2023-08-31-accounts

Fair Education Allian Trustees, Report and Unaudited Accounts 31 st August 2023 'roJucatbrLorg.uk l trrf0OFolre&xthrLorguk l @_TheFEA

Contents

Reference and administrative details ...................................................................................................... 2 A welcome from our Chair ....................................................................................................................... 3 An introduction from our Co-CEOs .......................................................................................................... 4 Foreword from the Youth Steering Group ............................................................................................... 5 Trustee Report for the year ended 31st August 2023.............................................................................. 7 Objectives ............................................................................................................................................ 7 Our activities ...................................................................................................................................... 11 Strategic Report ..................................................................................................................................... 12 Key achievements and performance ................................................................................................. 12 Future plans ....................................................................................................................................... 14 Financial review ................................................................................................................................. 18 Risk and uncertainties ........................................................................................................................ 20 Trustees’ statement of responsibilities .................................................................................................. 21 Independent Examiner’s Report to the trustees of The Fair Education Alliance ................................... 22 Statement of Financial Activities ............................................................................................................ 23 Balance sheet at 31st August 2023 ........................................................................................................ 24 Statement of cash flows for the period ended 31st August 2023 ......................................................... 26 Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31st August 2023 ................................................................ 27

1 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

Reference and administrative details

Directors and Trustees

Company No. 11884952

Charity No. 1188042

Principal Office

6 Mitre Passage Greenwich Peninsula London SE10 0ER

Registered Office

The Directors of the charitable company are its Trustees for the purposes of charity law. The following Directors and Trustees served during the year:

J. Cleverdon

Z. Elumogo

R. Hardie (term ended August 31[st] 2023)

R. Hobby

6 Mitre Passage Greenwich Peninsula London SE10 0ER

V. Ogden

O. Odanye

N. Perera

B. Wigdortz

Key Management Personnel

Co - Chief Executive Officer G Cicerone Co - Chief Executive Officer S Butters

Accountants

Multiply Accountancy 71-75 Shelton Street

London WC2H 9JQ

Bankers

HSBC Bank PLC 8 Canada Square London

E14 5HQ

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A welcome from our Chair

Dr Vanessa Ogden

We are in challenging times for children and young people from low-income backgrounds at school. Post-Covid education recovery is exposing the barriers that poverty creates to accessing education, most visibly in national key indicators such as attendance, progress gaps, child development in the early years, difficulties in mental health and the rise in the numbers of students identified with SEND. Schools and colleges need to do ever more to support children and families beyond the classroom, against a backdrop of the rising cost of living, public-sector funding challenges and decreasing multiagency resources. In this context, which can feel noisy and disconnected, with competing funding priorities for public services, the continued unity, collaboration, clarity of purpose and focus on fairness for all children that the Fair Education Alliance brings has been a well-needed constant.

This year, our coalition’s focus on mitigating the impact of socio-economic status from a policy and collective action perspective has been deeply powerful. We have brought actors from different sectors together on what needs to be done, and what should be prioritised, from a longlist of challenges and solutions. Starting with the 2022 Report Card and our Annual Summit, we concentrated the agenda on Poverty, Place and Power.

First, in relation to Poverty, we highlighted that what happens beyond the classroom matters: children and young people from low-income backgrounds need great teachers, but they also need to come to class ready to learn. This often requires multi-agency support from services currently under much pressure. Second, we showed that schools can be catalysts (many great schools already are) of effective, deep-rooted change for young people and generating social mobility. Where there are exemplars of good practice, interventions have been sensitively co-designed and co-led within communities, with a place-based, tailored lens.

Third, we argued that power dynamics must shift – those with lived experience need their seat at the table to drive the conversation, including young people experiencing disadvantage in our education system right now. The Fair Education Alliance is firmly committed to this, putting our Youth Steering Group at the heart of all our work. During this

year, we also mobilised the collective views of more than 280 member organisations and set out four key priorities for next year’s general election in our Fair Education Manifesto. We advocated and campaigned at party political conferences, on public platforms, in the media and in meetings with key decision-makers.

Yet advocacy on policy is not enough on its own. The Fair Education Alliance has continued its critical work in promoting action at the grassroots level. We celebrated a new cohort of six social innovations and seven scaling initiatives in the spring. Through this work, we are supporting new ideas dealing with disadvantage in schools, ranging from teacher training on SEND to a co-operative nursery model for children from all backgrounds to scaling existing impactful initiatives on breakfast provision, post-16 support and more. These organisations and all our other members have also been able to access our digital membership tools, launched last autumn, to help target and deliver work more impactfully and collaboratively. You will read about all these areas of our activity and more in the Annual Report.

We are proud of what has been achieved this year and the important impact it has had and will continue to have. This work is not just tackling symptoms of inequality in education but bringing together actors from across the system to coordinate top-down and bottom-up engagement to drive longterm system change. I would like to thank all those who have made this possible, including our funders and our members and the small but powerful Secretariat team who make all this happen each day.

I look forward to continuing our work together in 2023-24 and beyond. Thank you for your support.

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Dr Vanessa Ogden

Chair, Fair Education Alliance

An introduction from our Co-CEOs

Gina Cicerone and Samantha Butters

In 2023, we’ve seen the gaps between lower-income and wealthier children widen, while the cost-of-living crisis has bitten deeper and driven up levels of child poverty. Rising costs have impacted schools too, with budgets tightening further and valuable interventions and services for pupils being cut. Meanwhile, schools and colleges – especially those in underserved areas – are finding it harder than ever to recruit and retain the staff they need to deliver a great education for every child.

Yet our members have refused to back down from these challenges. As daunting as the current situation is, our members remained focused on making a difference every day. Our members pulled together in service of the generation preparing for their adult lives, and those who will come through the future system we build. We are incredibly proud of our members’ impact despite these circumstances. Over the past year, our 283 members directly supported more than four and a half million children and young people. They also served more than 700,000 individuals supporting children and young people, including parents, teachers, school leaders, and governors.

We are also proud of what our team has done to enable our members to break down silos, join voices and increase their impact. We co-created our Fair Education Manifesto, our collective vision for what the next government needs to prioritise in education and in the services supporting families. We increased member collaboration across 10 thematic areas including tutoring, early-years education, wellbeing and inclusion, and racial equality. We hosted our most impactful Summit yet, with over 360 diverse leaders gaining insights and connections to drive our work. Our digital tools took leaps forward in their power – highlighting a national picture of the FEA members in 80% of schools nationwide, the areas for

collaboration and the cold spots to target. We strengthened the movement for youth engagement in national policy and sector practice. To fill the gaps in provision, we selected a new cohort of Award Winners and were wowed by their bold innovations and scaling approaches.

This coming year will see a general election. While this brings hope for a laser-sharp focus on equality in education, it will likely pit members of society against each other. The FEA’s role in the ‘middle space’ has never been more crucial. According to Collaboration for Impact, “The middle space means the spaces between – the spaces where there is potential for new patterns of behaviour to emerge”. For us, this is a space between interventions – showing that to address one aspect of inequality in education we must look at how they intersect with others. A space between sectors – addressing underlying needs in health, transport and social care that will achieve our vision. A space between power – connecting bottom-up grassroots organisations and those with lived experience to national policy makers. And a space between dichotomies, building bridges, rather than divides - from local to national, and across parties.

Our sincere thanks to our funders, trustees, advisors, member organisations and Secretariat for never losing faith in the systems change we’re pushing towards, and for knowing that faith alone is not enough – we must work together for the future we want to see.

Gina Cicerone and Samantha Butters

Co-Chief Executive Officers

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Foreword from the Youth Steering Group

Over the past year, our nation has faced numerous challenges, from climate change to a cost-of-living crisis. Politicians from across the political spectrum are working on innovative solutions for a sustainable future. However, despite the potential role of the education system in the solutions, education has taken a back seat in political discussions. It’s time to shift focus and prioritise much-needed reforms in education.

The Youth Steering Group is a team of young change makers representing diverse backgrounds and experiences. Our mission is to serve as a voice for all young people, ensuring that all students receive the high-quality education they deserve. For instance, because poor diet is a symptom of child poverty, the Youth Steering Group campaigned outside Downing Street and met with policy makers to advocate for free school meals for all.

The rising cost of living has led to a sharp rise in child poverty. Consequently, we have witnessed poor school attendance, mental-health challenges and an overall decline in student performance from those from low socio-economic backgrounds.

This can be attributed to two main factors. The first is the fact that students can’t afford the fundamentals crucial for academic success, such as school lunches, devices and internet access to do homework, uniforms or even personal hygiene and sanitary products. The second factor is the limited resources schools have to accommodate diverse needs. These issues are of equal importance, and must be tackled if we are to reform our system for the better.

This is why the Fair Education Alliance and the Youth Steering Group remain crucial in today’s society. Together, we act as a wake-up call, advocating for educational equality irrespective of socio-economic status.

Too frequently, policy makers do not directly engage with students regarding their education, the impact of poverty on their lives or how meaningful improvements can be implemented. Therefore, it is truly an inspiring and empowering feeling being a part of the Youth Steering Group, with the FEA as our microphone, amplifying our opinions loud and clear so that those in power have no choice but to be held accountable.

Thankfully, our hard work isn’t stopping any time soon. The FEA aren’t the only organisation passionate about educational reform, and we aren’t the only young people demanding change. Initiatives like our first Fair Education Youth Summit, in partnership with Mission 44 and the Pears Foundation are evidence that our impact will only continue to increase.

Denise Vidal

Member of the Youth Steering Group

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Trustee Report for the year ended 31st August 2023

The Trustees, who are also directors of the charity for the purposes of the Companies Act 2006, present their report with the unaudited financial statements of the charity for the period ended 31[st] August 2023.

Objectives

The Fair Education Alliance (FEA) is an alliance of more than 280 members working in every region of England to make education fair for all children and young people.

Our vision and mission

Our vision is a country where no child’s success is determined by their socioeconomic background. We believe that in order to achieve this, we need fundamental change. No one organisation, sector or even government can fix these complex issues. We need a new approach to tackle educational inequality collectively, and to work across sectors, organisations and individuals.

Our work

Why the FEA exists

For several decades, successive governments, educators, businesses, charities, and social enterprises have tried to improve education for the lowest-income children and young people. Many people have the same vision for a fair education system but different views on how to get there, resulting in siloed work and competing voices rather than a joined-up approach. These individual efforts have an impact on some young people, but the sum of these efforts is not making an impact for all young people.

Over the last decade, the FEA has monitored gaps between poorer pupils and their wealthier peers across five measures: attainment at primary school, attainment at GCSE, socio-emotional competencies and skills, post-16 destinations and access to higher education. We know that the gaps between poorer pupils and their wealthier peers have mostly failed to shift over the past decade, and some groups have fallen even further behind

Our work aims to achieve five Fair Education Impact Goals:

1. Narrow the gap in literacy and numeracy at primary school

2. Narrow the gap in GCSE attainment at secondary school

3. Ensure young people develop social and emotional competencies, good mental health and wellbeing

4. Narrow the gap in the proportion of young people taking part in further education or training after finishing their GCSEs

5. Narrow the gap in university graduation, including from the 25% most selective universities

The FEA’s approach

The FEA unites more than 280 member organisations to tackle educational inequality together. Our members represent the voices of young people, charities and social enterprises, research organisations and think tanks, businesses and foundations, unions, universities, and schools. Together, our members provide direct support to more than four and half million young people annually across every region of England, as well as indirect support such as funding, training and campaigning.

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Our members chose four collective priorities to create a fair, inclusive education system:

To achieve these priorities, the Secretariat provides the infrastructure for collaboration across organisations working to improve education for young people from low-income backgrounds. The four outcomes of our strategy are:

1. To share a unified collective message about what we want for education in England and how we can achieve it.

2. To increase connectivity and coordination across the education system.

3. To increase leadership diversity in education by investing in young people as co-leaders of our movement, and ensure that underrepresented groups are given platforms to lead change.

4. To scale initiatives systemically to tackle entrenched issues.

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Our 283 FEA members...

Represent diverse organisations:

• Most of our members (63%) are delivery organisations, working directly with young people, teachers, parents or other stakeholders in the education system.

• The rest are a mix of schools, colleges, universities and multi-academy trusts (18%), membership bodies and unions (8%), businesses and foundations (6%) and research organisations (1%).

• We welcomed 55 new members this year, most of which were multi-academy trusts[1] .

Range from large national organisations to small, grassroots initiatives across England[2] :

• Some members are multi-national businesses with thousands of staff and a team dedicated to education programmes, while others are small charities with deep local relationships with children and families.

• Roughly half our members have fewer than 20 employees and one-fifth have more than 100.

• The network of FEA members works in all Local Authorities across England.

Tackle different facets of educational inequality, both inside and outside the school gates:

• Of our members delivering direct interventions, they most commonly focused on: 1) skills development (58%), 2) attainment (52%) and 3) mental health and wellbeing (52%).

Support millions of people:

• Together, our delivery members directly supported more than four and a half million children and young people across every region of England.

• They also served over 700,000 individuals supporting children and young people , including parents, teachers, school leaders and governors.

Partner with young people as leaders in their work:

78% of members involved young people in their work in some way.

• 54% of members involved young people in decision-making through a youth board/council and/or as young trustees.

Have diverse leadership:

• 25% of member CEOs were eligible for free school meals and/or were first generation in their family to attend higher education.

13% of member CEOs are from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background.

1 This information about our 283 members is as of the end of the year, August 2023.

2 Unless otherwise noted, the rest of the information presented in this section of the Trustees’ report is from our Annual Member Survey. For this survey, we received responses from 70% of the 262 members who were part of the FEA when the survey was distributed in June 2023. When we refer to proportions of members in this section, we are referring to the proportion of member survey respondents who provided information in this survey.

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Our activities

There is a unified collective message about what we want for education in England and how we can achieve it

• Report Card: We produce a report annually to share the state of educational inequality in England, policy asks and key actions that our members are collectively taking.

• Working groups, roundtables and other events: We convene local and national education leaders around key topics to take action on different aspects of education inequality and debate policy, discuss emerging evidence and align on campaigns.

• Statements, letters and responses : We represent the collective interests of our members through responding to Government inquiries and proactively influencing government to achieve a fair education.

Increased connectivity and coordination across the education system

• Collective Action: We convene diverse Working Groups for members to take action on topics including Early Years, Parental Engagement, Tuition Advocacy and Wellbeing and Inclusion.

• Digital Membership Tools: Our ecosystem map and membership directory provides members with in-depth information about pupil outcomes and service delivery nationally, and highlights valuable insights for policymakers and funders about the cold spots to target.

• Fair Education Alliance events: We host education leaders including FEA members, sector stakeholders and early-stage innovators at our Annual Summit and Awards Announcement.

• Weekly Bulletin: We inform members and other key stakeholders of news and opportunities in education through our weekly e-bulletins.

More diverse leadership of the education agenda

• Youth Engagement: We embed youth voice in all FEA activities. We do this through involving our Youth Steering Group in decision making and building capacity in the sector to enable young people to participate and lead.

• Ensuring equity, diversity and inclusion in FEA activities and beyond: We give people with insights, evidence and lived experience a platform to lead change through our events, Awards and other stakeholder engagement.

Solutions to issues in education are scaled systemically and based on need

• Innovation Award: We provide a one-year incubator and £15k for up to six new ideas that challenge the status quo to make education fair.

• Scaling Award: We deliver a two-year programme of tailored, specialist support for up to seven FEA members to scale their impactful solutions to areas of greatest need.

• Booster: We run this annual event for early-stage innovators and FEA member to develop the skills, knowledge and networks to start-up and scale their initiatives.

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Strategic Report

Key achievements and performance

We united 283 member organisations to tackle educational inequality together.

• 80% of members took part in at least one FEA activity in 2022-23. This ranged from attending our Annual

• Summit or a Collective Action Working Group, to being a judge in our Awards selection process. We want

• every member to be able to contribute to our collective work.

• 75% of members rated their overall experience of FEA membership as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ .

There is a unified collective message about what we want for education in England and how we achieve it

• We convened Collective Action meetings for members to debate policy, discuss emerging evidence and align on campaigns. 55% of members participated in collective action meetings this year and 31% attended our Overarching Campaign Working Group. These discussions provided rich insights on members’ policy priorities and advocacy activity to make education fairer. We used these conversations to build consensus around shared messages that policymakers and funders needed to hear.

• We launched our 2022 Report Card , detailing the state of the nation and highlighting policy recommendations from across our membership. This report highlighted three themes Poverty, Place and Power as crucial levers for change. This framing shaped our work for the rest of the year. For example, these three themes became the pillars for the Annual Summit sessions. This report was widely shared: we had over 1,300 clicks on the Report Card link and it was covered by The Independent.

• We represented the interests of low-income young people in front of government leaders and decision-makers. We hosted a panel at the 2022 Conservative Party Conference on improving outcomes for the pupils in greatest need with the Centre for Social Justice to influence government policy and build key relationships. Policymakers Robert Halfon (then Chair of the Education Select Committee, now Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education) and Andrea Jenkyns (then Minister for Skills), spoke on the panel with Oghale from our Youth Steering Group and our members Action Tutoring and the Tutor Trust.

• The Tuition Advocacy Working Group continued its effective campaigning by evidencing the impact of tuition. The group collectively commissioned and funded research from Public First which demonstrated the vital role tuition plays in supporting low-income young people to achieve academically. This research paper, The Future of Tutoring, supports the group’s calls for tutoring funding that is ringfenced and targeted at low-income pupils.

• At the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on the Teaching Profession and Schools, Learning and Assessment , we took a leading position in advocating for low-income families. Additionally, we submitted evidence calling for the need to take a more preventative and less punitive approach to absence at the Schools Wellbeing Partnership Steering Group.

• We called on the government to invest in reducing child poverty through an extension of free school meals and an uplift to the Child Benefit. We joined the Education Anti-Poverty Coalition alongside members Child Poverty Action Group, National Governance Association, National Association of Headteachers, Parentkind, and the Centre for Education and Youth who wrote a letter to influence the Spring budget. The letter was covered by the Evening Standard and The Independent, with the FEA being specifically named.

• We captured the unified message of the Alliance in our Fair Education Manifesto , which included four specific and ambitious policy asks to influence policy priorities ahead of the general election. The Manifesto launched in September 2023.

Increased connectivity and coordination across the education system

• We hosted our Annual Summit at the Battersea Arts Centre. This was a pivotal moment in our continued fight to drive long-term change for a fairer and more equitable education system. We united over 360 of our members, education

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innovators and key sector stakeholders for our first in-person conference since 2019. The day was structured around two core strands: a system change stand on the themes of Poverty, Place and Power, and a Booster strand for skills and knowledge development. 63% of members had at least one staff member attend. 45 speakers shared their expertise in panel discussions, skills workshops and 1-1 clinics. 100% of surveyed attendees rated their overall experience positively sharing they found the day energising and valuable. 100% of surveyed attendees rated their overall experience positively. Over 90% of surveyed attendees agreed that our key outcomes for the event were met, specifically that they: Gained an increased awareness of current sector challenges and opportunities to tackle educational inequality; Felt motivated to work with FEA members, stakeholders and/or young people to tackle educational inequality; Made new connections or strengthened existing connections with other attendees.

• We launched our new cohort of 13 Award Winners at our Awards Announcement, hosted by Bloomberg, with over 170 attendees, including funders, members, and youth leaders. This event facilitated connections to organisations that could support Award Winners’ initiatives and was a chance for members to build connections with each other.

• We convened regular online Working Groups for sharing best practice, discussing sector updates, and building capacity, involving over half the organisations in the Alliance. 55% of members participated in Collective Action meetings throughout the year. These groups had over 400 unique individuals attend from a diverse range of organisations who might not otherwise have had the opportunity to connect. Throughout the year, 297 individuals from members and 107 from other organisations participated. There were regular meetings on the themes of Parental Engagement, Making Teaching a Sustainable Profession, Tuition Advocacy, and Delivery. We launched a new group to connect members focused on Early Years. Members highlighted they particularly valued the groups for the information sharing on best practice and sector trends.

• We launched our digital membership tools which provided members with in-depth information about pupil outcomes and service delivery nationally, and highlighted valuable insights for policymakers and funders about the cold spots to target. Our Membership Directory contains information about each member, including where they work, contact information and a description of their intervention. Our Ecosystem Map provides a national picture of pupil level data layered with where members are working. The tools are crucial in democratising data, ensuring that organisations have easy-to-use insights to drive more impactful work. In our first year, 141 members signed up to use the tools and 97 shared where they work on the map.

More diverse leadership of the education agenda

• We believe that diversity is critical in those who are leading the change to make education fairer. We see it as our role to give individuals with insights, evidence and lived experience a platform to lead change.

• We welcomed our second cohort of Youth Steering Group members in January 2023. It is a diverse group of 25 young leaders from every region in the country, committed to ending education inequality. The Youth Steering Group shared their expertise and leadership in all areas of FEA work and led their own advocacy work, including:

• ➢ Speaking at the 2022 Conservative Party Conference on the issue of mental health

• ➢ Judging our Awards selection process

• ➢ Presenting at FEA Trustee meetings

• ➢ Submitting evidence to the Education Select Committee’s Ofsted inquiry

• ➢ Calling for the expansion of free school meals

• We built capacity to transform the sector’s youth engagement practice by providing 1-1 bespoke support to 28 organisations to facilitate them to engage young people in their work, developing a tool to help organisations to track their strengths and areas of development across different dimensions of youth engagement, and convening our Youth Engagement Working Group with over 90 people from 65 organisations meeting to discuss young campaigners’ mental health and measuring the quality of youth engagement.

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• We brought together school leaders, trust leaders and organisations working to increase racial diversity of the school workforce through our Tackling Racial Inequality Working Group. We have provided inclusive spaces within Alliance activities for individuals from all backgrounds and all types of organisations to connect.

• Our Awards judges and Award Winners represented the diverse leadership of the education agenda. Attracting diverse leaders to apply for our Innovation Award is one of the ways we aim to increase the diversity of the members in our Alliance. In the application process for the Innovation Award, 40% of applications from the public were individuals who identified as from Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds and roughly 60% were female. Among Innovation Award Winners, 50% received free school meals or were first in their family to attend university and the cohort included one of the youngest ever Award Winners. The cohort of Award Winners represented those with lived experiences of educational disadvantage but was less diverse in terms of ethnicity than previous cohorts. The judges and the Secretariat considered this throughout all stages of the selection process.

Solutions to issues in education are scaled systemically and based on need

• We nurtured innovative initiatives based on need by hosting an Innovate and Scale Booster as part of the Annual Summit to support the public and our members. 67 early-stage innovators attended the Booster and received 1-1 support and skills-building workshops.

• We selected 13 Award Winners to innovate and scale their initiatives through a competitive process from 79 total applications. We launched our new cohort of Award Winners at a high-profile Awards Announcement event at Bloomberg with over 170 attendees.

• We selected six Innovation Award Winners who have new ideas that challenge the status quo and tackle the root causes of educational inequality. We helped the Innovation Award Winners to prepare to implement and test their pilots through developing their Theories of Change, establishing evaluation frameworks and setting up their organisation with the right legal structure, financial models, and safeguarding practices. Winners gave very positive feedback of the trainings: 10 of the 11 Incubator training sessions were rated as either ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ by all Winners. The FEA Head of Innovation provided a total of 45 hours of 1-1 bespoke support across five months to help Award Winners design, deliver, fund and evaluate their pilots.

• We selected seven Scaling Award Winners to scale proven impactful solutions to reach the young people who need it the most. We launched bespoke support for Scaling Award Winners by leading an in-depth needs assessment to determine the focus of their two years of support. These workshops involved a cross-section of staff from winning organisations to identify the main challenge areas the Award will support to address. We established personalised support plans for each organisation and began delivery of the personalised support, including leadership and strategy workshops, and matching staff with expert mentors. We also launched a small grants programme to build their capacity, though which we distributed over £40,000 of grants. These grants were paired with investments of almost equal value from the Winners.

Future plans

• Strengthen our comms and external affairs and use the collective voice of our diverse membership to advocate for policy and practice change that will close the gap in outcomes.

• Continue to accelerate member organisations’ impact and increase cross-sector collaboration through Collective Action Working Groups and our in-person Annual Summit .

• Embed our digital membership tools to help members, philanthropists and government target the areas of greatest need, connect and collaborate.

• Deepen youth leadership across the Secretariat and member organisations’ activities to create a movement of young people co-leading system change.

• Support our current cohort of 13 Award Winners to start-up and scale to the areas of greatest need, and recruit another 6 diverse and impactful Innovation Award Winners.

• Research international best practice on collective action and place-based approaches to improving outcomes for children and young people and develop and integrate the learnings to our future approach.

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• Meet our voluntary income target through clear communication of our purpose and our impact.

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Feedback from our Members

“FEA membership allows us to easily build collaborative partnerships with other sector partners to work on joint projects and tap into other expertise to further develop the work that we do.”

Governors for Schools

“This is something that stands out in our time working with the FEA – we are all working towards a common goal of closing the disadvantage gap – even if we are coming at it from different ways (eg, some tutoring, some therapy). We learn from other organisations, and this helps us increase our impact.”

Khulisa

“Canvassing of all members to contribute to campaign and policy influencing means there is broad but directed work towards making education fair.”

Family Links, the Centre for Emotional Health

“Our membership has given us the opportunity to make valuable links with organisations working in the Place space and has enabled to us to develop our own thinking on Place and how we can best drive value for local communities and education settings in the areas in which we have a focus.”

Business partner member

“As an organisation without a strong campaigning and policy remit, membership of the FEA helps us have a voice on policy issues affecting the young people we work with, with confidence and without the need for lots of additional budget and resource.”

IntoUniversity – Member

“Being mentioned in the Fair Education Alliance’s seven recommendations for a fairer education system in the 2022 Report Card has significantly raised awareness of our model for improving young people’s wellbeing.”

#BeeWell

“It has been really impactful to connect with a wide range of FEA members that we wouldn’t have reached otherwise. We always leave FEA meetings feeling inspired and re-energised.”

Child Poverty Action Group

“As a collective, the FEA has actively coordinated activities to ensure the attainment gap is tackled. We have benefited from connecting to the Collective Working Groups and linking up with like-minded charities to discuss best practices, emerging trends, and potential solutions to which we could all contribute.”

Speakers for Schools

“Membership has enabled us to deliver our programmes more effectively by learning from other organisations and identifying ways we can improve our practice.”

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Get Further

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Financial review

The Fair Education Alliance is committed to robust financial governance. Financial governance of the charity is led by the CoCEOs who report to the Board of Trustees on details of the financial strategy, reporting and risk at each Board meeting.

The day-to-day accounting for 2022/23 was carried out internally with the Co-CEOs and Team Coordinator with the support of our Accountant.

The Fair Education Alliance receives income from our business members, trusts, and foundations. Our total income for the year ended 31st August 2023 was £957,241 (£623,359 of which was unrestricted and £333,882 restricted), meeting our fundraising target.

In the year ended 31st August 2023, we had expenditure of £765,976. Please see the breakdown in the accounts for an outline of this in more detail. We finished the year with a surplus of £191,265 which will be used for reserves, as outlined in the policy below.

We would like to express our thanks to everyone that supported us in 2022/23. The Fair Education Alliance is hugely grateful to all our supporters who provide funding and valuable pro bono professional support: we would like to thank Allen & Overy, Barclays LifeSkills, Bloomberg, Credit Suisse, Fidelity UK Foundation, IG Group, Isla Foundation, KPMG, Pears Foundation, Mission 44, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, St Johns Foundation, UBS, and Zing.

Reserves Policy

Our unrestricted (or 'free') reserves are the net current assets of our general unrestricted funds. The charity holds free reserves in order to:

• provide a safeguard against the risk of downturn in support of our activities (which could lead to expenditure exceeding income)

• provide working capital to finance day-to-day operations; and

• cover the costs of wind-down of one or more programmes in the event of key funding being curtailed.

The Charity reviews our reserves policy on an annual basis and carry out a risk-based assessment of factors likely to reduce our income or increase our expenditure, to make sure our free reserves are appropriate. The Charity believes that four months of future operating expenditure, less Award Grants, provide a sufficient reserve to cover these risks. Based on forecast expenditure for 2023/24, the trustees have approved a target of free reserves of £355,000.

At 31 August 2023, total reserves were £616,429 of which £46,618 is restricted, therefore leaving free reserves of which £569,812. The Trustees intend to use approximately £200,000 of this to support projects that are not fully funded by third party donors in the coming year.

Structure, Governance and Management

The Fair Education Alliance is a registered charity and company limited by guarantee in England and Wales. It is governed by its Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association, last revised in February 2020. The charity’s trustees are also its members and the company directors.

This annual report contains the information required by company law in a directors’ report. Any person who is willing to act as a trustee, and who would not be disqualified from acting, may be appointed by a majority decision of the trustees. The trustees take into account the skills and composition of the Board when making such appointments. New trustees receive a comprehensive induction that helps them to understand both the organisation and their own responsibilities. The trustees are responsible for the governance and strategic direction of The Fair Education Alliance and make decisions in accordance with the provisions of the Companies Act 2006 and Charities Act 2011.The Board meets at least four times a year. Day-to-day management of the charity is delegated by the trustees to the Co-CEOs.

Employees’ involvement and engagement

We believe employees should be engaged with and involved in how the Fair Education Alliance is managed. Employees attend regular strategy and team days, where we discuss organisational developments and generate ideas about new ways of working.

18 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

We also keep employees updated through staff emails and weekly team meetings. Employee engagement with our charitable mission is very important to us.

19 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

Remuneration

The Board of Trustees is responsible for the Co-CEO’s remuneration and our employee salary and benefits. Each year the CoCEOs are responsible for reviewing our performance reward strategy for employees and recommending it for Board endorsement.

Risk and uncertainties

The trustees have overall responsibility for risk management but also recognise that for risks to be identified and managed successfully, there needs to be shared accountability throughout the organisation. In line with our risk management policy, a risk register is maintained that captures the nature of the risk, its likelihood and impact, and mitigations that are to be put in place to reduce the likelihood and/or impact.

The risk register is updated by the Co-CEOs on a quarterly basis and reviewed by trustees at quarterly meetings. All significant risks, including business and operational risks, are currently at an acceptable level. The charity regularly monitors risks in line with the above policies and has taken mitigating steps to protect against these risks. The main risks facing the charity are:

Child safeguarding:

Risk of a child safeguarding incident occurring.

We began to work directly with children and young people because of our youth engagement strategy, and therefore we overhauled our child safeguarding policies and procedures in Spring 2021 to prepare for this. All staff members receive DBS checks and in-depth training on child safeguarding that is refreshed annually. In addition, our Board receives regular updates on child safeguarding.

Political environment:

Working with policy makers is critical in making changes for systemic change in education.

We have continued to build relationships with key individuals at the Department for Education, ministers and Office of the Children’s Commissioner. We have also drawn on connections of members alongside building our own.

Member engagement in FEA strategy:

FEA strategy is reliant on the active participation of member organisations to drive change.

Over 75% of FEA members actively engaged in FEA activity over the course of the year. This is due to the variety of opportunities for members to lead or get involved in, and targeted communications due to revised membership engagement tracking and management.

Funding sustainability:

FEA needs appropriate funding to deliver its strategy.

We rely on voluntary income to deliver our strategy. We continued to engage our supporters to develop deeper partnerships and explored partnership with other education funders.

Public benefit statement

The Directors of the Fair Education Alliance have considered the requirements of the Charity Commission with regards to public benefit. The sections of this report titled “Objectives and Activities” and “Achievements and Performance” set out the Fair Education Alliance’s objectives and report on the activity and successes in the year to 31st August 2023 and outline the plans for the current financial year. The trustees have considered this matter and concluded that:

• The aims of the organisation continue to be charitable

• The aims and the work done give identifiable benefits to the charitable sector and both indirectly and directly to individuals in need

• The benefits are for the public, are not unreasonably restricted in any way and certainly not by ability to pay

• 20 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

▪ There is no detriment or harm arising from the aims or activities

The trustees confirm that they have referred to the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit when reviewing the charity’s aims and objectives and planning future activities for the year.

Trustees’ statement of responsibilities

The trustees, who are also directors of the Fair Education Alliance for the purposes of company law, are responsible for preparing our trustees’ report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

The law applicable to charities in England and Wales requires the trustees to prepare the annual report and financial statements for each financial period which give a true and fair view of the charity’s financial activities during the period and of its financial position at the end of the period.

In preparing financial statements giving a true and fair view, the trustees should follow best practice and:

• select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;

• make judgments and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;

• state whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements;

• prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in operation.

The trustees are responsible for keeping accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy the financial position of the charity and which enable them to ascertain the financial position of the charity and ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. The trustees are responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities. The trustees are not aware of any relevant audit information that has not been disclosed to the charity’s auditors. The trustees have taken all the steps that ought to have been taken in order to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the charity’s auditors are aware of that information. The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the charitable company’s website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Liability of members of the Board of Trustees

The Fair Education Alliance is limited by guarantee and has no share capital. The trustees are members of the company and every member is liable to contribute a sum not exceeding £1 in the event of the company being wound up while he or she is a member or up to one year thereafter. At 31st August 2023 there were 8 members.

Declaration

This Trustees’ Annual Report on pages 9-19, including the Strategic Report on pages 13-19, is presented and approved by the Board of Trustees and signed on its behalf.

Signed:

Dr Vanessa Ogden

Chair of the Board of Trustees

Date: 1[st] February 2024

21 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

Independent Examiner’s Report to the trustees of The Fair Education Alliance

I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of The Fair Education Alliance for the year ended 31st August 2023 which comprise the Statement of Financial Activities, the Summary Income and Expenditure Account, the Balance Sheet and the related notes.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the trustees of the charity (and also its directors for the purposes of company law) you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 ('the 2006 Act.

Having satisfied myself that the accounts of the charity are not required to be audited under Part 16 of the 2006 Act and are eligible for independent examination, I report in respect of my examination of your charity's accounts as carried out under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011 ('the 2011 Act'). In carrying out my examination I have followed the Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act.

Independent examiner's statement

As the charity's gross income exceeded £250,000 your examiner must be a member of a body listed in section 145 of the 2011 Act. I confirm that I am qualified to undertake the examination because I am a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

I have completed my examination. I can confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that:

• accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 386 of the 2006 Act ; or

• the accounts do not accord with those records; or

• the accounts do not comply with the accounting requirements under section 396 of the 2006 Act other than any requirement that the accounts give a 'true and fair' view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination; or

• the accounts have not been prepared in accordance with the Charities SORP (FRS 102).

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

Chris Conway

Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales Multiply Accountancy Limited 71-75 Shelton Street London WC2H 9JQ

Date: 15[th] February 2024

22 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

Financial statements

Statement of Financial Activities (incorporating the Summary Income and Expenditure Account) for the year ended 31st August 2023

A comparative Statement of Financial Activities can be found under note 15.

23 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

Balance sheet at 31st August 2023

These accounts have been prepared in accordance with the special provisions of Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

For the year ended 31 March 2023 the company was entitled to exemption under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

The members have not required the company to obtain an audit in accordance with section 476 of the Companies Act 2006.

The directors acknowledge their responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 with respect to accounting records and the preparation of accounts.

Approved by the board of trustees on 1[st] February 2024 and signed on its behalf by:

Dr Vanessa Ogden

Chair of Trustees

Company No. 11884952 Date: 1[st] February 2024

24 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

25 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

Statement of cash flows for the period ended 31st August

2023

26 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31st August 2023

1 Accounting policies

Basis of preparation

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2015) - (Charities SORP (FRS 102), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Companies Act 2006.

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention. They are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the charity. Amounts presented are rounded to the nearest pound.

Going concern

The trustees have considered possible events or conditions that might cast significant doubt on the ability of the charitable company to continue as a going concern. The trustees have made this assessment for a period of at least one year from the date of the approval of these financial statements. In particular, the trustees have considered the charitable company's forecasts and projections and have taken account of pressures on income including the effect of Covid-19. After making enquiries, the trustees have concluded that there is a reasonable expectation that the charitable company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. The charitable company therefore continues to adopt the going concern basis in preparing its financial statements.

Fund accounting

Unrestricted funds	These are available for use at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the general objects
	of the charity.
Designated funds	These are unrestricted funds earmarked by the trustees for particular purposes. See note 13 to
	the accounts for full information.
Restricted funds	These are available for use subject to restrictions imposed by the donor or through terms of an
	appeal. See note 13 to the accounts for full information.
Income
Recognition of income	Income is included in the Statement of Financial Activities (SoFA) when the charity becomes
	entitled to, and virtually certain to receive, the income and the amount of the income can be
	measured with sufficient reliability.
Income with related	Where income has related expenditure the income and related expenditure is reported gross in
expenditure	the SoFA.
Donations and legacies	Voluntary income received by way of grants, donations and gifts is included in the SoFA when
	receivable and only when the Charity has unconditional entitlement to the income.
Speaker and appearance	This is included in the accounts when receivable.
income
Tax reclaims on donations	Income from tax reclaims is included in the SoFA at the same time as the gift/donation to which
and gifts	it relates.
Donated services and	These are only included in income (with an equivalent amount in expenditure) where the
facilities	benefit to the Charity is reasonably quantifiable, measurable and material.

27 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

Volunteer help	The value of any volunteer help received is not included in the accounts.
Investment income	This is included in the accounts when receivable.
Gains/(losses) on	This includes any gain or loss resulting from revaluing investments to market value at the end of
revaluation of fixed assets	the year.
Accounting policies
Gains/(losses) on	This includes any gain or loss on the sale of investments.
revaluation on
investment assets
Expenditure
Recognition of	Expenditure is recognised on an accruals basis. Expenditure includes any VAT which cannot be
expenditure	fully recovered, and is reported as part of the expenditure to which it relates.
Expenditure on raising	These comprise the costs associated with attracting voluntary income, fundraising trading costs
funds	and investment management costs.
Expenditure on charitable	These comprise the costs incurred by the Charity in the delivery of its activities and services in
activities	the furtherance of its objects, including the making of grants and governance costs.
Grants payable	All grant expenditure is accounted for on an actual paid basis plus an accrual for grants that
	have been approved by the trustees at the end of the year but not yet paid.
Governance costs	These include those costs associated with meeting the constitutional and statutory
	requirements of the Charity, including any audit/independent examination fees, costs linked to
	the strategic management of the Charity, together with a share of other administration costs.
Other expenditure	These are support costs not allocated to a particular activity.

Taxation

The charity is exempt from corporation tax on its charitable activities.

Tangible fixed assets and depreciation

Depreciation is provided at the following annual rates in order to write off each asset over its estimated useful life: Plant and Machinery – 33% Straight line

Trade and other debtors

Trade and other debtors are recognised at the settlement amount due after any trade discount offered. Prepayments are valued at the amount prepaid net of any trade discounts due.

Cash and cash equivalents

Cash and cash equivalents comprise cash at bank and on hand, demand deposits with banks and other short-term highly liquid investments with original maturities of three months or less and bank overdrafts. In the statement of financial position, bank

• 28 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

overdrafts are shown within borrowings or current liabilities. In the Statement of Cash Flows, cash and cash equivalents are shown net of bank overdrafts that are repayable on demand and form an integral part of the company's cash management.

Trade and other creditors

Short term creditors are measured at the transaction price. Other creditors and provisions are recognised where the charity has a present obligation resulting from a past event that will probably result in the transfer of funds to a third party and the amount due to settle the obligation can be measured or estimated reliably. Creditors and provisions are normally recognised at their settlement amount after allowing for any trade discounts due.

Pension costs

The charity operates a defined contribution plan for its employees. A defined contribution plan is a pension plan under which the company pays fixed contributions into a separate entity. Once the contributions have been paid the company has no further payments obligations. The contributions are recognised as expenses when they fall due. Amounts not paid are shown in accruals in the balance sheet. The assets of the plan are held separately from the company in independently administered funds.

2 Company status

The company is a private company limited by guarantee and consequently does not have share capital.

• 3 Income from donations and legacies

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4 Expenditure on charitable activities

5 Analysis of charitable expenditure

6 Net income before transfers

30 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

7 Staff costs

One employee received emoluments between £80,000-£90,000 (2022: none). No employee received emoluments between £70,000-£80,000 (2022: 1). No employee received emoluments between £60,000-£70,000 (2022: 1).

No trustees (2022: none) were reimbursed for expenses. No trustee received any remuneration in the year (2022: none).

Key management personnel comprise the co-Chief Executive Officers as laid out on page 2. The total cost of employing the key management personnel was £160,640 (2022: £163,049). Included in this amount are total pension contributions of £7,785 (2022: £7,688).

The average number of staff employed, including part time staff was 13 (2022: 10)

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8 Tangible fixed assets

9	Debtors
10	Creditors; amounts falling due within one year

32 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

11 Deferred Income

Income is deferred when grants and donations have been restricted, or are intended, to cover specific costs, or grant awards, that are, or will be, expended after the balance sheet date.

12 Movement in funds

33 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

Scaling Award restricted	To support 7 impactful initiatives to scale to the areas of greatest need through a two-year
fund	programme of training and support.
Digital Tools restricted fund	To support the direct staff and tool development costs for digital tools for targeting,
	connection and collaboration.
Youth Engagement	To create and embed the youth steering group and the youth engagement working group.
restricted fund
Innovation &	To fund and support up to six Award Winners from the membership and public to pilot and
Intrapreneurship Award	scale their idea for tackling inequality in education.
designated fund

34 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

13 Analysis of net assets between funds

14	Statement of Financial Activities (incorporating the Summary Income and
	Expenditure Account) for the period ended 31st August 2022

35 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023

36 Fair Education Alliance | Trustees’ Report and Unaudited Accounts 2023