Annual Report and Accounts
- 2023 24
Reference information
Charity name : Sing Inside Registered CIO number : 1182678 Registered address : Sing Inside, International House, 12 Constance Street, London, E16 2DQ
Trustees
Nigel Rothband (Chair, appointed 28.03.2019) Andrea Brown (appointed 28.03.2019) Claudia Vince (appointed 09.12.2020) Áine Jackson (appointed 7.12.2020) Jonathan Lucas Wood (appointed 21.12.2020) Jenny Mercer (appointed 21.01.2021) Edward Smyth (appointed 03.09.2021)
Structure, governance and management
Sing Inside was registered with the Charity Commission in England and Wales as a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) on 28 March 2019 with registered charity number 1182678. Sing Inside's governing document is its constitution (last updated March 2019). The trustees confirm that the financial statements comply with the requirements in section 24 of Sing Inside’s constitution and with section 133 of the Charities Act 2011 which permits non-company charities to prepare receipts and payments accounts provided the charity’s gross income does not exceed £250,000.
About Sing Inside
Sing Inside provides group singing workshops in prisons across England and Wales. We enable all participants to enjoy singing with others free from judgement or assessment, inspiring hope and confidence, and facilitating connection to others. We train confident, inspiring community music leaders who deliver engaging, accessible singing sessions. We prioritise enjoyment in our approach to learning to increase confidence, promote teamwork and encourage participants to recognise their individual contribution to a shared goal.
Our Vision:
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To see opportunities for group singing in every prison in England and Wales as part of a diverse range of educational and creative opportunities which inspire hope. These opportunities can be accessed by all people who live and work in prisons;
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To see those with influence over prison regimes recognise that opportunities to have fun and share enjoyment with others is a prerequisite of positive community engagement and social behaviour;
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To see social barriers between people in prison and the general public eradicated through improved understanding of life inside prison and to build a shared understanding of everyone’s capacity to contribute positively.
Delivery
We conduct day-long and multi-day projects during which we form choirs made up of people in prison, local volunteers and prison staff. Our workshops culminate in a performance or recording and activities include warmups and a focus on rhythm and collective song learning. As Sing Inside has grown over the last 12 months we have recruited a part-time staff team to oversee the charity’s operations and support our three local committees, in Cambridge, Oxford and York, made up of volunteers who organise workshops with prisons local to them. Volunteers are drawn from universities, community groups and choirs in each area we work, allowing us to tailor our approach to every prison community. Local groups are supported and trained by the staff team to create a strong network of prison partnerships. Our relationships with prisons in London, the north-west, north-east, south-east and all new prison partnerships are managed by the staff team.
Message from the Chair
The financial year 2023-2024 was a significant one for Sing Inside. The restructure of the volunteer Executive Team which began towards the end of the previous financial year was completed; and thoughts began to turn towards the makeup of the Board as a number of trustees approached the end of their terms.
Maisie Hulbert, Sing Inside’s co-founder, first volunteer Chief Executive, and then (from February 2023) first employed Chief Executive announced her intention to step down: her final Board meeting was 31[st] October 2023. It is impossible to overstate Maisie’s centrality to the success of Sing Inside over the last ten years, and the Board had the opportunity to say thank you and farewell at a valedictory dinner in early January 2024, where Maisie was presented with a number of tokens of the Board’s appreciation and sent on her way with our best wishes for her future.
Following a competitive round of recruitment Sing Inside was very pleased to welcome Sam Hawksley as our new CEO, effective from December 2023. Sam is an experienced charity leader
and has quickly got the measure of Sing Inside, overseeing its day-to-day work as well as its increasing professionalisation.
Lucy Baker joined Sing Inside a couple of months before Sam (in September 2023) as Programme Manager and has been an invaluable addition to the team working as the link between our volunteers and the charity’s management and Board.
Financially speaking, Sing Inside continues to grow in a sustainable way, and we are close to breaking the £50k p.a. income threshold. It is particularly pleasing to see the upturn in Trust and Foundation funding, representing increased confidence and belief in Sing Inside and our team in a highly – and increasingly – competitive funding environment.
As ever, the Board extends its heartfelt thanks to Sing Inside’s dedicated staff, volunteers, and donors without whom we could not continue to deliver our vital work.
Nigel Rothband, Chair of Sing Inside
Message from the Chief Executive
I was delighted to join the team in December 2023 and take over from the outstanding Maisie Hulbert who has led the development of the charity, since its inception as a project almost 10 years ago. What attracted me to Sing Inside was the clear and simple focus on bringing joy and connection to people in prison through the power of singing together. I have been bowled over by the energy and passion from our Volunteers, Staff and Trustees to connect with people in prison and use music to achieve this. I have had the pleasure of volunteering and running several workshops and meeting people in prison who benefit from our workshops.
Our new CEO Sam Hawksley, Trustees and Volunteers form the choir for the day at HMP Whitemoor (Cambridgeshire), December 2023.
Perhaps one of the most subtle, yet powerful examples of the success of our work is a man who was unable to look me in the eye at the start of the workshop. He took regular breaks away from the singing to manage his anxiety and was only able to mumble his name to me. By the end of the day he performed enthusiastically in the choir and afterwards looked me straight in the eye, shook my hand and said ‘Thank you, I've had a great time’ .
It is an exciting time for the charity as we grow and build on a solid foundation of a tried and tested method of group singing workshops that build confidence, connections and joy. As some of our founding volunteers and Trustees step away over the next year, we look forward to inviting new Trustees on board to help us on the next stage of our journey.
We are very grateful to our funders and all who have believed and invested in us to grow from just an idea, to a growing charity that employs staff and works across the country.
We are excited about developing new relationships with prisons and funders to look to bring our model to prisons around the UK and support prisoners who are still in desperate need of meaningful connections and creative musical opportunities. We look forward to innovating with new ideas, incorporating feedback from our volunteers and putting the people in prison who we are serving at the forefront to take on more active roles designing and delivering our workshops.
We look forward to bringing even more joy across the country to many who desperately need it.
Sam Hawksley, Chief Executive
Trustees Annual Report
We have had a very successful year as a charity, trialling new approaches, increasing our income and extending our reach across the UK to reach and benefit more people in prison. We have continued to recover and rebuild our operations and relationships with prisons following Covid-19 and have worked in 9 different prisons over the last year.
Highlights from April 2023 and March 2024:
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180 prison-based participants
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18 prison visits across 9 Prisons – 50% increase on the number of workshops in 1 year!
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112 volunteers attended workshops forming choirs alongside people in prison
We worked in 9 different prisons across England
Prison Based Participants Survey Data 2023-24
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100% said the workshops made them feel included
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100% said the workshops were fun!
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97% said the workshops made them feel more confident meeting new people
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95% said the workshops made them feel part of a community
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81% said the workshops made them feel more confident working with others
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70% said the workshops had improved their wellbeing
Volunteers Survey Data
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99% said everyone was engaged in our workshops
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98% said the workshops had improved their mood and wellbeing
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97% said they feel more confident about singing after the workshop
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97% said they feel more confident about meeting new people after the workshop
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96% said we managed to a sense of community in our workshops
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90% said we worked well as a team in our workshops
We trained 18 volunteers as future musical leaders
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Musical Leader Volunteers travelling to HMP
Long Lartin in February 2024, to put their
training into action!
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Ambassadors – A Pilot Project, A New Way of Working
We completed our ‘Ambassadors’ pilot in the North-West, deepening connections with people in prison and providing them with an opportunity to develop organisational, communication and leadership skills. We introduced this project in HMP Liverpool in 2023, working with our first group of 7 Ambassadors who had the opportunity to shape sessions they planned to attend; publicise opportunities across the prison; and work with the charity for a sustained period to build relationships and develop musical and leadership skills.
Launching our Ambassador Scheme has set an exciting precedent for new ways of working where prisoner voice and design is fully embedded in our work. Satisfaction from these workshops was clear; 100% of respondents over the course of the programme said they had fun, and that they felt more confident about singing. Rolling this scheme out further is therefore a huge opportunity to both embed Sing Inside in prison communities, and to provide regular, consistent opportunities for local volunteers to allow the charity to expand into new areas. The scheme was a great success and we now have funding to expand the project into three further sites in 2024/25, HMP Long Lartin, HMP Holme House and HMP Humber.
Feedback from our
Ambassador Pilot Project:
Qualitative feedback from prison-based participants throughout the Ambassador Programme included:
“Today has made me confident in my abilities”
“I enjoyed working in a group, I feel like this has improved my confidence and it has let me associate with other prisoners that I wouldn’t do normally.”
“I sang in a Welsh male choir and being part of this has made me feel like I was back home.”
The final celebration event for the project took place with a performance to families of prison residents in the visits centre. Qualitative feedback from family members attending included:
Volunteers on our Ambassadors program at HMP Liverpool, October 2023
"What a brilliant day, our family all together singing was great. I really miss these times and to be part of this was very special, thank you."
"It was so lovely to be able to sing together in a relaxed area, the children loved singing with their uncle and playing the games. Everyone joined in, there was lots of laughter and the staff made it a special day."
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Across our strategy for 2022-25 we have continued to progress set goals relating to becoming a more diverse organisation. Some of our achievements have included:
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Putting the voice of people in prison at the front of designing our workshops through our Ambassadors pilot project
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Collecting improved demographic data on our volunteers and prison-based participants
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Enabling the participants in prison to develop our musical programming to be more reflective of the individuals we are serving
Through feedback we know that 100% of people in prison feel that our workshops are inclusive. We have also received feedback that being able to rework or adapt songs to reflect participant experience more accurately helps people to feel included and engaged.
Situation in Prisons
There really is no way around this: the situation in our prisons is absolutely dire. Words like ‘crisis’ and ‘disaster’ have been used for so long in this context that they have lost their power: a system running at absolute capacity, staffed by a burnt-out workforce, and in which the notions of ‘purposeful activity’ and rehabilitation are a distant dream is, now, the norm. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons has issued more Urgent Notifications this year than ever before; HMPPS quite literally ran out of beds, necessitating the use of police cells; and rates of self-harm are now higher than before the pandemic, reaching their highest level on record for women.
Sing Inside does not claim to solve any of these problems. But in the depths of a system failing so many, both inside and outside, we are in no doubt as to the importance of what we do: bringing some joy, some enjoyment, and some emotional release to those stuck amidst the chaos and the darkness. The UK has by far the highest rate of imprisonment in Western Europe; and our prison population has risen by 93% in the last thirty years (against an overall UK population increase of c.15%). Current projections suggest that this increase shows no sign of slowing, and that the prison population will be well over 100,000 by 2026. Of course, whilst significant and immediate investment in our prisons is vital, it is also the case that ‘solving’ the prisons crisis (there we go again...) means investing not primarily in prisons but in those other areas, the failures of which are stepping stones on so many individuals’ pathways to custody: education, the care system, mental health services, addiction provision etc.
This is a massive, multi-Parliament job and whilst we remain caught in the death-spiral of what Prof. Sir Anthony Bottoms refers to as ‘populist punitiveness’ with all political parties seeking to appear tougher on crime than the others, it is difficult to perceive how we achieve change on the scale necessary to recast a failing system. But the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time,
and there are thousands of charities and campaigning groups doing superb work, sure in the knowledge that their efforts combine, resulting in real, tangible improvements to the here-andnow of our prisons. And so, Sing Inside continues to nibble away at that elephant, bringing joy and fun and strategies for non-destructive self-expression wherever we work.
Edward Smyth – Sing Inside Trustee (incoming Chair, 2024); Head of Development, Prison Reform Trust
Growing Pressures for Our Delivery
The above pressures have steadily affected prison's budgets with investment in therapeutic creative enrichment activities like ours are often the first to be cut. Several prisons we have worked with for a long time have reported dramatically reduced budgets for educational and creative activities such as singing workshops. This has placed more pressure on Sing Inside being able to raise funds from trusts and foundations rather than prisons directly. To add to this, our costs continue to increase, such as hiring a minibus to transport our team of volunteers from a local university/town centre to a prison, who are often in remote locations, as well as paying our staff and freelance workshop leaders a fair wage in the face of inflationary pressure.
Singing is Needed More Than Ever!
Despite the pressures, we know people in prison want and need our singing workshops more than ever. Here are some quotes from our feedback forms from our participants:
“Gave my mind body and spirit a boost. Really enjoyed the day. The volunteers were fantastic and motivated us all to do our best.”
“The engagement, collaboration and celebration of voice. Thank you - it was heartwarming and life affirming.”
“Made my mental health grow stronger.”
“This was a great day, actually made me feel human and not just a prisoner”
Our first CEO and Founder, Maisie Hulbert with volunteers at HMP Humber in December 2023
“I really enjoyed being part of a team and learning about different types of
music, I think it is a brilliant idea to share these types of activities to people who wouldn’t normally have access to them.”
Upcoming Changes at Sing Inside
The charity has continued to grow, increasing our income, reaching more people in prison, increasing our delivery and working with more prisons and partners. Our 2023-24 income was £48,549 and expenditure of £39,830.
We have had a year of personnel change at Sing Inside as some of our original founders and long-standing Trustees and volunteers decided to move on, coming to the end of their terms. They leave Sing Inside in a strong position and we thank them all for their hard work and dedication growing the charity to where it is today.
In 2023/24 we recruited our first part-time paid staff roles. Prior to this, all central operations had been carried out on a voluntary basis by our Executive Team. One of our founders and first parttime CEO, Maisie Hulbert, left Sing Inside at the start of 2024 and we recruited a new chief executive, Sam Hawksley and a programme manager, Lucy Baker.
Our initial founding Trustees, having served two terms, will step down this year and we are fortunate to have recruited two new Trustees who have served on the Executive Team as founding volunteers of Sing Inside and bring a strong historical knowledge and understanding of the charity’s growth. Our board has significant lived and professional experience in the criminal justice system and music education as well as charity finance, income generation, setting strategy and KPIs. This breadth of skills will help us meet our strategic goals and focus on generating core income to support staff costs.
Our 10th Anniversary and The Year Ahead
We are very excited about the year ahead, 10 years since the very first singing workshop from our original founding student volunteers in Cambridge. It was another 5 years until the charity was registered with the Charity Commission but this is a very exciting milestone and we are looking forward to celebrating this wonderful achievement and the hard work of many volunteers in getting us to this point.
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Throwback to Sing Inside’s first singing
workshop in prison, 10 years ago in 2014!
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As founding Trustees and long-serving volunteers look to step away from the Charity, we are excited
about supporting our new staff team to continue embedding well into the organisation, bringing their own ideas for the charity moving forwards as well as recruiting new trustees to strengthen the Board as some Trustees will step away at the end of their terms.
Partnerships
Sing Inside has a strong history of working in partnership. When working with a prison we often partner with other departments internally and other music and art groups. Examples include guitar groups, chaplaincy and other educational groups. We have also partnered with other prison music charities promoting each other’ work through ’Prison Music week, such as Changing Tunes, Beating Time, Prison Choir Trust, Irene Taylor Trust.
Over the last year we have worked closely with larger education providers to develop mutually beneficial partnerships that complement their
existing offerings. These include NOVUS and The Forward Trust.
Volunteers at HMP SEND in Surrey, May 2023
We are members of the Corbett Network, NCVO, Clinks and the National Criminal Justice Arts
Alliance and our Chief Executive is a member of ACEVO.
Partnership Case Study
Forward Trust x Sing Inside Partnership at HMP Bronzefield February 2024
Women in prison are some of the most marginalised people in our society, but at the Forward Trust we believe everyone deserves the opportunity and support they need to build better lives for themselves.
Many of the women who engage in our substance misuse services while in prison may not see themselves as the strong resilient women that they are, so to mark International Women’s Day, we hosted an event at HMP Bronzefield to mark the occasion and celebrate the strength and determination of the women who are engaging with our services and taking steps to make positive changes in their lives. This was a day to build up the women, give them a chance to celebrate how far they’ve come, and show them what’s possible.
Working with Sing Inside, a group of around 20 women participated in a singing workshop in the morning, selecting and rehearsing the songs they would perform in the afternoon at a concert that also included the presentation of certificates to mark the various stages of treatment and recovery the women have attained through engaging with Forward’s services.
The afternoon kicked off with a version of ‘True Colours’ by Cyndi Lauper and the strong women energy kept going with rousing and rowdy renditions of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’, and ‘I Will
Volunteers at HMP Bronzefield, March 2024
Survive’, by Gloria Gaynor, with an audience of invited women and guests singing along, clapping and generally enjoying some time to let loose (as much as is possible in a prison environment) and celebrate themselves and the other women who are taking a similar path as them.
Forward Trust’s Julie Muir came along to share her own inspirational story about how, with support from Forward, she was able to break the cycle of crime and addiction and turn her life around to eventually becoming the Director of Recovery Support at Forward. Julie was followed by an emotional and
uplifting share from a woman who was due to be released from prison just eight days later. She’s on her path to recovery and was looking forward to getting out, staying on track, and having a better life for herself and her family.
The day culminated in certificates to celebrate the various steps and stages the women have taken or achieved towards their own recovery goals. Events like this don’t just offer people in prison a break from the norm and a bit of excitement, they help with confidence building, selfesteem, and mental health, all areas we focus on when we work with people on their recovery, and at Forward Trust we’re look forward to working with Sing Inside again to bring the joy of song to more of our in-prison clients.
Quote from Forward Trust: Sing Inside offers creativity in engaging the clients with the choir, this works well to compliment celebrations of events which we would like to make more of a showcase. Sing Inside is well equipped and prepared to work within the often limiting and challenging prison environment, having volunteers ready and committed for the day removes the need for us to navigate the challenging vetting and clearance processes which can sometimes present delays and barriers to delivering partnership
initiatives. Their model fits neatly into one day and offers ease to running events within the prisons. Rhianne Graham, Forward Trust Regional Manager
Additional disclosures required for CIOs
The Charitable Incorporated Organisations (General) Regulations 2012 do require the following information to be given by way of note:
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a) Particulars of any guarantee given by the CIO, where any potential liability under the guarantee is outstanding at the date of the statement of assets and liabilities;
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b) Particulars of any debt outstanding at the date the statement of assets and liabilities which is owed by the CIO and which is secured by an express charge on any of the assets of the CIO.
It is noted for Sing Inside that there was nothing to disclose in respect of either a) or b).
Reserves Policy
Reserves are that part of a charity’s unrestricted funds that is freely available to spend on any of the charity’s purposes. Sing Inside maintains free unrestricted reserves:
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To provide a level of working capital that protects the continuity of the our core work
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To provide a level of funding for unexpected opportunities
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To provide cover for risks such as unforeseen expenditure or unanticipated loss of income
The board of trustees will review the above criteria with reference to Sing Inside’s business plan and determine the target level of free reserves to meet these commitments. The basic target level of reserves to be reviewed annually is six months of operating expenditure to allow for a managed wind-down if necessary.
At present, the board are maintaining free unrestricted funds of £22,576 with an additional £5,632 of designated funds making up our total unrestricted funds of £28,208. Our current level of reserves represents 5 months of the charity’s expenditure, which is within the charity’s reserves policy target of between 3 months (£12,137) and 6 months’ turnover (£24,274).
Accounts
| Sing Inside | 1182678 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receipts and payments accounts | |||||||||
| From | 01/04/2023 | To | 31/3/2024 | ||||||
Section A: Receipts and payments
| Sing Inside | Sing Inside | Sing Inside | Sing Inside | Sing Inside | 1182678 | 1182678 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receipts and payments accounts | ||||||||||
| From | 01/04/2023 | To | 31/3/2024 | |||||||
| Section A: Receipts and payments | ||||||||||
| Unrestricted funds |
Restricted funds |
Endowment funds |
Total funds |
Prior period (01/04/2022 - 31/03/2023) |
||||||
| £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | ||||||
| A1 - Receipts | ||||||||||
| Charitable activities | 18,795 | 22,550 | - | 41,345 | 27,480 | |||||
| Donations and legacies | 7,204 | - | - | 7,204 | 4,557 | |||||
| Other tradingactivities | - | - | - | - | 459 | |||||
| Sub-total (Gross incomefor AR) | 25,999 | 22,550 | - | 48,549 | 32,496 | |||||
| A2 - Asset and investment sales | ||||||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| Sub-total | - | - | - | - | - | |||||
| Total receipts | 25,999 | 22,550 | - | 48,549 | 32,496 | |||||
| A3 - Payments | ||||||||||
| Visit travel | 2,354 | 2,468 | - | 4,822 | 3,419 | |||||
| Overheads | 15,977 | 9,876 | - | 25,853 | 5,246 | |||||
| Development | 967 | - | - | 967 | 4,480 | |||||
| Publicityand fundraising | 8,188 | - | - | 8,188 | 4,840 | |||||
| Sub-total | 27,486 | 12,344 | - | 39,830 | 17,985 | |||||
| A4 - Asset and investmentpurchases | ||||||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| Sub-total | - | - | - | - | - | |||||
| Totalpayments | 27,486 | 12,344 | - | 39,830 | 17,985 | |||||
| Net receipts/ ( payments) | (1,487) | 10,206 | - | 8,719 | 14,511 | |||||
| A5 - Transfers between funds | - | - | - | |||||||
| A6 - Cash funds lastyear end | 29,695 | 11,094 | - | 40,789 | 26,278 | |||||
| Cashfunds thisyear end | 28,208 | 21,300 | - | 49,508 | 40,789 |
Section B.. Statement of a55ets and liabilitie5 at th2 end ot the period 223 21. e XCC•Jffl 16 3316 2011 024 024
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report
| Report to the trustees/ members of On accounts for the year ended Set out on pages |
Charity Name SING INSIDE |
Charity Name SING INSIDE |
Charity Name SING INSIDE |
|---|---|---|---|
| 31/03/2024 | Charity no (if any) |
1182678 | |
| (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 / 03 / 2024.
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 (other than that disclosed below *) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:
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accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
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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.
- Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply.
Date: 20/12/2024 Signed: Name: Gracian Daniel-Sam
Relevant professional ACA – Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) qualification(s) or body (if any):
Address: 61 Plodder Lane Bolton BL4 0BX
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 .