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2024-08-31-accounts

Annual report and financial statements

For the year ended 31 August 2024

speechandlanguage.org.uk

Speech and Language UK is the operating name of I CAN Charity, a registered charity in England and Wales (210031) and Scotland (SC039947), which is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (00099629). Registered address: 17-21 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7GT.

Contents

Contents
Trustees’ annual report
Message from the Chief Executive and Chair of Trustees 3
Thank you to our supporters 4
Strategic report
Our objectives and activities 5
Our impact and achievements 6
Our future plans 19
Financial review 21
Our structure, governance and management 24
Statement of trustees’ responsibilities 25
Accounts
Independent auditors’ report 26
Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities 29
Consolidated and Charity Balance Sheets 30
Consolidated Statement of Cash Flow 31
Notes to the consolidated financial statements 32
Reference and administrative details of the charity, its trustees and advisers 50

Message from the Chief Executive and Chair of Trustees

This has been a year of significant growth and development for Speech and Language UK, allowing us to help more than 380,580 children and young people who are behind in talking and understanding words and their families.

Lastly, we re-imagined an existing consortium as the new Speech, Language and Communication Alliance which brings together 30+ organisations so that we can collectively have a far louder voice in national policymaking.

We have made significant progress on delivering our strategy. We said that we would harness digital technology to increase our reach and efficiency, and we have. We have now digitised more of our training for schools and nurseries and more of our advice to families, who are often confronted with long waiting lists when they are concerned about their child’s speech and language development. We are pleased to be able to use digital tools to get help to families quickly. And we have started a project in one of our own special schools to capture a programme that is giving the 78 children there one of the key building blocks they need before they learn to read. We hope as a result that this innovation will be used in mainstream and special schools across the UK to change thousands more children’s futures.

Partnerships are also crucial to our strategy. Too few organisations and decision-makers understand how fundamental speech, language and communication skills are to children’s development and learning. We know we cannot achieve the wake-up call required in the education system, government, and wider society if we work alone.

This year, we have partnered with the Education Development Trust to get in-depth training on language and communication to thousands of nurseries and other early years settings. We have partnered with the Irish Government and worked with partners in Wales to get evidence-based tools into early years settings and schools. We have continued to work with BBC Tiny Happy People so that more families understand how they can help children who are behind in talking and understanding words.

We have brought together key players in the speech and language and mental health sectors to think about how these two issues intersect and impact children’s futures. And we mobilised thousands of schools to take part in our annual No Pens Day.

We are very pleased alongside this growth in our reach and impact to have also achieved a turnaround in our finances, moving from a planned loss to a significant surplus. This report covers a 17-month period as part of our plan to change our financial performance: aligning our financial year with the academic year, to improve financial forecasting both for our two schools and for our team implementing tools and training across the education sector.

Further, we know that our people are just as crucial for our future as our finances and this year we ran a benchmarked staff survey that placed us in the top performers in the sector. We also continued to match our lowest pay bands to the real living wage.

None of this is to suggest complacency. We have a lot more work to do so that we impact the 1.9 million children with speech and language challenges rather than tens of thousands. We will be taking further advantage of digital technology and partnerships to keep building on our reach and impact, as well as engaging with the new Westminster Government. We will also continue to diversify our income, which is not an easy task given the restrictions on schools’ spending and the competitive charity fundraising market.

We remain committed to changing the futures of the 1 in 5 children who are behind in talking and understanding words. We believe we have the right vision, infrastructure, and team to do even more in the coming year.

Roy Blatchford CBE Chair of Trustees 10 March 2025

Jane Harris Chief Executive 10 March 2025

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Thank you to our supporters

Thank you to everyone who supported our charity in the last 17 months. Your funding, donations, volunteering, fundraising activities, in-kind and pro-bono inputs meant that, together, we helped even more children than the previous year. We literally couldn’t do what we do without your support. Thank you!

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Our objectives and activities

Our charity was established for the advancement of speech, language and communication skills for all children and young people, with a particular focus on children and young people with disability.

For at least 1.9 million children in the UK, learning to talk and understand words feels like an impossible hurdle. This affects every aspect of their and their families’ lives. They are vastly more likely to fail in key subjects at school, more likely to be lonely and have mental health problems, more likely to end up in the criminal justice system and more likely to be out of work as an adult.

There has never been a more important time to help the growing number of children with speech and language challenges. We work to give every child the skills they need to face the future with confidence.

We design innovative tools and training for thousands of early years practitioners and teachers to use in their classrooms.

We generate new practices from our two special schools that we then share with mainstream and special schools across the UK.

We give families the confidence and skills to help their children.

We put pressure on politicians to prioritise help for speech and language challenges.

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Our impact and achievements Key achievements for 2023-2024

Tools for schools and nurseries

We want every school and nursery in the UK to be able to support children’s speech and language development and tailor their support to the 1 in 5 children with speech and language challenges. In 2023-2024, we continued to deliver the Early Years Professional Development Programme (EYPDP), which aimed to reach 10,000 early years staff in two years. In partnership with the Education Development Trust and with funding from the Department for Education, we constructed and delivered a programme aiming to give early years staff better skills in:

We provided the course content for the communication and language module of the programme and our programme trainers also delivered webinars to support the early maths content developed by subject experts and the personal, social and emotional module developed by the Anna Freud Centre. At the most intense stage of the programme our team were delivering more than 250 webinars per week with groups of up to 20 learners. In line with our value of being practical, we delivered as flexibly as possible, with webinars running seven days a week including evening sessions from Monday to Thursday.

The results have been very impressive. The first cohort of learners told us that:

felt more knowledgeable across all areas 97% of the programme.

felt more confident across all areas of the 97% programme.

feel motivated to continue working as an 93% early years practitioner.

achieved all expected outcomes from 93% the programme.

considered that participating in the EYPDP 90% would have a positive impact on outcomes for children in their setting.

Participants told us that the course improved their skills, the quality ratings they had from Ofsted and that it even increased their determination to stay in the early years sector.

“It’s renewed my knowledge and raised my confidence when speaking with parents.”

“I’ve shared each module with my colleagues throughout this course and made a booklet with various print outs and info in.”

“It has refreshed my knowledge in communication and language and given me plenty of tools which I have brought into my setting.”

“The course was meticulously designed, and it came at the perfect time as I had contemplated leaving early years education after more than 20 years in childcare.”

We will complete delivery of the final six months of the Early Years Professional Development programme in 2024-2025, although we hope the new Government will see the value of this programme and extend the delivery so that all early years practitioners have the opportunity to benefit from it.

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Digitising our training

We launched our online Learning Centre in September 2023 so school and nursery staff can more easily find the right tools and training to support children in their setting. Our first resource in the Learning Centre was the Speech, Language and Communication Advanced Course, a level 3 or A-level equivalent qualification. We were excited to update the previous version to create a much more interactive resource for learners.

“This is such an informative and wellstructured course. I would highly recommend doing it. Speech and language UK is such a renowned and trusted leader in this field that the course carries extra credibility. The resources are excellent, information and research is up to date and relevant and presented in a very appealing, user-friendly way.”

“I have a much better understanding of [speech and language challenges], and it has motivated me even more to support children in this area. Without these skills the children I currently work with, will struggle profoundly when they reach school. I feel I can confidently support my staff in supporting the children more effectively.”

“The elective unit on bilingualism has been very helpful. I have been able to quickly apply new skills learnt to some tricky situations. Parental feedback on those actions has been very positive. I currently work in a speech and language unit, so it is useful to have more context to the developmental stages of children’s language skills, particularly in early years where I don’t work.”

We updated and re-launched our Introduction to Speech, Language and Communication – a free online course for the entire children’s workforce. This went live in mid-July 2024 and more than 510 learners have already engaged with it and nearly 119 have completed the course.

What we learnt

We have learnt to allow more time than we initially expected to develop programmes for the Learning Centre, and we have had to review our implementation plan to ensure the next steps moving forward are realistic. What has been particularly rewarding is to see the comments from learners who have participated in the course.

Group programmes for schools and nurseries

Our Talk Boost programmes, which can be delivered to groups of children by staff without specialist speech and language training, continue to make a huge contribution to giving children the skills they need. In 2023-2024, 90,973 children took part in our programmes.

----- Start of picture text -----
75%
of children made
good progress
after taking part
in a Talk Boost
programme.
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We were pleased to be a part of the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) programme of evaluation of early years programmes funded in part by the Stronger Practice Hubs. Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, the evaluation component of the project was cancelled. We were successful, however, in delivering Early Talk Boost training across four Stronger Practice Hub areas to 320 settings. We are hoping to be able to work with EEF on a re-launch of the trial in the future.

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One new relationship for us this year has been with Tusla, the Child and Family Agency in Ireland. Through its National Area Based Childhood Programme (ABC Programme). Tusla commissioned an independent outcomes-based evaluation of our Early Talk Boost programme by Mary Immaculate College. The evaluation reported overwhelmingly positive results in terms of the participating children’s progress and on the length of waiting lists for speech and language therapy services. As a result, the Irish government has decided to fund a rollout of Early Talk Boost to 800 early years settings over the next three years. They will be targeting settings in areas of particular disadvantage through their Equal Start programme, a major new model

of Irish government-funded support to ensure children experiencing disadvantage can access and meaningfully participate in early learning and childcare. This will be a transformative programme for thousands of children in Ireland and we are hoping to use this as a springboard for further international collaboration.

We are excited to be working with an extensive group of partners brought together by Cardiff Metropolitan University to develop and implement bi-lingual speech and language surveillance tools for children under five in Wales through Prosiect Pengwin. Currently schools and nurseries across the UK have to pay to judge whether children in their care are experiencing speech and language challenges. This tool should help practitioners to spot when children are struggling for free, potentially meaning that thousands more children will get help early and freeing up public money as they avoid the worst possible outcomes. We will continue to work on this project in 2024-2025, getting feedback from parents on how they feel about the resources and approach and to develop the training for practitioners.

Empowering educators

We reached 10,183 professionals who work with children and young people, including:

2,946 professionals 4,572 175 licensed tutors who took part in professionals who completed free training as involved in our training from part of the Early local and regional Speech and Years Professional projects. Language UK. Development Programme.

Our licensed tutors trained 2,490 professionals to support children learning to talk and understand words.

In addition: We also reached an 5,482 registered users on estimated 15,275 the What Works* tool. professionals who Run in partnership with The Royal College of accessed our online Speech and Language Therapists, What Works helps practitioners to deliver evidence-informed training. programmes and approaches to support children and young people with speech and language challenges.

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Generating new practices from our two special schools

Meath in Surrey and Dawn House in Nottinghamshire are our two special schools catering to children with complex speech and language challenges who struggle to thrive in mainstream environments. Through our unique model of collaborative teaching and therapy, our staff work together to design and deliver the curriculum, ensuring a holistic approach to education. Our new strategy set an aim of both keeping the schools high quality and of showcasing practices at our two schools so that thousands rather than hundreds of children can benefit from them.

We have delivered on our aim of maintaining the quality of both Meath and Dawn House, which is reflected in their recent Ofsted inspections. Meath achieved the highest rating of ‘outstanding’ in all areas for both the school and residential service inspections. While Dawn House’s residential inspection was rated ‘good,’ its education inspection was an ungraded assessment. Despite the lack of an overall grade, the school continues to maintain its ‘outstanding’ status. Even more important to us than the Ofsted judgement is the outcomes that children achieve - 100% of students leaving Dawn House go onto either college placement or suitable employment, compared to a national average of 95.3%. This is particularly

remarkable given that many young people

starting at the school have previously been out of education for two years or more. We maintained this quality while also increasing the number of pupils at the school, rising to 165 children and young people. Recognising our growing pupil numbers at Dawn House, we secured the agreement of the Department for Education to increase its planned admissions number (PAN) from 96 to 120. This growth was made possible by utilising existing school space, increasing the leadership capacity and undertaking some minor renovations.

Part of our approach to quality has been deepening collaboration across our two schools. Staff from both schools have engaged in more regular visits to observe and learn from each other’s positive practices. A peer review process, involving senior leaders and an external consultant, was conducted across both schools to identify areas for improvement and shared learning.

The safeguarding teams at both schools have also established regular communication channels, fostering a strong collaborative approach to wellbeing.

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Parents’ perspectives

“Emily loves going to school. When she started at Meath it was clear that our little girl was facing significant challenges. It is a joy to see how being at Meath School has allowed her to develop not just her language skills, but her confidence and life skills. She has flourished in an environment where her needs are understood and supported by a very talented and caring team. Emily now has a sleepover at school once a week, which is a highlight for her. As a result of the integrated curriculum, I know that the residential staff are supporting her to meet her individual targets. We have seen her independence grow significantly over this period.

The most important thing is that Emily is happy. Emily has friends; she goes to parties and play dates and as a family, through Meath School, we are part of a parent community who understands the challenges we face.”

“Dawn House has transformed our daughter’s school experience. Prior to joining Dawn House, she found school incredibly challenging and would do anything to avoid going. Since being a student at Dawn House, she now loves school. When unwell she still wants to go. Last winter she was very disappointed when the school had to close early due to heavy snowfall.

This is a true testament to everyone at school who gives her support in all areas of school life. The school gives amazing opportunities to Lucy beyond the classroom too through trips and residential visits. She has now been on two residentials with school and had a wonderful time with the excellent support and encouragement from staff.

Lucy being a student at Dawn House has also had a positive impact on family life at home. She wants to go to school and excellent communication between home and school enables us to offer Lucy the support she needs at home too. Staff regularly go ‘above and beyond’ with the support and care they give to Lucy and us as a family.”

*Names may have been changed to protect privacy

This year we have started the work on capturing elements of school practice that can be replicated in other special and mainstream schools. The focus for this has been on the pre-phonics programme at Meath, which identifies and plugs the gaps in children’s phonological awareness, giving them one of the key building blocks they need before starting to learn to read through phonics. The first step was for Dawn House to successfully replicate aspects of this approach, demonstrating the value of knowledge exchange.

Working in collaboration with Newcastle University we have begun to create a set of video and written resources, that schools, will be able to use to identify and then support the children in their schools who have gaps in their phonological awareness. This will all be hosted on our online Learning Centre.

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Our residential facilities

Both our schools provide residential facilities. This helps children who live a long distance from the school. Our residential services also allow children to learn about living more independently from home, covering skills from cooking to toothbrushing and most important of all, to form strong relationships and friendships. Children and families often tell us they love the opportunity to have ‘sleepovers’, especially when previous difficult experiences in mainstream schools have limited children’s social experiences.

Meath’s residential provision was judged as “outstanding” for its second year in a row in February 2024. Ofsted commented that, “The children are happy and enthusiastic and make remarkable progress in key areas of their lives, because of the care and support that they receive.” and “Leaders are passionate and highly ambitious for children’s futures and experiences. They ensure that high standards are maintained, and that staff share in the children’s successes and achievements.”

At Dawn House, the residential provision has been consistently judged as “good”, with Ofsted commenting that, “Children are happy and relaxed when they are in the residential provision. Staff know them well and respond well to their individual, complex needs.

What we learnt

We have spent a lot of time working out the different roles that our school staff and staff in national teams can take on in our project to capture school practices and disseminate these to schools across the UK. This has resulted in very detailed RASCI (Responsible, Accountable, Supporting, Consulted, Informed) grids. While this at times has felt a bit laborious, it has paid off as staff with totally different professional skills and backgrounds have developed a much fuller appreciation of each others’ roles. We are going to replicate this approach in future projects to support our new value of collaboration.

Future work

To further strengthen our collaboration, we plan to conduct a peer review of safeguarding practices across both schools, explore shared approaches to fees with our school business managers, and identify opportunities to exchange teaching and therapy practices. Additionally, with pro bono support, we are developing a comprehensive estates strategy for the Meath site to ensure that the physical learning environment aligns with the high quality of our educational provision. Finally, we aim to establish a more structured and strategic approach to sharing best practices with other schools, including the launch of the phonological awareness resources and the development of a variety of CPD visits and toolkits.

Our two special schools supported 165 children and young people with complex speech and language challenges.

----- Start of picture text -----
79% 77%
of children’s speech of children’s speech
and language therapy and language therapy
targets at our school targets at our school
in Surrey were met or in Nottinghamshire
exceeded. were met or
exceeded.
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Advice for families

Many families struggle to know how to support their children with speech and language challenges. They feel lost and desperate for steps they can take, particularly when waiting lists for specialist services are at an all-time high. We reached an estimated 280,103 families through our online progress checker and family advice web pages throughout the 20232024 period.

We were thrilled to launch a new version of our child’s progress checker tool in early 2024. Our team worked with a number of families to capture film clips to illustrate strategies to support young children with speech and language challenges from 18 months to three and a half years old.

2,371 families benefitted from our in-person family support in 2023-2024, an increase of nearly 20% compared to 2022-2023. We provided life-changing advice and support to families through our advice line and talking with your toddler webinars. We made it a priority to continue to run the free advice line five days a week and take up increased by 12% during the year. This gives families the opportunity to speak directly to a practising or retired Speech and Language Therapist and get tailored advice. Most families contacting the service enquired about their children aged 18-30 months and were mostly concerned about their children’s talking.

Here are some of the comments we received from families:

It’s only been three days but we’re already feeling much more confident communicating with [my child] and he’s been more receptive to what we’re saying to him and seems happier/more confident responding, even though it’s still mostly babble so far.” Parent of a pre-nursery child

“The speech and language therapist was amazing with me, she answered all my questions, and she made me feel more confident and I received a lot of information, by phone and by email. Thank you”. Parent of a pre-nursery child

The speech and language therapist was incredibly helpful. He listened, understood and advised me as best he could. It is clear he has extensive knowledge and in the process of talking me through the steps, he spoke with kindness and care. I felt he really wanted to help.” Parent of a secondary school aged student

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To reach more families than we can through our phone and email service alone, we also increased the frequency of our webinars from fortnightly to weekly, seeing take up increase by 45%. The webinars cover themes such as “Using everyday routines to support talking and understanding words” and “Sharing books to develop talking and understanding words”. Parents who’ve participated have not only appreciated the advice and strategies but also being listened to.

“I’ve taken part in quite a few webinars now. Like that the strategies are the same but adapted to the topic - makes it easier to remember and put in practice!” Parent of a child under 2

“The speaker was really knowledgeable and had a lovely approach to things. I felt very comfortable to ask questions and have come away with some ideas.” Parent of a child under 2

We were excited to start a new project funded by the Department for Education in 2023, called Talking with your Little One. We’re training a wide range of staff working in Family Hubs in Coventry, Halton, Leicester and Telford and Wrekin to use consistent approaches to help parents to support their young children’s early language development.

In six months, nearly 600 parents have participated in our “How babies learn to talk” information sessions and the project continues until March 2025.

One of the most important strands of the project is that we have received funding to commission some independent research into the best ways to share key messages about early language development with families of young children and will be using the outcomes of the research to develop a toolkit which could be used by any local area to help give children the best start with their speech and language skills. We will be disseminating our findings in spring 2025.

What we learnt

We have been really pleased by the expanding reach of our family advice and information, but we know we have work to do in how we reach young people more directly. At the moment most of our direct reach with young people is through specific local and regional project work, but we are exploring different approaches which might enable young people to engage directly with some of our resources themselves.

----- Start of picture text -----
We supported 9,176 families
We reached an estimated through our local and regional
90,973 children and 280,103 families family advice, projects and
young people took part through our online progress programmes:
checker and family advice
in our programmes
web pages.
and local and regional 1,622 families through
projects in schools our free advice line.
and nurseries.
749 families attended at least
one of our “talking with your
toddler” webinars.
Our assessment centres also completed 163 in-depth speech and
language assessments.
----- End of picture text -----

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Pressure on politicians

We know it is crucial to have good evidence to make a strong case for change to politicians. We therefore repeated our annual survey of 1,000 teachers and found that the estimated number of children with speech and language challenges had risen to 1.9 million. This equates to 1 in every 5 children. This shocking figure is a rise of 200,000 since 2022 and means that the number of children in need of support has risen by nearly 30% since our survey began in 2021. We produced our Listening to Unheard Children report to share our findings and have subsequently seen and heard our 1.9 million figure being used by sector partners, education policy leads and media outlets as our ability to amplify the issue has grown. The report’s findings showed that whilst 83% of teachers felt that their school prioritised speech and language, around half of teachers felt it wasn’t prioritised by the National Curriculum, Ofsted or the Department for Education and a staggering 73% felt it wasn’t prioritised by the then Government. Since the General Election of July 2024, we have heard a change of tone from the new Government but await sufficient action to follow up on the warm words on speech and language support in the early years and the curriculum.

Our Listening to unheard children report contained our nine solutions to transform the lives of the 1.9 million children struggling with talking and understanding words. These include:

1. Introducing a new tool for schools to track talking and understanding words at Key Stage 1 and 2 in the same way that every school tracks literacy and numeracy skills.

2. Training all teachers and early years practitioners to spot which children are struggling with talking and understanding of words and providing guidance about how to help or where to refer them to.

3. Producing guidance for teachers and schools about what evidence-based tools and programmes work for children with speech and language challenges, especially those that can be delivered by schools without specialist support.

4. Updating Ofsted guidelines to include more ambitious language goals for schools, nurseries and other early years settings on speech, language and communication.

5. Incentivising Integrated Care Boards to work with local councils and make sure there is support on language skills from the start of new parents’ journey; just as it is for feeding or vaccinations.

6. Changing guidance for Family Hubs, so they can provide programmes for children on language and communication before the age of 3.

7. Asking the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to develop guidance on Developmental Language Disorder.

8. Working with experts on proper workforce planning, making sure there is enough specialist support available for children with life-long challenges.

9. Funding a more ambitious campaign to shift families’ behaviour and prevent speech and language challenges developing.

Following its launch in September 2023, the report secured national coverage on Sky News and Times Radio as well as BBC and ITV regional outlets. In total, there were 181 mentions of our charity and the report across national, regional and international media who highlighted our findings. This equated to 95.3 million impressions.

Mental health is such an important area for the children and young people we support, so in June 2024 we co-hosted a roundtable event to bring together stakeholders from the speech and language and mental health sectors to share information and ideas for how to tackle the challenge. Representatives from the Speech, Language and Communication Alliance, a young expert by experience, academics, charity organisations and funders, met at UCL in London. The event was chaired by Professor Essi Viding, Pro-Vice Provost UCL Mental Health and Wellbeing Grand Challenge, along with support from Speech and Language UK and Professor Courtenay Norbury also from UCL, who presented her research on mental health difficulties in children with Developmental Language Disorder. Following the event, we are discussing potential partnerships with a number of the participants.

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Public Affairs work in the pre-election period focused on maintaining and developing relationships with civil servants in the Departments for Education and Health and Social Care, NHS England and Ofsted. Despite the support from the Pears Foundation, we are a very small team so currently focus our efforts on securing policy change in England although we do keep up to date with policy and practice across the four nations of the UK. We have had particular success in engagement for early years, establishing a good relationship with Ofsted which led to us being consulted on a number of their research reports pre-publication. We continue to be consulted by early years teams at the Department for Education, including those dealing with the Early Years Recovery Funding; Early Language and Early Years SEND.

Despite the General Election being called earlier than anticipated, we were ready with our plans to engage our supporters in an Open Letter to the Party Leaders of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, which gathered over 5,000 signatures. We produced and published our Manifesto calling for training for the children’s workforce; tools for nurseries and schools to help them identify and track children who are struggling; and guidance on programmes so they can intervene early at any stage in a child’s education. We also called for families to be given the information they need right from the start and for more early years support to be put in place much sooner in a child’s life. Finally we called for the NHS workforce strategy to ensure there is sufficient supply of speech and language therapists for those children and young people who need specialist support.

What we learnt

There is a long way to go to get civil servants and Ministers to realise how many of their goals relate directly to the needs of children with speech and language challenges. Whether on educational standards, mental wellbeing or youth offending, decision-makers and policy-influencers have not yet understood that speech and language challenges are one of the root causes of the outcomes they want to shift. We need to do more to make them understand the scale and impact of speech and language challenges as it is hard to get engagement with even the most practical, cost-effective solutions when people haven’t recognised the urgency or scale of the problem.

We are hoping that the ‘mission-led’ approach of the new government will provide us with an opportunity to ensure the cross-cutting nature of speech and language challenges is addressed at a systemic level by all relevant departments, including Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Work and Pensions, and Ministry of Justice.

We continue to build our experience of engaging with young experts by experience of living with speech and language challenges. We learned that surveys are not the best way to engage with young people who struggle with talking and understanding words and who may not reach with our current social media channels. Our family survey showed that we are also overly represented in London and the Southeast in our online reach, this is similar to our family support and advice although much of our project work takes place on the ground in the north and east of England. We will explore what lies behind this as we continue to reach out and engage with the families and young people we support.

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Fundraising and awareness

Rebrand and brand recognition

Following our rebrand in October 2022, which introduced a new name, vision, mission, and visual identity, Speech and Language UK has significantly increased its visibility and connection with our target audience. This change, led by Studio Texture, has successfully positioned us at the forefront of addressing the challenges faced by the 1.9 million children struggling with talking and understanding words in the post-pandemic era. Our rebrand has also been recognised as the Brand Development of the Year by the Third Sector Awards, reflecting our impactful shift in public perception and engagement. Independent tracking found that more than a third of teachers have now heard of Speech and Language UK, double the recognition of any similar brands. This is a remarkable achievement in less than two years.

Digital growth and website relaunch

The launch of our new website in early 2024 marked a pivotal step in enhancing our digital presence. The website has received over 47,000 engagements since its launch, providing a critical resource for families, educators, and professionals seeking support. Coupled with our robust digital strategy, which saw a substantial increase in social media engagement, particularly on Facebook and Instagram, we have solidified our online footprint. The addition of an online progress checker has further enriched the user experience, offering valuable tools directly to our audience.

Fundraising innovations and challenges

Our fundraising strategy, focusing on agile ‘test and learn’ approaches and value exchange campaigns, has seen varied success. Regular giving campaigns have continued to outperform the sector norm, showing sustainable growth in this key income area. However, cash appeals have faced challenges, particularly with narrative engagement, leading us to re-evaluate our approach to these campaigns. Notably, our involvement in community and sporting events like the London Marathon has proven successful, with a marked increase in donations demonstrating the effectiveness of enhanced supporter care and engagement strategies.

5,954 individuals signed up to take part

Philanthropic efforts and technical infrastructure

Our efforts in philanthropy have been strengthened through strategic bids and partnerships, contributing significantly to our funding without tapping into unrestricted income. However, recruitment challenges and outdated technical infrastructure have occasionally hindered our fundraising and operational capabilities. Investing in new systems and staff recruitment is a priority to alleviate these issues and boost our efficiency and reach.

No Pens Day

We relaunched our flagship school engagement event No Pens Day in November 2023. The campaign is a chance for children to talk, listen, and take part in pen-free activities that promote communication and collaboration in the classroom. The headline element was the biggest ever show and tell – a day of talking and listening activities where pupils bring in something to talk about in front of the class. Engagement was incredibly high, with a total of 5,954 individuals signing up. This is the highest number of participants we have ever had taking part in the campaign. Facebook ads proved to be a highly successful sign-up mechanism for us, which generated 4,268 sign-ups. This also highlighted to us that it is a strong channel for us to use for future digital engagement with educators. Even though engagement with the campaign was high, fundraising from schools was very low. We have conducted a post-campaign survey with participating schools to find out what the barriers are to them fundraising as part of the campaign. The insight from these will be used to help evolve next year’s event.

Culture and infrastructure

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We reached:

12,697,754 people on Facebook

2,287,105 people on Instagram

434,039 people accessing our website

305,328 people on TikTok

160,319 people on LinkedIn

891,310 people on X

Media

384 pieces of known media coverage

Reach/impressions: 496,838,663

What we learnt

There is an appetite for public regular giving to change the lives of children with speech and language challenges. Our rebrand has helped to make our regular giving campaigns successful. However, we need to do more work to test the right propositions for cash giving. We also need to test more approaches to convert the huge appetite for No Pens Day into sustainable fundraising income.

The fundraising recruitment market is continuing to be a significant barrier for us and for other charities. We are testing a new structure for future years so that professionals with more general marketing experience can take on fundraising roles.

Staff wellbeing

The skills and commitment of our staff are crucial to enabling us to change young lives and the ongoing cost of living pressures in 2023-2024 continued to present challenges for many. It was therefore really important to maintain our commitment that all staff would be paid at least the Real Living Wage, and we made this the focus of our pay review in 2023.

As part of our annual pay review process, we commissioned a specialist pay and reward consultancy to complete external benchmarking for our management roles. This included our Senior Management Team, Heads of Department and Lead Advisors. This review included a job evaluation exercise and a review of market data from their in-house database and a range of published pay surveys and pay reports.

We conducted a benchmarked staff survey, achieving 267 responses (85% of the workforce) and the results showed high levels of engagement and satisfaction across the organisation. We were pleased and encouraged to see an exceptionally high response from staff saying that they believe in the vision and mission of the charity, understand our strategic aims and their role within this and enjoy the work they do. The Charity Pulse benchmark provides a sector-wide comparison, and it put us into the top performers category in the sector, given our strong results. It is based on responses from over 25,000 individuals working in UK-based charities. It is a three-year rolling benchmark, using the results from over 240 staff surveys.

There were some areas where we have identified opportunities for further improvement:

We have already made changes to our approach to annual leave entitlements. Where we previously had three days between Christmas and New Year when everyone had to be on leave, we have now added those three days to the basic annual leave entitlement so that they can be used flexibly and at times which are most meaningful to individual members of staff.

Our Diversity Working Group has continued to expand over the last year and has played a key role in increasing the staff teams’ engagement with our equity, diversity and inclusion priorities. We have a number of plans in place for more line management training to support staff with neurodiversity or who may be experiencing the impact of the menopause, as well as improving our data collection once we have installed a new HR system.

Develop our long-term technology strategy

Implementation of the organisation’s digital, data and technology strategy has continued, led by our Head of IT and Data, and supported by our Data Manager, working closely with other teams. These roles have strengthened the organisation through building skilled capability to support delivery of our strategic priorities to grow our impact, deliver more voluntary and sales income and help to future-proof our technology infrastructure for the future.

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 17

The last 17-months have seen delivery of a series of major technology projects which have transformed our base technology platform, in line with modern digital and cloud-first organisations. These have included:

In the coming year we also plan to upgrade our Human Resource (HR) system and continue developing and enabling our technology platforms, data, tools and culture to deliver our strategic aims more efficiently and effectively. This investment in our IT and data infrastructure will make us more efficient as well as allowing us to reach far more schools, nurseries, families, young people and policymakers.

School governance

A full academic year has passed under the new governance framework, which has received positive feedback from all stakeholders. Alongside two separate School Advisory Boards, a joint Education Committee now acts as the governing body for both schools. This new arrangement is working very well for us and is allowing schools to share insights and practices and is aligning governance across the two schools.

The Education Committee has expanded its meetings to six per year, following a structured agenda to ensure compliance with all statutory governance requirements. The committee also plays a vital role in providing rigorous oversight of the schools’ performance. This area is a key focus for Ofsted during inspections, and we were particularly pleased that our improvements in governance and oversight were recognised by them.

“The revised governance structure further strengthens lines of strategic oversight. Leaders receive support and challenge from those responsible for governance.” Meath Ofsted Report, June 2023

“The arrangements for governance have changed since the last inspection. As a result, there is greater clarity and accountability across the school. This includes a school advisory board and a board of trustees, with clearly defined channels of communication and responsibility. Both bodies have a good understanding of their function and of the importance of the residential provision to the whole school. Those with a responsibility for governance have a clear focus on the experiences of children and provide constructive challenge to maintain high standards.” Meath Ofsted report, February 2024

“The school advisory board has appointed a residential champion who is also a parent. This provides him with invaluable insight into the service. The residential champion has a clear understanding of the strengths and areas for development.” Dawn House Ofsted report, June 2023

Reviewing our governance

We worked with an independent consultant to review our governance capability, using the Charity Governance Code as a baseline to make sure our Trustees were fulfilling their responsibilities and being supported by the Executive in this task. The consultant surveyed and interviewed Trustees and senior staff and made 27 recommendations. Our Board discussed these recommendations and prioritised them to create a Governance Action Plan and began an implementation plan which will continue into 2024/25. One of the recommendations was to update our Memorandum and Articles of Association, which we did through a members’ meeting in summer 2024. This now reflects contemporary practice far better. We have also started holding more opportunities for Trustees to network informally and get to know each other better, to facilitate even better team-working. We are hugely thankful to the volunteer who gave up his time through the Cranfield Trust to support us with this project.

We are very conscious of the need to provide more opportunities for people to gain experiences that will help them grow into Trustee roles. We advertised opportunities to sit on a number of our Board Committees (Finance and Audit, Income and Engagement, Policy and Programme Development and Remuneration) and successfully recruited four new volunteers, giving us new insights into areas such as public policy development, people management and public fundraising. We are very grateful to our new volunteers for the contribution they have already made to our charity.

18 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Our future plans

Our strategy sets out five areas for us to progress and our focus in the coming year will be to continue to execute our strategy. We will:

the capacity of our current free advice line to respond to the increased demand we are seeing for this service. We will seek funding to create more resources for families, particularly on Developmental Language Disorder, and to start developing content specifically for young people.

1. Make speech and language more central to more schools and nurseries’ everyday practice.

First, we will finish delivery of the current round of the Early Years Professional Development programme so that more nursery and childminding staff understand how to support children’s speech and language development, alongside our partners Education Development Trust and the Anna Freud Centre. We will digitise more courses so that they are available to more practitioners through our new Learning Centre. We will roll out our evidencebased Early Talk Boost programme to hundreds of pre-school settings in disadvantaged communities in Ireland. We will support the partnership led by Cardiff Metropolitan University which is creating new free-to-use screening tools for pre-school children funded by the Welsh Government and redevelop our Talk for Work programme for secondary schools so that more children can develop the skills they need for the workplace.

4. Make speech and language more central to Government policy and increase the visibility of speech and language challenges in public debate.

We will continue to collect evidence on the reallife experience of young people, families and teachers so that policymakers understand the day-to-day barriers of children and young people with speech and language challenges. We seek to increase awareness among the new Parliament of these challenges and the practical solutions that Government can adopt. We will engage with reforms to the curriculum, Ofsted inspections and the SEND framework so that the workforce know how to support positive speech and language development. We will officially launch the Speech, Language and Communication Alliance and we will seek to build more partnerships with mental health charities so that the connections between these areas of policy are far better understood.

2. Develop our two schools so they provide the best possible education to students and develop resources for other schools to learn from.

5. Continuously refresh our infrastructure, funding model and culture to fit a 21st century, responsive, values driven charity.

We will ensure that our education provision remains excellent, under the proposed new Ofsted framework. We will look at the income opportunities across our sites so that we can maintain lossmaking but high-quality areas of provision such as our residential services. We will finish the development of learning materials on our prephonics programme so that schools across the UK can understand how to support children struggling to make progress in phonics programmes. We will start to offer more structured visits to our school in Surrey so others can learn from our approaches and seek funding for a Speech and Language Schools Partnership so that schools specialising in speech and language across the UK can share practice and improve together.

We will continue to diversify our income, partly through our flagship No Pens Day event. We will start the process of designing a mass participation event directly targeting families and young people and implement a new framework on how we involve young people with lived experience in the design and delivery of our work. We will redevelop our school websites and develop a new HR system, to complete our more modern infrastructure. We will embed our new values into recruitment, supervision, appraisal and exit processes. We will review our pay bands and non-pay benefits and consider how we can improve internal communications. Finally we will review our full cost recovery model and we will implement a Governance action plan, based on the independent Governance review in 2024.

3. Make knowledge of speech and language development and how to support children with challenges central to more families’ lives.

We will gather more insight about how families want to receive advice about speech and language development. We will develop ways to increase

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 19

And we will do all of this while living our values of being kind, brave, practical, curious and collaborative.

We are kind

We are brave

We are curious

Too many children are struggling with talking and understanding words - we have a duty to be brave in creating new solutions and speaking out to change their futures.

Every child and family we work with and everyone who works here has unique circumstances - showing kindness and empathy to each other allows us to help and understand each other better .

Being curious about what works to change children’s futures and make our charity work better will mean we can change more young lives sooner.

We are practical

We are collaborative

We create practical solutions that can change children’s futures in the real world today – because children shouldn’t have to wait for change.

So many children’s futures are at risk, no one organisation or one team can make enough of a difference alone – we have to collaborate and work together .

We would love to hear from you if you too believe in our values and our mission and want to transform the futures of 1 in 5 children in the UK and beyond.

20 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Financial review

Overview

In the 17 months to 31 August 2024, we are reporting a surplus of £1,069k (2023: £733k deficit) before unrealised investment gains of £293k (2023: £176k loss).

In overall terms, income has increased by £10,442k to £21,326k (2023: £10,884k). Whilst the year on year comparison is skewed by the extended accounting period, the most notable increases during the period are income generated by Schools’ activities, which grew by £4,200k, and income received from our programme delivery activities, which increased by £5,503k, positively impacted by significant projects underway during the period. Income from donations and legacies as part of our fundraising efforts increased by £690k.

Expenditure increased by £8,640k to £20,257k (2023: £11,617k). The extended accounting period has affected the year on year comparison, but the main areas of increased expenditure are within our tools and training provision, which saw increased expenditure of £3,825k, and expenditure in schools increased by £4,264k, in line with increased income and pupil numbers. Fundraising costs increased by £286k to £689k due to ongoing action in order to increase our fundraising capacity.

After unrealised gains on investment, the net surplus stands at £1,362k (2023: £909k deficit), with £415k of this surplus being attributable to restricted funds and the remaining £947k to unrestricted funds.

The surplus for the period has resulted in total funds at the period-end of £8,513k (2023: £7,151k); of which £4,307k is unrestricted, with £1,786k of this balance having been designated to fund assets and investment in key strategy areas in the forthcoming financial year.

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 21

Fundraising

Disclosure under The Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016

our two schools form the backbone of our income. The majority of pupils in non-maintained special schools, such as ours, have been placed there by local authorities under an Education, Health and Care Plan, funded in part from the high needs block of Local Authorities’ Dedicated School Grants (top up funding) and in part from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (place funding). Local authorities will continue to receive their high needs budgets and should continue to pay top-up and other high needs funding to non-maintained special schools, so that the employment and payment of staff supporting children and young people with SEND can continue.

The Early Years Professional Development Programme, a multi-million pound project to train 10,000 early years practitioners, comes to an end in March 2025 which will impact on our unrestricted income in 2024-25. As the project is ending we are reducing our staffing accordingly.

Volunteers

Our Charity could not achieve its mission without the help of our team of volunteers. People give up their time to help us raise money and support our fundraising efforts, as well as helping in our schools and on our advice line to ensure that children who have challenges in talking and understanding words get the help that they require. We are indebted to the volunteers who make a real impact in helping us to achieve a world where all children have the communication skills they need to fulfil their full potential.

Performance

During the year 22/23, the prevailing economic climate and cost of living crisis had a significant impact on our finances, along with planned expenditure to improve our infrastructure. In response to this, we reviewed our activities and made efficiencies to mitigate against incurring deficits during the current financial period. Due to increased activity providing tools and training to schools and early years settings, we have noted significant surpluses within this strategy area – this is mainly attributable to time limited projects which are expected to wind up during the next financial year. We have experienced difficulties in recruiting to certain roles within our fundraising and awareness raising teams - while these vacant posts have contributed towards the healthy surplus position, they have hindered our ability to make progress at pace against our five year strategy in these areas.

We continue to develop a strategy building longterm relationships with donors, however several long term institutional funders closed or changed criteria during the period limiting some performance in this area. We have reviewed this with a view to developing new partnerships over the next year in line with our strategic objectives and our business plan.

Reserves policy

Our Charity maintains reserves to allow us to continue to fulfil our objectives and withstand a period of financial uncertainty. To achieve this, the Trustees seek to ensure that unrestricted general funds are in excess of a self-determined long-term target. These funds provide a measure of financial stability to our Charity and thereby reinforce our reputation and ability to deliver on promises.

Each year the minimum level of unrestricted General Funds is reviewed by the Trustees and consideration is given to the following when deciding the level of funds required:

With income of £11,334k during the 17 month period,

22 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

After careful assessment of the above, and in line with good governance practice, the Trustees have reviewed all identified risks and have concluded that the target level of General Funds should be £1,750k and that the current level of the General Funds at 31 August 2024 of £2,521k (2023: £2,149k) is appropriate given our future plans and objectives. This is particularly the case, given the high level of investment in school infrastructure and property expansion currently being considered; and investments in key strategic goals such as implementing our long-term Digital, Data and Technology (DDAT) Strategy and further developing our brand.

Investments policy and performance

The primary objective of our Charity’s investment policy is to maintain and enhance the value of funds to meet our short and long-term requirements.

Having funded significant repair work from cash balances, an amount of £500k (2023: £300k) was withdrawn from our investment portfolio during the year to ensure that sufficient working capital was in place. An unrealised investment gain of £293k (2023: £176k loss) was recorded during the year.

Safeguarding, child protection and future Ofsted ratings will remain as key risks for our charity for as long as we manage special schools. Reviews by independent consultants have continued to take place at both schools during 2023/24 to mitigate this risk. In addition, half termly unannounced visits from a independent visitor to both residential provision, have a focus on safeguarding and the voice of the child. Our ageing estate in our schools presents various maintenance and repair needs. Ongoing health and safety action plans and audits are in place to ensure ongoing management of these issues.

The following statements summarise our Charity’s policy in managing identified forms of financial risk:

Risk management

The major risks to which our Charity is exposed have been identified and reviewed by the Trustees, and systems or procedures have been established to manage the risks.

A key risk evaluated by the Trustees concerns the systems in place to support our Charity‘s reporting and forecasting, in order to assess performance and sustainability. Following the recruitment of a permanent Director of Finance and IT, a restructure of the finance team has been undertaken alongside the development and overhaul of our financial management systems, which have improved capacity and resulted in ongoing improvement in reporting and working efficiencies.

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 23

Our structure, governance and management

Our Charity is a company limited by guarantee and is governed by Memorandum and Articles of Association which were last amended on 11 June 2024. Our Charity operates in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In 2022 as the result of a significant brand review our Charity started to trade as Speech and Language UK, which is the operating name of I CAN Charity.

Under company law the Trustees of our Charity are the Directors of the charitable company and together form the Council. Trustees are recruited by the Board of Trustees and vacancies are advertised on our website and through other channels depending on the specifics of the role. Trustees are elected by the members for terms of three years, and may serve for two such terms of office, or three in exceptional circumstances.

New Trustees are inducted into our Charity through a series of meetings with our Senior Management Team and, during the year, new and existing Trustees meet to review our Charity’s operations and plans.

To enable the Council to carry out its responsibilities in the most effective way it has established a number of subcommittees to focus on certain key areas as follows:

----- Start of picture text -----
Number of meetings held
during year
----- End of picture text -----

Finance & Audit
Income and Engagement		 5
4
Policy and Programme
Development		 4
Remuneration 3
Education 6

The Trustees of our Charity meet at least three times a year and are responsible for making the major decisions relating to the running of our Charity. These decisions include approval of the strategy, of the annual budget and the approval of agreements material to the financial position of our Charity.

Operational decisions are made by the Chief Executive and the Senior Management of our Charity. The progress of our Charity against the strategic plan is monitored regularly by the Trustees.

Where our Charity charges for its services, the price is agreed with each local authority and the prices charged are based on the principles of full cost recovery. The agreed or anticipated prices are factored into business plans and income forecasts. The credit risk on these amounts is low as the majority of customers are local authorities.

Salary levels are set by reference to a pay benchmarking scheme that considers prevailing market rates. Salary changes are communicated to staff each year during the annual salary review process. Other costs are controlled by contract negotiations and competitive tendering with suppliers for major items of expenditure. Our Charity has no long-term borrowings and, if necessary, the investment portfolio could be realised at short notice.

Our Charity’s trading subsidiary, Speech and Language UK Services Limited, which provides educational services to children with complex speech and language challenges, has been consolidated into our Charity’s financial statements.

The I CAN Consolidated Fund, the Countess of Meath Fund and the Ministering Children’s League Fund are linked charities of I CAN Charity and have been amalgamated into our Charity’s financial statements, with the balances on these funds included as part of our endowments.

Our charity has an additional subsidiary, Speech and Language UK Ltd, a company limited by guarantee, company number 14369678, which is dormant. Its results are included in the consolidated financial statements.

24 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities

The Trustees (who are also directors of our Charity for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ Annual Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and the group and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

Company law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year. Under that law the Trustees have prepared the financial statements in accordance with United Kingdom Accounting Standards, comprising FRS 102 “The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland”, and applicable law (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). Under company law the Trustees must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of the affairs of the charitable company and the group and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable group for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

The Trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the charitable company’s transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and the group and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006, Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended).

The Trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on 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.

In the case of each Trustee in office at the date the Trustees’ Report is approved:

Public benefit

The Trustees confirm that they have had regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit in reporting on our Charity’s Achievements, Performance & Future Plans on pages 6 to 20.

The Council of Trustees’ Report, which also contains the Directors’ report as required by company law, and including the Strategic Report, was approved by the Council on 25 February 2025 and signed on 10 March 2025 on its behalf by:

Roy Blatchford CBE Chair of Trustees

Duncan Smith Treasurer

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 25

Independent auditors’ report

Independent auditors’ report to the members and trustees of I CAN Charity

Report on the audit of the financial statements

Opinion

In our opinion, I CAN Charity’s group financial statements and parent charitable company financial statements (the “financial statements”):

We have audited the financial statements, included within the Annual Report and Financial Statements (the “Annual Report”), which comprise: the Consolidated and Charity Balance Sheets as at 31 August 2024; the Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities and the Consolidated Statement of Cash Flow for the 17 month period then ended; and the notes to the financial statements, which include a description of the significant accounting policies.

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (“ISAs (UK)”) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under ISAs (UK) are further described in the Auditors’ responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Independence

We remained independent of the group and parent charitable company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, which includes the FRC’s Ethical Standard and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements.

Conclusions relating to going concern

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the group and parent charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from the date on which the financial statements are authorised for issue.

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

However, because not all future events or conditions can be predicted, this conclusion is not a guarantee as to the Group’s and parent charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Reporting on other information

The other information comprises all of the information in the Annual Report other than the financial statements and our auditors’ report thereon. The trustees are responsible for the other information. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, accordingly, we do not express an audit opinion or, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in this report, any form of assurance thereon.

In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge

26 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

obtained in the audit, or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify an apparent material inconsistency or material misstatement, we are required to perform procedures to conclude whether there is a material misstatement of the financial statements or a material misstatement of the other information. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact. We have nothing to report based on these responsibilities.

With respect to the Trustees’ Annual Report (including the Strategic Report), we also considered whether the disclosures required by the UK Companies Act 2006 have been included.

Based on our work undertaken in the course of the audit, the Companies Act 2006 and The Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended) require us also to report certain opinions and matters as described below.

Trustees’ Annual Report (including the Strategic Report)

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit the information given in the Trustees’ Annual Report (including the Strategic Report), for the financial period for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and the Trustees’ Annual Report (including the Strategic Report) have been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

In addition, in light of the knowledge and understanding of the group and parent charitable company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we are required to report if we have identified any material misstatements in the Trustees’ Annual Report (including the Strategic Report). We have nothing to report in this respect.

Responsibilities for the financial statements and the audit

Responsibilities of the trustees for the financial statements

As explained more fully in the Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities, the trustees are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements in accordance with the applicable framework and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view. The trustees are also responsible for such internal control as they determine is necessary to enable

the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the group’s and parent charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the group and parent charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditors’ responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

We have been appointed as auditors under section 44(1) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and under the Companies Act 2006 and report in accordance with the Acts and relevant regulations made or having effect thereunder.

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditors’ report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud, is detailed below.

Based on our understanding of the group and parent charitable company/industry, we identified that the principal risks of non-compliance with laws and regulations related to employer related legislation, health and safety laws and standards imposed on the group by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), and we considered the extent to which non-compliance might have a material effect on the financial statements. We also considered those laws and regulations that have a direct impact on

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 27

the financial statements such as the Companies Act 2006, the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and regulations 6 and 8 of The Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended). We evaluated management’s incentives and opportunities for fraudulent manipulation of the financial statements (including the risk of override of controls), and determined that the principal risks were related to financial misstatement designed to overstate the financial performance and position of the group and the parent charitable company. Audit procedures performed included:

There are inherent limitations in the audit procedures described above. We are less likely to become aware of instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations that are not closely related to events and transactions reflected in the financial statements. Also, the risk of not detecting a material misstatement due to fraud is higher than the risk of not detecting one resulting from error, as fraud may involve deliberate concealment by, for example, forgery or intentional misrepresentations, or through collusion.

Use of this report

This report, including the opinions, has been prepared for and only for the charitable company’s members and trustees as a body in accordance with section 44(1)(c) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Companies Act 2006 and regulations made under those Acts (regulation 10 of The Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended) and Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006) and for no other purpose. We do not, in giving these opinions, accept or assume responsibility for any other purpose or to any other person to whom this report is shown or into whose hands it may come save where expressly agreed by our prior consent in writing.

Other required reporting

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

We have no exceptions to report arising from this responsibility.

Andy Grimbly (Senior Statutory Auditor)

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the FRC’s website at: www.frc.org.uk/ auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditors’ report.

for and on behalf of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Chartered Accountants and Statutory Auditors Cambridge

28 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities (including income and expenditure account)

For the 17 month period ended 31 August 2024

Restricted Restricted Unrestricted Unrestricted Total Total
17 month Year
Period ended ended
31 August 31 March
General Endowment Designated General 2024 2023
Notes £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Income
Donations & Legacies 2 1,244 - - 1,882 3,126 2,436
Schools Activities 1,163 - - 10,171 11,334 7,134
Programme Delivery - - - 6,730 6,730 1,227
Activities
Investments 10 - - - 136 136 87
Total Income
Expenditure		 2,407 - - 18,919 21,326 10,884
Costs of RaisingFunds 4 - - - 689 689 403
Schools Activities 4 1,225 15 116 9,980 11,336 7,072
Tools and Training for
Schools and Nurseries		 4 854 - - 4,523 5,377 1,552
Advice for Families and
YoungPeople		 4 622 - - 29 651 637
Awareness Raising and
Information		 4 - - - 105 105 676
Policyand Public Afairs 4 8 - - 127 135 76
Culture and
Infrastructure
Total Expenditure		 4 296
3,005		 -
15		 -
116		 1,668
17,121		 1,964
20,257		 1,201
11,617
Net Income/
(Expenditure) for the
Period		 (598) (15) (116) 1,798 1,069 (733)
Other Recognised
Gains/(Losses)
Investments
Unrealised
Gains/(Losses)		 10 - 239 - 54 293 (176)
Transfers between funds 789 - 691 (1,480) - -
Net Movement on Funds 191 224 575 372 1,362 (909)
Funds at 31 March 2023 544 3,247 1,211 2,149 7,151 8,061
Funds at 31 August 2024 17 735 3,471 1,786 2,521 8,513 7,151

The statement of financial activities includes all gains and losses in the period and therefore a separate statement of total recognised gains and losses has not been prepared. All of the above amounts relate to continuing activities.

Expenditure categories have been changed since prior year in order to align more closely with our key strategy areas. Please see note 18 for further details.

Notes to the consolidated financial statements are shown on pages 32-49.

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 29

Consolidated and Charity Balance Sheets

as at 31 August 2024

Group Group Charity Charity
At 31 August At 31 March At 31 August At 31 March
2024 2023 2024 2023
Notes £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
FIXED ASSETS
Tangible Assets 9a 2,250 2,624 2,161 2,514
Intangible Assets 9b 12 27 12 27
Investments
CURRENT ASSETS		 10 4,349
6,611		 4,556
7,207		 4,349
6,522		 4,556
7,097
Debtors 11 1,322 2,171 1,407 1,596
Stock 12 342 199 342 199
Cash at Bank and in Hand
CURRENT LIABILITIES		 3,665
5,329		 309
2,679		 1,396
3,145		 189
1,984
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
NET CURRENT ASSETS/(LIABILITIES)		 13 (3,427)
1,902		 (2,735)
(56)		 (1,154)
1,991		 (1,930)
54
NET ASSETS
ENDOWMENT FUNDS
Endowment Funds
RESTRICTED FUNDS		 14 8,513
3,471		 7,151
3,247		 8,513
3,471		 7,151
3,247
Fixed Asset Funds 15 91 99 91 99
Other Funds
UNRESTRICTED FUNDS		 15 644
735		 445
544		 644
735		 445
544
Designated Funds 16 1,786 1,211 1,786 1,211
General Funds 16 2,521
4,307		 2,149
3,360		 2,521
4,307		 2,149
3,360
TOTAL FUNDS 17 8,513 7,151 8,513 7,151

The surplus for the period within our Charity only financial statements is £1,362k (2023: £909k deficit)

The financial statements on pages 29 to 31 were approved by the Council on 25 February 2025 and signed on 10 March 2025 on its behalf by:

Roy Blatchford CBE Chair of Trustees

Duncan Smith Treasurer

England and Wales Charity Registration Number: 210031 Scottish Charity Registration Number: SC039947 Company Registration Number: 00099629

30 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Consolidated Statement of Cash Flow

for the 17 month period Ended 31 August 2024

----- Start of picture text -----
17 month Year
period ended ended
31 August 31 March
2024 2023
Notes £'000 £'000
Cash flow generated from/(used by) operating activities
Net cash generated from/(used by) operating activities A 2,843 (984)
Cash flows from investing activities:
Dividends and interest from investments 136 87
Purchase of property, plant and equipment (108) (225)
Purchase of intangible Assets (15) (27)
Sale of investments 500 300
Net cash generated from investing activities 513 (135)
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the reporting period 3,356 (849)
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the reporting period 309 1,158
at 1 April
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the reporting year at B 3,665 309
31 March
2023
Notes to the Consolidated cash flow statement £'000
A Net movement of funds for the reporting period 1,362 (909)
Adjustments for:
Depreciation charges 421 333
Amortisation charges 3 27
Disposal of property, plant and equipment 61 1
Disposal of Intangible Assets 27 -
(Increase)/decrease in stock (143) 4
Decrease/(increase) in debtors 849 (134)
Increase/(decrease) in creditors 692 (395)
Dividends and interest from investments (136) (87)
(Gains)/Losses on investments (293) 176
Net cash generated from/(used by) operating activities 2,843 (984)
2023
£'000
B Analysis of cash and cash equivalents
Cash in hand 3,665 309
Total cash and cash equivalents 3,665 309
----- End of picture text -----

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 31

Notes to the consolidated financial statements

1. Accounting policies

Basis of Preparation and Going Concern

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with applicable accounting standards in the United Kingdom, under the historical cost convention (as modified by the revaluation of certain fixed assets) and in accordance with applicable United Kingdom Accounting Standards. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP), “Accounting and Reporting by Charities” published (revised 2019), FRS 102, the Companies Act 2006, the Charities Act 2011 the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 and the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005.

The financial statements are prepared on a going concern basis and the accounting policies have been applied consistently. Detailed three-year financial modelling and scenario analysis has been performed demonstrating that the Charity has sufficient cash and is able to meet its financial commitments for at least 12 months following the signing of these financial statements. Scenarios considered a base case forecast adjusted for included rising costs and static income levels.

(i) Our Charity is a public benefit entity.

(ii) Income

Income is shown gross with the exception of funds raised by local fundraising groups, which is stated after deduction of direct expenses such as hire of premises and ticket printing costs.

----- Start of picture text -----
Endowment income Income which increases the capital value of the
endowment funds.
Restricted income Income, the expenditure of which is subject to specific
conditions placed on its use by the donor.
Unrestricted income Income which has no constraints placed on its use and
may be expended on any of the Charity's charitable
objectives.
----- End of picture text -----

Investment income from endowment funds is accounted for as unrestricted, restricted or endowment income as defined by the terms of the endowment.

Income is accrued and included in the SOFA when the Group is entitled to the income, receipt can be measured and is probable.

Income from the sale of goods and services is recognised to the extent that the goods and services have been provided. If a grant contract contains the right to receive periodic payments, these receipts are recognised when they fall due and on completion of I CAN Charity’s contractual obligations for the period.

Donations are recognised when received. Donations in kind are recognised at their value to the Group when received and an equivalent amount is included in the appropriate cost line in the SOFA. Legacies are recognised when probate has been granted and the income can be valued with reasonable certainty. Legacies received in the form of property or investments are valued at their fair value.

Where incoming resources are received before goods and services have been provided, these are recorded as deferred income within creditors. Deferred income is released to incoming resources at the point of delivery of the goods and services.

32 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

(iii) Funds

Funds are held in reserves having due regard to the requirements of the donor and the needs of the organisation.

Endowment Funds represent funds, the capital of which is not freely available to I CAN and must be held in perpetuity unless otherwise authorised by the Charity Commission, or so permitted by the trust under which the fund was set up. These funds cannot normally be used to directly support general running costs. Please see (x) below for further detail on capital funds.

Restricted Funds represent the balances of donations and legacies held in trust and which can only be expended in accordance with the specific terms laid down by the donors.

Fixed Asset Funds represent amounts already expended on fixed assets all of which are used to support the work of our Charity. These assets include freehold and leasehold properties as well as equipment and motor vehicles.

Designated Funds are identified by the Trustees for approved expenditure for schools’ development and specific projects critical to the operation and development of our Charity.

General Funds are the only funds our Charity has to use freely for the day-to-day needs of our Charity and to provide protection against future risks, including reductions in voluntary income, investment income fluctuations and variations in other revenue streams. The Trustees have set a target level of unrestricted general funds at £1.75m based on their evaluation of I CAN’s requirements.

Where required, transfers are made between funds as set out in Notes 15 to 16.

(iv) Expenditure

Expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis. Expenditure includes attributable VAT which cannot be recovered. Provisions are established when our Charity is subject to legal or constructive obligations and will incur costs in the fulfilment of these obligations.

Fundraising costs are those costs which are directly incurred by our Charity in performing fundraising activities. They also include an equitable share of support costs and general overheads.

Costs incurred in support of the services provided by our Charity have been allocated to activity cost categories on a basis consistent with the use of resources.

Governance costs comprise those incurred in the governance of our Charity and are primarily associated with strategic planning, constitutional and statutory requirements.

Rentals payable under operating leases are charged on a straight-line basis over the term of the lease.

Expenditure categories have been changed since the prior year in order to align more closely with our key strategy areas. Please see note 18 for further details.

(v) Tangible Assets

Tangible assets costing more than £1,000 are capitalised and held on the balance sheet at purchase cost. Depreciation is provided on tangible assets to write them off over their estimated useful lives as follows: -

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 33

----- Start of picture text -----
Freehold Property 50 years
Leasehold Property Life of lease
Buildings Renovations 10 years
Equipment & Motor Vehicles 4 years
----- End of picture text -----

(vi) Intangible Assets

Intangible assets comprise website and management system costs. Intangible assets are held on the balance sheet at cost less accumulated amortisation and impairment losses. Intangible assets are amortised on a straight-line basis over the expected useful life of three years.

(vii) Impairment

Impairment reviews are conducted when events and changes in circumstances indicate that an impairment may have occurred. If any asset is found to have a carrying value materially higher than its recoverable amount, it is written down accordingly.

(viii) Stock

Stock is valued at the lower of cost and net realisable value, and is used on a first in, first out basis.

(ix) Financial Instruments

The Group has elected to apply the provisions of Section 11 ‘Basic Financial Instruments’ and Section 12 ‘other Financial Instruments Issues’ of FRS 102 in full to all of its financial instruments.

Recognition and measurement of fnancial instruments

Financial assets and financial liabilities are recognised when the Group becomes a party to the contractual provisions of the instrument.

Classifcation of fnancial instruments

Financial instruments are classified as liabilities or assets according to the substance of the contractual arrangements entered into.

Fixed asset investments

Fixed asset investments are initially measured at transaction price. Transaction price includes transaction costs, except where investments are measured at fair value through the Statement of Financial Activities when transaction costs are expensed to the Statement of Financial Activities as incurred. The fair value of investments quoted on a recognised stock exchange are measured at market value through the Statement of Financial Activities. Realised and unrealised gains and losses are calculated by reference to the market valuation of the relevant investments at the start and end of the financial year.

Debtors

Debtors (including accrued income) which are receivable within one year and which do not constitute a financial transaction are initially measured at the transaction price and subsequently measured at amortised cost, being the transaction price less any amounts settled and any impairment losses.

A provision for impairment for trade debtors is established when there is objective evidence that the amounts due will not be collected according to the original terms of the contract. Impairment losses are recognised in the Statement of Financial Activities for the excess of the carrying value

34 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

of the trade debtor over the present value of the future cash flows discounted using the original effective interest rate.

Subsequent reversals of an impairment loss that objectively relate to an event occurring after the impairment loss was recognised are recognised immediately in the Statement of Financial Activities.

Creditors

Creditors (including accruals) payable within one year that do not constitute a financial transaction are initially measured at the transaction price and subsequently measured at amortised costs, being transaction price less any amounts settled.

Ofset of fnancial instruments

Financial assets and financial liabilities are offset only when the Group currently has a legally enforceable right to set off the recognised amounts and intends either to settle on a net basis, or to realise the asset and settle the liability simultaneously.

Derecognition of fnancial assets and liabilities

A financial asset is derecognised only when the contractual rights to cash flows expire or are settled, or substantially all the risks and rewards of ownership are transferred to another party or if some (but not substantially all) risks and rewards of ownership are retained but control of the asset has transferred to another party that is able to sell the asset in its entirety to an unrelated third party. A financial liability (or part thereof) is derecognised when the obligation specified when the obligation specified in the contract is discharged cancelled or expires.

(x) Capital Funds

Included with Endowment Funds are Capital Funds which are assets held on behalf of three trusts which are constituted as linked charities of I CAN, as per a direction made under Section 12 of the Charities Act 2011. The results of two permanent endowment funds, I CAN Consolidated Fund and Ministering Children’s League, and the expendable endowment fund, the Countess of Meath Fund, have been amalgamated into our Charity’s financial statements. Their Trustee is I CAN and their purposes are consistent with the objectives of I CAN (see Note 14 for detail of these linked charities).

(xi) Pensions

Pension contributions are made under defined contribution schemes, the assets of which are held in separately administered funds. Pension contributions are charged to the Statement of Financial Activities when payable.

Pension fund contributions for teaching staff are also made to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme which is treated as if it were a defined contribution scheme under exemptions contained in FRS102 as described further in Note 22 below. These contributions are charged to the Statement of Financial Activities in the accounting period in which they fall due.

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 35

2. Donations and Legacies 17 month
period ended		 Year
ended
31 August 31 March
2024 2023
£'000 £'000
Statutory Grants 896 470
Grant MakingTrusts 818 940
Major Gifts 130 238
Corporate Donations and Sponsorship 168 82
Legacies 74 55
Other Donations and Events 1,040 651
3,126 2,436

Other donations also includes pro bono professional services support provided during the period totalling £713k (year ended 31 March £2023: £440k). These have been measured at their fair value.

There were no donations from Trustees and key management personnel (2023: nil).

3. Government Grants

3. Government Grants
17 month Year
period ended ended
31 August 31 March
2024 2023
£'000 £'000
Department for Education (DfE)
School Grants (Education Funding Agency) 3,329 1,562
Other Grants (Delivery of HLE and SEND projects by I CAN) 473 310
These grants have been analysed in the SOFA as follows: 3,802
17 month
period ended
31 August
2024		 1,872
Year
ended
31 March
2023
£'000 £’000
Schools Activities 3,329 1,562
Donations and Legacies 473
3,802		 310
1,872

36 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

4. Analysis of expenditure

4. Analysis of expenditure
Staf Costs Depreciation Other 17 month
period ended
31 August
2024
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Direct charitable expenditure
Schools Activities 8,798 371
2,167		 11,336
Tools & Training for Schools and Nurseries 4,586 2
789		 5,377
Advice for Families and Young People 464 - 187 651
Awareness Raisingand Information 14 - 91 105
Policy and Public Afairs 94 41 135
Culture & infrastructure 247 49 1,668 1,964
14,203 422 4,943 19,568
Costs of Generating funds
Fundraising		 382
14,585		 -
422		 307
5,250		 689
20,257
2023 Analysis of expenditure Staf Costs Depreciation Other Year
ended
31 March
2023
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Direct charitable expenditure
Schools Activities 5,225 289 1528 7,072
Tools & Training for Schools and Nurseries 834 16 703 1,552
Advice for Families and Young People 248 - 390 637
Awareness Raisingand Information 185 11 480 676
Policy and Public Afairs 62 - 13 76
Culture & infrastructure 861 44 296 1,201
7,445 359 3,410 11,214
Costs of Generating funds
Fundraising		 309
7,818		 0
360		 94
3,439		 403
11,617
17 month Year
period ended ended
31 August 31 March
2024 2023
£'000 £'000
Staf costs:
Wages and Salaries 11,904 5,896
Social Securitycosts 1,082 567
Otherpension and beneft costs 993 693
Agencystaf and consultants 446 464
Other staf costs 160 198
14,585 7,818

Termination payments were made during the period to 1 (2023: 2) employees totalling £3K (2023: £35k)

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 37

The average number of employees during the period was 295 (2023: 221). Their full-time equivalents would be 231 (2023: 185) which can be apportioned by categories as follows: educational services 146 (2023: 143), fundraising and awareness raising 13 (2023: 13) administration 13 (2023: 9) and programme delivery 59 (2023: 20).

20).
Number for 17 month 12 month Number for
period ended comparable Number year ended
31 August for 31 August 31 March
2024 2024 2023
Emoluments of higher paid employees:
£60,000 to £70,000 23 5 5
£70,001 to £80,000 17 1 2
£80,001 to £90,000 6 4 2
£90,001 to £100,000 1 1 -
£100,001 to £110,000 1 - -
£110,001 to £120,000 4 - -
£120,001 to £130,000 1 - -

The SORP requires disclosure of employee emoluments of greater than £60,000 during the period for which financial statements are being prepared. The disclosure above for the 17 months ended 31 August 2024 reflects both the level of emoluments over the full 17 months along with a 12-month comparable period.

The calculation of the number of employees receiving emoluments of over £60,000 during the full 17 month period is distorted by the length of the extended accounting period and does not represent a change to salary bandings, nor have there been any significant changes to salary levels. So as not to mislead users of the accounts, we have taken the decision to also disclose the comparable annual equivalent.

Termination payments of £3k (2023: £31k) were made to 1 (2023: 1) higher paid employee.

There were contributions of £143,140 made to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme for 4 higher paid employees (2023: £50,116: 3). Contributions of £96,901 (2023: £44,225) were paid to a defined pension contribution scheme for 7 (2023: £44,225: 6) higher paid employees.

Key management personnel

Key management personnel of our Charity are the Senior Management Team as listed on page 51. The total amount of employee benefits for these 6 (2023: 8) positions was £808,431 (2023: £748,775).

5. Allocation of support costs

5. Allocation of support costs
Occupancy Human Finance and Governance 17 month
Resources Information (note 6) period
Technology ended
31 August
2024
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Cost of raising funds 119 5 61 53 238
Schools Activities - 179 513 67 759
Tools and training for Schools and 40 4 7 2 53
Nurseries
Advice for Families and YoungPeople 40 4 7 2 53
Awareness Raisingand Information 110 2 6 8 126
Policy& Public afairs 40 4 7 2 53
Culture & infrastructure 40 4 7 2 53
389 202 608 136 1,335

38 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Support and occupancy costs have been allocated to activity cost categories on a basis consistent with the use of resources, and staff costs by an assessment of time spent and other costs by their usage.

Analysis of support costs

Analysis of support costs
Staf Costs Other Depreciation 17 month
period ended
31 August
2024
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Governance (note 6) 119 17 - 136
Occupancy 69 318 2 389
Human Resources 91 111 - 200
Finance and Information Technology 272 288 48 608
551 734 50 1,335

The prior year comparatives are as follows:

Occupancy Human Finance and Governance Year
Resources Information (note 6) ended
Technology 31 March
2023
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Cost of raising funds 66 4 55 44 169
Schools Activities - 119 461 56 636
Tools and training for Schools and 22 3 6 2 33
Nurseries
Advice for Families and YoungPeople 22 3 6 2 33
Awareness Raisingand Information 61 1 5 7 74
Policy& Public afairs 22 3 6 2 33
Culture & infrastructure 22
217		 3
135		 6
545		 2
114		 33
1,011

Analysis of support costs

Analysis of support costs
Staf Costs Other Depreciation Year
ended
31 March
2023
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Governance (note 6) 93 21 - 114
Occupancy 38 176 3 217
Human Resources 104 31 - 135
Finance and Information Technology 219 285 41 545
454 513 44 1,011

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 39

6. Governance costs

17 month Year
period ended ended
31 August 31 March
2024 2023
£'000 £'000
Strategic planning and management 66 68
Auditors’ remuneration – Taxation compliance services 6 5
Auditors’ remuneration – audit services 64 41
136 114

7. Consolidated financial statements

Our Charity has taken advantage of the exemption provided by 408 of the Companies Act 2006 and the Charities SORP (FRS 102) not to publish its own Income and Expenditure account. The net movement of funds for the year within our Charity financial statements is a surplus of £1,362k (2023: £909k deficit).

8. Trustees’ remuneration

In accordance with our Charity’s Memorandum of Association, no Trustee holds a salaried office with the Charity and no Trustee received remuneration for their role as a Trustee. In 2024, one Trustee, Julie Dockrell, received payment of £2,000 for work performed for the charity on an arm’s length basis (2023: nil).

9. Fixed assets

9a. Tangible assets

Group Buildings Freehold Leasehold Equipment & Total
Renovations Property Property Motor
Vehicles
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Cost
At 1 April 2023 2,892 3,208 196 1,336 7,632
Additions 78 - - 30 108
Disposals (62) - (196) (16) (274)
At 31 August 2024 2,908 3,208 - 1,350 7,466
Accumulated Depreciation
At 1 April 2023 (1,490) (2,272) (196) (1,050) (5,008)
Charge for theyear (184) (89) - (148) (421)
Disposals 16 - 196 1 213
At 31 August 2024 (1,658) (2,361) - (1,197) (5,216)
Net book value at 31 August
2024		 1,250 847 - 153 2,250
Net book value at 31 March
2023		 1,402 936 - 286 2,624

40 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Charity Buildings Freehold Leasehold Equipment & Total
Renovations Property Property Motor
Vehicles
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Cost
At 1 April 2023 2,872 3,208 196 1,236 7,512
Additions 64 - - 41 105
Disposals (62) - (196) (16) (274)
At 31 August 2024 2,874 3,208 - 1,261 7,343
Accumulated Depreciation
At 1 April 2023 (1,489) (2,272) (196) (1,040) (4,997)
Charge for theyear (181) (89) - (128) (398)
Disposals 16 - 196 1 213
At 31 August 2024 (1,654) (2,361) - (1,167) (5,182)
Net book value at 31 August
2024		 1,220 847 - 94 2,161
Net book value at 31 March
2023		 1,383 936 - 196 2,515

Of the Freehold Property, £316k (2023: £330k) of the net book value relates to the Ministering Children’s League fund, which is a permanent endowment.

9b. Intangible assets

9b. Intangible assets
Total
£'000
Cost
At 1 April 2023 200
Additions 15
Disposals (27)
At 31 August 2024 188
Accumulated Amortisation
At 1 April 2023 (173)
Charge for the year
At 31 August 2024		 (3)
(176)
Net Book Value at 31 August 2024 12
Net Book Value at 31 March 2023 27

10. Investments – Group and Charity

As at 31 August 2024 As at 31 March 2023
£'000 £'000
At 1 April 4,556 5,032
Disposal (500) (300)
Unrealisedgains/(losses) 293 (176)
At 31 August 2024 / 31 March 2023 4,349 4,556

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 41

Included within the balance are investments with a value of £2,896k (2023: £2,657k) which relate to the group’s endowment funds as set out in note 14.

Investments in both years were held in managed UK investments funds. In 2024, £1,453k (2023: £1,898k) were held in Open Ended Investment Companies (OEICs) with the balance being held in Common Investment Funds.

Investments also include an investment in the trading subsidiary company at a cost of £4 (2023: £4). I CAN Charity owns 100% of the share capital of its trading subsidiary, Speech and Language UK Services Limited. Speech and Language UK Services Limited is incorporated in the UK and the address of the registered office is the same as that for I CAN Charity (trading as Speech and Language UK) as shown on page 50.

Investment Income

Investment Income
17 month Year
period ended ended
31 August 31 March
2024 2023
£'000 £'000
Dividends and interest on Listed Investments 136 87
136 87

11. Debtors

11. Debtors
Group Charity
As at As at As at As at
31 August 31 March 31 August 31 March
2024 2023 2024 2023
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Debtors for school fees 578 938 - -
Other Trade Debtors 358 556 358 556
Other Debtors 47 34 49 28
Amounts due from subsidiary - - 758 420
Prepayments and accrued income 339 643 242 592
1,322 2,171 1,407 1,596

Included within trade debtors is a provision for doubtful debts totalling £91k (31 March 2023: nil).

12. Stock

Group and Charity Group and Charity
As at 31 August 2024 As at 31 March 2023
£'000 £'000
Goods for resale 342 199
342 199

Stock is stated after a provision for impairment of £38k (2023 £34k).

42 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

13. Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year

Group Group Charity Charity
2024 2023 2024 2023
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Trade creditors 425 271 190 210
Other creditors 106 56 87 56
Tax and Social Security 766 425 288 425
Accruals 210 187 136 184
Deferred Income 1,920 1,796 453 1,055
3,427 2,735 1,154 1,930

13.a. Deferred Income

Group Group Charity Charity
2024 2023 2024 2023
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Balance as at 1 April 2023 1,796 2,096 1,055 1,408
Amount released to income (13,939) (11,799) (2,525) (5,142)
Amount deferred in year 14,063 11,499 1,923 4,789
Balance as at 31 August 2024 1,920 1,796 453 1,055

14. Endowment funds – Group and Charity

As at 1 April Income (Expense) Investment gains As at 31 August
2023 2024
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Expendable
Endowment
Countess of 45 - - - 45
Meath
Permanent
Endowment
Princess Alice 430 - - 39 469
Fund
I CAN 792 - - 52 844
Consolidated
Fund
Ministering 1,980 - (15) 148 2,113
Children’s
League Fund
Total 3,247 - (15) 239 3,471

Countess of Meath

Income is to be treated as restricted and applied for the benefit of the schools.

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 43

Princess Alice Fund, I CAN Consolidated Fund and Ministering Children’s League Funds

These are linked charities of I CAN Charity and have been included within our Charity funds above. Income may be used for any general charitable purpose of our Charity.

With the exception of the Countess of Meath endowment, only income from the endowment funds may be expended by the Charity. The capital itself must be held in perpetuity unless otherwise authorised by the Charity Commission or so permitted under the trust under which the fund was set up.

15. Restricted funds – Group and Charity

Balance Restricted Restricted Fund Balance
1 April Income Expenditure Transfers 31 August
2023 2024
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Fixed Asset Funds
Dawn House 11 - - - 11
Dawn House Chimes 56 - (8) - 48
Meath School Minibus 3 - - - 3
Meath School Fencing 3 - - - 3
CRM project 26 - - - 26
Total Fixed Asset Funds 99 - (8) - 91
Other Funds
Dawn House General		 86 78 (97) 32 99
Dawn House Motor Vehicles 4 - (3) - 1
Dawn House Food Tech Room 37 - (37) - -
Dawn House Sports Hall 35 - (34) - 1
Dawn House Capex 126 435 (322) - 239
Dawn House Assessment - 1 - - 1
Dawn House Shakespeare Film
Festival		 - - - 1 1
Dawn House Devolved Capital
Formula		 - 16 (3) - 13
Dawn House Opening Schools
Facilities		 - 23 (23) - -
Dawn House Laptops
Meath General		 5
293
32		 -
553
106		 -
(519)
(33)		 33
-		 5
360
105
Meath Capital 58 187 (227) - 18
Meath FamilySupport Project 5 - - - 5
Meath Playground 43 - (9) - 34
Meath Residential - 181 (183) 2 -
Meath HolidayProject 6 - (3) - 3
Meath SupportingFamilyFund 3 - - - 3
Meath Assessments - 135 (148) 13 -
Meath Pre-Phonics Project -
147		 -
609		 (32)
(635)		 65
80		 33
201

44 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Balance Restricted Restricted Fund Balance
April 2023 Income Expenditure Transfers 31 August
2024
£'000 £'000 £'000 £000
Programme Funding
Talk for Work -East Sussex - 5 (5) - -
Enquiryservice - - (39) 39 -
Talk for Work -Kent - 14 (14) - -
Talk for Work West Midlands - 18 (18) - -
Talk Boost 2023 (Newham and - 7 (7) - -
Haringey)
EarlyTalk Boost Evaluation - 148 (148) - -
Early Talk Boost Tower Hamlets - 11 (11) - -
Digital and TechnologyGrant - 146 (296) 150 -
Digital FamilySupport Progress Checker 48 (48) - -
West Somerset EarlyTalk - 7 (7) - -
Cumbria Communication Project - (9) (18) 27 -
Albemarle nursery - 202 (202) - -
VCS HLE (home LearningEnvironment) - 32 (357) 325 -
VCS SEND - 116 (116) - -
English Hubs TrainingCentres - 15 (15) - -
Hiscox Foundation - 18 (19) - -
EarlyYears PathwayProject - 9 (9) - -
What Works Database - 10 (10) - -
Tots Talking- Vanguard - (10) (8) 19 -
Mercers - 120 (120) - -
Tiered Ofer Development - (2) 2 -
Westminster Talk Boost 5 - - - 5
Stockton on Tees - 126 (126) - -
Permira Talk Boost - 39 (39) - -
HLE Halton FamilyHubs - 60 (60) - -
Speech, Language and - (33) (8) 100 59
Communication Alliance
HolyFamilyMAT consultancy - 38 (38) - -
Talk Boost Cambridgeshire - - (14) 14 -
Oxfordshire EarlyYearspathway project - 7 (7) - -
Policy&public afairs - 19 - - 19
Prosiect Pengwin - 4 (4) - -
Rayners
Rayners Teletherapy - 1 (1) - -
Rayners DLD Pilot - 2 (2) - -
Rayners TCT Grants - 10 (10) - -
Rayners General - 4 (4) - -
Rayners Research Centre - 63 (63) - -
5 1,245 (1,843) 676 83
Total Other Funds 445 2,407 (2,997) 789 644
Total Restricted Funds 544 2,407 (3,005) 789 735

Our utmost thanks go to all our invaluable funders.

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 45

Fixed Asset funds

Dawn House School – Funds raised for Dawn House School buildings and equipment. Dawn House Chimes - Funds raised for buildings and equipment in the Chimes provision at Dawn House School

Meath Fencing – funds raised for fencing works at Meath School Meath minibus – Funds raised for a minibus for Meath School

CRM Project – CRM project funded by a funder who wishes to remain anonymous.

Funds have been raised directly to support children in both our schools, Dawn House School and Meath School.

General funds are raised to achieve the objectives of our Charity and two schools and further funds are raised for specific purposes for the school’s benefits as noted above.

Charity of Sir Richard Whittington (for which the Mercers’ Company is Corporate Trustee)

The third instalment of a three-year commitment was received to support the development, testing and evaluation of I CAN’s Early Talk Boost intervention specifically for children with English as an Additional Language (EAL), with this project finishing in May 2024.

Department for Education

Department for Education (Home Learning Environment) - Led by I CAN, the Talking with your Little One project, provides three approaches to support early communication development in the under 3s in the target areas of Coventry, Halton, Leicester and Telford & Wrekin.

Department for Education (EY SEND) - Led by National Children’s Bureau and delivered in partnership with Council for Disabled Children, nasen, I CAN, Dingley’s Promise and Contact, this project aims to improve the quality of provision for children with SEND in the Early Years through a focus on professional development.

16. Unrestricted funds – Group and Charity

Balance Change in Fund transfers Balance
1 April 2023 Period in Period 31 August
2024
£'000 £’000 £'000 £'000
Designated Funds:
Fixed Asset Funds
Schools 1,152 (116) 1,036
Planned investment in infrastructure and operations - 691 691
Premises Repair/Dilapidation 59 - 59
Total Designated Funds 1,211 (116) 691 1,786
General Funds 2,149 1,063 (691) 2,521
Total Unrestricted Funds 3,360 947 - 4,307

46 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Designated Fixed Asset Funds

Fixed Asset designated funds represent the net book value of the fixed assets used for the delivery of our Charity’s direct charitable activities (not otherwise funded by Capital or Restricted Funds). This fund is separated from the general funds of the charity in recognition that they are essential in order to meet he day to day work of the charity, and are not regarded as realisable with ease.

Planned investment in infrastructure represents the identification of funds to allow for continued investment in key strategy areas (where work is already underway), to enable ongoing progress against our business plan during the financial year ended 31 August 2025.

17. Analysis of net assets – Group

General Designated Restricted Endowment Balance 31
Funds Funds Funds Funds August 2024
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Tangible Assets 832 1,036 66 316 2,250
Intangible Assets (13) - 25 - 12
Investments 1,453 - - 2,896 4,349
Net Current Assets 249 750 644 259 1,902
Total Net Assets 2,521 1,786 735 3,471 8,513
General Designated Restricted Endowment Balance 31
Funds Fixed Asset Funds Funds March 2023
Funds
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Tangible Assets 1,067 1,152 75 330 2,624
Intangible Assets 2 - 25 - 27
Investments 1,889 - - 2,657 4,556
Net Current Liabilities (819) 59 444 260 (56)
Total Net Assets 2,149 1,211 544 3,247 7,151

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 47

18. Prior year comparator for SOFA

We have taken the decision to more closely align our financial reporting against our key strategy areas, resulting in a change to the classification of expenditure for the 17 months ended 31 August 2024 compared to the classification of expenditure that was presented in the Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities and associated notes for year ended 31 March 2023 in the financial statements. The new classification reflects the existing and continuing strategy, and does not represent a change in the Charity’s direction, operations or activities.

The classification of expenditure that was presented in the Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities in the financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2023 is shown below.

Restricted Funds Unrestricted Endowment Total
Funds Funds
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Income
Donations & Legacies 1,685 751 - 2,436
Schools Activities 672 6,462 - 7,134
Programme DeliveryActivities - 1,227 - 1,227
Investments - 87 - 87
Total Income 2,357 8,527 - 10,884
Expenditure
Costs of Raising Funds		 - 403 - 403
Schools Activities 673 6,330 10 7,013
Programme DeliveryActivities 1,701 2,825 - 3,526
Awareness Raisingand Information - 675 - 675
Total Expenditure 2,374 9,233 10 11,617
Net Income/(Expenditure) for the Year (17) (706) (10) (733)
Other Recognised Gains
Investment Unrealised Gains		 - (69) (107) (176)
Net Movement on Funds (17) (775) (117) (909)
Funds at 1 April 2022 561 4,135 3,364 8,060
Funds at 31 March 2023 544 3,360 3,247 7,151

19. Commitments under Operating Leases

On 13 April 2021 a new 5 year lease was signed between our Charity and its landlord with annual rental of £96,064 (2023: £96,064). This included a 3-month rent free period from March 2021 with our first rent due in July 2021. The break clause was enacted after the first 3 years. On 21 March 2024 a new 5 year lease was signed between our Charity and a new landlord with annual rent of £57,750. This included a 6 month half rent period and a further 3 month half rent free period after the first 3 years if the break clause is not enacted.

enacted.
17 month Year
period ended ended
31 August 31 March
2024 2023
£'000 £'000
Payment not later than one year 55 96
Payment later than oneyear and not later than fveyears 191 96
Total commitments under operating lease 246 192

48 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

20. Capital

The Company is limited by guarantee and has no share capital. The liability of the 15 members under the guarantee is limited to £1 each.

21. Related Party Transactions

I CAN Charity has an active wholly owned subsidiary: Speech and Language UK Services Limited. The amount outstanding to Speech and Language UK Services Limited is disclosed in note 11.

I CAN Charity also has a fully owned dormant subsidiary, Speech and Language UK Limited. A company limited by guarantee company number: 14369678. This company was incorporated on 22 September 2022.

Key management personnel and Trustee remuneration disclosures are given in note 4 and 8 respectively.

22. Pension obligations

The Group participates in two pension schemes:

The total pension cost for the group was £955k (2023: £672k).

Teachers’ Pensions Scheme

The TPS is an unfunded defined benefit scheme. Contributions on a ‘pay as you go’ basis are credited to the Exchequer under arrangements governed by the Superannuation Act 1972.

The latest actuarial review of the TPS for which information is available was carried out as at 31 March 2020 and in accordance with The Public Service Pensions (Valuations and Employer Cost Cap) (Amendment) Directions 2018. The valuation report was published on 26 October 2023. The key results of the valuation are:

Employee contributions in 2024 and 2023 were based on tiered contribution rates as follows:

Contribution rate 2023-24 2022-23
Lower salary Higher Salary Lower salary Higher Salary
7.40% - £32,135 - £29,188
8.60% £32,136 £43,259 £29,188 £39,291
9.60% £43,260 £51,292 £39,291 £46,587
10.20% £51,293 £67,979 £46,587 £61,743
11.30% £67,980 £91,697 £61,743 £84,194
11.70% £91,698 > £84,194 >

Under the definitions set out in FRS 102 section 28, the TPS is a multi-employer pension scheme. The Government Actuary is unable to identify our Charity’s share of the underlying assets and liabilities of the scheme. Accordingly, our Charity has accounted for its contributions as if it were a defined contribution scheme.

Annual report and financial statements | Speech and Language UK | 49

Reference and administrative details of the charity, its trustees and advisers

Principal office and registered office

I CAN Charity (operating as Speech and Language UK) 17-21 Wenlock Road London N1 7GT

Registered in England Company Registered Number 00099629 England and Wales Charity Registered Number 210031 Scottish Charity Registered Number SC039947

T: 020 7843 2510 | E: info@speechandlangauge.org.uk | Web: speechandlanguage.org.uk

Vice Presidents

The Most Rev and Right Hon The Lord Archbishop of York The Right Rev and Right Hon The Lord Bishop of London Mrs. Susan Blackwood

Ms. Frances Jacob Mrs. Lesley James CBE Mr. Oliver Thompson

----- Start of picture text -----
The council Date Elected Position Sub-Committees
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Mr. Roy Blatchford CBE 29.07.2020 Chair Finance and Audit, Policy and Programme
Development, Income and Engagement, People
and Remuneration
Mr. Stuart Shepley Co-opted from Treasurer Finance and Audit, People and Remuneration
21.09.2016
Elected 27.09.2017
– 01.01.2024
Mr Duncan Smith 01.01.2024 Treasurer Finance and Audit, People and Remuneration
Dr. Judy Clegg BSc, 21.09.2016 Policy and Programme Development
PhD, MRCSLT
Ms. Susan Gregory 25.09.2014-21.09.2023 Education, Policyand Programme Development
Mr. Riccardo Basile 27.09.2017 Income and Engagement
Ms. Ann Gross (Brown) 30.10.2019 Policyand Programme Development, Education
Mr. Simon Wright 30.10.2019 Income and Engagement, Finance and Audit
Mr. Luke Manning 28.10.2020 Income and Engagement
Mr. James Willan QC 02.11.2021 People and Remuneration, Finance and Audit
Ms. Julie Dockrell 24.02.2022 Policy and Programme Development, People and
Remuneration
Mr. Narayan Deb 24.02.2022 Income and Engagement, People and
Remuneration

50 | Speech and Language UK | Annual report and financial statements

Senior Management Team

Chief Executive Ms. Jane Harris Deputy Chief Executive Mrs. Carol Payne Director of Education Mr. Neil Maslen Director of Fundraising, Marketing and Communications Mr. Samir Afhim Director of Policy and Evidence Ms. Louisa Reeves Director of Finance and IT Mrs. Sarah Pearson Principal of Dawn House School Ms. Jenny McConnell Principal of Meath School Ms. Majella Delaney

Solicitors

Bates Wells 10 Queen Street Place London EC4R 1BE

Bankers

The Co-operative Bank 1 Islington High Street London N1 9TR

Independent Auditors

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP The Maurice Wilkes Building St John’s Innovation Park Cowley Road Cambridge CB4 0DS

Linked charities

Andrew Duncan Charity Brentwood Fund Childrens Home Exmouth Fund Claude Lewis Bounty (The Part Applicable to the Body incorporate) Earl of Suffolk’s Invalid Children’s Aid Fund Edith Edwards Fund Grassendale Charity ICAN Consolidated Fund

Roehampton Children’s Rest Fund St. Mary’s Home Haslemere Fund Sunshine Guild Fund The Charity of Mary Countess of Meath 1887 The Mary Countess of Meath Trust Fund The Ministering Children’s League

speechandlanguage.org.uk Follow us at @SpeechAndLangUK

Speech and Language UK is the operating name of I CAN Charity, a registered charity in England and Wales (210031) and Scotland (SC039947), which is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (00099629). Registered address: 17-21 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7GT.