboration with the university's Institute of Advanced Studies, and we are hoping to develop this into a funded visiting research post, to make us and UCL the hub of Orwell authority and scholarship

VOLUNTEERS

We have had two kind offers of significant help, as we look to grow our network of volunteers and our membership scheme. A highly experienced literary agent and rights specialist has offered to work with us on a voluntary basis, to ensure a premium experience for our donors, from spring 2025 onwards. And Eton, where Orwell was a pupil, has offered volunteer reading from members of its state school partnership team in order to expand our feedback offer and ensure all entrants to The Orwell Youth Prize get the opportunity to improve their entries. In 2023-24, we worked with 101 volunteers, from University College London, King’s College London, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Penguin, as well as professional writers, civil servants, poets and education professionals, recruited through our newsletter. We are grateful to all of our volunteer readers who give up their time and expertise, enabling us to provide individual feedback to every student who enters The Orwell

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Youth Prize. Thanks too to all the volunteers at UCL who helped out at our events throughout the year.

GROWING OUR MEMBERSHIP SCHEME

Sustaining and growing our Friends and Patrons Scheme is our number one priority as we move into the 2025 Prize cycle. On 31[st] August 2024, we had EIGHT patrons, donating £1500/$1500 per year or more:

In September 2024, we were delighted to be joined by a NINTH Patron:

Our Friends

In June we reduced the cost of our Friends scheme and it now costs £60/$60 per year or £42/$42 for concessions. This halving of the cost hasn't yet translated into a big rush of new members but our December 5[th] Southbank Lecture with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will be an important moment to publicise our activities and to welcome new supporters.

On 31[st] August 2024, we had 15 UK Friends and 10 international Friends and a further 97 paid subscribers on Orwell Dail y, which we update with new material each week. Like Friends, Subscribers donate $5/month - equivalent to $5675 a year on current subscriptions.

We have a Friends/Patrons calendar/schedule covering key moments for engagement in the year. We regularly review our offer to supporters and we are currently looking to show our appreciation by enhancing benefits. We believe this can largely be done without incurring significant costs (special access to key figures on Zoom etc). All Friends and Patrons have now had an invitation to the lecture and we are making plans for drinks afterwards.

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EVENTS

THE ORWELL LECTURE

Our flagship annual event, for many years held at University College Library’s Cruciform Theatre, for the first time is taking place at the Southbank Centre on 5th December 2024. The Queen Elizabeth Hall, with a capacity nearly three times that of our usual venue, offers the opportunity for us to appeal to a new audience as well as welcoming many of our annual lecture supporters. With tickets set to sell out, we expect the event to be a success and look forward to a fruitful partnership for years to come. We shall have a merchandise stall in the foyer of the QEH before and after the event and we have secured a sponsor for a drinks reception following the lecture, where we can thank our members and attract new ones.

THE ORWELL GALA DINNER

The intention is that this becomes The Annual Orwell Gala Dinner , a key fundraising event taking place in early summer each year. We are speaking to several interested host partners and sponsors.

THE ORWELL FESTIVAL 2025

We are planning our highest profile events for 29th May, 5th, 12th and 19th June 2025 in and around Bloomsbury. We anticipate working with our usual partners including The Political Quarterly , the Southbank Centre, Pushkin House, Waterstones, Foyles and UCL. We are also in the early stages of planning an event focusing on Artificial Intelligence and another featuring panel from the world of professional football.

UCL 200

In 2026, UCL turns 200 and they are keen to put Orwell front and centre of their celebrations. We are developing plans with UCL’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, including an ambitious proposal to produce a live reading of Animal Farm on the UCL estate.

We have also been in regular contact with artist Hans K. Clausen and we are hopeful that UCL 200 will create an opportunity for his Orwell-inspired word ‘The Winston Smith Library of Victory and Truth’ to be displayed on campus.

THE ORWELL AWARDS CEREMONY 2025 & 2026

In 2025 our annual Awards Ceremony will be held once again in Bloomsbury’s Conway Hall, fittingly on Orwell’s birthday, 25[th] July. In UCL’s bicentennial year of 2026, the college is keen for us to host our Awards Ceremony in the Bloomsbury Theatre (capacity 541), part of the UCL estate. We are excited by the proposal and hope it becomes a reality.

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OUR YOUTH PRIZE

EXCITING NEW WORK ON THE CURRICULUM

Over the decade that we have been running our Youth Writing prize, we have seen some exceptional writing. We have also identified some areas of concern, notably a lack of entries from male students - 25-30% each year come from boys, and the majority of these are boys studying at private or grammar schools. We believe this speaks to a wider problem in engaging boys in creative writing.

We have convened other writing prizes and creative writing organisations, regularly meeting teams from Foyle Young Poets, the Financial Times’ Young Economists’ Prize, the Royal Geographical Society, First Story and New Writing North to share experiences and best practice. It has become clear that together we have all been in some way supplementing the curriculum, by adding what should be part of every young person's skillset: reasoning, expressing and writing for themselves and understanding, through literature and argument, the experiences of others. Common concerns about entries, cited by groups representing youth creative writing prizes, include:

We believe that these skills are vital for all citizens. Assessing and interpreting evidence clearly is the only way to build resilient young people in the face of the information revolution. These skills are also important for the creative economy: imagination, storytelling and expression have been the basis of many important economic sectors in the UK from gaming to film and television.

Orwell wrote that ‘ The imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity .’ Giving young people nuanced ways of expressing their views and approaching difficult subjects is vital for citizens and to provide agency for young people. It should also be about excitement, creativity, fun.

We are extremely proud of our Orwell Youth Prize winners, many of whom have gone on to win other writing prizes and to speak to parliamentarians, to appear on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and local media, and to have an impact on education policy during Covid. Many have now moved on to universities, to study a range of subjects, and have used their skills in a huge variety of careers and in their communities.

But many secondary age students need more than the curriculum is currently offering and we shall continue to use the Orwell name and the considerable convening powers it brings to urge policymakers to do more for our young people in developing critical reasoning, self-expression, extended creative and original writing and understanding others, through literature and debating.

We also urge them to encourage the widespread study of Orwell on the English and Politics curriculums, so that students may question the world around them while also learning to write ‘good prose…like a windowpane’.

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SCHOOL OUTREACH

We shall revisit our outreach interventions for 2025, to see how we can most effectively develop interventions in state schools in target areas which translate into entries to the Prize.

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

STRUCTURE

The Orwell Foundation is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission ( Registered Charity No 1161563). It is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) governed by a constitution. Its Board of Trustees determines the long-term direction of the organisation and works with the Director and Deputy Director to determine and review strategy.

Four former trustees with a special connection to the Orwell estate – Richard Blair, Bill Hamilton, David Taylor and Hugh Tomlinson – have been appointed indefinitely to the Council of the Orwell Foundation and provide wise counsel to the Board and staff.

Responsibility for the management of the charity and its activities is delegated to the Director and Deputy Director, who are in turn supported by a small team. The Foundation has six members of staff. The Director, Professor Jean Seaton, generously donates her time.

GOVERNANCE

Trustees

The Board of Trustees, chaired by Lord Ken Macdonald KC, brings a range of literary, journalistic, legal and charitable professional expertise to the body. All Trustees act in a voluntary capacity. They are appointed for a term of four years and may be reappointed for a further four years (or longer in exceptional circumstances).

The Foundation’s Board originated from the merger of two previous charity Boards: The Orwell Foundation and The Orwell Youth Prize, in 2020. This resulted in an excessively large number of Trustees. Lord Macdonald, with agreement of the Board, reduced its size and on 31[st] August 2024, the Board had 11 Trustees plus 2 Trainee Trustees (3 Trainee Trustees in total but with two of those sharing one role, with each attending 50 % of Board meetings).

The Orwell Foundation’s Trustees, Council and staff are grateful to Arifa Akbar, Michael Callanan, Gavin Freeguard, Matt Garraghan and Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi for their service to the Board. All resigned their posts on 17[th] July 2024. The Board welcomed new Trustee Sameer Padania to the Board on 19[th] October 2023.

All Trustees are asked to declare any possible conflict of interest resulting from their involvement in other organisations. The Trustees meet quarterly, to review the progress of the charity, and on further occasions as required. The Constitution of The Orwell Foundation permits the Board to appoint new Council members and Trustees at any time as needs arise. Trustees are appointed by agreement of the Board, with regard to the skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective management of the

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CIO. Two trustees (currently Deborah Lincoln and Gavin Kelly) are nominated by The Political Quarterly , according to the constitution of The Orwell Foundation.

New trustees are provided with an induction pack containing information about their duties and responsibilities. Upon appointment, trustees are introduced to the charity’s work and provided with the information they need to fulfil their roles, including that regarding the role of trustees and their responsibilities under the Charities Act (2011).

Liability in the event of a winding-up of the charity is limited under the Foundation’s Constitution to its Trustees. Trainee Trustees, Members (Friends and Patrons of The Orwell Foundation) and members of The Council of The Orwell Foundation have no liability in the event of a winding up of the charity.

Trainee Trustees

On 19[th] October 2023, the Board of The Orwell Foundation welcomed its first Trainee Trustees, Ruby Alexander and Noah Robinson. Ruby and Noah were the successful applicants in a competitive round of interviews among The Orwell Youth Fellows, our growing cohort of previous winners and runners-up of The Orwell Youth Prize. Our Trainee Trustees are active observers. They have no voting rights. Neither do they have legal or financial responsibilities.

The inclusion of Ruby and Noah in our Board has introduced fresh insights and perspectives and has been a most welcome development. The responsibilities of our Trainee Trustees include, but are not limited to, contributing to discussions, evaluating and supporting areas of our work, championing The Orwell Foundation’s events and activities, values, ambition, and strategic direction, helping to safeguard the good name and values of the charity, always acting in its best interests and acting as an ambassador for the Youth Prize and the Foundation more widely.

Each Trainee Trustee is paired with an existing trustee who acts as a mentor. Each serves a two-year term, attending, either in person or virtually, four Board meetings per year as well as events, where possible. The role is voluntary.

In their first year, our Trainee Trustees have provided invaluable service to the governance and activities of the Foundation, not least through assisting at our school outreach events, acting as ambassadors in assemblies at schools near their home or place of education and through their participation in Board meetings.

MANAGEMENT

Responsibility for the day-to-day management of the charity and its activities is delegated to the Director and Deputy Director, who are in turn supported by a small team. The Foundation has six members of staff. In addition, the Foundation’s Director, Professor Jean Seaton, generously donates her time. In December 2023, we said farewell to our excellent Administrator, Alice Adonis and we welcomed our wonderful new one, Graham Self in January 2024.

VOLUNTEERS

We are supported by around 100 volunteers each year.

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THE ORWELL FOUNDATION STAFF

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Comms & Reporting
Homelessness Prize
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Books Prize
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Youth Prize
Director Deputy Director
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Finance
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DIRECTOR Professor Jean Seaton

DEPUTY DIRECTOR Liz Wallace

FINANCE MANAGER Georgina Faulkner

TEAM ADMINISTRATOR Graham Self

BOOKS PRIZE MANAGER James Tookey

COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Jeremy Wikeley

YOUTH PRIZE MANAGER Tabby Hayward

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FINANCIAL REVIEW

SUMMARY

2021-22 saw the charity navigate the ongoing consequences of the pandemic and current cost of-living crisis as well as increased costs associated with global conflicts and Brexit. In the challenging fundraising environment of the following two years, the charity used some of its reserves to maintain operations. Throughout the period of this Annual Report and beyond, the Foundation has taken steps to develop new sources of funding, including engaging with potential donors in the US and the appointment of a freelance fundraiser to help with securing sustainable funding. In 2024-5, we will be embarking on our new multi-year Strategic Plan with the aim of identifying new funding opportunities and solidifying the Foundation’s long term financial security.

Building individual giving to the charity through our membership scheme remains a key priority in ensuring the Foundation can keep nourishing brave writing long into the future. Our initial progress since the membership relaunch is promising.

During 2023-24, we claimed Gift Aid on all UK donations and, with the projected increase in the Friends and Patrons scheme, we will be endeavouring to also claim Gift Aid on income received through these schemes.

PRINCIPAL FUNDING SOURCES

Partners, sponsors and corporate donors in 2023-4: The Centre for Homelessness Impact, The Political Quarterly, Argus Media, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Silicon Valley Community Fund.

We are eternally grateful for the financial support, and generosity of time, given by our Founding Patron and Member of our Council, Richard Blair.

The support from those who joined us over the last year as Patrons has been invaluable in the pursuit of our mission. The Foundation would like to thank:

All patrons receive complimentary tickets to Foundation events, copies of our anthologies, personalised acknowledgement in Foundation publications, a Folio copy of a book by George Orwell and annual copies of our prize-winning books, as well as personal updates from the Foundation team. Further benefits are available, depending on donations, including patrons’ events and personal tours of the UNESCO-registered Orwell archive at UCL.

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GOING CONCERN

The Trustees have reviewed the charity’s financial position and forecasts as part of their assessment of the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern. The Trustees have reviewed the cash flow forecast for a period of at least 12 months from the date of these accounts, and taking into account the income and cash flow forecasts, the possible mitigating actions and initial positive reactions from some potential donors, they are of the view that, notwithstanding the current challenging fundraising landscape and the material uncertainties that remain in relation to the amount of additional income which will be realised, the charity has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, the Trustees have concluded that it remains appropriate to adopt the going concern basis of accounting in preparing the financial statements.

RESERVES POLICY

As at 31 August 2024, unrestricted reserves were £120,988 (compared to £165,958 at the same time in 2023 and £196,818 in 2022). Under the charity’s reserves policy, the Trustees have set a minimum level of unrestricted reserves of 6 months of operating costs, which is approximately £100,000. In order to maintain reserves at the reserves policy level and to raise additional funds for operations, steps have already been taken to develop new sources of funding, including engaging with potential donors in the US and the appointment of a freelance fundraiser to help with securing sustainable funding. The purpose of these actions is to increase the amount of unrestricted reserves to a level which the Trustees consider adequate to support the activities of the charity. The reserves policy is reviewed annually by the Trustees.

RISK MANAGEMENT

The charity has a comprehensive Risk Register that is regularly reviewed and updated by management and Trustees. The principal risk to the charity continues to be insufficient income generation. Economic conditions, together with significant financial pressure in the charity sector and continued restrictions in public funding, continue to pose significant uncertainty over fundraising capability and investment performance. To meet these challenges, the Orwell Foundation has made significant investments in its fundraising capacity, including the launch of a Friends and Patrons scheme, holding fundraising events and several successful trips to the United States. This ongoing work, along with the employment of a freelance fundraiser in 2024/2025 and 2025/2026, should mitigate against this principal risk. New plans and a prudent budget have been drawn up for the next financial year with the importance of securing sustained and sustainable core funding in mind.

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INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT

TO THE TRUSTEES OF THE ORWELL FOUNDATION

I report to the trustees on my examination of the financial statements of The Orwell Foundation (the charity) for the year ended 31 August 2024.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the trustees of the charity you are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011.

I report in respect of my examination of the charity’s financial statements carried out under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011. In carrying out my examination I have followed the Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Charities Act 2011.

Independent examiner's statement

Your attention is drawn to the fact that the charity has prepared the financial statements in accordance with the relevant version of the Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their financial statements in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) in preference to the Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice issued on 1 April 2005 which is referred to in the extant regulations but has now been withdrawn. I understand that this has been done in order for the financial statements to provide a true and fair view in accordance with UK Generally Accepted Accounting Practice.

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

1. accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Charities Act 2011.

2. the financial statements do not accord with those records; or

3. the financial statements do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of financial statements set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the financial statements give a true and fair view, which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination.

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 financial statements to be reached.

(signed): won Ng fence

22 May 2025 Diatedh csssisniisisinaine

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STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES

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BALANCE SHEET

15 May 2025

Lord Ken Macdonald, Trustee (Chair)

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NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

1 Accounting policies

Charity information

The Orwell Foundation is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation.

1.1 Accounting convention

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the charity's governing document, the Charities Act 2011 and "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 2019)". The charity is a Public Benefit Entity as defined by FRS 102.

The charity has taken advantage of the provisions in the SORP for charities applying FRS 102 Update Bulletin 1 not to prepare a Statement of Cash Flows.

The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the charity. Monetary amounts in these financial statements are rounded to the nearest £.

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention. The principal accounting policies adopted are set out below.

1.2 Going concern

At the time of approving the financial statements, the trustees have a reasonable expectation that the charity has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Thus the trustees continue to adopt the going concern basis of accounting in preparing the financial statements.

1.3 Charitable funds

Unrestricted funds are available for use at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of their charitable objectives.

Restricted funds are subject to specific conditions by donors or grantors as to how they may be used. The purposes and uses of the restricted funds are set out in the notes to the financial statements.

1.4 Income

Income is recognised when the charity is legally entitled to it after any performance conditions have been met, the amounts can be measured reliably, and it is probable that income will be received.

Cash donations are recognised on receipt. Other donations are recognised once the charity has been notified of the donation, unless performance conditions require deferral of the amount. Income tax recoverable in relation to donations received under Gift Aid or deeds of covenant is recognised at the time of the donation.

Legacies are recognised on receipt or otherwise if the charity has been notified of an impending distribution, the amount is known, and receipt is expected. If the amount is not known, the legacy is treated as a contingent asset.

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1.5 Expenditure

All expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis and has been classified under headings that aggregate all costs related to the category. Expenditure is recognised where there is a legal or constructive obligation to make payments to third parties, it is probable that the settlement will be required, and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably. It is categorised under the following headings:

Charitable activities - comprise those costs incurred by the charity in the delivery of its services. it includes both costs that can be allocated directly to such series and those costs of an indirect nature to support them.

Governance costs - comprise expenditure associated with meeting the constitutional and statutory requirements of the charity and include the independent examination fees and costs linked to the strategic management of the charity.

1.6 Cash and cash equivalents

Cash and cash equivalents include cash in hand, deposits held at call with banks, other short-term liquid investments with original maturities of three months or less, and bank overdrafts. Bank overdrafts are shown within borrowings in current liabilities.

1.7 Financial instruments

The charity has elected to apply the provisions of Section 11 ‘Basic Financial Instruments’ and Section 12 ‘Other Financial Instruments Issues’ of FRS 102 to all of its financial instruments.

Financial instruments are recognised in the charity's balance sheet when the charity becomes party to the contractual provisions of the instrument.

Financial assets and liabilities are offset, with the net amounts presented in the financial statements, when there is a legally enforceable right to set off the recognised amounts and there is an intention to settle on a net basis or to realise the asset and settle the liability simultaneously.

Basic financial assets

Basic financial assets, which include debtors and cash and bank balances, are initially measured at transaction price including transaction costs and are subsequently carried at amortised cost using the effective interest method unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the transaction is measured at the present value of the future receipts discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial assets classified as receivable within one year are not amortised.

Basic financial liabilities

Basic financial liabilities, including creditors are initially recognised at transaction price unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the debt instrument is measured at the present value of the future payments discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial liabilities classified as payable within one year are not amortised.

Trade creditors are obligations to pay for goods or services that have been acquired in the ordinary course of operations from suppliers. Amounts payable are classified as current liabilities if payment is due within one year or less. If not, they are presented as non-current liabilities. Trade creditors are recognised initially at transaction price and subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method.

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Derecognition of financial liabilities

Financial liabilities are derecognised when the charity’s contractual obligations expire or are discharged or cancelled.

2 Critical accounting estimates and judgements

In the application of the charity’s accounting policies, the trustees are required to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying amount of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and associated assumptions are based on historical experience and other factors that are considered to be relevant. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised where the revision affects only that period, or in the period of the revision and future periods where the revision affects both current and future periods.

3 Income from donations and legacies

4 Income from investments

5 Other Income

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6 Expenditure on charitable activities

7 Support costs allocated to activities

8 Net movement in funds

9 Trustees

None of the trustees (or any persons connected with them) received any remuneration or benefits from the charity during the year.

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10 Employees

11 Taxation

The charity is exempt from taxation on its activities because all its income is applied for charitable purposes.

12 Debtors

13 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year

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14 Retirement benefits schemes

The charity operates a defined contribution pension scheme for all qualifying employees. The assets of the scheme are held separately from those of the charity in an independently administered fund.

15 Restricted funds

The restricted funds of the charity comprise the unexpended balances of donations and grants held on trust subject to specific conditions by donors as to how they may be used.

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16 Unrestricted funds

The unrestricted funds of the charity comprise the unexpended balances of donations and grants which are not subject to specific conditions by donors and grantors as to how they may be used. These include designated funds which have been set aside out of unrestricted funds by the trustees for specific purposes.

17 Analysis of net assets between funds

18 Related party transactions

During the period a trustee was paid a total of £600 for work done on behalf of the charity (2023£1,250).

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