| Trustees' Annual Report | for theperiod | ||||||
| **From ** | Period start date | To | Period end date | ||||
| 1 | 5 | 2021 | 30 | 4 | 2022 |
Section A Reference and administration details
Charity name UK Advising and Tutoring Other names charity is known by UKAT Registered charity number (if any) 1185020 Charity's principal address York St John University Lord Mayor’s Walk YORK Postcode YO31 7EX
Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |
Trustee name | Office (if any) | Dates acted if not for whole year |
Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee (if any) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| David John Lochtie | Chair | Members | ||
| Susan Anne Smith | Members | |||
| Dionne Elizabeth Barton |
Members | |||
| Ann Lesley Bingham |
Members | |||
| Oscar van den Wijngaard |
Members | |||
| Neil Gordon Bangs | 8 September 2021 - | Members | ||
| Abigail Moriarty | Members | |||
Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)
Name Dates acted if not for whole year
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Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)
Type of adviser Name Address
Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)
David Grey
Section B Structure, governance and management
Description of the charity’s trusts
Type of governing document
Constitution
- (eg. trust deed, constitution)
Charitable Incorporated Organisation How the charity is constituted
- (eg. trust, association, company)
Trustee selection methods
Elected by Charity Members
- (eg. appointed by, elected by)
Additional governance issues (Optional information)
You may choose to include additional information, where relevant, about:
-
policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees;
-
the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;
UKAT is allied to NACADA, the Global Community for Academic Advising , a US-based non-profit organisation which supports the global higher education community, and which has similar objectives to those of UKAT.
UKAT is a registered member of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). Trustees are provided with access to, and asked to engage with, NCVO’s Trustee training and charity governance guidance and resources.
UKAT has followed NCVO guidance, and adopted and adopted NCVO sample policies and procedures in defining its organisational structure and procedures
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relationship with any related parties;
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trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them.
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Section C Objectives and activities
Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document
The objects of the charity are to advance the education and success of Higher Education students through the provision of effective personal tutoring and academic advising.
UKAT seeks to achieve its objectives through advancing the field of academic advising and personal tutoring, and working with key stakeholders including members, higher education institutions and their staff, and students, to enhance academic advising and personal tutoring practice. UKAT supports the sharing and dissemination of good practice, through conferences, webinars, professional development activities, professional recognition, research, resources, articles, and networking.
Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within this section the statutory declaration that trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit)
UKAT views itself as a learning association and promotes a scholarlyinformed approach to personal tutoring/academic advising to its members, and the adoption of high-impact, evidence-informed practices by individual educators and their institutions to enhance student outcomes. UKAT encourages all personal tutors/academic advisors to engage with, and contribute to, the scholarship of the field as a means of enhancing their own practice and developing more effective practice across the whole higher education community. UKAT also supports, promotes and facilitates the dissemination of research into personal tutoring and academic advising, to enhance the publicly-available evidence base of effective practices and to encourage all practitioners to adopt a scholarly-informed approach.
UKAT provides a range of consultancy, professional development and training for personal tutors and academic advisors through webinars, online courses, networking opportunities and practice sharing events. The two primary professional development activities offered by UKAT are a freely available monthly webinar series open to anyone, and the UKAT Annual conference. UKAT partners with LVSA, the Dutch study advising association to provide two events each year which are freely available to members of the UK and European higher education communities.
UKAT offers advice and guidance to higher education institutions seeking to improve the provision of personal tutoring and academic advising processes for their students. It does this through:
-
Publications and guidance documents, including a professional standards framework
-
Freely available educational resources for higher education providers and individual personal tutors/academic advisors to use in supporting their students
-
A structured Curriculum of online professional development courses and in-person workshops which available to both members and non-members
-
Consulting directly with individual higher education institutions
The Trustees have considered the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit to satisfy themselves that UKAT’s activities meet the public benefit requirements. The Board of Trustees takes account of the public benefit guidance in considering proposals for the introduction of new activities, and changes to existing ones.
Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)
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UKAT employees one member of staff (the CEO). Apart from the contribution of the CEO, all the activities of UKAT are undertaken by experienced volunteers who are employed within UK or global higher education settings.
UKAT does not currently award grants.
You may choose to include further statements, where relevant, about:
-
policy on grantmaking;
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policy programme related investment;
-
contribution made by volunteers.
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Section D Achievements and performance
Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year
The past year has seen continued growth in UKAT activities and membership, and demand for support with this important aspect of higher education provision.
UKAT’s institutional membership has continued to grow and 33 UK and Irish higher education institutions are now corporate members of UKAT, compared to 23 in 2020/21. All staff members of these institution can access the resources, publications and events that UKAT provides. Our member base, and its eight constituent Special Interest Groups provides a vibrant volunteer community focused on achieving UKAT’s mission of enhancing student success through improving personal tutoring/academic advising
The 2022 UKAT Annual Conference occurred on 4-6 April 2022 and was UKAT’s most successful annual conference to date, not only in terms of delegate numbers and the breadth of institutions represented, but more importantly in terms of the volume of high-quality submissions to the conference from the personal tutoring community. This reflects a continued interest in the importance of personal tutoring/academic advising in the HE sector as institutions realise how it can help them to achieve numerous aspects of higher education policy and address the requirements of the Office for Students, including access and participation, addressing differential attainment, personalisation of learning and teaching excellence. We must never forget that our students are the reason for everything that personal tutors/academic advisors do, and that our practice needs to meet their needs, so it was gratifying to see a greater student involvement in this year’s conference, including a well-attended student discussion panel. Growing the direct student representation within the organisation is a key objective for UKAT and something which the Board continues to focus on in As in the previous two years, the conference was held online again in recognition of the financial pressures impacting the HE sector as a result of the pandemic. We are hopeful that these challenges are lessening and we hope to return the conference to an in-person conference in 2023.
During this year, the UKAT Board has spent significant time reviewing and revising the association’s strategic goals to set its objectives and direction of travel for the next few years. The input of the UKAT Advisory Board, comprised of student and staff representatives of member institutions, has been instrumental in informing the revision of these goals.
We are delighted to have supported the creation of two publications relevant to personal tutoring and personal tutors over the last year. Since Spring 2020, we have worked in collaboration with the editors, the higher education community and the publishers to bring the Higher Education Personal Tutor’s and Advisor’s Companion textbook to fruition. This book is an edited collection which presents a broad range of contributions from across the sector discussing contemporary approaches to, and experiences of, all aspects of the personal tutoring process. This book promises to be an important resource for the UK higher education community for years to come. More indirectly, we have supported the author in developing a student-centred book entitled You’ve Got This – A student’s guide to wellbeing at University and Beyond . Although targeted at students, it is a useful resource which personal tutors can use when working with their students. Following the launch of the UKAT guestedited special edition of the Frontiers in Education journal in early 2021,
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Section D Achievements and performance
the UKAT Research Committee has also worked with NACADA to develop a special edition of the NACADA Review online journal focused on the experiences and development of personal tutoring through the Covid pandemic. Unfortunately this is unlikely to come to fruition as there were too few contributions received to enable the creation of journal edition. The UKAT Research Committee continues to seek other ways to disseminate personal tutoring research and has this year launched Wednesday Writers, a monthly online seminar and writing retreat activity designed to provide peer support to academic researchers of all level of experience focused on researching personal tutoring and academic advising.
Our successful Tutoring Matters free monthly webinar series continues to go from strength to strength. We are required to restrict the number of people who can participate in these webinars to comply with the conditions of our software licences, and all the places available are usually taken with days of registration opening. This last year has seen webinars on the topics of cross-cultural communication,
Our highly successful UKAT Professional Recognition scheme continues to grow and receive support from the UK HE community. This scheme, which designed to develop tutors/advisors as reflective practitioners who focus on their own ongoing professional development, has seen applications from staff of over 29 universities. Almost 400 people have registered an application and to date over 100 people have successfully achieved recognition through the scheme, whilst the remainder are applications which are still in progress. Several universities are encouraging large-scale engagement with the scheme and are beginning to link participation in the scheme with academic staff promotion criteria, helping to meet one of the scheme’s objectives of raising the profile and importance of personal tutoring as an integral aspect of higher education learning.
The UKAT Professional Development Committee has developed the UKAT Professional Development Curriculum, a scaffolded collection of online learning opportunities and in-person workshops focused on an ever-expanding range of topics related to personal tutoring practice. The scheme offers learning opportunities at four levels – Fundamentals (the basics which we believe all personal tutors/academic advisors need to know), Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced. The online learning courses in the Fundamentals level were released in January 2022 and are freely available to all members. Member institutions will also be able to offer four online learning opportunities of their choice from the UKAT Professional Development Curriculum to all of their staff each year, to complement and enhance their in-house training. All of the learning opportunities in the Curriculum are collaboratively developed by expert volunteers drawn from across the whole spectrum of UK higher education.
The Curriculum has had a soft launch and engagement with it has been slow but is growing. The most successful activity delivered within the Curriculum to date has been an in-person workshop entitled Managing Students in Distress delivered at Birmingham University in April 2022. This highly-engaging workshop used innovative, immersive interactive theatre to explore how personal tutors can manage situations in which students come to them displaying varying levels of distress. The audience were able to pause the action to direct the actors in how to engage with the students and apply the scenarios so that they could see at first-hand how these approaches can help both tutor and student deal
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Section D Achievements and performance
more comfortably with distress. Participants told us that it was " A really informative, relevant and authentic day which surpassed all expectations in the best possible way ”, that " This workshop should be mandatory training for all personal tutors ” and that they wished they “ had attended this workshop when I first became a personal tutor. It is the most relevant and well-delivered training I have experienced since beginning work in HE more than 10 years ago ". Given the positive response, this is a workshop that we intend to repeat on a regular basis, hopefully twiceannually.
UKAT continues to advise specific UK universities on enhancing their student advising processes, largely through consultancy projects and bespoke training workshops for staff. During the last year UKAT has provided this support to five UK universities.
In 2020/21 and 2021/22 UKAT’s turnover came close to the mandatory VAT registration threshold of £85,000 of taxable turnover. Based on their reading of the relevant VAT Notices, the Trustees considered that much of UKAT’s income may be VAT-exempt and engaged specialist VAT consultants to offer their guidance. The VAT consultants offered some suggestions for amending and strengthening organisations Constitution which were adopted by Members at the 2021 Annual General Meeting. The VAT consultants also recommended that the Board of Trustees submit detailed enquiries to HMRC to obtain clarification on the VAT status of UKAT’s various supplies. Although HMRC have indicated on two occasions that many of UKAT’s supplies are probably considered educational and therefore VAT exempt, the VAT consultants appointed by the Board were not satisfied that HMRC’s response was sufficiently definitive for the Board to rely on. The Board has therefore written to HMRC once again to obtain a more definite clarification, and to seek specific clarification on the VAT status of membership which has been ignored in HMRC responses to date. This enquiry with HMRC remains open and the Board will continue to pursue it until a satisfactory clarification is obtained.
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Section E Financial review
Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves
UKAT does not currently have a reserves policy. The development of a reserves policy remains an ongoing item of work for the Finance Committee, on behalf of the Board of Trustees.
Details of any funds materially in deficit
None
Further financial review details (Optional information)
You may choose to include additional information, where relevant about:
-
the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising);
-
how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity;
-
investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.
As noted above the Trustees continue to seek clarification on the VAT status of UKAT’s supplies. The Trustees have not yet deemed it necessary to register for VAT as UKAT’s turnover has remained just below the mandatory registration threshold. Given that much of its supply is likely to be considered VAT exempt and thus does not contribute to taxable turnover, it is likely to be some time before UKAT meets the mandatory VAT registration threshold but the Trustees will keep this under review, and consider this again once satisfactory clarification is received from HMRC.
UKAT has been engaged by an Irish university to provide services on two occasions during the period of reporting of this report. A portion of the fee paid to UKAT has been retained by the Irish Revenue as Professional Services Withholding Tax and can be reclaimed by UKAT on production of a certificate of tax residency in the UK. UKAT has attempted to obtain such a certificate from HMRC but it appears that, despite submission of all the necessary paperwork, HMRC did not complete UKAT’s tax registration which was submitted in February 2020. UKAT has since applied again to register with HMRC for tax purposes again and that application is still in process. Once registration is complete, we shall apply for the certificate of tax residency and reclaim the tax due to us from the Irish Revenue.
Section F Other optional information
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Section G Declaration
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees
| Signature(s) Full name(s) Position (eg Secretary, Chair, etc) Date |
||
|---|---|---|
| David John Lochtie | Neil Gordon Bangs | |
Chair |
Trustee | |
| 5 July 2022 | ||
| 5 July 2022 |
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UK Advising and Tutoring (UKAT) 118502
Receipts and payments accounts
----- Start of picture text -----
For the period 5/1/2021 4/30/2022
To
from
Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Total funds
funds funds funds
to the nearest
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
£
A1 Receipts
Membership 40,505 - - 40,505
Conference 16,594 - - 16,594
Consultancy 10,257 - - 10,257
Sponsorship 2,000 - - 2,000
Education and Training 9,405 - - 9,405
Merchandise and Sales 1,178 - - 1,178
Professional Recognition - - -
79,939 - - 79,939
Sub total (Gross income for AR)
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total - - - -
Total receipts 79,939 - - 79,939
A3 Payments
Salaries 41,759 - - 41,759
Pensions 10,120 - - 10,120
Conference 720 - - 720
Consulting 1,590 - - 1,590
Travel 435 - - 435
Insurance 208 - - 208
Cost of Merchandise 420 - - 420
IT & Software 9,640 - - 9,640
Subscriptions 180 - - 180
Volunteer/Employee Expenses - - - -
General Expenses 663 - - 663
Bank Fees 17 - - 17
Payment Processing Fees 550 - - 550
Sub total [ 66,302 ] - - 66,302
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total [ - ] - - -
Total payments 66,302 - - 66,302
Net of receipts/(payments) 13,637 - - 13,637
A5 Transfers between funds - - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end 59,848 - - 59,848
Cash funds this year end 73,485 - - 73,485
----- End of picture text -----
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Unrestricted | Restricted | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Categories | Details | funds | funds | ||
| B1 Cash funds | Current Account PayPal Account Stripe Account |
Total cash funds | to nearest £ 72,883 602 - 73,485 |
to nearest £ - - - - |
|
| (agree balances | with receipts and payments account(s)) |
OK | OK | ||
| Unrestricted | Restricted | ||||
| funds | funds | ||||
| B2 Other monetary assets | Details | to nearest £ - - - - - - |
to nearest £ - - - - - - |
||
| B3 Investment assets | Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) - - - - - |
||
| B4 Assets retained for the | Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) - |
||
| charity’s own use | - - - - - - - - |
||||
| Fund to which | Amount due | ||||
| B5 Liabilities | Details | liability relates | - - - - - (optional) |
||
| Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees |
Signature | Name | |||
| DJ Lochtie |
NG Bangs
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CC16a
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Last year
to the nearest £
23,671 40,438 10,080 4,000 - 349 5,348 83,886
83,886
34,807 3,959 821 - - 208 1,494 2,850 63 83 101 401 44,786
44,786 39,099 - 20,748 59,848
Endowment funds
to nearest £ - - - -
OK
Endowment funds to nearest £
-
Current value (optional) - - - - -
Current value (optional) - - - - - - - - - When due (optional)
Date of approval
----- Start of picture text -----
7/5/2022
----- End of picture text -----
71512022
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report Report to the trustees/ UK Advising and Tutoring (UKAT) members of On accounts for the year 30[th] April 2022 Charity no 1185020 ended (if any) Set out on pages I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 30 / 04 / 2022
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: 6[th] July 2022
Signed: Name: Sarah McConnell
1
October 2018
IER
| Relevant professional | Member of Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales |
|---|---|
| qualification(s) or body | (ICAEW) |
| (if any): | |
| Address: | 56, Lewes Road |
| Haywards Heath | |
| RH17 7SN |
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).
2
October 2018
IER
Give here brief details of N/A any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .
3
October 2018
IER