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2025-03-31-accounts

Spiral Skills CIO Trustees Report and Financial Statements

for the Year ending 31 March 2025

Charity Number 1209072

The Trustees are pleased to present their annual report, together with the consolidated financial statements of the charity, for the year ending 31 March 2025

The financial statements comply with the Charities Act 2011 and the Charities SORP (FRS 102) together with Update Bulletin 2.

Names of the Charity Trustees who manage the charity

Thomas Harwell

Jonathan Katz

Jhemar Jonas (resigned 26 May 2025) Sophie Hackforth-Jones

Justin Sesay Barnes

Structure, Governance and Management

The charity was registered in July 2024 from converting from a CIC, previous CIC registration 09489401. It is constituted as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) and is governed by a deed. New trustees are selected by the current trustees of the charity. The day-to-day management of the charity is undertaken by three Directors who are paid from the CIO’s own funds.

Our Charitable Purpose

The purpose of the charity are:

To advance in life and help young people for the public benefit by providing support and activities which develop their skills, capacities and capabilities to enable them to better identify and help meet their needs and participate more fully in society as mature and responsible individuals

The trustees recognise that the charity must report each year on how they have carried out their charity’s purpose for the public benefit. In shaping our objectives for the year and planning our activities, the trustees have considered the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit.

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Our Main Activities

A brief summary of the main activities normally undertaken by the charity to carry out its purposes for public benefit is as follows:

Spiral Skills delivers programmes aimed at empowering underserved young people across Lambeth and surrounding areas. Our core activities align with three strategic pillars:

1. Develop:

We provided structured career and skills-development programmes, each delivering approximately 20 hours of targeted support. These sessions equipped 200 young people with essential skills, such as communication, resilience, teamwork, and aiming high and staying positive. Programmes were delivered directly within schools and alternative educational settings, supporting pupils at risk of exclusion and helping them build confidence and clarity about their future pathways.

2. Connect:

We delivered tailored post-16 employment support services for 100 young people, offering

personalised one-to-one mentoring, employability coaching, and practical guidance for progression into education, employment, or training.

Our outreach programmes included estate-based youth engagement and after-school drop-ins at local McDonald's restaurants, achieving over 2,000 attendances throughout the year. Additionally, we hosted our successful annual "Futures Festival," bringing together employers, community organisations, and 120 young people to explore career opportunities, develop new skills, and build professional networks.

3. Empower:

Our Changemaker programme supports underserved young people with lived experience to become professional youth workers, peer mentors, and outreach workers. These young leaders play an active role in co-designing and delivering Spiral’s services, bringing authenticity, cultural relevance, and trust to our programmes. Beyond delivery, they influence systems, policy, and funding decisions at both local and national levels—shaping services to better reflect the needs and ambitions of the communities they come from. Through this model, Spiral not only supports individual progression but helps drive broader systemic change.

Spiral also played a significant role in collaborative partnerships including Building Young Brixton and Ecosystem Coldharbour, and moved into the Oasis St Martin’s Village, a new collaborative hub designed to deliver holistic youth support, fostering closer integration with community organisations and local stakeholders.

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Achievements and Performance in 2024-25

In 2023–24, Spiral Skills significantly strengthened its impact across all three pillars—Develop, Connect and Empower—reaching over 750 young people and driving meaningful, measurable outcomes in skills development, wellbeing, employment and youth leadership.

Develop – Building Skills and Aspirations

Through our school-based skills programmes (including Engage), we supported over 200 young people at risk of exclusion to build the confidence and capabilities needed to thrive. Young people improved their essential skills by an average of 2 skill points (Skills Builder Framework), resulting in a 10.3% wage premium (+£3,369 per year), a 10% reduced risk of becoming NEET, and increased life and job satisfaction. 85% of participants reported improvements in communication, resilience and teamwork.

Connect – Supporting Progression and Belonging

Our post-16 employment service supported over 100 young people into work, education or training. Key outcomes included:

Our flagship McDonald’s x BBC CIN outreach project, developed by a Changemaker, delivered over 2,000 attendances in its first year. 93% of participants felt more connected to their community, and 84% felt safer. The initiative gained national media recognition and has been approached for rollout at other UK locations.

Empower – Youth Leadership and Systemic Influence

Our Changemakers—young people with lived experience—co-designed and delivered Spiral’s services, supported peers, and shaped wider systems. In 2023–24 they:

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Spiral’s youth-led model continues to generate national recognition. Our programmes are preparing not just job-ready young people, but the next generation of system-changers.

Marketing

Spiral Skills launched a new website — www.spiralskills.co.uk — as part of a brand refresh aligned to our three core pillars: Develop, Connect, Empower . This work aimed to improve access to information and strengthen our digital presence for young people, supporters, and partners.

To support this growth, we expanded our team with a Marketing Manager and Social Media Officer , building internal capacity to raise awareness and engagement with our services.

We delivered and promoted key youth-facing programmes and events, including:

Our campaigns and profile raised national visibility through:

We launched a fundraising campaign, Empower Futures , raising £11,682 to support youth access to skills and wellbeing provision. The campaign attracted new donors via high profile influencers running the Royal Parks Half Marathon and engaging Google’s annual giving campaign .

Our digital platforms saw significant year-on-year growth:

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Marketing contributed to the engagement of 150 young people in open-access programmes, including the Creative Industry Summer Programme, The Liminal Space Job Design Lab, and UK Youth’s Summer Jobs scheme, and mentoring services. Our opportunity mailout distributed 200 opportunities across employment, training and further education to our alumni network, supporting young people's access to paid work and developmental opportunities.

All activity supported our charitable objectives by amplifying youth voice, improving access to opportunities, and building greater visibility for inclusive, youth-led initiatives — delivering clear public benefit in line with our mission.

Trustees

We continued with five esteemed trustees and are aiming to increase this number over the coming year to add to expertise and plan for succession.

Risk Management

The trust maintained its risk register which was reviewed regularly at trustee meetings.

Financial Review

Finances

Spiral Skills CIO is funded largely through grants, providing services to other organisations, and in a more limited way, raising income from donations.

Results for the year

The Charity ended the year at 31 March 2025 with an overall surplus of £491 (2024 £936).

Total funds at 31 March 2025 were minus £27,344 (2024 minus £27,835) of which -£27,344 were unrestricted (2024 -£27,835). All restricted funds received in the year was fully spent by the year ended 31 March 2025.

Income in 2025 was £567,363, a 3% increase from 2024, majority due to the grants in growing our Change maker programme with funding from new trust & foundations In addition Spiral Skills secured new funding to help offer a safe & secure youth space for the community.

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As with growth on income, this resulted in greater expenditure for 2025, an increase of 3% compared to 2024, majority of this was due to increase in spend on setting up and maintaining a new youth

space.

Finance, Investments and Reserves

It is the duty of the Trustees to manage the charity's reserves. The reserves policy is reviewed annually by the Trustees.

The Trustees have agreed to aim to achieve an unrestricted reserve fund to cover three months of operating costs which is £109,000,

Unrestricted funds at 31 March 2025 were minus £27,344 (2024 minus £27,835).

Spirals Negative reserves balance was the result of 2020 year of impact, resulting in a deficit of over £50,000. Since then management have been successfully reducing the negative reserves year on year with the forecast to return to positive reserves in 2025/26 financial year.

The Trustees maintain committed to aim to achieve our designated level of unrestricted reserves within the next three financial years.

All restricted funds are used for their specific purposes.

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Statement of Trustees’ Responsibilities

The Trustees are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ Annual Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

The law applicable to charities in England & Wales/Northern Ireland requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources of the charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:

The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 2011, the Charity (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the provisions of the trust deed. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities

Approved by the Board of Trustees on

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29.08.25

and signed on its behalf by

…………….…………………………………

CHAIR

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Independent Examiner’s report to the trustees of Spiral Skills CIO

I report on the accounts of the charity for the year ended 31 March 2025, which are set out on the following pages 9-19

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity’s trustees you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’)

I report in respect of my examination of the charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the Act and in carry out my examination I have followed all the applicable directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

The charity’s gross income exceeded £250,000 and I am qualified to undertake the examination by being a qualified member of ICAEW.

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

  1. accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or

  2. the accounts do not accord with those records; or

  3. the accounts do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 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.

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.

NAME: Sam Blackford FCA

ADDRESS: 105, Chineway Gardens, Ottery St Mary, Devon, EX11 1JJ

SIGNED

DATE: 18 August 2025

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Spiral Skills CIO

Statement of Financial Activities for the Year ending 31 March 2025

The notes on pages 11 to 19 form part of these accounts.

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Spiral Skills CIO

Balance sheet as at 31 March 2025

The accounts have been prepared in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime.

The financial statements were approved and authorised for issue by the Board of Trustees on 29.08.25 ________ and were signed on its behalf by:

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Chair

The notes on pages 11 to 19 form part of these accounts.

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Spiral Skills CIO

Statement of Cash flows for the year ended 31 March 2025

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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025

1. ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Basis of Preparation

The Charity constitutes a public benefit entity as defined by FRS102. 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 in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) 2[nd] edition and the Charities Act 2011.

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention.

Income

All income resources are included on the Statement of Financial Activities when the charity is legally entitled the income and the amount can be quantified with reasonable accuracy.

Expenditure

Expenditure is accounted for on an accrual 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. Grants offered subject to conditions which have not been met at the year end date are noted as a commitment but not accrued as expenditure.

Tangible fixed assets

Depreciation is used to write off each asset over its estimated useful life. Fixed assets are depreciated as follows:-

IT equipment 25% per annum on costs Furniture & Fixtures 25% per annum

Items with cost price of £500 and above will be included in fixed assets.

Taxation

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

Fund accounting

The unrestricted fund has arisen through general fundraising, unrestricted donations and surplus from pursuing the charity’s objectives.

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 fund are raised for particular restricted purposes. The cost of raising and administering such funds are charged against the specific fund. Further explanation of the nature and purpose of each fund is included in the notes to the financial statements.

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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025 (continued)

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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025 (continued)

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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025 (continued)

The charity had 9 employees during the year (2024 - 9).

The average weekly number of employees during the year were calculated on the basis of average monthly head count.

There were no redundancy and termination payments made in the year (2024 nil). No emoluments of staff above the range of £60,000.

The remuneration paid to, and employee benefits received by key management during the financial year, together with the associated employer's National insurance contributions, totaled £172,401 (2024 £159,879).

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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025(continued)

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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025 (continued)

9 Restricted Funds 9 Prior Year Comparatives

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Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025 (continued)

11 Trustee Information

Remuneration of £5470 was paid to trustee Jhemar Jona for services rendered under the charity's trust deed.

All other trustees received no remuneration and no expenses were reimbursed to trustees.

12 Pensions

The Charity operates one defined contribution pension scheme. The charge to the Statement of Financial Activities for the year is £10,151 (2024 – £11,479). There were outstanding contributions at year end totaling £1,568 (2024 – £1,158).

13 Related party transactions

In the year ended 31 March 2025 there was no related party transactions. (2024 – nil)

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14 Statement of Financial Activities for year ended 31 March 2025

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