2021-12-31-accounts

Annual Report & Financial Statements 1[st] January – 31[st] December 2021

Contents

Charity & Trustee Details	3
Structure, Governance &Management	4
Who We Are	6
What We Do	7
Founder & CEO Report	8
Chair Report	9
Treasurer Report	10
School & Catalyst Report	11
Events Report	12
Community Café Report	12
Statement of Financial Activity	13

2

Charity & Trustee Details

Status

N-Gage is a registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) 1185170

Registered Office

N-Gage 3000 Aviator Way Manchester Business Park Wythenshawe Manchester M22 5TG

Founder & CEO

Christie Spurling MBE

Role

Trustees Role David King ( Chair ) David Thorpe ( Treasurer ) Graham Russell (Secretary) Jenny Harrison Alistair Chamberlain Tricia Ramarozafy (Appointed 10/11/20)

Head Office Staff Role Nick Coleman ( Head of Community Engagement & Funding ) Daniel Savage ( Admin & Events Officer ) Hannah Worthington ( Community Café Worker )

3

Structure, Governance and Management

Constitution

The charity was established under a Memorandum of Association and is governed under its Articles of Association.

Membership and Appointment of Directors/Trustees

The trustees and directors of the charity are the same people, collectively known as the Board or Board of Directors.

The Board of Directors may, admit to membership, subject to the restrictions of the articles, individuals (over 16 years) who are interested in furthering the work of the Charity.

The trustees who served during the year, together with any changes up to the date of approving this report are listed on page 4.

Trustee Recruitment, Induction and Training

The membership of the Board is reviewed annually by the board in accordance with its agreed procedures.

Trustees are recruited for their commitment and the skills and knowledge they can bring to the organisation. All trustees receive induction information and training as appropriate to their needs and there is an opportunity to access ongoing training for personal development.

Register of Interests

Trustees are required to complete a form on appointment, which is updated annually, registering their interests, including the membership of other voluntary organisations. The Board procedures ensure that trustees do not participate in decisions in which they have an interest.

Organisation

The Board of Trustees shall consist of not less than 3 members nor more than 9 members appointed at a general meeting.

At a general meeting of the Charity the trustees shall elect from amongst themselves a chair, a secretary and a treasurer, who shall hold office from the end of that meeting.

The day to day operations of the Charity are the responsibility of the Chief Executive, to whom the trustees delegate authority for operational matters including finance, employment and development, within the overall strategy agreed by the Board.

4

Policies

All N-Gage policies are reviewed and agreed regularly by the trustees and updated according to changes in legislation.

Finance and Accounting

The Board of Trustees shall comply with their obligations under the Charities Act 1993 (or any statutory re-enactment or modification of that Act) with regard to:

• a) The keeping of accounting records for the charity

• b) The preparation of annual statements of account for the Charity.

• c) The auditing or independent examination of the statements of account for the Charity; and d) The transmission of the statements of account of the Charity to the Commission.

The funds of the Charity, including all donations, contributions and bequests, shall be paid into an account operated by the Board of Trustees in the name of the Charity at such bank as the Board of Trustees shall from time to time decide. All cheques drawn on the account must be signed by at least two members of the Board of Trustees.

The funds belonging to the Charity shall be applied only in furthering the objects.

Annual Return

The Board of Trustees shall comply with their obligations under the Charities Act 1993 (or any statutory re-enactment or modification of that Act) with regard to the preparation of an annual return and its transmission to the Commission.

Independent Examiner

Ian Oulton, ACIB, DIP, PFS 51 Primrose Lane Helsby Frodsham WA6 0HH

5

Who We Are

Our Story

N-Gage is a Manchester-based charity that gives young people at risk of educational or social exclusion opportunities and skills to achieve their full potential.

Working in partnership with schools, Greater Manchester Police, Manchester City Council and other partners we provide highly successful, flexible and targeted approaches to anti-social behaviour and educational exclusion.

The charity was founded by Christie Spurling MBE in 2006 in response to his own experiences of educational exclusion.

He is a believer in being part of the solution and all the programmes he has set up for N-Gage try to look at young people as a whole person. If young people are causing problems in school, it is likely that they may also be creating challenges outside of school. We are committed to encouraging all young people to be an active and positive part of their community, in school and out.

N-Gage has a growing team of passionate staff and volunteers who combine creative skills and a commitment to young people with a range of projects and programmes across Greater Manchester.

Our promise to young people is:

• a) To view them as individuals.

• b) To listen and respect their views and opinions.

• c) To be honest with them.

• d) To make new opportunities available to them.

• e) To challenge and encourage them.

• f) To offer support them.

6

What We Do

We work all across Greater Manchester, meeting young people where they are. It can be at our Catalyst Youth Centre in Burnage, through our detached work on their local estates with our Youth Vehicles, or in their schools doing 1-2-1 and group mentoring.

Catalyst Youth

We believe that young people are valuable and incredible at bringing about change, so our mission is to help young people to reach their full potential in their community.

As well as our youth centre in Burnage, we have two mobile youth vehicles that travel around various Manchester communities equipped with a wide variety of resources designed to help young people engage in positive activities and further fulfil their needs.

Schools Work

We’ve been working in and with schools since we first started. Getting alongside students who are disengaged from education and are at risk of exclusion is at the heart of what we do. We run 1-2-1 Mentoring Sessions, Group Sessions and are currently working on updating our school resources.

Trips & Holiday Clubs

During school holidays we run clubs and take young people out for trips. We provide them with a wide range of experiences such as the countryside, the seaside, activity centres, bowling, golf, laser questing.

These projects give us the opportunity to get to spend quality time with the young people who attend our sessions. This gives more opportunity to challenge behaviour and encourage their potential. We know that these experiences build them up as individuals and develop their social skills, confidence and teamwork.

Community Café

The N-Gage Community Café opened in late 2019, located inside our Catalyst Youth Centre. It opens two mornings a week and provides a range of delicious and affordable teas, coffees and snacks. The aim over the next year is to develop activities and workshops within our café, which will benefit all in the Burnage area and develop cohesion and community spirit across the generations.

7

Founder & CEO Report

It is good to be able to write this annual report covering the last year, in my last report were in the very heart of the worst of the pandemic with lockdowns and restrictions to what we could do.

The theme for this year has been “build back to where we were.” We have spent the last year reconnecting with young people, at times in slightly different ways to previously.

It has been nice to see the bus and centre back up and running us able to deliver holiday clubs, our schools work is able to take place and we are starting to develop our education offer. There seems to be a real and growing need for 121’s and as we still recover from COVID, small group work and assemblies were less needed.

I believe the pandemic will have had an impact on young people in a variety of ways and our services will become more needed going forward. As CEO, a large part of my role is to support the team to continue to deliver our work and respond appropriately to the needs of all young people we meet.

I would like to thank the whole N-Gage team for getting through another challenging year. The trustees and staff team have on many occasions gone over and above their duties to ensure N-Gage continues to be a success.

On a personal note, it was great to be nominated for and win the first ever Pride of Manchester Marcus Rashford Children’s Champion award. There was quite a lot of media coverage, and it was nice to receive a video from him and Deborah Meaden of Dragons Den fame. The award and media coverage came at a good time for N-Gage as it helped us highlight our work, the challenges young people faced after COVID, and how organisations like ours were critical in the recovery.

We were also awarded £30,000 by TSB towards a new youth bus as part of the award and we look forward to finding the right vehicle to add to our fleet. As ever the award was accepted on behalf of the team who make the work so successful and without them, I know the work would not be so highly recognised.

I would like to close by thanking all our donors, grant givers, supporters and those who have given goods and services in kind, I look forward to continuing to develop the work and grow what we are doing so we can serve more young people.

Christie Spurling MBE, FRSA Founder and CEO

8

Chair Report

I am very honoured to have been elected the Chair of N-Gage and to work with our wonderful team and partners and supporting them to transform the lives of young people in Manchester.

In 2021 again included a period of restricted activity due to COVID regulations, but we have continued to receive great support from our funders who recognise the adverse circumstances within which we have had to work.

A key change to the governance structure was the resignation of the previous Chair, David King, with effect from January 2022. I would like to thank David for his support for Christie and the team of Trustees during the most turbulent of times over the past few years, and to add my personal thanks for his support and advice through the transition period.

In the first half of the year the challenges of COVID restrictions meant that we were unable to provide our full range of support services but there were notable highlights such as the provision of activity bags for potentially isolated young people during the Easter period and good attendances and great feedback for our summer holiday provision. Regular services began to open more widely in the last half of the year, and we started to build back up the numbers of young people we can support. This will continue to be a focus in the future.

Income remained steady in 2021 but we were unable spend at the same rate partly due to the inability to deliver some key services in the first half of the year. There was a degree of catch up in the last 2 quarters but the position regarding our reserves remains healthy and so the overall 2021 accounts are in a good place.

Sadly, because of COVID there is an increased need to support young people particularly in helping them return to school life. As a result, we are seeing a rapid increase in demands for service in this area and are planning to expand our offering so that we can support as many young people through this challenging transition as possible. There is also increasing interest in the club and bus and in 2022 and beyond we are looking at ways to improve these facilities and the expand the services we can provide. Grant applications are beginning to open again, and we will be actively looking for other funding opportunities to fund and resource these development plans.

The impact of COVID on young people will be with us for some time but Christie with the able and energetic support of the team will continue to find ways to support and care for the young people of Manchester and I am immensely proud in playing my small part in helping them to make it happen.

Graham Russell Appointed Chair 2022

9

Treasurer Report

The overall income of N-Gage decreased from a level of £ 217,550 in 2020 to £170,027 for the 12 months to 31.12.21.

This was mainly due to a decrease in grant funding and individual donations, reflecting the continuing economic uncertainty following the COVID outbreak.

Our grant funding partners have continued to support N-Gage with extended deadlines for grant expenditure, and in some cases recovery grants. New funding proved difficult to obtain though during 2021. It is expected that this situation will improve during 2022.

Total payments increased from £148,135 in 2020 to £173,446 in 2021 and consisted largely of salaries and related expenses (around 70% of the total), office rent (8%) and other expenses (22%). This increase was largely due to spending of grants received towards the end of the previous financial year, and repairs and maintenance costs of over £11,000 on our Burnage Youth Centre.

Cash balances at the end of the year amounted to £284 in current accounts and £166,283 in the restricted account.

Thanks to all our individual donors and grant funders for their faithful giving and support to N-Gage.

David Thorpe Treasurer

10

Schools & Catalyst Report

Due to further restrictions and lockdowns the first few months of 2021 turned out to be a very frustrating time for youth work. As we progressed through restrictions, we were hoping at the very least that we would be able to deliver a playscheme for the Easter holidays. Sadly, this was not possible. However, due to the hard work of the team we were able to put together over 1500 activity packs and delivered them to 16 primary schools across South Manchester. A massive achievement.

During April as the country started to come out of restrictions, we were able to re-start some detached work sessions in Burnage and Wythenshawe. Between April and August, we were able to deliver 4 sessions per week which allowed us to start to re-engage with our young people.

Something that struck our team as we started to meet and chat with previous attendees to our sessions was how many of them had been impacted by the previous year. Many shared their stories of how they struggled with having to stay at home and in particular their struggle with online education. It wasn’t all gloomy though, between April and July we engaged with over 100 young people during our detached sessions, and it was great to hear how many had developed and made positive steps in their education. One highlight was our older group telling us how they had secured places for college to start in September.

As we approached the summer holidays, we were delighted to receive funding to deliver a playscheme for 4 weeks at Ladybarn Community Hub. Throughout these 4 weeks we had 73 children attend and a total of 432 visits. Being able to return to face-to-face delivery was positive for everyone involved and it was great to see children and young people playing, having fun, and sharing a meal together.

As we moved into the Autumn months, we were able to re-open our centre and start to deliver sessions once again for children and young people. Due to the success of the summer playscheme we were also able to deliver an additional session, using Ladybarn Community Hub. During this time, we had up to 20 children and young people attending the session at the Catalyst Youth Centre and 15 attend our session held at Ladybarn Community hub.

We were also able to start using our youth bus again in Wythenshawe and Burnage. Our session at Royal Oak in Wythenshawe very quickly became popular again, with up to 20 young people attending each week. We were able to finish off the year by delivering our first ever Christmas Playscheme using our youth centre on Burnage Lane. This was delivered over 4 days and attracted 24 children and young people with a total of 90 visits.

Our hope for 2022 is that we can build upon the work that we have managed to start and slowly increase the number of sessions that we deliver, including more playschemes. We are always keen to ensure our children and young people are involved in shaping and developing our work. We look forward to what should be an exciting year ahead for our youth and play work.

Nick Coleman

Head of Community Engagement & Funding

11

Operations Report

With another year of restrictions in place for working and social gathering it was another tough time for us at N-Gage. Thankfully, due to technology and software like Microsoft Teams, staff were able to continue to work through this time and keep the charity ticking over.

With school’s work and our youth sessions not in action until the latter part of the year, it was great for us to be able to put together and deliver the Easter Activity Packs as mentioned earlier by Nick. A real team effort that took days to do and filled the entirety of our youth centre! It was great to see some of the staff in person after months of lockdown and only communicating through video calls.

Our fundraising and events were kept on hold this year as we understood how much financial strain most people were under due to furlough or lost jobs. However, huge thanks to David King who took his annual Ceilidh online and provided a great night of entertainment for people over Zoom.

Looking to 2022, N-Gage is looking to expand its team with the return of our sessions in schools and in communities. New schools’ workers and youth work leaders will be a priority to deal with our expected increase in work load.

After the last two years it’s an exciting time to see how N-Gage can reconnect with young people and help with the new problems that they’re facing. I’m confident we’re in a great position to do that.

Daniel Savage

Appointed Operations Manager 2022

Community Café Report

With COVID restrictions lessening as the year went on, we were able to start getting back open and providing services from within N-Gage Catalyst Youth Centre again.

Along with dealing with the pandemic, the centre had a leaking roof to fix before we were able to reopen to the public. Due to the structure of our building and it’s flat roof it was not the simplest of jobs to fix, but thankfully all major leaks have been sorted and work has been completed to stop these problems from reoccurring.

The Community Café runs Monday and Tuesdays 9am - 1pm. We provide a home-from-home atmosphere where the people of Burnage can come and relax with a hot drink and some delicious breakfast snacks at affordable prices. We see a lot of the elderly and families with young children and can have up to 20 customers per day popping in for a cuppa and a chat.

The Catalyst Youth Centre is also home to Quid’s In. Quid’s In is a food club run by Southway Housing and is aimed at many households within south Manchester who are struggling to feed their families each week. Quid’s In offers £10-15 worth of food for a £3-per-week membership fee. Any households within the postcode area of the club that claim at least some housing benefit or universal credit can join.

Hannah Worthington

Centre Manager

12

Statement of Financial Activities 2021 (HARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examinerfs report on the accounts Section A Independent Exatniner s Report Report to tho tru8te881 membor5 of On accounts torthe year 0nded 3)1121 2c21 Charity no 16f anyl I I&s IiD Set out orb pagos l I rfjporttothe trustees on my èxamlnallon otth8 accountsofthe above charity fthe TtU5t'l forthe year endEd Re8pOn8lbllltl￿ and basts 1)f report A5 the chaFiVs trustees, yau are responsible forthe preparat1￿ of the attounts In accordancewilh the Nuir8rn8nts ofthe Chatities Act 2011 Ilhe Acri. I report in resp2ct of my examination of the Trusys accounts carried out under section 145 of the2011 Act and tn Gatryiny OLrt my ex8minatlon, I have followtrj all the appllcablè Dir8CtionsgNen by the ¢hity CwFmwion under sect￿n 14515llbl of the AL. Indepondont •xaminefs statsment u aThJl atio listed bodyll. Delete of lin I have Corn￿eted my examination I cotlfitm that no matenal matter5 hav• ceme to my attents.on In wrth the ex3mination (other Ih8n that disclosed beth'l which gwes me cause lo ￿l￿e that in. any matwal resW. Iheaccourtting words were not kept In accordarKe %wth secti)n 130 of the Charit￿$ Act.. or the a#ourts did not accord with the accounting recDrds", or the accoun15 did not tomply with the applicab￿ requirements concerning the fomi 8nd content of accounts set out in the Chants"e5 IAccounts and Reports) Regu18tions 2008 otherthan any requirèm8nt tt)al the accounts give a Iwe and fair. wawwhich is not a matter onsidered a5 part of an ind￿ndent ex8minatio I have no contsms and have cem8 across no other malter5 in conneGb¢)n th the exarnnation to wh￿h att8nlon should be drawn in thi5 report in orderto enabkn a properunder5tanding of the aco)untsto be reached ' Please deleto Ih@ b￿Ckelsrf￿ey(kn notapply. Slgnod.. Isi& Nam•'. Relovant professlonal qualifiGatlonlsl or body FPS (f? . IER Oct 2018 13

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