2023-03-31-accounts - Article 39

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Article 39

(Registered charity, number 1166092) Financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2023

Page	Contents
2 - 13	Trustees’ annual report
14	Independent examiner’s report
15	Receipts & payments account
16	Statement of assets & liabilities
17 - 18	Notes to the accounts

Article 39 Trustees’ annual report for the year ended 31 March 2023

Full name Article 39

Organisation type Charitable incorporated organisation

Registered charity number 1166092

Principal address

1 Cranmer Street, Nottingham, NG3 4GH

Trustees

Susannah Walker, Chair Mike Stein Peter Grove, Treasurer Carole Littlewood, from 27/06/23 Catherine Brown, Secretary Vivien Parker, from 21/09/23 Suraya Skelland Ella Dhillon, until 16/09/23 Lynton Orrett

Independent examiner

John O’Brien, employee of Community Accounting Plus, Units 1 & 2 North West, 41 Talbot Street, Nottingham, NG1 5GL

Governance and management

The charity is operated under the rules of its foundation CIO constitution adopted 15/02/16 and registered as a CIO on 16/03/16.

Apart from the first charity trustees, every trustee must be appointed for a term of three years by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the charity trustees. In selecting individuals for appointment as charity trustees, the charity trustees must have regard to the skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration of the CIO.

Objectives and activities

(1) The relief of need, and promotion of the protection, of children living in institutional settings in England through in particular but not exclusively:

(a) The provision of information to children living in institutional settings about law, policy and professional standards in respect of their care and treatment, and the ways in which they can raise concerns and challenge mistreatment;

(b) Undertaking and disseminating research on safeguarding and child protection matters in institutional settings;

(d) Providing technical advice to government and others on matters related to the safety and well-being of children living in institutional settings;

(e) Commenting on proposed legislation concerned with the needs of children living in institutional settings.

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(2) The advancement of the human rights of children living in institutional settings in England by all or any of the following means:

(a) Raising awareness of the means by which children may seek redress for human rights abuses;

(b) Monitoring human rights abuses in children’s institutional settings;

(d) Providing technical advice to government and others on the human rights of children living in institutional settings;

(e) Commenting on proposed legislation concerned with the human rights of children living in institutional settings;
(f) Obtaining redress for the victims of human rights abuses in children’s institutional settings;
(g) Raising awareness of human rights issues;
(h) Promoting public support for human rights;
(i) Promoting respect for human rights among individuals and corporations.

Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit

This was Article 39’s seventh year of funded activity. We are very grateful to all of our funders and donors, and to the many organisations and individuals who worked with us throughout the year.

Our report concerns the period 01 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, though it includes significant developments just past this date.

Article 39 had four members of staff for the majority of this period, equivalent to nearly 3.5 full-time post-holders. Through a partnership with Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, funded by The Legal Education Foundation, we also hosted a Justice First Fellow two days a week.

Public benefit statement

The Trustees confirm that they have complied with the duty in section 17 of the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to the Charity Commission's general guidance on public benefit, 'Charities and Public Benefit'.

Summary of the main achievements during the period

We informed children of their rights

Our rights4children website provides accessible information about children’s rights on topics which children and young people have told us are important to them. The site was used nearly 57,000 times in 2022/23. Our top five most widely read topics remained the same as last year: restraint and use of force; pocket money; leaving care; feeling safe; and your right to complain.

Access to the website continued to be mostly through a mobile phone. We received 51 online feedback forms (compared to 43 last year). The majority of visitors to the site ‘really liked’ (63%) or ‘liked’ (18%) the content they accessed. Eight didn’t like the content; on three occasions this was due to them wanting to change their

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religion, and another visitor expressed dislike of restraint. We received some lovely written comments, including:

“It will help me because I feel like I know what to do in a certain situation.”

“… if I ever feel upset or feel something is unfair I can come to this site and find more about it.”

“This is helpful [it] made me stronger.”

We continued to demand care for every child in care

Last year, we reported on our legal challenge to secondary legislation which we maintain discriminates against children in care aged 16 and 17. The secondary legislation, in force from September 2021, provides a list of placements for children in care aged 15 and under which lawfully fall within ‘other arrangements’ in the Children Act 1989. Other arrangements are used by local authorities when they do not consider placement with a child’s family, foster care or a children’s home to be the most suitable form of accommodation for a child. The effect of the 2021 secondary legislation is to ban the use of unregulated accommodation for children in care aged 15 and under, but not for those aged 16 and 17. All forms of accommodation listed in the secondary legislation as potentially suitable for children in care aged 15 and under provide care where children live, and consistent adult supervision and protection.

We were bitterly disappointed that the High Court found that the Department for Education had not acted irrationally in introducing this age-based secondary legislation, and that there was no breach of the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act 2010. Further, we had argued that the consultation process which led to the secondary legislation was unfair, particularly because ministers were not briefed about the views and perspectives of the 160+ young people who had participated in the consultation (the academics commissioned by government to analyse the consultation responses were not asked to review those specifically from young people). A summary document was prepared by civil servants of young people’s views and perspectives, as expressed through the consultation, but this was not shared with the Secretary of State before he took the decision to introduce the secondary legislation. The High Court found the process to be lawful. The Children’s Minister at the time confirmed to the court that “if he had read that material [summarising young people’s views] before the 2021 Regulations were made, it would have made no difference to the decision to make those Regulations as enacted” (paragraph 129 of the High Court’s judgment).

Very regrettably, our application for the Court of Appeal to hear our case was dismissed, and we spent the remainder of the year focusing our efforts on trying to persuade the government to guarantee that all children in care receive care where they live – to at least the age of 18. This included submitting a comprehensive response to the Department for Education’s consultation on what is now called supported accommodation for looked after children and care leavers aged 16 and 17 (formerly known as unregulated accommodation). Through freedom of information requests and work with parliamentarians, we established that at least 34 children in

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care aged 16 and 17 had died in supported accommodation over the preceding six years.

Although the MacAlister review of children’s social care’s endorsement of government policy was cited by counsel for the Department for Education during the High Court hearing in February 2022, we were very pleased that the review’s final report some three months later changed position, and positively urged care for every child in care. However, the review said this should be implemented from 2025, which we believe is far too long to wait for this fundamental protection. Article 39 and other organisations running the #KeepCaringTo18 campaign wrote to the then Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi in June 2022, urging him to guarantee care to every child in care as a matter of urgency. We did not receive a response from the Minister.

Our work around monitoring and exposing the child protection risks of what we call ‘care-less’ accommodation for children in care aged 16 and 17 saw us pursuing disclosure of a report produced by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, into 48 incidents where children entered care after many years of parental abuse and neglect and then died or suffered serious harm while in care. At the end of April 2022, we wrote to the Chair of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel alongside 29 other organisations asking her to publish the report to help inform legal and policy developments around the care and protection of children in care. The Chair refused to do this, and Article 39 subsequently pursued a freedom of information (FOI) challenge to the Department for Education’s similar resistance to publish the report. We ended the year preparing to attend an FOI tribunal to make the case for transparency being vital to child protection. The tribunal took place in May 2023.

In January 2023, as part of the #KeepCaringTo18 campaign, we published unique research into what care means to 16 and 17 year-olds. We were thrilled that 355 teenagers took part in our online survey, 58 of whom were care experienced. The research revealed that 97% of 16 and 17 year-olds believe that it is necessary for children their age to:

Have someone regularly around to chat and to show an interest in them.
Have someone who shows/tells them that they are loved.
Have someone to deal with emergencies connected to electricity, gas, Internet connection, and/or security (break-ins).

Of those children (n=58) who were in the care of local authorities, or had been in care in the past:

98% stated that it is necessary for 16 and 17 year-olds to have someone regularly around to chat and to show an interest in them.
95% stated that it is necessary for 16 and 17 year-olds to have someone who can protect them if they are ever in danger (at home or somewhere else).
93% stated that it is necessary for 16 and 17 year-olds to have someone who shows/tells them that they are loved.
93% stated that it is necessary for 16 and 17 year-olds to have someone to give advice about growing up and relationships.

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Our Director appeared in a Channel 4 News feature in March 2023 which examined the risks inherent in the use of unregulated supported accommodation for care leavers. The aunt of Lance Scott Walker, who was stabbed to death in 2016 by another young care leaver, Idris Hassan, also aged 18, appealed for supported accommodation to be regulated for all care leavers. In January 2023, the coroner who conducted the inquest into Lance’s death found a multitude of serious failures by the local authorities responsible for housing both young people in unregulated supported accommodation run by a private company, and by the NHS trust responsible for Idris’s mental health care and treatment (he had formerly been sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983). Lance’s aunt, Patricia O’Neill, told Channel 4 News that Idris, “was let down. No-one looked after him, no-one cared for him, no-one made sure he had his medication, and he should never, ever, have been placed in unregulated accommodation with young boys”.

We made a novel application to the High Court’s Family Division for wardship for unaccompanied children missing from a Home Office-run hotel

As we outlined in last year’s annual report, the Home Office has been housing unaccompanied children in hotels outside of the children’s care system since July 2021. The Children Act 1989 provides that local authorities are responsible for looking after children in their area who are without parental care. We threatened legal action in autumn 2021 and entered protracted correspondence with government, in an effort to understand what was happening to children and when the hotel policy would be brought to an end. Then, in January 2023, after the Observer newspaper reported that children had been abducted from a hotel in Brighton and Hove, we commenced wardship proceedings in the family court. We are not aware of any other charity taking such action before – all parties agreed it was a novel application. Although the proceedings were directed at the Home Office, the Department for Education and Cafcass also joined as parties.

After two separate hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in March and April, we received judgment in June 2023. Our wardship application was refused on the grounds that children fall under the responsibility of local authorities, and should be cared for and protected by them. Counsel for Article 39 in the second (substantive) hearing assured the court that this was our position too, but local authorities, the Home Office and the Department for Education had hitherto acted as if children were in ‘legal limbo’. This was the first set of legal proceedings seeking to protect this highly vulnerable group of children from being housed in Home Office-run hotels, and the first judicial confirmation that unaccompanied children are entitled to equal protection under the Children Act 1989. This important legal action was made possible through support from the Good Law Project. We were delighted when, later in 2023, the High Court found the Home Office and Kent County Council had acted unlawfully in housing children outside the children’s care system, in judicial review proceedings brought by ECPAT UK and Brighton and Hove City Council.

We successfully advocated for stronger protections for children in mental health inpatient units

Drawing on the work of our Blooming Change group of children and young people who were detained as children under the Mental Health Act 1983, we successfully influenced the recommendations of the parliamentary committee scrutinising the

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Draft Mental Health Bill. Through our written and oral evidence, we urged action against children being placed in adult wards, new rights to help from an independent advocate, and health care to be available in children’s home areas (to address the scandal of very poorly children being sent many miles from home). The Committee subsequently, in January 2023, made recommendations across all these areas of concern. This year, we also supported three children and young people to report to child protection agencies and the Care Quality Commission allegations of serious mistreatment in a mental health inpatient unit. After our correspondence, an unplanned inspection was undertaken and the unit declared unsafe for children.

We sought to persuade the Equality and Human Rights Commission to intervene to protect the rights of children detained in G4S-run Oakhill secure training centre

We continued to share information with the Equality and Human Rights Commission in anticipation of it using its legal powers to protect children detained in Oakhill secure training centre – following serious whistleblower allegations brought to us in September 2021 and March 2022. As reported last year, after we wrote to child protection agencies and others, the prisons inspectorate conducted an unannounced inspection which led to the G4S-run child prison being subject to an ‘urgent notification’ – the highest level of intervention available to the Chief Inspector of Prisons.

We obtained copies of the annual reports of the child prison advocacy service (run by Barnardo’s under contract with the Youth Custody Service), to review the concerns children had been raising with their advocates. In December 2022, we wrote to the then Justice Secretary Damian Hinds expressing alarm that no children were interviewed as part of the safeguarding review established in response to the urgent notification, and we pressed again for an independent statutory inquiry. The Minister’s response set out a number of measures that had been put in place to ensure children are properly protected and are able to make complaints should they wish to. We ended the year committed to continued monitoring of this child prison, particularly focusing on children’s use of complaints procedures and the work of the local safeguarding children partnership. Across this period, Article 39’s Director had a number of meetings with senior managers in the Youth Custody Service to share concerns and to offer advice on policy developments.

We influenced the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

We were delighted that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse’s final report (October 2022) included the prohibition of pain-inducing restraint among its 20 recommendations. Article 39 had strongly advocated this through our oral and written evidence to the public inquiry.

We continued to press for the closure of child prisons

In June 2022, we held a symposium on the children’s social care review and ending child imprisonment. With other non-governmental organisations, we have been seeking to influence future general election manifesto commitments around child imprisonment and youth justice.

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We provided tailored legal information to advocates, and launched our new ON YOUR SIDE children’s rights advice service

At the end of October 2022, we relaunched our children’s rights advice service, which is now called ON YOUR SIDE. Across the year, we answered 95 individual requests for legal information from advocates assisting children and young people in a variety of circumstances. We continued to receive very positive feedback from advocates using this unique service:

“Thanks so much for this detailed information, it has been incredibly helpful. I am meeting with the corporate governance team tomorrow and feel much more confident having this information available to me.”

“Fantastic, really helpful – thanks so much, I wish of course I had contacted you sooner.”

“This is really, really helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond … in such depth and detail.”

“This information is amazing and so very helpful for the young person. I am very grateful to you and your organisation.”

It is always very motivating to receive tangible information from advocates at a later date, telling us how, after using our advice service, they used the law and statutory guidance to help individual children. In 2023/24 we will consult those who use our advice service to find a way of sharing this very positive impact while protecting the privacy of children and young people.

Our training and events helped bring about change for children and young people

We trained 233 advocates on different aspects of the law and children’s rights protection, and piloted two advocacy clinics which brought together advocates and legal experts from Doughty Street Chambers, Garden Court Chambers, Monckton Chambers and Irwin Mitchell to enhance knowledge of the law (attended by 97 advocates in total). All of our training and events are delivered online.

We receive a steady stream of feedback from advocates informing us of the practical changes in children’s lives they’ve helped to secure, together with changes in their own advocacy practice, as a result of attending our courses and events.

An amazing course which has really opened my eyes to a more targeted way of defending / supporting children's rights, or anybody's rights also. It was interesting and enjoyable. [The trainer] was absolutely brilliant, thank you! – feedback on our ‘What’s law got to do with it?’ main course

It is a powerful, hard-hitting course. It's delivered in a clear and gentle way considering the content. I believe everyone should attend, not just advocates – feedback on our ‘Protecting children’s rights in institutional settings’ course

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Excellent as always. The information which is shared enables me to be a much more effective advocate. Being able to cite legislation usually brings about a good outcome for the children and young people – feedback on our ‘What’s law got to do with it?’ refresher course

As always I learn so much when I come on courses run by Article 39, it's broken down into language I can understand and then use – f eedback on our new ‘Children Act 1989: back to basics’ course

We continued delivering our John Kemmis children’s rights training course to children and young people: four courses across the year to members of three different children in care councils and young people involved with the Anna Freud Centre (children’s mental health charity). A fifth course did not go well, and we made some important changes after receiving very helpful feedback from young people.

We keep numbers for each session low so we can have good interaction, and can adapt the content as we go along. Nineteen children and young people took part overall in the four courses, aged between 11 and 24 years. We love the feedback we have received, including:

“ This was an awesome course to be part of.”

“I liked how the adults were not bothered or annoyed at the fact that people were asking a lot of questions and wanted to read things out.”

“ I would say that it's very important to know what rights you have so you know when to use them in real life. ”

“ I really enjoyed the session and wouldn’t change anything. ”

“ [This course] will not only help you it may help you to save others and give them advice.”

“I enjoyed the group discussions and learning so much new information.

“ Thank you. You make me feel like everybody else.”

We piloted our new course, ‘Your right to complain’, for care experienced children and young people, which was designed and delivered by our Justice First Fellow. We ended the year looking forward to making this one of our regular courses for children and young people, and will develop a companion course for advocates next year.

Our Blooming Change group helped increase young people’s confidence and skills

This was the second year of our Blooming Change group – children and young people coming together to press for change in mental health inpatient units. Everyone in the group has experienced being detained as a child under the Mental Health Act 1983. Formerly called the Expert Group on Mental Health, young people came up with this new name because it both celebrates positive developments in

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individual lives and signals the urgency of wider, structural and attitudinal changes. One of the highlights of the year was the development of training for independent mental health advocates (IMHAs). The group designed and delivered a pilot course in December 2022 to four IMHAs, and then ran their first official course in May 2023 to nine IMHAs. Feedback was extremely positive:

"The best training session I have attended in the whole of my advocacy journey. Informative, person-centred and reflective."

“The best way to say thank you is by becoming better advocates. I will be putting everything I’ve learnt into practice.”

“I'm currently supporting a very poorly young person who is struggling to speak. Going forward, as well as fighting for their rights, I am also going to spend time trying to build a relationship and get to know them before life on the unit.”

“I would like to see this course rolled out to every mental health unit and every advocacy service in the country.”

What Blooming Change members say about their group…

“During meetings I feel great, I feel calm and confident and feel like I can actually say what I want to say without feeling like I'm going to be judged or anything like that.”

“Before my confidence was at a 5, and now it is at a 10. 100%. Definitely.”

“My confidence and my passion for what I do is growing. Learning about children’s rights and stuff – that is something that I can take with me in my professional career.”

“In the past, I've gone to groups and it's been a bit formal and almost like there's a hierarchy. Whereas in Blooming Change, it's like everyone is equal and everyone is on the same playing field. There's nothing right and there's nothing wrong to say, and it's just really relaxed and comfortable.”

“The groups I've been to [before] say they want change but it's like it comes with conditions. You can't actually say what you want because they don't want to be seen as too radical. Whereas I feel like Blooming Change actually takes on board everything and we really are trying to change things rather than saying we are but only doing half the effort.”

We promoted children and young people’s right to high quality advocacy services

As well as our direct work with advocates, we co-ordinate the Advocates4U campaign to strengthen children and young people’s advocacy services across England. The campaign name was chosen by Heather and Megan, two members of Sheffield Children in Care Council.

Following the publication of the MacAlister review of children’s social care, we briefed children, young people and their advocates on the changes recommended for

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advocacy services for children in care. We held a second series of online workshops with young people and advocates, attracting 30 participants in total (40 young people and advocates were involved in our Phase I discussions last year). A final plenary event will be arranged once the government publishes its consultation on a revised set of advocacy standards and guidance. Article 39’s Director was invited to join the Department for Education’s advocacy expert group, which held its inaugural meeting at the end of November 2022.

We were thrilled to launch our first ‘Change through advocacy’ magazine this year. Produced in partnership with children, young people and advocates, this new annual publication celebrates and champions the power and influence of independent advocacy. The magazine was launched at an online event with 45 guests, including from government and Ofsted. We received wonderful feedback from those who joined us:

“Creative, engaging, empowering presentations and magazine – should be circulated to all children's services and beyond.”

“The creativity, strength and insight of all the children and young people who have contributed is off the scale. In my opinion, you guys should be running the country.”

“I'm so grateful to all the young people and advocates here tonight for all you've taught me. I'm so in awe and impressed by all of you.”

“This is amazing, thank you so much for putting this together and sharing it. I have learnt so much today about how young people feel about advocacy, which I wouldn’t have otherwise known about. Thank you!”

Our Children and Young People’s Advocates Network continued to grow We welcomed another 100+ new members to our Children and Young People’s Advocates Network during the year. By the start of April 2023, membership stood at 450+ advocates from 71 different advocacy organisations/providers. We are pleased to receive applications from a growing number of community-based organisations supporting unaccompanied children.

We published 12 children’s rights legal digests across the year. Disseminated to all Network members, the digest was used 240 times each month on average. The landmark judgments series was especially popular, with over 1,000 uses of the two separate issues dedicated to the ‘Southwark judgment’ (concerning local authority duties to children aged 16 and 17 estranged from their parents) and the ‘D judgment’ (concerning the deprivation of liberty of children aged 16 and 17). Our six new law maps were very well received by advocates, covering common challenges children and young people take to their advocates, including: maintaining relationships with their sisters and brothers and other loved ones; wanting to see more of their social worker; and understanding the role of their independent reviewing officer.

We gave expert advice on a number of other children’s rights matters In addition to the policy work outlined above, we gave written evidence to the following organisations and bodies across the year:

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Bill of Rights – Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights;
Consultation on proposed changes to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 Code of Practice and implementation of the Liberty Protection Safeguards – Department of Health and Social Care;
Rapid review into data on mental health units – Department of Health and Social Care.

We published our policy position on profit-making in the children’s social care system and submitted this as evidence to the Welsh Government’s consultation on eliminating profit from the care of children looked after.

We continued to attend the government’s UNCRC (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) Action Group and remained members of other important coalitions, including the Alliance for Children in Care and Care Leavers, the Alliance for Youth Justice, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, the Participation Forum and the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium (RMCC).

We promoted human rights in the media and elsewhere

Article 39 staff were interviewed and quoted in the media on a wide range of children’s rights matters and spoke at a number of national events, including a Doughty Street Chambers webinar on the rights of unaccompanied asylum seeking children in the UK, and a CoramBAAF panel event about the future of the care system. Our main website was used more than 73,000 times in 2022.

Our Director wrote chapters for a book on the future of children’s services (published by Policy Press in July 2023), and a child protection handbook (to be published by Elsevier in 2024).

Article 39 was honoured to be chosen by Rebekah Pierre, alongside the Together Trust, to receive proceeds from the book she is editing called ‘Free Loaves on Friday’. To be published in 2024, this powerful publication brings together the writings of nearly 100 care experienced people reflecting on different aspects of their childhood in care, and its aftermath. Article 39 and the Together Trust have collaborated with children and young people on an A-Z of Allyship section, and jointly written the opening chapter of the book.

Respect and gratitude to two special friends

Article 39 lost two dear friends this year, both of whom shared a lifetime commitment to securing rights and justice for children and young people.

Ian Dickson was a formidable children’s rights champion and speaker of truth about all things related to the children’s care system. We will be forever grateful for Ian’s unwavering support and the wisdom he magnanimously shared from his seven decades of personal and professional experience. One of Ian’s final words of advice about the care system was delivered through his social media account in December 2022, a week before he died. He told us there are “So many brilliant people still working in care settings alongside the cowboys. Know the difference”.

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Eric Allison’s first experience of incarceration was at the age of 14 when he was imprisoned for stealing a bubble gum machine. He spent the majority of his adult life imprisoned, for crimes of fraud and robbery, then became the Guardian newspaper’s prisons correspondent from 2003 to when he died in November 2022. Article 39’s Director worked with Eric throughout this period, exposing the harms and scandals of child imprisonment, particularly around the abusive use of restraint and the unchecked power of companies such as G4S and Serco.

Article 39 Director’s tribute to Eric Allison, published in Guardian newspaper, November 2022

Eric was someone I loved and trusted. I came out of court once upset and angry that the Ministry of Justice had portrayed reforms around the use of restraint on children as the voluntary actions of a caring government rather than the result of the appalling deaths of two boys Gareth Myatt and Adam Rickwood. It was a phone call to Eric that set me back on track. He listened as I recounted what had gone on, expressed his sorrow, then there was a pause before he offered: “Well, you know what they say: don’t get mad get even.” Eric’s body of work is the epitome of how to skilfully transform rage into effective action.

The charity’s policy on reserves

Article 39's target level of reserves is 3 months of running costs.

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:

Signed ______ Date _ Susannah Walker, Trustee

Independent examiner’s report to the trustees of Article 39 for the year ended 31 March 2023

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of Article 39 (the charity) for the year ended 31 March 2023.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the trustees of the charity you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’). I report in respect of my examination of the charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

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:

accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
the accounts do not accord with those records.

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.

Signed ____ Date _______ John O’Brien MSc, FCCA, FCIE Employee of Community Accounting Plus

Article 39 Receipts & payments account for the year ended 31 March 2023

2022 Total Unrestricted Funds Funds £ Note £ Receipts 175189 Grants & donations 2 106272 - Gift Aid 3823 5200 Sales & fees 630 180389 Total receipts 110725 Payments 2100 Associates fees 15000 362 Campaign activities - 1235 Children's engagement - 47 Hospitality & publicity 7 480 Independent examination 394 536 Insurance 455 3790 IT & online surveys 3659 1503 Payroll service & BACS fees 1487 810 Printing & stationery 741 - Professional fees 93 1311 Recruitment - 118196 Salaries, NI & pensions 43251 579 Staff travel inc. associates 404 22361 Strategic litigation 2100 707 Telephone & postage 720 139 Training & subscriptions 85 154156 Total payments 68396 26233 Net receipts/(payments) 42329 118074 Cash funds at start of this period 89105 - Transfers between funds 1889 144307 Cash funds at end of this period 133323	Restricted Funds £ 109558 - - 109558 - - 2265 - 98 114 1220 372 186 365 - 116630 - 22900 125 - 144275 (34717) 55202 (1889) 18596	*2023* Total Funds £ 215830 3823 630
		220283
		15000 - 2265 7 492 569 4879 1859 927 458 - 159881 404 25000 845 85
		212671
		7612 144307 -
		151919

Article 39 Statement of assets and liabilities at 31 March 2023

----- Start of picture text -----
2022 2023
£ Cash assets Note £
144307 Bank accounts 151919
144307 151919
Other monetary assets
585 Prepayments 4 614
585 614
Liabilities
(3181) Creditors 5 (2053)
(3181) (2053)
----- End of picture text -----

These financial statements are accepted on behalf of the charity by:

Signed _____ Dated _____ Peter Grove, Trustee

Article 39 Notes to the accounts for the year ended 31 March 2023

1. Receipts & payments accounts

Receipts and payments accounts contain a summary of money received and money spent during the period and a list of assets and liabilities at the end of the period. Usually, cash received and cash spent will include transactions through bank accounts and cash in hand.

2. Grants & donations

BBC Children in Need Esmee Fairbairn Foundation The Bromley Trust The Hadley Trust The Legal Education Foundation Anonymous donor Sundry grants & donations	Unrestricted £ - 48000 10000 - 6233 - 42039 106272	Restricted Total £ £ 10456 10456 - 48000 - 10000 20000 20000 39648 45881 34125 34125 5329 47368 109558 215830

3. Funds analysis

Opening balance £ 626 5000 201 19329 7571 7198 10000 5277	Receipts £ 20000 - - 50668 5329 - - 33561	(Payments) £ (19877) - - (66597) (12900) - (10000) (34901)	Transfers £ - - - (1889) - - - -	Closing balance £ 749 5000 201 1511 - 7198 - 3937
55202	109558	(144275)	(1889)	18596
89105 89105	110725 110725	(68396) (68396)	1889 1889	133323
				133323

The transfer from the Legal education (advocates) fund to the General fund is for the indirect running costs of the fund.

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4. Prepayments

	£
Insurance	512
IT & online surveys	102
	614

5. Creditors

	£
Independent examination	492
Salaries, NI & pensions	1554
Payroll service & BACS fees	7
	2053

6. Trustees’ remuneration

Trustees received no expenses, remuneration or benefits in this period.

7. Related party transactions

There were no related party transactions during the period

8. Glossary of terms

Creditors: These are amounts owed by the charity, but not paid during the accounting period.

Prepayments: These are services that the charity has paid for in advance, but not used during the accounting period.

Restricted funds: These are funds given to the charity, subject to specific restrictions set by the donor, but still within the general objects of the charity.