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Wycombe Refugee Partnership Trustees Annual Report 2024-2025

01 September 2024 to 31 August 2025

Objectives and Activities

Charitable purposes: to prevent and relieve poverty among refugees and asylum seekers and people granted humanitarian or discretionary leave to remain, together with their dependents by providing advice/access to: interpreting, translating, advocacy, health, housing, social activities, employment and education in the High Wycombe area.

Introduction

Charities supporting refugees and those in the UK asylum system must respond to many changes throughout any given year. In response to governmental and legislative changes and a hostile environment, Wycombe Refugee Partnership (WRP) have had to be adaptable and resilient as we respond to the needs of local refugees. In the UK, we are facing continual and ever-growing hostility towards asylum seekers and refugees, from politicians, the media and the general public. There is confusion and often a lack of clear information. Thankfully, anti-refugee demonstrations have not happened in Wycombe and we have had wonderful support from the wider community towards our work and those that we support, for which we are very grateful. Nevertheless, we remain concerned for and committed to helping those who are amongst the most vulnerable in our society.

Governance, trustees and staff

Wycombe Refugee Partnership is registered with the Charity Commission as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Sue Butler took over from Michael Bowker as Chair of Trustees on 1 January 2025. Michael also stepped down as trustee after a short handover period. Saleema Burney was appointed Vice-Chair in September 2025. Dave Jones joined the trustee board in March 2025 and the remaining trustees were Razwan Baig (Treasurer), Stephanie Rybak, Tanveer Choudhury, Liz Sheppard and Nasheeda Mariyam.

During the year, we were supported by two paid part-time administrators and one accounts assistant, totalling just less than one full-time equivalent staff. We had 60 active volunteers throughout the year, doing a wide range of roles as individuals, and in our two main teams. We pay rent for the use of a part-time office space within Wesley Methodist Church.

Summary of Main Activities

We supported 298 people (beneficiaries) from 24 different countries during the year, comprising 156 adults and 142 children. This amounts to a 40% increase in the number of beneficiaries compared to the previous year. We adjusted our teams and procedures in order to continue to support people in a personal and person-centred way, looking at each household individually and assessing their needs, whilst adjusting our structures to manage this increased workload.

The increase in the number of people in the asylum system housed here has been one reason for the increase in beneficiaries. For these households we focused on supporting them financially through our supermarket voucher scheme, and/or other one-off voucher projects. Some of these households were quickly awarded refugee status and moved on from the Home Office supported housing, some to settle in High Wycombe, and others to join family members or seek job opportunities elsewhere in the UK.

Temporarily housed refugee families under Brent, Hillingdon, Oxford, Reading, Windsor & Maidenhead and Watford councils also accounted for the increase in numbers. Temporarilyhoused can mean a couple of months but often means a year or more with children having to change schools and settle for an undetermined amount of time in High Wycombe. We have developed a good relationship with the Children Missing Education officer of Buckinghamshire Council, working together to ensure that all the children who are temporarily housed, are able to find school places.

The remainder of the refugees we support are those who have been granted refugee status and are making Wycombe their home, or have come through Resettlement schemes (such as Ukrainians and Afghans).

Our Education team supports all our beneficiaries with school admissions help (paperwork, online forms and referrals to the Children Missing Education officer at Bucks Council). The team comprises teachers who also give their time and expertise to tutor and support children who we identify as needing extra educational support; during this year, we supported ten children in this way. We also supplied reconditioned laptops to a small number of GCSE and A level students. Members of this team also offer educational advice - this is especially important for children who come to the UK in their teens and are not able to succeed at GCSE level and need different educational options. We were also able to provide support in applying for university places and understanding the applications and student grant schemes.

As part of the education team, we also support an increasing number of adults, helping them register for English lessons. Our volunteer tutors also helped 5 people last year with dedicated one-to-one English tutoring due to their difficulties with accessing English classes

in the community. In addition, we have been able to provide advanced level English with one person now employed by the NHS as a healthcare assistant, and another who is now studying at Masters level at the University of St Andrews .

Our Support Team helps with paperwork for bills and systems in the UK, GP and dentist registrations, advice regarding housing and sometimes simply emotional support and a friendly face from our volunteers. This is a huge amount of work, often helping over a period of weeks or even months for some households.

We have continued to run Mellor House, our temporary accommodation owned by the Chiltern Area Quaker Meeting, for refugee families and we hosted three households during the year. One person stayed only for a short time, having a safe place to stay whilst she assessed her options. The other two guests were both single women, one of whom was facing street homelessness when she contacted us. Both of these women received wraparound support and were able to secure full time jobs and are renting privately within High Wycombe, becoming completely independent within 6 months of support.

Smalls grants and supermarket vouchers

We have continued to be able to run our school uniform grant scheme whereby families can apply to us for support with purchasing school uniforms and school essentials upon entry to a new school.

Up to three beneficiaries a year who have passed their driving theory test can apply for a small grant to help with driving lessons, and this has allowed a number of families to have wider employment and integration options.

People in the asylum system are given £49.18 to live on per week and often experience food poverty. We have continued to run our monthly supermarket voucher scheme for this group of people, awarding £25pp per month in a voucher for their nearest supermarket. This impacts their ability to buy healthy food and a few of life’s essentials and takes the pressure off them financially. In this way we supported 13 households of people - or 34 vouchers per month. All of this has come out of our funding from grant foundations or specific local fundraising.

Social integration and reducing social isolation

For women: We continued to host a monthly coffee morning at Wycombe Museum for women to meet each other, helping reduce their social isolation. Attendees are able to share information about life in the UK, or share news and stories from their home countries with others who have faced similar challenges. Coming out to a public place for an event is a highlight in the month for many of our attendees. At Christmas, we had a larger gathering for the women, offering numerous crafts, gifts and seasonal food.

For children: To help refugee children with integration, making friends and increasing their confidence, we offered a range of events. These included a weekly skateboarding group, and numerous activities throughout the year involving arts and crafts, local outings and music events, many of which were also attended by parents. We delivered gifts at Christmas to 65 children. This gave children activities, crafts and toys to enjoy during the school holidays and was very well received as an expression of care and kindness towards the families.

Training and support of our volunteers

As we have responded to the increased workload, we have in turn been able to increase the number of active volunteers. We have focused on improving our new volunteer journey, creating a Volunteer Pack, and strengthening teams and support for every volunteer. We held two bespoke safeguarding training sessions for volunteers.

Finance and fundraising

At the end of the financial year, the revenue was £62,060. Expenditures totalled £43,094 with adjustments of historical beneficiary loans of £18,776. Due to some generous donations in the last months of the year, we had a final bank balance of £100,403, helping us stay sustainable, with adequate reserves for the coming year. Our reserves policy is to hold enough funds to meet six months' salaries for our administrators, our core costs and our Mellor House project costs for three families a year. The reserve level was kept at £30,000.

During the year, we also worked on strengthening our financial policies, including a new Fraud Policy and an updated Loans Policy, relating to loans that we occasionally offer to beneficiaries who are in financial crisis or difficulty.

We have also grown our team of volunteer fundraisers to four people, supporting us with our grant applications, crowdfunders and our social media.

We are grateful to the many individuals who support WRP on a monthly basis or one off gifts and responses to our fundraising campaigns. We are also grateful to our supporters who promote the charity as a worthy recipient of funding from local charitable events. We especially thank the following:

Marlow Refugee Action: for supporting our women's coffee group and for numerous other fundraising events and financial gifts.

John Lewis: for funding our Christmas events.

Wycombe Wanderers Foundation and Millbrook School: for sponsoring our weekly skateboarding group.

Vache Baroque and Wycombe Arts Centre: for running and hosting arts and music events.

Godstowe School and Primark : for the numerous gifts at Christmas for beneficiary children.

Wycombe Abbey School: for choosing us as their charity of the year and very generously raising funds for us.

Wise Mosque: for including some of our beneficiaries in their Ramadan Iftar food project and their Helping Hands scheme.

Quaker Friends, Great Missenden Church, All Saints Church, Kingshill Church, Hazlemere Church and other friends of WRP for continued support.

We are grateful to our major funders the Rothschild Foundation for 3 year funding. Heart of Bucks who generously supported us again this year, and the Hilden Charitable Fund who also gave us 2 year funding.

- Our goals for the 2025 2026 year

There are many changes to the asylum system in the UK being proposed and debated, however we expect to continue to support at least the same number of beneficiaries in the coming year, whilst adjusting to new schemes or new influxes of refugees on various resettlement pathways. Our goals are:

To continue engaging with our refugee and asylum seeker beneficiaries to understand their needs and aspirations and to seek funding and active volunteers to support this work.

Further develop our training and support of all our volunteers, producing written documentation, in-person training and videos; ensuring that we support and provide oversight for every volunteer

Recruit another paid role within our team to support both administrative tasks and volunteer recruitment and retention

Continue to offer partnerships with local schools to raise awareness and understanding of refugee issues, facilitating discussions and understanding through age- appropriate activities and providing opportunities to fundraise and partner with WRP in meaningful ways.

Increase the number of trustees by two, making sure we retain our diversity. Provide a variety of activities for children from refugee and asylum seeking families to help rebuild confidence and support their integration journey.

The Trustees declare that they have approved this report for submission to the Charity Commission.

Susanne (Sue) Butler

Chair of Trustees. On behalf of the Trustees

Registered Charity No: 1168176

Registered address: Parish Office, 8 Castle Street, High Wycombe HP13 6RF

----- Start of picture text -----
Wycombe Refugee Partnership 1168176
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
For the period 01/09/2024 31/08/2025
To
from
Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Total funds Last year
funds funds funds
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
Donations 14,290 - - 14,290 22,171
Grants 28,054 3,500 - 31,554 21,385
Gift Aid 5,537 - - 5,537 3,107
Fundraising 2,034 - - 2,034 -
Halfway House Rental Income 4,330 - - 4,330 2,099
Other Income 4,315 4,315 1,368
Sub total (Gross income for AR) 58,560 3,500 - 62,060 50,130
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
Loan Repayments 1,460 - - 1,460 4,850
- - -
Sub total 1,460 - - 1,460 4,850
Total receipts 60,020 3,500 - 63,520 54,980
A3 Payments
Halfway House Expenses 2,645 - - 2,645 2,901
Fundraising Expenses 27 - - 27 48
Support for Refugees & Asylum-seekers 17,985 624 - 18,608 24,298
Admin Salaries & Expenses 20,927 - - 20,927 22,249
Compliance 270 - - 270 20
Advertising - - - - 252
Insurance 616 - - 616 616
- -
- -
Sub total 42,470 624 - 43,094 50,385
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
Loans Made 709 - - 709 5,500
Cash Advance - - - - -
Sub total 709 - - 709 5,500
Total payments 43,179 624 - 43,803 55,885
Net of receipts/(payments) 16,841 2,876 - 19,717 - 905
A5 Transfers between funds - - - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end 46,968 33,718 - 80,686 81,591
Cash funds this year end 63,809 36,594 - 100,403 80,686
----- End of picture text -----

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period

Categories B1 Cash funds B2 Other monetary assets	(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) Details Cash at Bank *Total cash funds* Details Charitable Loans Due Cash Advance Details	Unrestricted funds to nearest £ 63,809 63,809 OK Unrestricted funds to nearest £ 11,749 - Fund to which asset belongs	Restricted funds to nearest £ 36,594 36,594 OK Restricted funds to nearest £ - - Cost (optional)	Endowment funds to nearest £ -
				-
				OK
				Endowment funds to nearest £ - - Current value (optional)

----- Start of picture text -----
B3 Investment assets n/a
Fund to which Current value
Details asset belongs Cost (optional) (optional)
B4 Assets retained for the n/a
charity’s own use
Fund to which Amount due When due
Details liability relates (optional) (optional)
B5 Liabilities n/a
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf Date of
of all the trustees Signature Print Name approval
Susanne Butler 22.6.2026
----- End of picture text -----

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ Charity Name members of Wycombe Refugee Partnership On accounts for the year 31 August 2025 Charity no 1168176 ended (if any) Set out on pages 1 (remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31 / 08 / 2025.

Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basis of report of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

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

accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
the accounts do not accord with the accounting records

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

Date: 12 / 06 / 2026 Signed: Name: Ali Mian C.A. Relevant professional Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) qualification(s) or body Membership No. M26670 (if any): Address: 146 Cressex Road High Wycombe Buckinghamshire HP12 4UA

October 2018

IER

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .