Annual Report & Financial Statements January-December 2021
Helping adults to unlock their potential
The Adult Literacy Trust seeks to provide adults the opportunity to break the cycle of exclusion and poor literacy by providing personalised support in basic reading skills, delivered through a network of trained volunteers.
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Contents
Our Mission Statement 4 7[Our Trustees] 10[Why Literacy Matters] 5[Trustees’ Report] 8[Our Vision] 11[How to Get Involved] Statement of Financial 6[From our Chair] 9[Who We Are] 12 Activities
LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION
Adult Literacy Trust (CIO)
Directors and Trustees Robert Glick OBE Stephanie Brewer Sharla-Jaye Duncan Dr Nafisah Graham-Brown Dinah Mcleod Alex Stevenson Kevin Walker
Charity Commission for England and Wales Registered Charity No. 1193300
Registered office 2D Carlisle Place London SW1P 1NP
Bankers
Lloyds Bank
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Our Mission Statement
Through one-to-one support, and as a complement to teaching in formal settings, the charity is dedicated to ensuring that individuals who wish to improve their literacy skills receive the help they need to become successful readers, and to increase their life chances.
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Trustees’ Report
The Trustees of Adult Literacy Trust (ALT) present their annual report and accounts for the year ended 31 December 2021 and confirm they comply with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011, the trust deed and the Charities SORP (FRS 102).
GOVERNANCE
ADULT LITERACY TRUST is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), incorporated 28 January 2021. The Trustees are Robert Glick OBE, Stephanie Brewer, Sharla-Jaye Duncan, Dr Nafisah Graham-Brown, Dinah Mcleod, Alex Stevenson and Kevin Walker.
In selecting individuals for appointment as Trustees, we have regard to the skills, knowledge and experience needed for effective administration. They exercise powers and perform functions in a way that is most likely to further the purposes of the CIO. They perform these functions with such care and skill as is reasonable in the circumstances.
OBJECTIVES
To advance the education of adults in reading, writing and other literacy skills for the public benefit.
ALT works with volunteer tutors to provide basic literacy instruction, ensuring adults who currently have poor literacy can obtain the reading and writing skills necessary to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level. ALT provides literacy instruction and experiences for adult learners and readers through ground-breaking partnerships, transforming adults’ reading and writing skills through instruction delivered by qualified teachers and complemented by volunteer tutors who are passionate about education. It does so in a supported, safe learning environment for practice, exploration and learning.
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
From our Chair
Are you able to read and understand this Report with ease? Then you are among the lucky ones. Millions of adults in England read at or below a basic level, struggling with rudimentary reading skills that most of us take for granted.
Adults with low levels of literacy may get by, but their lack of skills and confidence often hold them back at work, from getting actively involved in their community, from fully accessing public services to which they are entitled, or even from reading to their children. We know that when adults improve their reading skills and confidence it can have a profound and lasting impact, by improving their ability to find and retain decent-paying jobs, better navigate everyday tasks such as shopping or accessing public transport, manage their personal finances, and help make more informed decisions that can ensure healthier lives.
So why are the resources available for learners in the UK so inadequate? The government continues to fund adult literacy education – primarily through the Adult Education Budget – but it does so at a level that is woefully insufficient to meet the huge and growing demand. By allowing for so few taught hours for each learner, often in over-crowded classes, the provision can be wholly insufficient for individuals to make real progress.
Several well-established charities that support literacy seek to address this gap, and they accomplish truly amazing things. Each one has a particular focus, and many rely on volunteers who work directly with learners. None of them, however, provides adults already in the formal learning eco-system (such as Further Education Colleges and Institutes of Adult Learning) with one-to-one support to build skills and confidence in reading as a complement to the teaching they receive. It is here where the need and opportunity to support well-intentioned but impossibly over-stretched qualified
teachers is so great, and where many learners simply don’t get the attention and customised support they really need to succeed.
Frustrated by this lack of resources available to learners, we undertook to set up Adult Literacy Trust, focussed on recruiting, training and managing volunteers to help teach reading to adults. Having been granted charity status last year, and having constituted an expert Board of Directors, this year was a foundational one for us. Notably, we established our operational model, and forged partnerships with a number of leading teaching organisations, in order to deploy our first cohort of volunteers. All of this marks a turning point in our young history and, we hope, the start of something truly important.
Adult Literacy Trust is working to make lifelong learning opportunities accessible to all, one individual at a time. Of course, we could not achieve this vision without the support of so many, including the passionate volunteers who are delivering our service offering on the front line, and the many individuals who this year contributed financially to our operations, and for whom we are grateful for their generous support.
In this Report you will read about these efforts, and what our vision is for the future of the charity. You will also read about what you can do to be part of our mission, to help us promote the dignity of every person through educational opportunities for all. In fact, Adult Literacy Trust’s success depends entirely on the support of individuals and organisations who believe that literacy has the power to build and transform communities. If you or your company, trust or foundation share that commitment, we would love to discuss having you join our movement.
ROBERT GLICK OBE CHAIR
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Our Trustees
ROBERT GLICK OBE (CHAIR)
Robert leads International Public Affairs at American Express. He serves as Vice President at Save the Children, Vice
Chair of the Barbican Centre Trust, and as Trustee of Sadler’s Wells Theatre and Open For Business. He is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics.
DINAH MCLEOD (VICE-CHAIR)
Social, environmental sustainability advisor with over 20 years of policy, business and international development
experience including senior appointments at the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, Novartis, BT, and the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit (UK).
STEPHANIE BREWER
An enthusiastic reader and committed visitor of bookstores and public libraries, Stephanie studied law and was called to the
bar by Middle Temple. She continues to practise law in the financial services industry based in London.
ALEX STEVENSON
Alex has 20 years’ experience in adult learning and skills. Head of Essential and Life Skills at Learning and Work Institute, a research organisation dedicated to lifelong learning, Alex is also an executive board member at the European Association for the Education of Adults.
SHARLA-JAYE DUNCAN
Founder and CEO of The Intrapreneurs Club, she also founded and ran the social enterprise Team Up, using
volunteer tutors to help disadvantaged pupils progress in English and Maths. She holds an MSc from Oxford University and a BSc from King’s College London.
KEVIN WALKER
A lifelong avid reader, Kevin Walker received his degree in English literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
(USA). He practiced law in New York City before moving to London where he worked in the Lloyd’s insurance market in the City.
DR NAFISAH GRAHAM-BROWN
An experienced adult education teacher, specialising in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), and English Literacy. She recently gained her Doctor in Education from UCL Institute of Education, basing her research on the experiences of migrant women settling in the UK.
SUE SOUTHWOOD (ADVISOR)
As an adult literacy tutor, Sue has worked in Further Education for over 30 years. Previous roles include Head of English and Maths at the Education and Training Foundation and Head of Basic Skills at NIACE (now the Learning and Work Institute). She holds a Masters in Adult Literacy.
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Our Vision
OUR VISION
For all adults in the UK to have literacy skills to be able to thrive in life and work.
OUR MISSION To provide adults with one-to-one support to build skills and confidence in reading.
OUR VALUES We work with integrity, we collaborate for long term gains and we focus on community.
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Who We Are
The Adult Literacy Trust, or ALT, was started by a small group of committed volunteers seeking to provide adults with the opportunity to break the cycle of exclusion and poor literacy.
By providing personalised support in basic reading skills, delivered through a network of trained volunteers via one-to-one support, and as a complement to teaching in formal settings, we are dedicated to ensuring that individuals who wish to improve their literacy skills receive the help they need to become successful readers, and thereby increase their life chances.
It is estimated that more than 5 million adults in England read at or below a primary school level (what is known as Level 1 in Literacy). In other words, significant numbers of adults do not possess the basic information-processing skills considered necessary to succeed in today’s world. There are many reasons for this, including social exclusion, poverty, lack of schooling, difficult living conditions, dyslexia, learning disabilities and a number of other critical factors.
What is Poor Literacy?
Literacy is defined as the ability to communicate and to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts.
It encompasses a range of skills, from the decoding of written words and sentences to the comprehension, interpretation, and evaluation of complex texts.
Sound literacy skills provide the foundation for adults to participate in society, achieve their goals, and develop their knowledge and potential.
1 IN 6 ADULTS (7 MILLION PEOPLE) IN ENGLAND HAVE VERY POOR LITERACY SKILLS.
SOURCE: NATIONAL LITERACY TRUST
FUNDING FOR ADULT EDUCATION IN THE UK HAS FALLEN BY 45% BETWEEN 2009 AND 2019
SOURCE: FURTHER EDUCATION TRUST FOR LEADERSHIP
THE UK IS AMONG THE BOTTOM THREE OECD COUNTRIES WHEN COMPARING LITERACY PROFICIENCY FOR YOUNG ADULTS SOURCE: OECD: SKILLED FOR LIFE
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Why Literacy Matters
The lack of reading skills can be a main contributor to a life of hardship, and to an intergenerational cycle of poverty. Importantly, the inability to read can have a major impact on a person’s life chances.
What We Can Do
In England, family background has a major impact on literacy skills. Too often we see that the children of parents with low levels of education have significantly lower proficiency than those whose parents have higher levels of education, even after taking other factors into account. As a result, progress has been highly uneven; improvements between younger and older generations are barely apparent. Young people in England are entering a much more demanding labour market, yet they are not much better prepared than those who are retiring.
Those with low literacy skills are more than twice as likely to be unemployed than those who can read beyond the most basic of levels. Research shows that the median hourly wage of workers scoring higher on literacy scales – those who can make complex inferences and evaluate truth claims or arguments in written texts – is more than 60% higher than for workers scoring at lower levels – those who can, at best, read relatively short texts or understand only basic written vocabulary.
Helping an adult to improve their skills and confidence to read can have a profound and lasting impact on their ability to function fully within our communities, by improving their ability to find and retain better paid and more secure jobs, and help make better informed decisions that can ensure healthier lives.
Today literacy is more important than ever, and the impact of poor literacy goes far beyond earnings and employment. Individuals with lower proficiency in literacy are also much more likely to believe that they have little influence on political processes, and not to participate in associative or volunteer activities. They also under-utilise the National Health Service out of fear, or because they are unable to follow written instructions, and as a result are much more likely to report poor health.
Delivered through a network of volunteers, our charity is dedicated to ensuring that individuals who wish to improve their literacy skills receive the help they need to become successful readers, and to increase their life chances.
The long-term effect of parents’ low literacy can also be profoundly seen on their children; if a parent cannot read, the child starts school at a disadvantage. Then, once the child is in school, the parent is often unable to help with homework. Low literacy becomes intergenerational: the strongest indicator of a child’s success in school is his/her parents’ level of education.
ALT aims to make lifelong learning opportunities accessible to all, one individual at a time. More broadly, we also encourage policies designed to provide high-quality lifelong opportunities for learning that can help to ensure adults maintain their skills in the future.
THOSE WITH LOW LITERACY SKILLS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY TO BE UNEMPLOYED
THE MEDIAN HOURLY WAGE OF WORKERS WITH POOR LITERACY IS 60% LESS THAN WORKERS SCORING HIGHER LEVELS SOURCE: OECD: SKILLED FOR LIFE
THE AVERAGE UK WORKER WITH VERY POOR LITERACY SKILLS EARNS £1,500 PER YEAR LESS THAN THOSE WITH BASIC LITERACY SOURCE: PRO BONO ECONOMICS
SOURCE: OECD: SKILLED FOR LIFE?
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How to Get Involved
Volunteer
The Adult Literacy Trust model is to deliver its service by committed volunteers, recruited and trained by the organisation.
Volunteers help out in all areas within the charity, and most of our services could not be provided without their help. We ensure our volunteers are supported in the best way possible, and made to feel like the valued members of the team they are.
Make a Donation
We rely on donations to help advance our mission, to promote the dignity of every person through educational opportunities for all.
With funding for adult education in the UK having fallen by 45% between 2009 and 2019, the need is ever more critical.
Thank you for your generous support.
Become a Supporter
Our success depends on the support of individuals and organisations who believe that literacy has the power to build and transform communities.
If you or your company, trust or foundation share that commitment, we would love to discuss having you join our movement.
Email us at info@alt.org.uk for more information.
There are many reasons why people might choose to volunteer with us. Some may have experience of reading issues or needs themselves, while others may have friends, family or loved ones who experience poor literacy. Others may be interested in gaining work experience or increasing their confidence and self-esteem, which may lead to a career in the voluntary sector or education professions. Others may be motivated by the simple desire to help.
Email us at info@alt.org.uk for more information.
Donate at alt.org.uk
Why I Volunteer With ALT
I know from my own experience just how important reading is to self-confidence and productivity. Literacy has helped me with so many things in life, from reading my kids bedtime stories to building a useful and satisfying career. That’s why I think it’s nothing short of tragic that so many people reach adulthood not achieving the literacy they need to flourish. And it’s also why, when I was invited to join the Adult Literacy Trust, I jumped at the chance.
Millions of people in the UK struggle with basic reading skills, and ALT gives me the opportunity to work directly on what I see as one of our country’s most urgent problems. By pairing volunteers with adult learners, the Adult Literacy Trust is working to address the crisis of adult literacy, one learner at a time.
It is inspiring to see the courage, tenacity and dedication of people who choose to build their literacy skills later in life. I am so proud to be part of a charity that helps them on their journey.
DINAH MCLEOD
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Statement of Financial Activities
For the period ended 31 December 2021
| Income and endowments from Donations and legacies Total income Notes |
7,195 7,195 3,241 3,241 3,954 – 3,954 7,195 7,195 3,241 3,241 3,954 – 3,954 All income and expenditure derive from continuing activities. The statement of fnancial activities includes all gains and losses recognised in the year. Unrestricted funds Period ended 31.12.21 |
|
|---|---|---|
| 7,195 | ||
| 7,195 | ||
| Expenditure on Charitable activities Total resources expended 2 |
3,241 | |
| 3,241 | ||
| Net income/(expenditure) | 3,954 | |
| Reconciliation of funds Total funds brought forward Total funds carried forward |
– | |
| 3,954 | ||
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
31 December 2021
Balance Sheet
| Current assets Cash at bank Notes |
31.12.21 Total funds £ 4,434 4,434 (480) 3,954 3,954 3,954 3,954 – 3,954 The fnancial statements were approved by the Board of Trustees and authorised for issue on 23 May 2022 and were signed on its behalf by: ROBERT GLICK OBECHAIR |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creditors Amounts falling due within one year Net current assets 5 |
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| Total assets less current liabilities Net assets Funds Unrestricted funds Restricted funds Total funds |
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Notes to the Financial Statements
For the period ended 31 December 2021
1. ACCOUNTING POLICIES
Basis of preparing the financial statements
The financial statements of the charity, which is a public benefit entity under FRS 102, have been prepared in accordance with the Charities SORP (FRS 102) ‘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), Financial Reporting Standard 102 ‘The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland’ and the Charities Act 2011.
The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention.
The financial statements have been prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the charity. Monetary amounts in these financial statements are rounded to the nearest £.
Income
All income is recognised in the Statement of Financial Activities once the charity has entitlement to the funds, it is probable that the income will be received, and the amount can be measured reliably.
Expenditure
Liabilities are recognised as expenditure as soon as there is a legal or constructive obligation committing the charity to that expenditure, it is probable that a transfer of economic benefits will be required in settlement and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably. Expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis and has been classified under headings that aggregate all cost related to the category. Where costs cannot be directly attributed to particular headings, they have been allocated to activities on a basis consistent with the use of resources.
Taxation
The charity is exempt from tax on its charitable activities.
Fund accounting
Unrestricted funds can be used in accordance with the charitable objectives at the discretion of the trustees.
Restricted funds can only be used for particular restricted purposes within the objects of the charity. Restrictions arise when specified by the donor or when funds are raised for particular restricted purposes.
Further explanation of the nature and purpose of each fund is included in the notes to the financial statements.
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
Notes to the Financial Statements – continued
For the period ended 31 December 2021
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2. CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES COSTS
Direct costs Support costs £ Total 2021 £
Education services 1,600 1,641 1,600
3. SUPPORT COSTS 4. TRUSTEES’ REMUNERATION AND BENEFITS
There were no trustees’ remuneration or other benefits
Total 2021 £ for the period ended 31 December 2021.
Subscriptions 74 Trustees’ expenses
Insurance 287 There were no trustees’ expenses paid for the period
ended 31 December 2021.
Accountancy fees 480
Governance costs 800
1,641
5. CREDITORS: AMOUNTS FALLING DUE WITHIN ONE YEAR
31.12.21 £
Accruals 480
480
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21
When adults improve their ability to read, it better prepares them to live out their roles in the community as parents, workers and citizens.
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS January-December 21