AMARITAN
Samaritans Annual
Report and Accounts
2021/22
## **Trustees’ Annual Report and Accounts**
Strategic report ........................................................................................................................... 3 Letter from Chair and CEO .................................................................................................................. 3 Our strategy ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) .............................................................................................................. 5 About this document .......................................................................................................................... 6 Our key achievements ........................................................................................................................ 7 Service ............................................................................................................................................................ 7 Access........................................................................................................................................................... 10 Influence ...................................................................................................................................................... 13 Evidence ....................................................................................................................................................... 20 Learning from the pandemic........................................................................................................................ 22 Financial review ................................................................................................................................ 23 Risks and uncertainties ..................................................................................................................... 27 How we manage risk .................................................................................................................................... 27 Governance report .................................................................................................................... 28 Our structure ..................................................................................................................................... 28 Our governance ................................................................................................................................ 29 Incidents and reporting ..................................................................................................................... 32 Service quality and safeguarding reporting – April 2021-March 2022 ........................................................ 32 Fundraising Activities Statement ...................................................................................................... 33 Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities ............................................................................................ 35 Independent Auditor’s Report to the Members and Trustees of Samaritans .................................. 36 Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities ................................................................................ 40 Charity Statement of Financial Activities .......................................................................................... 41 Consolidated and Charity Balance Sheet .......................................................................................... 42 Cashflow statement .......................................................................................................................... 43 Notes to the Accounts ...................................................................................................................... 44 Reference and administrative details ............................................................................................... 66 Board of Trustees ......................................................................................................................................... 66 Samaritans senior staff ................................................................................................................................ 67 Regional Directors (as of 31 March 2022).................................................................................................... 67 Samaritans branches (A-J) ............................................................................................................................ 68 Samaritans branches (K-Z) ........................................................................................................................... 69 Donors and supporters ..................................................................................................................... 70
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## **Strategic report**
## Letter from Chair and CEO
## **Progress in difficult times**
Welcome to Samaritans’ Annual Report 2021/22. We’re proud to say it’s been a year of enormous progress for the charity in many ways. Progress that means – even in these uncertain times – we will reduce lives lost to suicide.
The surge of interest in Samaritans we reported last year has translated into the biggest boost in volunteer numbers in five years. We warmly welcome everyone who joined Samaritans this year; it’s our people – 22,000 volunteers and 300 staff – who make Samaritans who we are.
Samaritans’ incredible volunteers spent over one million hours answering calls for help by phone, email, online chat and letter. Every 10 seconds, our volunteers answered a call for help from someone struggling to cope. When pandemic restrictions lifted, volunteers were also back out in communities, reaching thousands of people at events and festivals.
We supported thousands more through our self-help and Veterans apps. And it was amazing to reach the milestone of having trained 25,000 rail workers to make life-saving interventions on the railways. Underpinning all our services was our total commitment to quality standards – we made good progress in updating our training and development programme this year.
Samaritans doesn’t just support people in crisis today, we also strive for a society in which fewer people reach crisis point. This year we worked to influence parliaments and assemblies across our five jurisdictions as new online safety legislation was being drawn up. We secured some important changes to the proposed law to create a kinder, safer internet but we must keep pushing until the law in the UK and Ireland protects everyone from harmful self-harm and suicide content everywhere.
Another major area of progress this year has been the development of our new charity strategy, _Tackling suicide together: providing a safe space in uncertain times_ , informed by people with lived experience, our volunteers, staff and supporters. Launching in 2022, the strategy will steer our work for the coming five years, ensuring we continue to be there for those who need us most, reach out to more people to let them know we’re here, make our voice heard to make suicide prevention a priority, and are sustainable for the future.
One of the key principles of this new strategy is our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion. We have a lot of work to do in this area and this is our public commitment to take action. It will inform everything we do at Samaritans, guiding the way we work and behave. We’re also making sure our work is informed by the insights of people who have experienced suicidal feelings, suicide attempts, self-harm, or bereavement by suicide.
We have lots of work to do over the next few years, and in these difficult times our work is more vital than ever. We thank every individual, group and organisation who has chosen to support us this year to give hope to those who need it. Together, we can make change that saves lives.
Julie Bentley, CEO
Keith Leslie, Chair
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Our strategy
Our last strategy, _Working together to reduce suicide_ , was launched in 2015 and described our vision for 2021, our priority areas and the ways we would work better to achieve even greater impact.
This strategy period was due to end in March 2021, so the Board of Trustees agreed that 2021/22 would be a bridging year, enabling us to focus on completing the final areas of work we had already committed to delivering, some of which had been unavoidably impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. During 2021/22, we also took the time to undertake widespread engagement to inform our new strategy, hearing from volunteers, staff, people with lived experience, funders, supporters, partners and other key stakeholders.
Our new strategy for 2022-27, _Tackling suicide together: providing a safe space in uncertain times,_ sets out how we will achieve our vision that fewer people die by suicide. It seeks to maximise our impact as a charity through building on our achievements, whilst also making the most of new opportunities and learnings.
Through this strategy period we will continue to work across the UK and Ireland, and we’ll adapt our approach to deliver the most relevant and appropriate plans across the five jurisdictions.
We will hold ourselves to account for how well we’re achieving our five priorities through internal monitoring and quarterly reporting to our Board of Trustees, as well as the publication of an annual Impact Report.
**This report covers the ‘bridging year’ between our 2015-2021 strategy period and our 2022-2027 strategy.**
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)
We’ve made progress in our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Following an extensive organisation-wide review of how we’re representing and responding to the needs of minoritised communities across the UK and Ireland, and working closely with a wide range of stakeholders, we’ve published our new EDI commitment and five-year goals. It is critical that we deliver against these goals to ensure that we remain relevant and accessible to anyone who needs us, whenever they need us.
To live up to our ambition, we’ve developed a comprehensive two-year EDI action plan for 20222024, which we will publish in Summer 2022, and we’re investing in specialist EDI resource to help us deliver our ambitions. We’ve committed to regularly updating on our progress against this plan and our goals, and we’re ensuring that EDI is at the heart of our new five-year strategy.
While developing our plans, we’ve also been able to start making progress against them, including:
- Launching our EDI staff and volunteer module for all staff and volunteers, with all new Samaritans people expected to complete it.
- Launching our EDI diversity networks, creating spaces for people with shared identities and experiences to meet and work with us on addressing their needs.
- Increasing the membership of our internal EDI forum to almost 600 staff and volunteers and creating a network of EDI leads across our branches to collaborate on how to improve our accessibility, representation and reach.
- Completing our Welsh grant funded EDI project and starting our new Scotland EDI project, with both focusing on improving the diversity of our volunteer community.
- Opening our Bradford hub, testing approaches to work closely with the local community to ensure that our volunteers are representative of its diversity.
- Starting a comprehensive project to review evidence and publish Samaritans’ policy positions focusing on particular communities and identities.
- Strengthening our organisational voice on tackling inequalities in suicide risk, with positions on ethnicity and LGBTQ+ identities – as well as updated summaries of available research on suicide and self-harm – planned for publication on our website in 2022/23.
- Significantly improving the diversity of the imagery we use across our marketing and communications to ensure that it’s representative of the communities we serve.
- Starting to develop relationships with organisations to deliver events and activities to improve reach to diverse communities – for example working with Diverse Matters to create guidance on working with faith and racialised communities for our Wales EDI project.
**The scale of our EDI ambition is high, and we know we still have a lot to do to meet our ambitions. We are fully committed to scaling up our delivery of this work and making sure it has a tangible and positive impact on our staff, our volunteers – and crucially – the people who need our services the most in the coming years.**
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## About this document
## **The following pages highlight some of our major achievements during 2021/22.**
In developing our strategy and accompanying activity plans, and in producing this Annual Report and Accounts, the Trustees have given due consideration to the Charity Commission for England & Wales’ published guidance on the public benefit requirement under the Charities Act 2011 as well as equivalent guidance from the Scottish Charity Regulator, the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, the Charities Regulator in Ireland and relevant bodies within crown dependencies.
In particular, Samaritans’ core listening and online self-help services are available to the general public free of charge. This report also shows where support is provided in targeted settings and our wider influencing work to reduce incidents of suicide. The work carried out by Samaritans is consistent with charitable purposes as identified in the Charities Act 2011 (The advancement of health or saving of lives).¹ The full charitable objects, as stated in our governing document, are as follows:
- a) To enable persons who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those who may be at risk of suicide, to receive confidential emotional support at any time of the day or night in order to improve their emotional health and to reduce the incidence of suicide; and
- b) To promote a better understanding in society of suicide, suicidal behaviour and the value of expressing feelings which may otherwise lead to suicide or impaired emotional health.
Specific work carried out to measure the impact of Samaritans’ charitable activities evidenced both reductions in distress and feelings of suicide of Samaritans’ callers and wider impact of our awareness-raising work, for example, an increased or reinforced sense of confidence about how to approach persons who might need help and may be at risk of suicide.
Please see our 2021/22 Impact Report for more information about our work and how it is making a difference.
> ¹ Equivalent purposes appear in the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008. The Charites Act 2009 (Ireland) identifies the promotion of health, including the prevention or relief of sickness, disease or human suffering as a charitable purpose.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Our key achievements
## Service
What we said we would do this year
- Continue to ensure our services are safe for those who use them and those that deliver them, for example by investing in the quality and consistency of our volunteer training and leadership programmes and setting up caller support and safeguarding hub and quality hub.
- Ensure our services are impactful, and that we can demonstrate beneficial outcomes for those who use them.
- Continuously improve our services by actively seeking the participation of the people we support, particularly making our service more equitable, diverse and inclusive.
- Develop and adapt our work environment to support new ways of working, whilst providing effective and proportionate branch support, allowing as many people as possible to volunteer for us in a way that works for them.
## What we did (service delivery)
**We continued to recruit new volunteers to help meet the demand for our service.** During 2021, around 22,000 people volunteered their time for Samaritans, with nearly 20,000 of those being trained listening volunteers responding to calls for help. Around 2,500 volunteers supported the running of our branches, providing essential administrative, fundraising and logistical support across the UK and Ireland.
## **We’ve made a number of key improvements to the training we provide our volunteers with over**
**the last year.** We created two key pieces of mandatory continuous learning to ensure delivery of a safe, effective and positive service: _Safeguarding_ and _Applying our Key Policies_ , which launched in September 2021 and April 2022 respectively. Both have focused on supporting our volunteers’ development in crucial areas. We’ve also made key improvements to help new volunteers begin their journey with us as strongly as possible, by extending the length of time of our Core and Embedding Development training programmes and by implementing greater flexibility in the way branches can deliver the content.
Over the last year we’ve also developed a new format for Branch Director development, with eLearning and workshops for Branch Directors taking place 4 times a year, as well as regular workshops for all Branch Directors on topics such as Leading through change, Developing effective teams and Difficult conversations. These were adapted for a virtual environment, enabling us to run workshops more frequently and allowing senior volunteer leaders across the UK and Ireland to share learnings and best practice. 135 volunteer leaders completed our Branch Director eLearning course in 2021/22.
**We reviewed and improved three of our external learning courses** and have introduced a further ten. We also developed our ability to work with external organisations and created bespoke programmes for several different organisations.
This year, we delivered 494 courses to 4,939 participants. This was an increase of 33% in terms of courses delivered, and an increase of 109% in the number of unique people we delivered to. These results were reflected by a 29% increase in income from our external training programmes, reaching a total of £780,000, with feedback on our new courses being overwhelmingly positive. This year we have also been developing a new brand identity for our external learning courses.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
We were able to secure a grant agreement with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) to help continue running our Listener scheme in prisons over the next three years (2022-2025). This grant will ensure we can continue to provide peer-to-peer emotional support for people in prison. Demand for this service continued to remain high, with trained prison Listeners responding to calls for help over 25,000 times, spending over 14,000 hours supporting peers. In Ireland’s prisons, we managed to continue running all 15 Listener schemes and maintained a presence in every prison throughout the pandemic.
Demand for our prison-specific helpline continued to grow in 2021, with volunteers in branches answering over 410,000 calls from people in prison in England and Wales. This an increase of around 60,000 calls compared with the same period in 2020. Added to this, we were also able to start putting in place resources to support our work with prisons in the future, such as the roll-out of postvention services (support after a suicide) in pilot sites across male prisons.
**We have designed and built an organisational quality hub,** which is now operational with 41 listening-in volunteers and a further 29 written word quality monitors. The hub acts as our central resource for assuring best practice across all our written and spoken contact with people who use our service. Email and instant message (IM) responses are spot-checked and volunteers can listen into others’ calls to highlight excellent practice, as well as instances where improvement and training is required. Over the next year we plan to increase the amount of volunteer resource in the hub to allow more quality assurance to take place.
**We have designed and built a central caller support and safeguarding (CSSG) hub and app,** which is now operational with 68 caller support volunteers and 26 senior safeguarding officers (with 12 caller support volunteers operating the Republic of Ireland hub). The CSSG hub manages all callers of concern, delivers all assigned and caller support plans and manages all non-urgent safeguarding referrals including external referrals and liaison with other agencies. The CSSG hub also operates a 24/7 support line for branches that have any safeguarding concerns or questions. The focus for 2022 is to increase the resource in the CSSG hub and ensure we feedback to branches on cases that they refer to the hub.
We conducted a cultural review of Samaritans’ safeguarding practices towards the end of 2021, which highlighted some areas that we intend to focus on in 2022 and beyond. We also began new, mandatory tiered safeguarding training based on the ‘three R’s’: recognise, respond, report.
In July we launched our Concerns Line, providing an alternative way for staff and volunteers to raise and/or escalate concerns. At the time of writing, this line has received a total of 23 contacts since its launch. We’ve also incorporated further changes to our safeguarding policies and procedures to remain consistent with the legislation and best practice set out in the Children Act 1989 (2004) and _Working together to safeguard children_ (2018).
What we did (staffing and recruitment)
**In the 2021 calendar year we recruited 126 staff,*** with 83% of those being direct hires as opposed to 17% being filled via an agency. This saved Samaritans approximately £500,000 in avoiding recruitment agency fees.† We also supported internal mobility and secondments, equating to 20% of total hires, which was further supported by the deployment of an internal mobility page on our intranet (Sams Home) to support employees looking for a new role.
We supported line managers at Samaritans with revised policies, procedures and toolkits to aid staff recruitment and other working practices. These were implemented with our EDI commitments in mind, although it’s recognised that more needs to be done. With this in mind, we also hired our first Head of Diversity & Inclusion. We also created a framework for the recruitment of Trustees and
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committee members, with an improved application process, monitored diversity data and panel review sessions with leaders.
We supported our staff’s health, safety and wellbeing during the coronavirus pandemic by providing several wellbeing initiatives, including the launch of the Wellbeing Wheel – an illustrative way of communicating the collective of new and existing wellbeing products available to staff. Recognising that the pandemic had an impact on holiday time, we allowed staff to carry over more of their unused holiday (as well as extending the time that leave could be taken), and we also granted staff an extra wellbeing day – in addition to their usual allocation.
We further supported staff by exploring and implementing various different ways of flexible working (remote/working from home support, virtual/hybrid meetings and events) allowing staff to ‘work where you want, when you want’. This was underpinned by our principles of empowerment, trust and flexibility.
*80 people were recruited into new roles vs. 46 recruited to fill existing roles
†£5k average cost of agency hire multiplied by 104 hires
What we were not able to achieve
The national roll-out of postvention in all adult male HMPPS operated prisons was delayed due to the pandemic. Additionally, several Listener schemes were suspended due to prison movement restrictions that were implemented in response to covid.
Our intention was to significantly improve our HR information system via a thorough audit of data and functionality, as well as enabling easy extraction of key metric data; however, due to other competing priorities this was deferred to 2022/23.
Whilst we did upskill around 50 hiring managers via video webinars on our staff recruitment processes, our intention was to follow this up with more training, such as inclusive recruitment processes and competency based interviews. Unfortunately, we were not able to achieve this.
Branches also had to stop offering face-to-face support in response to coronavirus restrictions. We are now piloting face-to-face support in a small number of branches, who are also testing a new service specification that we hope will ensure a consistent and safe service for volunteers and people who call Samaritans.
## Our future plans for improving access to our service
Over the next few years we plan to:
- Launch our postvention response in all public sector adult male prisons in England and Wales.
- Develop our work within other criminal justice sectors whilst recruiting more prison volunteers and Listeners.
- Further develop an excellent candidate and employee experience for recruitment and onboarding of staff, and build on our pilots of competency-based recruitment to volunteer leadership roles.
- Recruit up to 900 new volunteers through Samaritans Training School and provide training to ensure our volunteers are more confident and competent in the technology they use.
- Further improve our safeguarding practices through enhanced guidance, procedures, training and monitoring.
- Develop and implement a new outreach strategy.
- Support more inclusive and diverse recruitment of volunteers.
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## Access
What we said we would do this year
- Maintain our service’s availability and accessibility, and strive to have the staff and volunteer capability and capacity we need to meet demand.
- Improve the perception of our services so that we’re seen to be relevant by those we’re seeking to support.
- Ensure our services are reliable and resilient as we invest in our infrastructure and technology, allowing our volunteers to provide their service with as little interruption as possible.
## What we did
## **Due to demand, our NHS & Social Care Helpline provided support for over two years to those on**
**the frontline of the pandemic.** This service ran for 18 months more than was originally planned, helping to ensure there were people looking out for those looking after the rest of us. Combined with our 116 123 line, we received over 41,000 calls from people working in the NHS and social care. Originally being operated from home by experienced volunteers, this project developed to enable six branches to support the line (Birmingham, Bournemouth, Central London, Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester). The dedicated line has now closed and people who call Samaritans are being redirected to our free national helpline number, but we’re incredibly proud that we were able to offer it as part of our response to the coronavirus pandemic.
**Late September marked a year since we launched the pilot of our online chat service.** During that first year we answered over 30,000 chats and provided over 700 hours of service to chat users. We now have 72 branches helping to deliver online chat, which is still in its pilot phase, and we’re now offering training to any volunteer who wants to help support the service, as well as flexible recruitment of volunteers to help us meet the growing demand.
Although we continue to see high levels of demand for our telephone service, our research indicates that some people would prefer to contact us through online chat. For some, it’s a way of communicating they’re more familiar with, and those with certain disabilities are likely to find it a more accessible way of getting real-time emotional support from a Samaritan. Of those who fed back, over 60% of people who used online chat during the pilot had not contacted Samaritans previously, and over 80% reported a reduction in their level of distress as a result of using our service. These results show that this service will play a vital role in helping us be there for everyone.
We’re taking a gradual approach to rolling out the service in order to ensure we can meet demand, whilst not impacting on our other channels. We expect that over time it will become an essential part of our listening service. As an indication of the future potential of this channel, NSPCC’s Childline service now provide 70% of their support to young people using online chat.
## **Samaritans continued to provide practical support to schools, colleges and universities during the**
**last year,** having received over 171 enquiries to our Step by Step service since January 2021. Of those, 19 were following an attempted suicide.
We’ve been busy recruiting and training 12 additional Postvention Advisors (PVAs) in 2021, to help meet demand for this service and to replace those who’ve either left the role or completed their allotted time. The need for additional PVAs was particularly urgent in Wales, and so five of those recruited have been in that region. We’ve also produced a full suite of Step by Step documentation to support postvention in Wales, which have been translated into Welsh.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
**Our work to help people manage their own emotional health has made exceptional progress,** with the launch of the Samaritans Self-Help app attracting over 89,000 sign-ups. We’ve listened to feedback from users and have made some changes to make it as helpful as possible. Some of the improvements we’ve made include the addition of ‘in the moment’ techniques, to help when people need a way to get back to the present and escape difficult thoughts, as well as a logged-out state for the app, so that individuals can access relaxation techniques without an account.
In order to provide a better service through the app, we’ve also been reaching out to relevant organisations for guidance on how we can more effectively signpost people to sources of support. We also plan to release functionality that will enable us to include audio tracks to accompany different techniques.
**We’ve made significant progress in our work supporting the military and veterans in 21/22.** At the beginning of this period, we successfully bid for a grant from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust to support our work in helping to reduce veteran suicide. This involved partnering with the Armed Forces charity SSAFA, to see where both organisations could better collaborate to reduce incidents of veteran suicide. The partnership began in August 2021 and concludes in October 2022, with an ambitious co-produced strategy report.
To further support veterans we launched the Samaritans Veterans app in October 2021, which has so far been downloaded over 1,200 times. This was endorsed by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Office for Veterans’ Affairs (OVA), and was accompanied by a bespoke pocket guide distributed by the MOD and Samaritans.
We’ve also had a number of successes in 2022, including our bid for a grant from the OVA to develop a bespoke peer-to-peer emotional support helpline for veterans as part of the Afghanistan Veterans Fund. We’ll also be launching our Military Online Chat service in May 2022, which will be limited in its first iteration, but with plans to increase its scale and scope alongside our current online chat service.
**During the last year we’ve continued to work with the Missing People charity** , having answered an average of 198 calls a month from them between April 2021 and March 2022. Of the calls answered, we completed 1,601 referrals.
**Our service expansion programme continued to develop over the last year** with the launch of pilots at several new Samaritans locations, including our first ever campus-based hub in partnership with Anglia Ruskin University. This hub has allowed us to train students and staff from the Cambridge campus as listening volunteers to help deliver our online chat service. It is also helping to provide them with key skills to take into their future careers. We hope to expand this project by offering additional skills and experiences, such as administration and mentorship, and by rolling out another hub on Anglia Ruskin’s Chelmsford campus.
Our work with Anglia Ruskin University extended to supporting the development of their Mental Health Nursing, Social Care Nursing and Paramedic students by facilitating eight placements with a total of 145 students. These included a mixture of learning activities and informative sessions delivered by our volunteers and staff, with the aim of providing valuable skills and knowledge to support them in their future careers.
Last year also saw us develop our next city hub in Bradford to follow the success of the London City Hub. We’ve welcomed volunteers who reflect the diversity and cultural richness of Bradford. Together, we’re creating an inclusive and enriching volunteering experience so that we can best
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support the people who need us. We also hope that, like the London Hub, it will allow us to offer a more scalable and flexible model of volunteer recruitment.
The London City Hub continues to go from strength to strength; as of April 2022, there are approximately 130 listening volunteers in post*, while our Sevenoaks hub has around 80.
*Volunteers undertaking at least one shift a month
**Over the last year, we’ve worked hard to ensure that branches can carry out their vital service by supporting them with up-to-date technology.** This included replacing out-of-date devices (99.5% of our branches now use ChromeOS devices and 94% of all Link activity is now performed on ChromeOS), which has significantly reduced the number of support requests relating to faulty hardware and software configuration.
We’ve also been busy future-proofing the branch-wide area networks to ensure that branches can continue taking calls from the 116 123 line beyond 2025, which is when BT OpenReach are planning to retire their traditional copper networks. A successful pilot of this work was completed in December 2021, with positive feedback being received in regard to call quality and ease of deployment.
We now have 370 volunteers across three virtual hubs for Email, Quality and Caller Support and Safeguarding. These hubs are now being equipped with softphone technology and Chromebooks to allow them to deliver their service out of branch.
## What we were not able to achieve
Unfortunately, our campaign to recruit volunteers from the military community was delayed due to the pandemic and branch capacity, but we’re aiming to renew this activity as part of the Veterans Support Hub project.
The suspension of our volunteer outreach work meant that we couldn’t do any of our post-incident support or community outreach until it resumed in July.
Our future plans for improving access to our service
Over the next few years we plan to:
- Build on the learnings from the pilot phase of our service expansion programme, with a view to increasing volunteer numbers.
- Further develop our self-help products.
- Prototype and pilot a bespoke emotional support helpline for veterans and the military community.
- Begin recruiting volunteers from the military community, increasing the diversity of our volunteer base and providing an important resource for our Veterans Support Hub.
- Launch a new email service model and roll out the online chat service across our branches as widely as possible.
- Explore approaches to the provision of tailored support to at-risk groups and those with accessibility needs.
- Develop a prioritisation framework to ensure that the listening service meets the needs of people in different at-risk groups.
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## Influence
What we said we would do this year
- Develop our strategic partnership work in ways that will make a real impact on our service, accessibility and influencing capabilities.
- Influence responsible communication and portrayal of suicide and self-harm.
- Influence suicide prevention policy and practice to support those most at risk of suicide and self-harm.
- Maximise awareness and relevance of our brand to support our strategic partnerships and make sure that those who need our service most know that we’re there for them.
- Build strong working relationships with branches to support their income-generation and identify organisation-wide opportunities for increasing income, including developing our stewardship capabilities in order to give our donors a first-class supporter experience.
## What we did
## **Over the last year we’ve continued to engage and influence policy makers across the UK and**
**Ireland.** Drawing on learnings from our Online Excellence Programme about suicide and self-harm content, we have delivered a campaign to positively influence the UK-wide Online Safety Bill. Our policy report _Towards a suicide-safer internet_ set out our vision for a suicide-safer online environment. We inspired hundreds of supporters to join our call for the Bill to be strengthened – 97 supporters shared their experience of suicide and self-harm content online directly with Parliamentarians on a committee scrutinising the Bill, a first for Samaritans. That Parliamentary Committee echoed our key recommendations in their final report to the UK Government, and we achieved a major policy success with the UK Government including tackling illegal suicide content on user-to-user platforms as a priority into the new law.
**We’ve kept suicide prevention high on England’s political agenda.** The current national suicide prevention strategy reaches its tenth anniversary later this year and we secured ministerial commitments to an updated suicide prevention strategy, alongside a new mental health plan. We are a leading member of the Minister-led national advisory group driving forward the current strategy, as well as of its covid-19 sub-group, which was created to focus on tackling suicide prevention issues emerging as a result of the pandemic.
We have led the newly established suicide prevention consortium, bringing together the National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA), Support After Suicide Partnership (SASP), and the drugs and alcohol charity With You, to connect people with lived experience of suicide and self-harm to policymakers at the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. The consortium’s policy briefing _Insights from experience: alcohol and suicide_ has helped policymakers understand what the relationship between suicide and alcohol is like for people in their own words.
We have influenced on issues facing young people experiencing suicidality and self-harm. Following our policy report _Pushed from pillar to post_ , we secured an update to the guidance for IAPT practitioners, making it clear that those previously or currently self-harming without suicidal intent should not be excluded from accessing support. We published a policy report _Impact of economic disruption on young adults_ , calling on Government to ensure young adults are helped back into stable, fair-paid work, provided with financial help, and given timely mental health support postpandemic.
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We worked with the ambulance sector, NHS England and the College of Policing to provide guidance and advice around how to respond to employee suicide, with new toolkits coming out this year which will be shared with all NHS settings and police forces.
**Our aim to influence policy and decision-making in Scotland made significant progress,** with over 100 Scottish volunteers and members of Samaritans’ lived experience panel helping to inform our January submission in response to the Scottish consultation on the next national Suicide Prevention Strategy. Government officials are continuing to seek our views in advance of publication in September 2022.
Building on our report, _Hidden Too Long: uncovering self-harm in Scotland_ , we developed a series of podcasts and discussion events with professionals and people with lived experience of self-harm to explore difficult issues. During a whole day of BBC Scotland coverage highlighting our work, the Minister for Mental Wellbeing agreed to our request for a new self-harm strategy for Scotland, and has met with us repeatedly to seek our advice on its delivery.
We also secured vital funding from the Scottish Government for our helpline and online chat rollout, as well as to support our plan to extend reach through a programme of work for lone and isolated workers in the remote West Highlands. This began in 2021 with a bespoke rollout of our _Real People, Real Stories_ campaign in local communities, which we plan to build on with additional funded activity into next year.
**In Wales, we’ve continued to work hard to address socioeconomic disadvantage** and its effect on mental health and suicide risk. Part of this work has involved the continued provision of the secretariat for the Cross-party Group on Suicide Prevention, and we’re now active members of the cross-party groups on both mental health and poverty.
Our influencing work in Wales also had us feed into the planned review of Talk to Me 2 (the national suicide and self-harm prevention strategy), and we’ve consulted with the Welsh Government on aspects such as the benefits system, mental health inequalities and the new Curriculum Bill. For the latter, we collaborated with Mind Cymru and Lynne Neagle MS to table an amendment to the bill, placing a duty to “have regard to the mental health of children and young people”. This amendment passed successfully and was a great achievement for Samaritans.
In April 2022, the Welsh Government announced the Real Time Suicide Surveillance (RTSS), a new national monitoring system designed to collect information on suspected suicides to inform future prevention strategies. We’ve lobbied for better data collection in Wales for many years in regard to suspected suicide, so we publicly welcomed this announcement.
A highlight from last year was our policy roundtable on increasing awareness of the link between poverty and suicide in Wales, which had high attendance from a wide range of frontline public services and stakeholders. We’ve also continued to present our self-harm report at several suicide prevention forums, and following this we’ve produced a comprehensive resource titled _Finding your way: A guide for anyone who is struggling to cope_ , launching in May 2022.
**We continued to meet with civil servants, politicians and policy makers to promote policy development in Northern Ireland.** We also developed and promoted key priorities for preventing suicide in Northern Ireland for the Assembly Election. We developed a Northern Ireland Action Plan, which will complement Samaritans’ overall strategy. A highlight of the past year involved the Belfast Lord Mayor hosting branch volunteers at a reception in Belfast City Hall, following a motion of support at full council. Belfast is the oldest Samaritans branch in Ireland and celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2021.
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Our ability to support people struggling to cope in Northern Ireland was supported by our continuing collaboration with Helplines NI, as well as our continued partnership with the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and our work with the Northern Ireland Prison Service Listener Scheme.
**Our influencing work in Ireland began this year with the completion of the first phase of the governance and structure review** in April 2021. This followed a decision by the Samaritans Central Charity and the Ireland Board of Trustees to devolve additional responsibility to the Samaritans Ireland Board in terms of policy and influencing, strategic partnerships, income generation and brand promotion. Phase two of this project is due to be completed in 2022.
We also contributed to online safety legislation in Ireland by making three key recommendations to policymakers, with two of those being implemented and the third under consideration. Following the publication of our 2020 Impact Report, Samaritans Ireland staff and the ROI Regional Director appeared before the Mental Health Committee to discuss our services and the impact of the pandemic on people who call us, which was warmly recognised.
A particular highlight in Ireland was the marking of the longest night of the year with over 100 landmarks being lit up in green on 21 December, showing people that we’re there for them during their darkest hours. This successful event was further promoted by Taoiseach Michael Martin tweeting an image of government buildings in Samaritans green.
**The third Monday in January this year saw the return of Brew Monday,** when Samaritans reminds everyone to reach out for a cuppa and a catch-up with the people they care about. We saw fantastic engagement on the day and our messaging was well-received, especially our Blue Monday myth busting.
We had amazing support from celebrities this year, with Julie Walters, Keith Lemon, James Acaster and more starring in this year’s Brew Monday film. Compared to last year, we saw a 60% increase in views across our video content on the day. On social media, we saw a 48% increase in engagement and a 129% increase in link clicks.
Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, funding secured from our partnership with Network Rail enabled 80 Samaritans branches to successfully hold more than 120 station events for Brew Monday. Others held virtual events or local events in their community, including at cafes and libraries. The Rail Programme team organised and delivered a flagship Brew Monday event at London Waterloo station, with Deputy Transport Minister Wendy Morton in attendance.
Liz Twist, MP and Samaritans volunteer, hosted a virtual afternoon tea on Brew Monday, which was attended by 25 MPs from across the political spectrum. We also had fantastic support from many of our corporate partners and high value funders. Highlights included Brew Monday events at NFU Mutual, Three, Phoenix Group and Schroders, as well as a special Brew Monday offer from Wimpy to raise funds for Samaritans.
**We’ve again made a significant impact on Britain’s railways over the last year** with the delivery of the fifth phase of our Small Talk Saves Lives campaign, in partnership with Network Rail, British Transport Police (BTP) and the wider rail sector. This campaign achieved fantastic results, with 71% of people who had approached someone in distress on a platform saying they had done so after seeing and feeling encouraged by our materials. This was an increase compared to Phase 3 (up from 52%).
We were delighted to reach a key milestone for our Managing Suicidal Contacts (MSC) programme, having now trained over 25,000 rail staff. This helped empower rail staff to make an incredible 1,591 life-saving interventions on the rail network. We also launched our first step-down training
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programme on the MSC course, which will result in train companies being able to deliver the course internally for the first time. We’ve also created the first guidance document for the rail sector that focuses on how to support someone who may be vulnerable over the phone or via social media. This document will provide best practice guidance to call centre and social media staff who’ve previously had little training in supporting vulnerable people.
We’ve also continued to embed and increase our community-level partnerships for rail locations of concern. Our regionally based team worked with local authorities, BTP, Public Health England, train companies and other local stakeholders to address the factors that may be increasing the risk of vulnerable people taking their lives in specific locations on the rail network. One of the activities this resulted in was our community roadshows. We delivered nine roadshows across England and Scotland, raising awareness of Samaritans and other local services.
**In 2021 we continued our partnership with National Highways,** working with the Design Council to examine the design and technological challenges that National Highways face at high-risk locations. This collaborative project generated ideas for design-led solutions that could be developed and tested, with the ultimate goal of making the road network more secure, changing perceptions of high-risk locations in the minds of their communities, and helping to break through suicidal thought patterns for those at risk.
We also engaged with city and county councils to improve suicide intervention strategies at high-risk locations and supported a range of organisations with the use of crisis signage across their estate – including National Car Parks (NCP).
**We continued hosting the National Suicide Prevention Alliance.** The NSPA’s membership has grown significantly over the last year, with over 1,400 organisations and individuals joining the effort to prevent suicide. We supported them to deliver a highly successful 8th annual conference in January 2022, to around 300 delegates, with keynote speakers including the Minister for Care and Mental Health and Professor Louis Appleby. Throughout the year, NSPA continued to run online discussions and webinars creating spaces for hundreds of professionals from different sectors to address the challenges posed by the pandemic. Their World Suicide Prevention Day campaign was their most successful ever, with 113,000 Twitter impressions between 9-11 September, 400 new followers and over 9,000 views on our website.
After last year’s launch, the NSPA’s Lived Experience Network continued to grow and now boasts a panel of over 360 people working alongside 33 Lived Experience Influencers, who have taken part in a range of activities to influence suicide prevention. This included informing Government policy, public speaking and advising other influential groups and organisations. The NSPA has also worked with a range of organisations to promote good practice when involving people with lived experience in suicide prevention work.
**We also continued hosting the Support After Suicide Partnership,** a UK-wide network supporting people bereaved by suicide. In September 2021, SASP published _First Hand_ , produced in collaboration with Grassroots and Thrive LDN (a citywide movement for improved mental health). _First Hand_ is a booklet and website designed to support people making sense of their thoughts and emotions after witnessing the suicide of someone they didn’t know.
SASP continues to support the NHS England funded roll out of suicide bereavement support services across England, providing support to ensure high quality services are in place across the country. As part of this SASP published a set of Core Service Standards, based on the shared experiences of existing commissioned services and informed by the latest available evidence.
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## **Our work in influencing the way suicide and self-harm is reported in the media continued to make**
**an impact,** with our media advisory team monitoring 5000 news articles and providing bespoke advice to nearly 500 contacts. This invaluable and trusted service continued to grow, as we received a 31% increase in requests compared to the previous year. The amount of training we were able to provide also grew, as the volume of sessions we delivered trebled over this period. A total of 44 training sessions were delivered to media outlets and communicators, which was helped by our implementation of virtual training in response to the pandemic.
We launched a new quarterly training programme with The Independent Group, as well as a training programme for universities that offer journalism courses. We also published new guidance for reporting on self-harm and suicide content online, and a paper that we contributed to, analysing news reports of suicide during the pandemic, was published in _Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention_ .
**Our online harms advisory service was a valuable resource in protecting potentially vulnerable web users last year,** responding to 133 concerns relating to self-harm and suicide content online. Our industry guideline pages also received over 2,800 views in the same period. Our toolkits to help users equip themselves with ways to stay safe when viewing or posting content relating to self-harm and suicide were also viewed over 19,000 times.
Over the last year we launched two new programmes of work: a digital learning hub to provide practitioners with the skills and confidence needed to talk to their service users about their online use, and safety resources to help young people stay safe online and support others. We also launched a social media campaign in order to get our key safety messages to users, which reached over 1.7 million people across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
**Samaritans has enjoyed significant press coverage over the past year,** with a highlight being securing the main headline slot on the _BBC 10 O’clock News_ , as well as the _6 O’clock News_ and BBC News website, for our campaign to toughen up the Online Safety Bill. The _Real People, Real Stories_ campaign, featuring former international rugby union referee Nigel Owens, has received over 150 pieces of coverage to date, including in the _Daily Mail_ , _Daily Telegraph_ and _The Times_ .
The announcement of Scarlett Moffatt as a Samaritans ambassador received widespread coverage during Mental Health Awareness Week, including on ITV’s _Lorraine_ and _BBC Breakfast,_ while our story about a Samaritans trained rail worker saving lives on the railway was featured on _Channel 5 News_ , Channel 4’s _Steph’s Packed Lunch_ , BBC Asian Network and in _The Independent_ .
Samaritans also enjoyed coverage in the _Daily Mirror_ to help promote our app supporting military veterans, and we were delighted to have HRH Prince Charles visit our Gloucester branch to celebrate its 50[th] anniversary (which was also covered in several news outlets, as well as being featured on BBC’s _Have I Got News For You_ ).
**Our suite of digital content continued to reach more and more people,** with the total amount of visitors accessing our website exceeding 5.4 million, and over 2.2 million people engaging with us on social media. Over the last year we sent nearly 520,000 emails to our supporters and received over 203,000 comments and messages. Our social media audience also saw growth of 12.4%, reaching 431,000 people.
**Samaritans continues to be one of the UK’s most successful charity brands,** with high levels of awareness, trust and support. Many of the UK’s largest charity brands are seeing declines in awareness, while Samaritans remains steady, which is a good achievement considering the context.*
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We are considered to be relevant, with a clear differentiation to other charities within our field. More than 7 out of 10 people surveyed said that Samaritans makes a real difference in the world. Samaritans’ brand personality matches very closely with how the public would define their ideal mental health and wellbeing charity: supportive, caring, friendly and trustworthy. Younger people are more likely to see the brand as inspiring and empowering than older people†.
*NFP Charity Brand Monitor 2021
†NFP Synergy Charity Brand Evaluator Research January 2022
**Our corporate partners continue to support us in new and engaging ways.** We’ve also seen success with other partners, such as Phoenix Group, who have raised over £340,000; The Ardonagh Community Trust, who have raised over £95,000 this year alone; and Barclays, who have helped us to reach millions of people with advertisements in national press coverage and on ATM screens across the UK.
We marked another year in partnership with the Lord Mayor’s Appeal, with volunteers from across the organisation taking part in the annual The Lord Mayor’s Show. During Mental Health Awareness Week, Newcastle Falcons Rugby Club chose to support Samaritans for a match-day takeover, with Samaritans’ fundraising and awareness raising messages at their season finale against Kingston Park.
In April 2021 we launched our _Better Phone Friend_ campaign, in partnership with connectivity company Three, which encourages everyone to become better phone friends. This had an overall PR reach of over 2.2 million people, securing over 187 pieces of coverage, including in print media ( _Metro, Independent, Hello!),_ on TV (Channel 4, ITV and the Premier League), and radio. Online, there were over 110,000 visits to the _Better Phone Friend_ campaign page on Three’s website, with over 7,000 clicking through to view Samaritans’ SHUSH Listening Tips.
**Pears Foundation provided transformational support** , including a vital donation to support our core work, a grant to the Suicide After Support Partnership (SASP) and a grant through the Community Match Funding Scheme with DCMS. This funding has allowed us to make 218 grants across the UK and Ireland to support our branches both during pandemic restrictions and in opening up after restrictions eased. These grants helped branches cover the costs associated with keeping volunteers safe during the pandemic, updating branch technology, as well as helping to create 50 new duty stations across the branch network, allowing more volunteers to return to shifts. We are very grateful to Pears Foundation for their support.
**Our Small Talk Saves Lives campaign entered its fifth phase in August 2021,** in partnership with Network Rail (NR) and BTP, and continued to build on the successes of previous years. The campaign, encouraging and empowering rail passengers to strike up a conversation when they see someone in distress on a platform, achieved a reach of an estimated 8 million people. Our results showed that 50% of people who travel by train recalled seeing the campaign, which is the highest percentage achieved for any phase so far. Our results also showed that the campaign had generally helped those who had seen it to recognise when someone might need help (65%, compared to 46% of people who hadn’t seen it).
We were also able to demonstrate that the campaign was empowering people to make small but potentially lifesaving interventions when noticing someone in distress. Of those who had seen it, 78% of people said they would be more likely to approach and speak to someone they thought was in distress, versus 61% of those who hadn’t seen it. Furthermore, 71% of those who had approached someone said they felt encouraged to do so by the campaign.
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We saw increases in almost all of the metrics used to measure the impact of the campaign when compared with previous phases, demonstrating that the award-winning _Small Talk Saves Lives_ is continuing to grow and is making an even bigger difference to people on the rail network.
**We also reached more men in rural communities with the third phase of our** _**Real People, Real Stories**_ **campaign,** which was supported by The NFU Mutual Charitable Trust, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government. This campaign aims to reach men in rural communities who are struggling to cope, encouraging them to seek help by contacting Samaritans.
As part of this campaign, we ran a survey to understand the impact of the pandemic on men in rural communities. The evidence suggests that men in rural areas are less likely than men in urban areas to reach out for support if they’re struggling, and that there are a variety of factors stopping them from doing so, such as stigma of speaking out, not knowing who to turn to and lack of awareness of available support (Opinium Research, 2021).
The NFU Mutual Charitable Trust promoted this campaign with gifted advertisements in key publications, including _Countryside_ , _Farmers Guide_ , _Farmers Guardian_ , _Scottish Farmer_ and _South East Farmer_ , and we shared a video featuring NFU Mutual Chairman Jim McLaren MBE.
During March 2022, the _Real People, Real Stories_ campaign was live across digital channels, on radio, in trade titles, in branches and shared via key partner organisations’ channels. We secured approximately 160 pieces of coverage, including 25 pieces of trade coverage (read by those who the campaign was attempting to target), and this meant that the campaign was seen by over 20 million people.
## What we were not able to achieve
Our planned attendance at national Welsh events, such as the Royal Welsh Show, the Eisteddfod and Pride Cymru, were postponed due to the pandemic, but we’re set to attend all three in 2022 and we continued to run events and participate in various high-level meetings. We were also able to secure a high-level sponsorship package for the Royal Welsh to help us reach the rural and farming community.
We unfortunately had to cancel two large scale Brew Monday events in Glasgow Central and Cardiff stations in January, due to pandemic restrictions.
Our future plans for expanding our influence
Over the next few years, we plan to:
- Use our influence to ensure the codes of practice of a new Online Safety Bill help to protect people of all ages, across all platforms, from harmful suicide and self-harm content.
- Influence the development of a new cross-government suicide prevention plan for England that is properly resourced and managed to ensure effective local and national delivery.
- Work with our branches to influence local policies and practices that impact suicide risk in their communities.
- Expand our media advisory service to reach additional communicators and sectors, enhancing our ability to support responsible communications.
- Develop our public affairs, policy and campaigning capacity by: expanding lived experience voice; broadening policy focus; engaging supporters to help us achieve our priorities; broadening our function to support service delivery.
- Pilot regional influencing in England, whilst also expanding our influencing work in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland.
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## Evidence
What we said we would do this year
- Build and translate evidence about suicide and suicidal behaviour, increasing our understanding of risk factors so that we can better serve those at higher-risk.
- Fill key gaps in our knowledge base to inform the development of a new strategy.
## What we did
**This year we continued to build our evidence base, utilising new knowledge to inform our services, communications, and influencing work** . We also developed our approach to working with people who have lived experience of suicide and self-harm, harnessing their unique perspective and embedding their voice across Samaritans as a key source of evidence and insight.
We launched our first ever Lived Experience Panel of people who have experience of suicide, selfharm or using Samaritans’ services. The panel has over 400 members after the first year who take part in fortnightly research activities to inform a variety of Samaritans activities, including our influencing work, service development, and research and evaluation work. We’ve also created a variety of paid roles within programmes of work for people with lived experience, providing new ways for them to make a meaningful contribution to our work.
Our continuing research into the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic provided us with a valuable understanding of this unique period. We did this through a programme of research that helped us identify profound social, psychological and economic impacts of the pandemic for those who use our services or who might be at increased risk of suicide. The results of this research are currently influencing our work around national pandemic recovery, and are laid out in the following publications:
- _**One year on: how the coronavirus pandemic has affected wellbeing and suicidality**_ brought together analysis of our operational data, volunteer surveys, secondary analysis of the _Covid19 Mental Health and Wellbeing study_ with Glasgow University, and external literature – to help us understand what a year in the pandemic looked like for people who call Samaritans.
- _**The impact of economic disruption on young adults**_ explored the direct impact of economic disruption on factors related to suicide risk among young adults. It sought to understand if young adults who’ve experienced ‘economic disruption’ through a change of income (eg, job loss or working fewer hours) are also more likely to experience increases in risk factors for suicide.
- _**Life during the pandemic**_ documented the stories of 15 people who've felt suicidal or selfharmed since the pandemic began, exploring their challenges, hopes and coping strategies.
## **Through our evaluation work, we’ve continued to increase our understanding of the effectiveness**
**of our services and activities.** This has included research into the impact of our Caller Support plans for people who need additional support from Samaritans, as well as research with people who call our helpline frequently to understand their experiences and how we can serve them more effectively.
We’ve continued to use evidence to directly inform and improve our service development and influencing work, and to inform the development of our new five-year strategy. In doing this, we used the most up-to-date evidence available on suicide risk and the effectiveness of preventative suicide interventions to shape our approach in achieving our vision over the coming years.
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We also conducted research to understand the needs of people whose circumstances mean they’re at higher risk of suicide, for example construction workers, to inform our service development and to explore how peer support can help people who self-harm, whilst also engaging people who have self-harmed in our response to new NICE guidelines.
**We’ve also significantly improved our research ethics policies and processes** to support the increasing volume of research being conducted within Samaritans. This will help us ensure that all research is completed to a high ethical standard and that our staff and volunteers have the relevant skills to carry out the research. This involved training more than 80 staff members in research ethics and appointing three new professional members of Samaritans’ Research Ethics Board. We’ll also be recruiting new members who can bring expertise and lived experience in 2022.
We’ve continued to bridge the gap between academia and a range of different sectors. We know how important it is that research is designed, conducted and translated with the ‘real-world’ impact in mind. To do this, we:
- worked collaboratively with the Office of National Statistics to promote and disseminate the latest statistics on suicides in the UK;
- were commissioned by NHS England and HMPPS to research the effectiveness of suicide prevention in prisons in London;
- worked in partnership with academics and third sector research organisations;
- provided cross-sector support through the translation and provision of evidence, including to Highways England, Network Rail and the Ambulance Service;
- provided input to the NHS England community mental health transformation project, led by the University of Manchester, as a member of the Expert Reference Group.
## What we were not able to achieve
We planned to complete a study to better understand the impact of our helpline in Ireland, however we were unable to do so due to delays caused by the pandemic.
## Our future plans for developing our base of evidence
Over the next few years, we plan to:
- Conduct new research into the impact our services have on people under 18 years of age.
- Conduct research into suicide and self-harm among specific groups who have increased risk of suicide.
- Conduct a national survey to better understand experiences of suicide and self-harm, and use of our service, so that we can develop further knowledge on how we can better help people.
- Extend our work on caller outcomes to ensure that outcome measurements across all our services are collected more consistently.
- Expand and enhance our research function through development and roll-out of an organisation-wide programme of research into what is working well and what can be improved.
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## Learning from the pandemic
Over the past few years, the coronavirus pandemic has presented a significant challenge. Lockdown restrictions meant that some of our awareness campaigns and fundraising events were impacted by cancellations, delays and other issues. Our recruitment and training of volunteers was also affected, and our face-to-face support had to be put on hold.
We’ve recognised, however, that there are ways we can adapt our service and ways of working so that we can still be there for anyone that needs us, 24/7. Some of the ways we’re doing this are:
- Empowering staff by implementing flexible working and providing support for home-working and online/hybrid training and events. Samaritans’ staff are encouraged to work in whatever way they feel most productive and in a way that supports their wellbeing.
- Increasing access to our service in the community through the development of a new outreach strategy. Although we’re currently unable to offer direct face-to-face support in most branches, our new outreach strategy will ensure we can continue being visible and available to the communities we serve.
- Increasing the representation of and access to Samaritans for people in prison by launching our postvention response services in all adult male prisons.
- Adapting so we can offer volunteering opportunities to more people, in different circumstances and in different places, through our service expansion programme. In turn, this will enable us to recruit more volunteers to meet the demand for our service, and it will be supported through enhanced safeguarding processes.
- Continuing to work towards our vision in different ways, for example through our helpline services, campaigning and influencing work, and self-help tools.
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## Financial review
## Overview
During the year we continued to adapt our service to support people during the ongoing pandemic, we made further investments in our core service, developed our new strategy and delivered the closing stages of the _There for Everyone_ programme.
The financial statements of the consolidated charity group for the year ended 31 March 2022 show a net decrease in funds of **£0.3 million.**
The financial statements do not include the value of time donated by volunteers in delivering Samaritans’ service. In 2021, our volunteers spent **1.1 million hours** delivering the core listening service alone, which is estimated at a value of **£16.8 million*** . The total value of time given by our volunteers is considerably higher if recruitment, training, branch management, fundraising and outreach work is included.
Volunteers are the foundation on which the strength of Samaritans’ service is built.
*Applying the median gross hourly rate for full time workers in the UK Source for earnings data: Office for National Statistics
## Income
Total income for the year was **£27.4 million** (compared with £28.2 million in 2020/21). Of this decrease, £0.7 million relates to Samaritans Ireland – mostly due to a large legacy received in 2020/21. In respect of ongoing activity, donations from individuals are still the largest source of income.
Samaritans’ fundraising continued performing at a similar level as the previous year, despite the ongoing challenges and uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Our supporters responded to a range of campaigns and appeals, including an appeal to help expand our online chat service. Community and events fundraising continued to grow, adapt to and benefit from a virtual model, however we did see a decline in the return on investment. We continued to diversify, grow and learn from our fundraising products, including Stream for Samaritans, the Feel Good Book Club and our online shop.
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Grant income included funding from the Department of Health, which contributed to the cost of calls to our freephone helpline. This totalled **£510,000** in 2021/22 (and now stands at £1.8 million over 4 years).
Samaritans’ extensive range of fundraising activities included community events, sporting and challenge events, appeals to individual donors and legacy appeals, as well as generous support from companies, public bodies and trusts. We’re committed to putting supporters at the heart of our fundraising so that we can continuously improve how we raise money.
We’re incredibly grateful to each and every donor for their support. A list of our major supporters can be found on page 70.
We recognise the importance and value of our long-term funder relationships. This year we welcomed support from new partners (including Three and Phoenix Group), and we’re grateful to our valued partners who continue supporting us, including The Lord Mayor’s Appeal and Pears Foundation. In addition to the fundraising activities mentioned above, our other major funding streams included our partnership with Network Rail for the delivery of a suicide prevention programme, grant funding from HMPPS to support the prison Listener scheme, and funding from HSE Ireland towards the running of our Freecall service.
## Expenditure
Total consolidated expenditure, including the value of donated advertising, increased from £22.0 million in 2020/21 to **£27.7 million** (an increase of 26% from the previous year). This reflects additional activity during the year – including adapting the service to the ongoing pandemic, further investments in the core service, and development of the new strategy. During 2021/22, fundraising costs amounted to **£6.1 million** (an increase of £1.7 million), reflecting investment in new products such as virtual challenge events and streaming, but also increasing our capacity so that we can build on the growth we achieved over the past five years.
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Total charitable expenditure amounted to **£21.7 million** in 2021/22, compared with £17.7 million in 2020/21, which is analysed in detail in Note 7 to the Accounts. We’re committed to maximising the proportion of expenditure in developing and delivering our service, responding to the increasing demand for our services and reaching more people through the communication channels they wish to use. During the year we delivered the closing stages of the major investment programme _There for Everyone,_ focusing on developing new digital channels for the service, updating our processes and systems, supporting our beneficiaries more effectively, and developing our learning and development capabilities both within and outside the organisation.
Charitable expenditure during 2021/22 represented 78% of total expenditure (80% in 2020/21), reflecting the additional investment in income generation during the year.
## Reserves policy
In setting the reserves policy, the Board of Trustees considers the need to provide against any future income shortfall, fulfil working capital requirements and allow funds to be available to support service developments. This is balanced against the need to spend reserves now to deliver services to meet beneficiary needs.
The target range for free reserves has been set at **between four and twelve months** of general expenditure, which as at 31 March 2022 equates to £7.3 million and £21.8 million respectively. The target range was widened in 2020/21 to account for increased uncertainty, both for income and potential service need during the covid pandemic, and the same target range has been maintained for 2021/22.
This year the Board of Trustees agreed a balanced core budget along with an additional investment of £2.5 million across service development, fundraising and core infrastructure. We had therefore anticipated that the level of free reserves would reduce during the year.
As at 31 March 2022, the total consolidated funds held by the group amounted to **£29.1 million** . Of these funds, £25.6 million are unrestricted and £3.5 million are restricted. Within unrestricted funds there are six designated funds amounting to £13.9 million:
- £8.4 million representing fixed assets including all the SCC branch properties;
- a £0.3 million property maintenance fund to maintain SCC branch properties;
- £0.2 million to complete the _There for Everyone_ programme;
- a £1.3 million service expansion fund to widen the reach for beneficiaries;
- a £3.2 million Strategy Development fund to deliver the new strategy from 2022/23 across the whole organisation including affiliate and central branches; and
- a £0.5m fund to progress several key workstreams in Ireland over the next two years.
The remaining unrestricted funds are classed as free reserves. As at 31 March 2022 free reserves stood at **£11.7 million** (£11.8 million in 2021), equating to 6.4 months of general expenditure (9.3 months in 2021), which falls within the target range.
In anticipation of a potentially challenging fundraising environment, partly resulting from the current cost-of-living crisis, and the major investment planned for the new strategy period, the Trustees have agreed to continue with the widened target range for free reserves of **between four and twelve months** of general expenditure.
The reserves policy will continue to be reviewed on at least an annual basis.
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## Investment policy
The overall investment objective is to achieve a positive real return (adjusted for inflation) over time. For short-term investments, the return is likely to be in income with an emphasis on capital preservation and limited credit risk. For longer term investments there is no explicit income objective, but a desire to increase the value of the group’s assets above inflation.
J Hambro & Partners are the appointed investment managers, and as at 31 March 2022 the value of the portfolio managed was £2.0 million (£1.5 million in 2021), reflecting an additional £0.5 million invested during the year and £0.0 million net gains on investments (£0.2 million in 2020/21).
Additionally, £3.0 million is held within the Charities Official Investment Fund (£3.0 million in 2021).
Samaritans endeavours to invest in a way that reflects our values and does not run counter to our charitable aims. The portfolio managed by J Hambro & Partners applies negative screening to avoid direct investment in companies where more than 5% of the most recent year's reported or estimated revenue is derived from activity that we consider to be inconsistent with our values or charitable aims. The Charities Official Investment Fund is a long-term, sustainable investment solution which incorporates environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into the investment strategy. We review our approach to ethical investment on a regular basis.
The Trustees regularly review the proportion of funds invested for the longer term in the context of revised financial projections, our reserves policy and service investment requirements in coming years.
## Subsidiaries
As the trading subsidiary of Samaritans, the substantial majority of the turnover of The Samaritan Enterprises Limited remains the contract with Network Rail.
Samaritans Ireland supports the Central Charity in the delivery of our strategy in Ireland.
## Going concern
Our planning processes, including financial projections, take into consideration the current economic climate and its potential impact on the various sources of income and planned expenditure. We continue to review all income streams and have carried out sensitivity analysis to enable early planning should income expectations not be met or core expenditure requirements exceed central projections. The uncertain inflation outlook has also been factored into our scenario planning and contingency options. Income and expenditure are reviewed and ‘stress tested’ as part of our regular forecasting and budget process.
There are a number of options open to us if we need to cover any funding shortfall, including utilising unrestricted reserves and re-prioritising activity planned for the coming period. When making decisions we will be guided first and foremost by the new strategy.
Based on the current reserves position, the forward projections of income and expenditure, and the ongoing scenario planning activity, the Trustees consider that Samaritans is able to continue as a going concern.
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## Risks and uncertainties
## How we manage risk
The Board of Trustees is accountable for risk management, with operational responsibility delegated to the Executive. The Audit and Risk Committee, as a sub-committee of the Board, reviews key risks and the adequacy of mitigating actions on a regular basis. The Committee reports to the Board quarterly. A comprehensive annual planning and budgeting process is approved by the Board, during which a thorough assessment of key external and internal risks is undertaken. The Board also receives risk evaluations on major new areas of activity.
Our risk identification and risk management process has been established for many years. To support the new strategy, we developed this further by reviewing our risk appetite in key areas to help inform strategic choices. We also undertook a more detailed risk control review to support the strategy.
Our top five risks, as identified in the Risk Register at the end of the financial year, with key managing actions, are as follows:
|managing actions, are as follows:||
|---|---|
|Risk Description|Managingactions|
|Failure to operate a safe and effective
service|1. Email quality enhancements.
2. Launch of safeguarding trainer-led skills practice session.
3. Cultural review of safeguarding practice.
4. Threats of harm policy discussion.|
|Lack of effective leadership affecting
service delivery|1. Organisation design review.
2. Updating operating agreement and schedule of authority.|
|Resourcing and people|1. Capacity building.
2. Realising the benefit of new structure and ways of working.
3. Organisation design review of both volunteer and staffing structures.
4. Developing employer brand to attract and retain diverse talent.
5. Review of staff benefits and engagement approach.
6. Talent and career development plans.
7. Volunteer leadership survey and retention review.|
|Demand for service exceeds supply|1. Service expansion scale up.
2. Capacity improvement project.
3. Development of volunteering retention tools and resources.|
|Data Protection|1. Data Protection project/plan.|
For much of 2021/22, introducing new safeguarding practices to mitigate risk in this area was our highest priority. Progress has been made, but we will continue to focus on this key area for 2022/23. Among other key risks for the forthcoming year, focus will be around the income outlook/cost of living pressures, which will be closely overseen by our Finance Committee throughout the year. Our organisational design work, and the foundational work in the first year of our strategy area are also being implemented with key risk reduction in mind.
Further embedding risk management is a priority for 2022/23 as we continue to clarify our risk appetite and manage emerging risks and opportunities from our new strategy.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## **Governance report**
## Our structure
Samaritans is a charitable company limited by guarantee. We were founded by Prebendary Dr Chad Varah CH CBE MA in 1953 and incorporated in 1963.
Samaritans has more than 200 branches and locations across the UK and Ireland. During 2021, around 22,000 people volunteered their time for Samaritans and helped ensure our services were always available across our multiple platforms. The Central Samaritans team also carries out research, development and evaluation to support our influencing work, and service development, which supports our volunteer recruitment and development activity and raises income to underpin the whole organisation.
The group comprises three entities, all of which are consolidated into the group statutory accounts:
- Samaritans, a private limited company, which is incorporated and domiciled in the UK and is a public benefit entity.
- The Samaritan Enterprises Ltd, a trading company in which Samaritans has a 100 per cent shareholding. The object of the company is to procure profits and gains as a trading subsidiary for the purpose of paying them to Samaritans.
- Samaritans Ireland, which is an Irish charitable company incorporated in 2007 that is limited by guarantee, with Samaritans being the sole voting member. A review into the activities carried out by Samaritans Ireland is underway to clarify and update the key responsibilities of the subsidiary. Particular focus is being given to public policy, influencing, partnership working and income generation in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
## Branches
There are over 200 Samaritans branches operating in the UK and Ireland as well as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. These branches are run by volunteer Branch Directors and operate either as part of Samaritans Central Charity or as an incorporated charity operating through an affiliation agreement. 57 of these branches are part of Central Charity and 144 branches are affiliated. The finances of affiliated branches are not consolidated into Samaritans’ group accounts.
## Regions
The branches are organised and work together in 14 geographical regions and an additional ‘region’ to oversee Service Expansion. Each region is led by a Regional Director; volunteer leadership roles who provide a key link and communication channel between Central Samaritans and the wider organisation and play a vital role in supporting our branches and implementing agreed policy.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Our governance
We are governed by Samaritans’ Articles of Association. The governing body is our Board of Trustees, which meets at least four times a year and, as of 31 March 2022, consists of 15 members. Trustees are also the directors of the company, and a majority must be Samaritans volunteers at branches or in another capacity. In carrying out their responsibilities for governance and setting the strategic direction of the organisation, the Board is supported by a number of committees. The governance structure is completed by the Regional Councils and the Council of Samaritans as described below.
## Councils
The Board is advised on key strategic and policy issues by the Regional Councils. The role of Regional Councils is to challenge, advise and guide the Board of Trustees on key policy issues affecting the wider Samaritans organisation and to act as a channel of communication between the Board of Trustees and the branches. Regions have separate meetings for operational service matters, regional plans and policy implementation in the region.
The Council of Samaritans meets annually. It comprises the 201 Branch Directors, 15 Regional Directors, up to 10 Functional Leads and the co Vice-Chairs. The legal members of Samaritans are similar, namely the Branch Directors, Regional Directors, Functional Leads and the Chair. The Board reports to the Council of Samaritans annually on its activities and provides an update and review of progress against the strategic plan. The Council of Samaritans is the forum for Samaritans’ volunteer leadership to consider and discuss the work and direction of Samaritans and foster a sense of unity and collaboration across the organisation.
## Nations
Reflecting the differing legislative and funding environments of devolved governments, we have nation committees in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. These are constituted as committees of the Board of Trustees. In Ireland they also act as the board of a separate charitable company registered in Ireland, Samaritans Ireland, with a remit extending to both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. These boards have a leadership role to support staff and volunteers to deliver our strategy as well as representing Samaritans in their nation.
## Staff team
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), supported by an Executive Leadership and staff team, is responsible for the delivery of the Samaritans strategy, operational plans and budgets that have been approved by the Board. At the time of writing* there are 329 employees, including staff in branches that are part of Central Charity. This breaks down as:
- 253 full-time employees (35 hours per week)
- 76 part-time employees (less than 35 hours per week)
*Confirmed on 01 June 2022
## Appointing our Trustees
The Nominations Committee appoints members of the Board of Trustees. Trustees serve an initial term of three years with the option for re-appointment for a second three-year term. In exceptional circumstances a Trustee may also be asked to serve for an additional period of up to 24 months. A person can serve as Chair for a maximum of two terms of three years. Where that person has already served as a Trustee before becoming Chair, they can be a Trustee for up to eight years in total.
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## Board diversity
The Board of Trustees completed a diversity audit in May 2022. The audit has indicated a good reflection of the diversity of the societies we serve which, in part, is a result of greater focus on diversity in trustee recruitment in recent years. We have identified that we are currently underrepresentative of disabled people on our Trustee Board and expect to encourage applications from people in this community in the coming year.
## Inducting and training our Trustees
After they are appointed, each Trustee undertakes a formal induction programme, including a guide to our vision, mission and values, our governing document and the way the organisation works in practice. All Trustees are provided guidance on their formal legal responsibilities, and guidance on how to be effective in their role.
All Trustees are provided with external online Trustee training module(s) as well as the option to attend a range of external courses designed for Trustees or other professional development. In addition, Trustees are obliged to carry out Samaritans’ bespoke safeguarding module. At the time of writing, the Nominations Committee is due to review the outcomes of the most recent board skills audit, with a focus on development and training opportunities arising from this activity. During 2021/22, bespoke training on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for the full board was completed as a means of addressing both development opportunities and alignment with our strategy development.
## Our committees
Six additional committees form part of the governance arrangements to support the Board of Trustees. All committees, with the exception of the People Committee, must comprise of at least two Trustees, two ‘internal’ and two ‘external’ members. The People Committee must comprise of a minimum of three Trustees and two external members.
- The Service and Quality Committee supports the Board in both ensuring Samaritans delivers high quality, effective and consistent services, and in developing those services.
- The Policy, Partnerships and Research Committee supports the Board through maintaining oversight of Samaritans’ public policy positions and research activities along with ensuring the development of strategic partnerships in areas consistent with Samaritans’ public policy positions.
- The Audit and Risk Committee supports the Board, to satisfy it that management is operating sound internal control systems, and that there is an effective risk management framework and strategy for the organisation, which is being operated effectively.
- The Finance Committee reviews the financial performance and sustainability of the charity and advises the Board accordingly.
- The People Committee supports the Board through reviewing and making recommendations in relation to the remuneration and benefits of Samaritans’ staff, as well as oversight, guidance and scrutiny of significant staff-related initiatives, projects and changes (eg, staff recruitment, development and wellbeing).
- The Nominations Committee is accountable to both the Board and the Council of Samaritans. It ensures that Trustee and other key volunteer roles are performed by persons with appropriate skills and experience, and that there are high standards in place for the effectiveness and development of the Board. The remit of the Committee also extends to provisions of assurance that the governance structures and roles at Samaritans are fit for purpose.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Governance code
We carry out a rolling board review process which is guided, in part, by the Charity Governance Codes across Samaritans nations. Since the 2020 board review, we have made significant developments in the areas of leadership, board effectiveness and board diversity, for example:
- In the development of skills, knowledge and experience on the board through improved trustee recruitment practices.
- In enhancing board diversity through improved recruitment practices.
- In improving strategic oversight, including the development of strategy oversight structures and focus on clarity of delegated authority.
- In developing board meeting arrangements for more efficient meetings, to make better use of board time and improve decision-making processes.
At the time of writing an updated board review process is expected to commence shortly (June/July 2022). A gap analysis against the Charity Governance Codes has been carried out to ensure key themes are accounted for within this process.
The reference and administrative details on pages 66 to 69 form part of this report.
## Payment of key management personnel
All Trustees carry out their roles at Samaritans on a voluntary basis. They are unpaid but may claim legitimate expenses incurred as part of Samaritans’ ordinary activities.
Chief Executive Officer payment and benefits are approved by the Trustee Board, based on review and recommendations by the People Committee. Payment and benefits of the remining members of the Executive Leadership Team are approved by the People Committee, following recommendation by the Chief Executive Officer. In considering pay and benefits, the People Committee is provided with information on the sector and similar-sized charities, to inform decisions.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Incidents and reporting
Samaritans and its Board of Trustees are committed to dealing with incidents and difficult situations efficiently and transparently and take any such matters seriously. In line with that commitment, details are set out below on serious incident reporting and policies on whistleblowing, bullying and harassment.
## Serious incident reporting
Samaritans’ Serious Incident Reporting Policy provides for serious incident reports for both Central Charity and affiliate branches to be lodged with the relevant regulator(s) by the Central Charity. This allows for additional support for branches in developing reports and better oversight of risk to the charity and its beneficiaries. During 2021/22, the Central Charity reported 25 new serious incidents to the relevant nation’s charity regulator(s). Of these, 15 involved affiliated branches and 10 involved Central Charity branches or the Central Charity itself. There were 2 historic reports where the relevant branch was unable to be identified and pre-date our current branch structure. Of the serious incidents involving the Central Charity, 3 were also reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO advised that no further action would be taken on any of the reported incidents. At the time of writing, the charity regulators have not required further action, other than that already stated in the reports.
## Whistleblowing, bullying and harassment
There are policies and processes in place relating to whistleblowing, bullying and harassment. These are applicable to both staff and volunteers at Samaritans Central Charity and both affiliate and Central Charity branches. The policies provide opportunities for reporting serious concerns in an environment where the rights and dignity of every individual is respected. Alternative reporting routes are provided in case of instances where it would not be appropriate to make a report to a direct line manager. A new concerns line was introduced in 2021, which provides a secondary avenue to confidentially raise concerns.
Service quality and safeguarding reporting – April 2021-March 2022
|Service quality and safeguarding reporting – April 2021-March 2022||
|---|---|
|**Service quality commendations/positive comments**|**73**|
|**Service quality complaints**|**615**|
- The number of service complaints we received in the last year rose from 443 during the same period in 2020/21.
- We also conducted 58 quality reviews in branches to support the continuous improvement of the quality and consistency of our services.
- We had 13 serious safeguarding incidents, which we investigated in line with our safeguarding panel processes. This is slightly lower than the same period in the previous year (14).
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Fundraising Activities Statement
## **We’re grateful to our supporters for standing by our side**
We believe in the life-saving power of human connection. We know that simply being there to listen can help reduce distress and despair. Our incredible supporters share our hope for a better, and safer, world for everyone.
Our generous supporters, major donors, companies, trusts and public bodies enable us to be there 24/7, 365 days a year for anyone struggling to cope. They’ve organised and responded to appeals, they’ve live-streamed fundraising challenges, they’ve run races – rain or shine – and so much more. Throughout the year our supporters have been there to ensure there’s always someone there for people who contact us, every day and every night. Our major donors have taken on multiple marathons and scaled mountains; our corporate partners have dashed through the City of London in fancy dress; our Trusts and Statutory supporters have diligently supported us with grants and funds to keep our service running, like funding branch equipment for over 100 branches, or helping our campaigns to reach even more people.
We’re living in uncertain times. People are facing many pressures in their lives and our supporters are no different. The coronavirus pandemic placed real strain on how we were able to fundraise. Nevertheless, the commitment of new and existing supporters helped us ensure we could continue to be there during a time when people needed us most, helping us raise over **£27 million** .
## **Championing supporters**
Understanding our supporters’ needs has been at the heart of our fundraising. Over the last year, we’ve listened to more than 4,200 supporters on our supporter panel and in regular feedback surveys. We regularly engage with supporters to test our products, events, appeals, campaigns and communications to ensure that our fundraising programme is shaped to meet and exceed supporter expectations. Our supporters’ feedback has enabled new, innovative fundraising approaches and products that have allowed us to reach new supporters. Examples of this include The Feel Good Book Club monthly book subscription, expansion of our workplace training courses, the launch of the online shop, and being able to reach over 33,000 passionate supporters through new events such as the Facebook virtual walks, steps challenges and Dawn Walk. Our relationships with businesses have allowed us to reach over 177,000 employees in raising awareness of mental health and suicide prevention, as well as raising funds for our life-saving helpline.
## **Following best practice**
Samaritans is registered with the Fundraising Regulator and we are members of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, the Direct Marketing Association, the Market Research Society, the Gambling Commission and the Lotteries Council. We continue to review our policies to ensure they are in line and adhere to the latest regulations.
Our Fundraising Promise sets out our aim to be open, fair and honest in the way we engage supporters. During 2021/22, we received 28 fundraising complaints, and continue to value the feedback we receive, ensuring we review and learn from every complaint. The Supporter Care Team will continue to review and improve processes to ensure we can continue maintaining a responsive complaints procedure.
## **Working with agencies**
Most of our fundraising activity is delivered directly by our Income team. We work with a small number of external fundraising agencies to help with specialist fundraising activity. These are for the
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
recruitment of supporters who give through their payroll, for telemarketing to engage with our existing donors, and for creative and marketing support to help with larger appeals, products and campaigns.
All relationships are governed by contracts, which are reviewed and approved by the appropriate authority before any activity takes place. Telemarketing is monitored and reviewed regularly for quality purposes by listening in to calls and holding weekly review meetings.
All suppliers engaged in fundraising activity on behalf of Samaritans are either members of, licensed by, or registered with a range of bodies including the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, Fundraising Regulator, Association of Payroll Giving Organisations, Information Commissioner’s Office, the Data & Marketing Association and the Gambling Commission.
## **Protecting vulnerable donors**
Our policy for working with vulnerable donors, and members of the public who could reasonably be defined as ‘vulnerable’, was reviewed in 2019. The policy is published for all our fundraisers on our intranet and we plan to publish a version on our website in 2022. We ensure that our fundraisers receive relevant training and have access to coaching. We treat all donors with dignity and compassion, and our policy helps reinforce the importance of this in all our fundraising.
## **Managing communications**
It is important to Samaritans that supporters trust our communications. We regularly ask our supporters for feedback on how we can improve communications. Additionally, we regularly ask supporters for their communication preference and offer choice. If supporters no longer wish to hear from us, we will respect their wishes. We have strengthened our data management approach and will continue to adopt GDPR compliant working practices.
We cannot thank our supporters enough for standing by our side, helping us overcome two years of uncertainty in fundraising with extraordinary commitment, enabling the continued growth in fundraised income so that we can be there for anyone who needs someone to listen.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities
The Trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ Annual Report including the Strategic Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and UK accounting standards (FRS 102).
Company and charity law require the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year. 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 affairs of the group and parent charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure, of the group for the year.
In preparing those financial statements the Trustees are required to:
- select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
- observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
- make judgements and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
- state whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements;
- prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in business.
The Trustees are responsible for keeping adequate and proper accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the charity’s transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the group and parent charity and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, regulations six and eight of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended) and with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.
They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the group and parent charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities. The Trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charity’s website. Legislation in the UK governing the preparation and dissemination of the financial statements and other information included in annual reports may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.
The Trustees confirm that, so far as each Trustee is aware, there is no relevant audit information of which the charity’s auditor is unaware, and each Trustee has taken all the steps that they ought to have taken as a Trustee in order to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the charity’s auditor is aware of that information.
Approved by the board of Trustees on 29 July 2022 and signed on its behalf by Annie Kent, Treasurer:
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Independent Auditor’s Report to the Members and Trustees of Samaritans
## Opinion
We have audited the financial statements of Samaritans (‘the charitable company’) and its subsidiaries (‘the group’) for the year ended 31 March 2022 which comprise the Consolidated and Charity Statement of Financial Activities, the Group and Charity Balance Sheets, the Consolidated Cash Flow Statement and notes to the financial statements, including significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).
In our opinion the financial statements:
- give a true and fair view of the state of the group’s and the charitable company’s affairs as at 31 March 2022 and of the group’s incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure for the year then ended;
- have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and
- have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.
## Basis for opinion
We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the group in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.
## Conclusions relating to going concern
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.
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 charitable company's or the group’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.
Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the directors with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.
## Other information
The trustees are responsible for the other information. The other information comprises the information included in the annual report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
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 obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. 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 in this regard.
Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006
In our opinion based on the work undertaken in the course of our audit:
- the information given in the trustees’ report which includes the directors’ report and the strategic report prepared for the purpose of company law, for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and
- the strategic report and the directors’ report included within the trustees’ report have been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.
## Matters on which we are required to report by exception
In light of the knowledge and understanding of the company and their environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the strategic report or the directors’ report included within the trustees’ report.
We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:
- the parent company has not kept adequate accounting records, or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or
- the parent company financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or
- certain disclosures of trustees’ remuneration specified by law are not made; or
- we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.
## Responsibilities of trustees
As explained more fully in the directors’ responsibilities statement set out on page 35, the trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees 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 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 directors either intend to liquidate the charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.
## Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements
We have been appointed as auditor under section 44(1)(c) 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.
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
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 auditor’s 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.
Details of the extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations are set out below.
A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at: www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report.
Extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud
Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We identified and assessed the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements from irregularities, whether due to fraud or error, and discussed these between our audit team members. We then designed and performed audit procedures responsive to those risks, including obtaining audit evidence sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.
We obtained an understanding of the legal and regulatory frameworks within which the charitable company and group operates, focusing on those laws and regulations that have a direct effect on the determination of material amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The laws and regulations we considered in this context were the Companies Act 2006, the Charities Act 2011 and The Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, together with the Charities SORP (FRS 102). We assessed the required compliance with these laws and regulations as part of our audit procedures on the related financial statement items.
In addition, we considered provisions of other laws and regulations that do not have a direct effect on the financial statements but compliance with which might be fundamental to the charitable company’s ability to operate or to avoid a material penalty. We also considered the opportunities and incentives that may exist within the company for fraud. The laws and regulations we considered in this context were General Data Protection Regulations, employment legislation and health and safety legislation.
Auditing standards limit the required audit procedures to identify non-compliance with these laws and regulations to enquiry of the Trustees and other management and inspection of regulatory and legal correspondence, if any.
We identified the greatest risk of material impact on the financial statements from irregularities, including fraud, to be within the timing of recognition of income and the override of controls by management. Our audit procedures to respond to these risks included enquiries of management and the Audit & Risk Committee about their own identification and assessment of the risks of irregularities, data analytics and sample testing on the posting of journals, sample testing of income, reviewing accounting estimates for biases, reviewing regulatory correspondence with the Charity Commission, and reading minutes of meetings of those charged with governance.
Owing to the inherent limitations of an audit, there is an unavoidable risk that we may not have detected some material misstatements in the financial statements, even though we have properly planned and performed our audit in accordance with auditing standards. For example, the further
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
removed non-compliance with laws and regulations (irregularities) is from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, the less likely the inherently limited procedures required by auditing standards would identify it. In addition, as with any audit, there remained a higher risk of non-detection of irregularities, as these may involve collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations, or the override of internal controls. We are not responsible for preventing non-compliance and cannot be expected to detect non-compliance with all laws and regulations.
Use of our report
This report is made solely to the charitable company’s members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006, and to the charitable company’s trustees. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charitable company’s members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charitable company and the charitable company’s members as a body and the charitable company’s trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.
Naziar Hashemi Senior Statutory Auditor For and on behalf of Crowe U.K. LLP Statutory Auditor London, UK 5[th] October 2022
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities
Incorporating an Income & Expenditure Account For the year to 31 March 2022
|**Note**
**Income**
Donations and legacies
2
_Charitable activities_
Grants from public bodies and others
2
_Other trading activities_
Partnership and other income
3
Investment income
4
Gains on disposal of fixed assets
**Total income before net assets received**
**from Samaritans branch charities**
Net assets received from Samaritans
branch charities
**Total income**
**Expenditure**
Raising funds
7
Charitable activities
7
**Total expenditure**
Net gains on investments
Net (deficit)/income
Transfers between funds
**Net movement in funds**
**Reconciliation of funds**
Total funds brought forward
**Total funds carried forward**
17|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**Funds**
**Total**
**Funds**
Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
Funds
Total
Funds
**2022**
**2022**
**2022**
2021
2021
2021
**£’000**
**£’000**
**£’000**
£’000
£’000
£’000
14,554
592
**15,146**
16,146
349
**16,495**
2,082
4,066
**6,148**
2,448
4,039
**6,487**
5,254
472
**5,726**
4,678
264
**4,942**
17
-
**17**
13
-
**13**
-
-
**-**
285
-
**285**|
|---|---|
||21,907
5,130
**27,037**
23,570
4,652
**28,222**
407
-
**407**
-
-
**-**|
||22,314
5,130
**27,444**
23,570
4,652
**28,222**|
||6,068
6
**6,074**
4,351
-
**4,351**
17,563
4,118
**21,681**
12,306
5,391
**17,697**|
||23,631
4,124
**27,755**
16,657
5,391
**22,048**|
||10
-
**10**
189
-
**189**|
||(1,307)
1,006
**(301)**
7,102
(739)
**6,363**
-
-
**-**
(40)
40
**-**|
||(1,307)
1,006
**(301)**
7,062
(699)
**6,363**|
||26,926
2,507
**29,433**
19,864
3,206
**23,070**|
||25,619
3,513
**29,132**
26,926
2,507
**29,433**|
40
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Charity Statement of Financial Activities
Incorporating an Income & Expenditure Account For the year to 31 March 2022
|**Note**
**Income**
Donations and legacies
2
_Charitable activities_
Grants from public bodies and others
2
_Other trading activities_
Partnership and other income
3
Investment income
4
Gains on disposal of fixed assets
**Total income before net assets received**
Net assets received from Samaritans
branch charities
**Total income**
**Expenditure**
Raising funds
7
Charitable activities
7
**Total expenditure**
Net gains on investments
Net (deficit)/income
Transfers between funds
**Net movement in funds**
**Reconciliation of funds**
Total funds brought forward
**Total funds carried forward**
17|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**Funds**
**Total**
**Funds**
Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
Funds
Total
Funds
**2022**
**2022**
**2022**
2021
2021
2021
**£’000**
**£’000**
**£’000**
£’000
£’000
£’000
15,546
592
**16,138**
16,573
349
**16,922**
2,082
3,437
**5,519**
2,448
3,288
**5,736**
3,240
93
**3,333**
2,392
190
**2,582**
17
-
**17**
13
-
**13**
-
-
**-**
285
-
**285**|
|---|---|
||20,885
4,122
**25,007**
21,711
3,827
**25,538**
407
-
**407**
56
-
**56**|
||21,292
4,122
**25,414**
21,767
3,827
**25,594**|
||6,047
6
**6,053**
4,351
-
**4,351**
16,582
3,068
**19,650**
11,070
4,617
**15,687**|
||22,629
3,074
**25,703**
15,421
4,617
**20,038**|
||10
-
**10**
189
-
**189**|
||(1,327)
1,048
**(279)**
6,535
(790)
**5,745**
-
-
**-**
(40)
40
**-**|
||(1,327)
1,048
**(279)**
6,495
(750)
**5,745**|
||26,102
1,955
**28,057**
19,607
2,705
**22,312**|
||24,775
3,003
**27,778**
26,102
1,955
**28,057**|
The group has no recognised gains and losses other than those shown above and therefore no separate statement of total recognised gains and losses has been presented. All income and expenditure derive from continuing activities. The Notes on pages 44 to 65 form part of these accounts.
41
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Consolidated and Charity Balance Sheet
## As at 31 March 2022
Company Registration No. 757372
|**Note**
**Fixed assets**
Tangible assets
9
Intangible assets
10
Investments
11
**Total fixed assets**
**Current assets**
Stock
Debtors
12
Cash at bank and in hand
**Total current assets**
**Liabilities**
Creditors falling due within one year
13
Deferred income
14
**Net current assets**
Creditors: amounts falling due after more than one year
**Total net assets**
**Funds**
17
Restricted income funds
Unrestricted income funds
General unrestricted funds
Designated funds
**Total funds**|**Group**
**2022**
**£’000**
Group
2021
£’000
7,777
7,990
604
848
4,972
4,458|**Charity**
**2022**
**£’000**
Charity
2021
£’000
7,776
7,989
604
848
4,972
4,458|
|---|---|---|
||**13,353**
**13,296**|**13,352**
**13,295**|
||143
48
3,718
3,025
16,314
19,174|112
34
4,726
4,055
13,600
15,716|
||**20,175**
**22,247**|**18,438**
**19,805**|
||2,547
2,839
1,683
3,271|2,548
2,729
1,298
2,314|
||**4,230**
**6,110**|**3,846**
**5,043**|
||15,945
16,137
(166)
-|14,592
14,762
(166)|
||**29,132**
**29,433**|**27,778**
**28,057**|
||3,513
2,507
11,713
11,793
13,906
15,133|3,003
1,955
11,407
10,970
13,368
15,132|
||**25,619**
**26,926**|**24,775**
**26,102**|
||||
||**29,132**
**29,433**|**27,778**
**28,057**|
Approved and authorised for issue by the Board of Trustees on 29 July 2022 and signed on its behalf by Annie Kent, Honorary Treasurer:
The Notes on pages 44 to 65 form part of these accounts.
42
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Cashflow statement
For the year ended 31 March 2022
|**Reconciliation of net income to net cash flow from operating**
**activities**
Net (deficit)/income for the reporting period (as per the statement of
financial activities
Adjustments for
Depreciation and amortisation charges
Donated fixed asset additions
Profit on sale of fixed assets
(Gains)/losses on investments
Dividends and interest from investments
Donated shares
Decrease/(increase) in stock
(Increase)/decrease in debtors
Decrease/increase) in creditors
**Net cash (outflow)/inflow from operating activities**
**Statement of cash flows**
**Net cash (used in)/provided by operating activities**
**Cash flows from investing activities**
Dividends, interest and rents from investments
Purchase of property, plant, and equipment
Proceeds from sale of property, plant, and equipment
(Purchase)/sale of investments
**Net cash (used in)/provided by investing activities**
**Cash flows from financing activities**
**Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities**
**Change in cash and cash equivalents in the reporting period**
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the reporting period
Change in cash and cash equivalents due to exchange rate movements
**Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the reporting period**
Analysis of cash and cash equivalents
Cash at bank and in hand
Total cash and cash equivalents|**Group**
**2022**
**£’000**
Group
2021
£’000
(301)
6,363
531
564
-
-
-
(285)
(10)
(189)
(17)
(13)
-
-
(95)
1
(694)
(866)
(1,713)
3,248|**Charity**
**2022**
**£’000**
Charity
2021
£’000
(279)
5,745
530
563
-
-
-
(285)
(10)
(189)
(17)
(13)
-
-
(78)
9
(672)
(1,127)
(1,030)
2,775|
|---|---|---|
||**(2,299)**
**8,823**|**(1,556)**
**7,478**|
||**(2,299)**
**8,823**
17
13
(74)
(308)
-
558
(504)
8|**(1,556)**
**7,478**
17
13
(73)
(308)
-
558
(504)
6|
||**(561)**
**271**
**-**
**-**|**(560)**
**269**
**-**
**-**|
||**(2,860)**
**9,094**|**(2,116)**
**764**|
||19,174
10,080
-
-|15,716
7,969
-
-|
||**16,314**
**19,174**|**13,600**
**7,969**|
||16,314
19,174|13,600
15,716|
||**16,314**
**19,174**|**13,600**
**15,716**|
43
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Notes to the Accounts
## 1. Accounting policies
## **a) Basis of preparation**
The accounts have been prepared on a going concern basis under the historical cost convention with the exception of investments, which are included at market value.
The Trustees consider that based on the current reserves position, the forward projections of income and expenditure and the ongoing scenario planning activity there are no material uncertainties that call into doubt the ability of Samaritans to continue as a going concern.
The financial statements are prepared in accordance with the Charities SORP (FRS 102) issued October 2019, the Companies Act 2006, the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended) and applicable Accounting Standards.
Samaritans meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102.
## **b) Basis of consolidation**
The accounts of the group companies are included in the financial statements and the Notes shown on pages 44 to 65. Further details of the subsidiaries’ activities are shown in Note 17. The consolidation of the group entities’ activities has been carried out on a line-by-line basis. All items of income and expenditure have been shown gross, after the removal of intra-group transactions.
Samaritans has taken advantage of the exemptions in FRS 102 from the requirements to present certain disclosures about the charity’s financial instruments.
## **c) Critical accounting judgements and key sources of estimation uncertainty**
In the application of the charity’s accounting policies, which are described in this Note, Trustees are required to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and underlying assumptions are based on historical experience and other factors that are considered to be relevant. Actual results may differ from these estimates.
The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an on-going basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised if the revision affects only that period or in the period of the revision and future periods if the revision affects the current and future periods.
A key source of estimation uncertainty that has a significant effect on the amounts recognised in the financial statements is in respect of residual legacies and this is described in the accounting policy below (see Note 1h) Legacies).
Another source of estimation uncertainty is the measurement at fair value of the properties which transferred to the central charity, from branches joining the central charity during the year. Fair value has been established with reference to the local market rate and condition of the properties.
We have considered the impact of covid-19 on our financial estimates. The valuation of residual legacies which have been notified to the charity but not yet included in the accounts may be affected by the impact of covid19 on financial markets and interest rates, however the impact of these movements has not been quantified at the reporting date due to the volatility and uncertainty of these changes.
## **d) Fund accounting**
General funds are unrestricted funds which are available for use at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the objectives of the charity and have not been designated for other purposes.
44
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
Designated funds comprise unrestricted funds which have been set aside by the Trustees for particular purposes. Restricted funds are funds which are to be used in accordance with specific restrictions imposed by donors or which have been raised by the charity for specific purposes. Costs relating to such funds are charged against the specific fund. The aim and use of each fund is set out in Note 16.
## **e) Impairment of freehold property assets**
Freehold property assets are subject to an impairment review in accordance with FRS 102 Section 27 "Impairment of Assets". They are stated in the balance sheet at cost less provision for any impairment in value. Any impairment is recognised in the Statement of Financial Activities (‘SOFA’) in the year in which it occurs.
## **f) Assets under construction**
Assets under construction are shown at cost and are not depreciated until brought into operational use.
## **g) Stock**
Stock is valued at the lower of cost or net realisable value.
## **h) Income**
Income is included in the SOFA when the charity is legally entitled to the income, there is sufficient probability of receipt and the amount can be quantified with reasonable accuracy. The following specific policies apply to categories of income:
## i) Legacies
Recognition is the earlier of the charity receiving final estate accounts or the legacy actually being received. No value is included where the legacy is subject to a life interest held by another party.
ii) Donated goods/services
These are included in both income and expenditure at the value to the charity where this can be reasonably quantified.
## iii) Grants and contracts
Where contracts are related to specific deliverables (as in the case of the contract with Network Rail) income is recognised to the extent that those deliverables have been achieved. Where income through contract is received in advance, its recognition is deferred and included in creditors. Where entitlement to contract or grant income occurs before income is received, the income is accrued. Capital grants are accounted for as income as soon as they are receivable.
## iv) New Branch Contribution (NBC)
These are recognised as receivable income upon the receipt of signed accounts from Samaritans' branches.
## **i) Expenditure**
Expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis and has been classified under headings that aggregate all costs related to that category. Where costs cannot be directly attributed to particular headings they have been allocated to activities on a basis consistent with use of resources. Support and Governance costs have been allocated on the basis of spend to each of the four main programme areas (Service, Access, Influence, and Evidence) and to Fundraising activities; the allocation of support costs to Partnership activity is based on the contracted allowance for these costs in the Network Rail funding contract. The following specific policies apply to categories of expenditure:
## i) Grants
Grants are charged to the statement of financial activities when there is a liability to pay.
45
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## ii) Fundraising costs
Fundraising costs are those incurred in seeking voluntary contributions and do not include the costs of disseminating information in support of the charitable activities.
## iii) Governance costs
Governance costs are the costs associated with the governance arrangements of the charity which relate to the general running of the charity to distinguish from those costs associated with fundraising or charitable activity. Included within this category are costs associated with the strategic management of the charity’s activities.
## iv) Support costs
Support costs comprise staff delivering the corporate service and infrastructure functions. These are allocated across the categories of charitable expenditure and the costs of generating funds. The basis of allocation of support costs is explained above.
## v) Depreciation
Depreciation is calculated on a straight-line basis to write off the cost of tangible and intangible fixed assets (except assets under construction) over their estimated useful lives as follows:
## Tangible fixed assets
|Tangible fixed assets||
|---|---|
|Freehold property|50 years|
|Leasehold property|50 years|
|Computer equipment|3 years|
|Telephony platform|5 years|
|Office equipment|4 years|
|Motor vehicles|5 years|
Intangible fixed assets Website and Software Development 3-5 years
## **j) Samaritans’ regions**
Centrally funded costs of supporting Samaritans’ regions have been incorporated within these financial statements. For operational delivery, the UK and Ireland are grouped into fourteen geographic regions. Each of these is supported by a group of senior volunteers and received financial support from the charity.
## **k) Operating leases**
Expenditure on operating leases is accounted for on a straight-line basis over the lease duration.
## **l) Foreign currency**
Transactions in foreign currency are converted to Sterling at the rate prevailing on the date of the transaction. Currency balances at the end of the year are converted at the closing exchange rate. Foreign exchange gains and losses are included in the SOFA for the period in which they are incurred. The results of Samaritans Ireland have been translated at the average rate.
## **m) Pensions**
The company operates a defined contribution group personal pension plan and an auto-enrolment pension scheme. Pension costs for eligible employees are charged to expenditure as they are incurred.
46
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## **n) Branches**
The term ‘branches’ used throughout these Accounts refers to the branches of Samaritans, whose objectives are consistent with those of Samaritans. Note 19 provides information on branches which have joined the central charity during the year.
## **o) Taxation**
Samaritans is a registered charity and is therefore potentially exempt from taxation of its income and gains to the extent that they fall within Part ii of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 and section 256 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Acts 1992. No tax charge has arisen in the year. The Samaritan Enterprises Limited does not normally incur a tax charge given its policy of gifting all taxable profits to Samaritans.
## **p) Financial instruments**
Samaritans has financial assets and financial liabilities of a kind that qualify as basic financial instruments. Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at transaction value and subsequently measured at the present value of future cash flows (amortised cost). Financial assets held at amortised cost comprise cash at bank and in hand, short term cash deposits and the group’s debtors excluding prepayments. Financial liabilities held at amortised cost comprise the group’s short and long term creditors excluding deferred income and taxation payable. No discounting has been applied to these financial instruments on the basis that the periods over which amounts will be settled are such that any discounting would be immaterial.
Investments, including bonds and cash held as part of the investment portfolio, are held at fair value at the Balance Sheet date, with gains and losses being recognised within income and expenditure.
Investments in subsidiary undertakings are held at cost less impairment.
## 2. Voluntary income
|2. Voluntary income||
|---|---|
|**a) Donations and legacies**|**All Funds**
**2022**
**£’000**
**All Funds**
**2021**
**£’000**|
|Donations - Individual Giving|7,783
8,667|
|Donations - branches|162
-|
|Donations - Corporate|3,721
3,507|
|Gifts in kind|366
495|
|Legacies|3,114
3,826|
|**Total donations**|**15,146**
**16,495**|
## **b) Donated Services**
A valuation has been undertaken of advertising, legal and training services donated to the charity during the year. This valuation has been included within income under ‘gifts in kind’ as above and within expenditure.
## **c) Legacies**
As stated in the accounting policies note above (Note 1), legacy income is recognised at the earlier of the charity receiving final estate accounts or the legacy being received. At 31 March 2022, the charity had been notified of a further 64 legacies (2021: 77) that have not been included in these accounts as they did not meet these criteria. These legacies have an estimated value of £2,309,000 (2021: £1,773,000).
47
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
|**d) Grants**
Pears Foundation and DCMS (Community Match Challenge Fund)
Ministry of Justice: HMPPS
Health Service Executive: Freecall Ireland
Department of Health and Social Care: Samaritans helpline call costs
Department of Health and Social Care: Suicide Prevention (Samaritans)
Covid and Council Grants
Department of Health and Social Care (NSPA)
Welsh Government/LLywodraeth Cymru
SSAFA Partnership – Military
Department of Health and Social Care: VCSE Health & Wellbeing Alliance
Scottish Government – Highland Programme
Department of Health and Social Care: Suicide Prevention (NSPA)
Scottish Government (Freecall)
Irish Prison Service
Department of Health and Social Care: Suicide Prevention (SASP)
Northern Ireland Prison Service
Department of Health (Northern Ireland)
Department of Health and Social Care (COV)
The National Lottery Community Fund
HMRC Job Retention Scheme
Scottish Government (SHA)
Other grants*
**Total grants**|**All funds**
**2022**
**£’000**
**All funds**
**2021**
**£’000**|
|---|---|
||655
675|
||620
443|
||518
529|
||510
470|
||394
-|
||385
578|
||120
30|
||120
120|
||111
-|
||97
-|
||81
-|
||80
-|
||57
8|
||42
61|
||40
-|
||18
18|
||3
15|
||-
718|
||-
130|
||-
69|
||-
49|
||**3,851**
**3,913**|
||2,297
2,574|
|||
||**6,148**
**6,487**|
*Other grants includes individually immaterial grants, grants for which individual disclosure is not required by the underlying agreement and grants received where the donor wishes to remain anonymous.
## 3. Partnership income
New Branch Contribution is a payment by branches as a contribution to the services received, including the core technology platform. The New Branch Contribution amounted to £865,000 in 2021/22 (2020/21: £1,207,000) and is included within ‘partnerships and other income’.
## 4. Investment income
|. Investment income||
|---|---|
|Cash or cash equivalents
Listed investments
Total investment income|**All funds**
**2022**
**£’000**
**All funds**
**2021**
**£’000**|
||1
4|
||16
9|
||**17**
**13**|
48
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## 5. Charitable expenditure
Further information on charitable expenditure has been provided below where required by the funder.
-
## Ministry of Justice (HMPPS)
The HMPPS Grant was given to Samaritans in England and Wales by the Ministry of Justice. The grant was for the delivery of emotional support to prisoners in distress or crisis in England and Wales. The funding received in 2021/22 is shown in note 2d. Expenditure during 2021/22 was £497,000 (2020/21: £557,000).
## - Scottish Government Freecall
The Scottish Government grant was a contribution to Freecall. Expenditure during the year totalled £8,000 (2020/21: £8,000).
-
## Pears Foundation/DCMS Community Match Challenge.
The funding received to enable Samaritans branches to respond to covid against set criteria is shown in Note 2d above. Expenditure during 2021/22 was £551,000 (2021/22: £675,000).
## **Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) funded projects**
- VCSE Health & Wellbeing Alliance
To provide core funding to the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector membership of the refreshed Health and Wellbeing (HW) Alliance. Core work: strategic planned and responsive work, which will be identified with policy leads from across the three system partner organisations. The funding received is shown in Note 2d above. Expenditure during 2021/22 was £97,000 (2020/21: £Nil).
## - Suicide Prevention – Samaritans
A Suicide Prevention Fund to support Voluntary, Community, Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations that work to prevent suicide, including supporting their ability to meet increased demands or needs for their services as a result of covid-19. The funding received in 2021/22 is shown in Note 2d above. Expenditure during 2021/22 was £394,000 (2020/21: £Nil).
-
## Suicide Prevention – Support After Suicide Partnership
SASP is a UK wide network of over 70 members and supporters. It was founded in 2013 to bring together national and local organisations that are involved in delivering suicide bereavement support across the UK and to address the need for formal, multi-agency, proactive suicide bereavement support. The funding received in 2021/22 is shown in note 2d. Expenditure during 2021/22 was £40,000 (2020/21: £Nil).
- National Suicide Prevention Alliance - NSPA
NSPA is an alliance of organisations which aims to reduce the number of suicides in England and improve support for those affected by suicide. The DHSC is a member of the NSPA and contributed £61,000 (2020/21: £61,000) during the year towards delivering the alliance’s work-plan of national priorities. Expenditure during the year towards the project totalled £120,000 (2020/21: £61,000).
-
## Suicide Prevention (NSPA)
NSPA is an alliance of organisations which aims to reduce the number of suicides in England and improve support for those affected by suicide. The funding received in 2021/22 is shown in note 2d. Expenditure during 2021/22 was £80,000 (2020/21: £Nil).
- Samaritans Helpline Costs
The funding received from DHSC as a contribution towards the overall cost of running the Samaritans helpline is shown in Note 2d above. Expenditure during 2021/22 was £510,000 (2020/21: £475,000).
49
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## 6. Net income for the year
This is stated after charging:
|his is stated after charging:||
|---|---|
|External auditor – audit fees
External auditor – tax advisory and other financial services
Depreciation of tangible fixed assets
Amortisation of intangible fixed assets
Operating lease rentals|**All funds**
**2022**
**£’000**
**All funds**
**2021**
**£’000**|
||35
24|
||8
12|
||43
36|
||235
270|
||295
294|
||355
203|
The Directors of the charitable company are the trustees under charity law and receive no remuneration. It is the policy of the charity to reimburse all volunteer expenses in full. During the year Nil (2021: 17) Samaritans' Trustees received reimbursement for attending meetings, telephony and other incidentals amounting to £Nil (2021: £2,000), with the fall reflecting lower travel/accommodation expenses due to covid.
The company has taken out insurance to protect the Trustees. This cover is part of our commercial combined insurance policy, and the cost of this element is not itemised.
50
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## 7. Breakdown of costs by activity
## **Current year**
|**Current year**||
|---|---|
|**Expenditure on:**
**Raising funds**
General fundraising
**Charitable activities**
Service
Access
Influence
Evidence
**Total expenditure**|**Direct costs**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Support costs**
**2022**
**£’000**
**All costs**
**2022**
**£’000**|
||4,777
1,297
6,074|
|||
||7,682
1,990
9,672|
||6,011
537
6,548|
||3,856
887
4,743|
||564
154
718|
||**22,890**
**4,865**
**27,755**|
|**Expenditure on:**
Raising funds
Charitable activities
**Total expenditure**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**2022**
**£’000**
**All funds**
**2022**
**£’000**|
|---|---|
||6,068
6
6,074|
||17,563
4,118
21,681|
||**23,631**
**4,124**
**27,755**|
## **Analysis of support costs:**
|**Analysis of support costs:**||
|---|---|
|Finance and other corporate services
IS
HR
Facilities
Governance
**Support costs**|**Fundraising**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Service**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Access**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Influence**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Evidence**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Total**
**2022**
**£’000**|
||148
227
61
101
17
**554**|
||538
826
223
368
64
**2,019**|
||191
292
79
131
23
**716**|
||244
375
101
167
29
**916**|
||176
270
73
120
21
**660**|
||**1,297**
**1,990**
**537**
**887**
**154**
**4,865**|
51
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## **Prior year**
|**Expenditure on:**
**Raising funds**
General fundraising
**Charitable activities**
Service
Access
Influence
Evidence
**Total expenditure**|**Direct costs**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Support costs**
**2021**
**£’000**
**All costs**
**2021**
**£’000**
3,271
1,080
4,351
5,881
1,725
7,606
5,534
274
5,808
2,942
782
3,724
420
139
559
**18,048**
**4,000**
**22,048**|
|---|---|
|**Expenditure on:**
Raising funds
Charitable activities
**Total expenditure**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**2021**
**£’000**
**All funds**
**2021**
**£’000**|
|---|---|
||4,351
-
4,351|
||12,309
5,388
17,697|
||**16,660**
**5,388**
**22,048**|
## **Analysis of support costs:**
|Finance and other corporate services
IS
HR
Facilities
Governance
**Support costs**|**Fundraising**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Service**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Access**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Influence**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Evidence**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Total**
**2021**
**£’000**|
|---|---|
||213
341
57
154
27
**792**|
||323
516
81
234
42
**1,196**|
||207
330
52
150
26
**765**|
||201
320
50
145
26
**742**|
||136
218
34
99
18
**505**|
||**1,080**
**1,725**
**274**
**782**
**139**
**4,000**|
There were some exceptional costs in 2020/21 which resulted in an increase in support costs.
Finance costs include £183k spend on the new finance system project, and £94k of covid support grants to branches.
HR costs included an increase in organisation-wide holiday pay accrual of £286k due to staff carrying forward higher levels of holiday following covid lockdowns.
Facilities costs increased due to timing as a refurbished branch property is prepared for sale. This contributed £241k to the increase.
52
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## 8. Staff costs
|8. Staff costs|||
|---|---|---|
||**All funds**|**All funds**|
||**2022**|**2021**|
|**Staff costs**|**£’000**|**£’000**|
|Wages and salaries|10,915|9,035|
|Social security costs|1,207|959|
|Other pension costs|562|433|
|Agencystaff|450|358|
|**Total staff costs**|**13,134**|**10,785**|
|**Staff numbers**|**2022**|**2021**|
|£140,001-£150,000|1|0|
|£110,001-£120,000|2|3|
|£100,001-£110,000|1|1|
|£90,001-£100,000|1|0|
|£80,001-£90,000|1|0|
|£70,001-£80,000|6|5|
|£60,001-£70,000|15|10|
|**Total**|**27**|**19**|
The highest paid employee was the Chief Executive Officer, who was paid a total of £142,000 (2021: Chief Operating Officer who was paid a total of £115,000 during the year). Julie Bentley was appointed as Chief Executive Officer in November 2020 so was not shown as the highest paid employee last year.
Pay and on-costs incurred during the year in relation to key management personnel totalled £963,000 (2021: £940,000).
Termination payments totalling £19,000 (2021: £86,000) were paid during the year, relating to employees leaving the charity.
## **Pension Costs**
The pension contributions for the 27 employees (2021: 19) earning more than £60,000 in the year amounted to £109,000 (2021: £78,000).
## **Employee Numbers**
The average full-time equivalent number of employees during the year was 277 (2021: 225). The average number of employees in post during the year was 301 (2021: 247).
53
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## 9. Tangible fixed assets
|**Group**
**Cost**
At 1 April 2021
Reclassification
Additions
Disposals
Exchange rate movements
**At 31 March 2022**
**Depreciation**
At 1 April 2021
Reclassification
Charge for the year
Disposals
Exchange rate movements
**At 31 March 2022**
**Net book value**
**At 31 March 2022**
At 31 March 2021
**Charity**
**Cost**
At 1 April 2021
Reclassification
Additions
Disposals
**At 31 March 2022**
**Depreciation**
At 1 April 2021
Reclassification
Charge for the year
Disposals
**At 31 March 2022**
**Net book value**
**At 31 March 2022**
At 31 March 2021|**Freehold**
**property**
**£’000**
**Leasehold**
**property**
**£’000**
**Computer**
**equipment**
**£’000**
**Connect**
**telephony**
**platform**
**£’000**
**Office**
**equipment**
**£’000**
**Total**
**£’000**|
|---|---|
||9,303
680
478
948
639
12,048|
||(2)
5
11
-
(14)
-|
||-
-
-
-
23
23|
||-
-
-
(948)
-
(948)|
||-
-
-
-
10
10|
||**9,301**
**685**
**489**
**-**
**658**
**11,133**|
||2,126
56
478
948
450
4,058|
||-
-
6
-
(6)
0|
||168
14
2
-
52
236|
||-
-
-
(948)
-
(948)|
||-
-
-
-
10
10|
||**2,294**
**70**
**486**
**-**
**506**
**3,356**|
||**7,007**
**615**
**3**
**-**
**152**
**7,777**|
||7,177
624
-
-
189
7,990
**Freehold**
**property**
**£’000**
**Leasehold**
**property**
**£’000**
**Computer**
**equipment**
**£’000**
**Connect**
**telephony**
**platform**
**£’000**
**Office**
**Equipment**
**£’000**
**Total**
**£’000**|
||9,307
680
478
948
489
11,902|
||(6)
6
11
-
(11)
0|
||-
-
-
-
22
22|
||-
-
-
(948)
-
(948)|
||**9,301**
**686**
**489**
**-**
**500**
**10,976**|
||2,127
56
478
948
304
3,913|
||-
-
6
-
(6)
0|
||168
14
2
-
51
235|
||-
-
-
(948)
-
(948)|
||**2,295**
**70**
**486**
**-**
**349**
**3,200**|
||**7,006**
**616**
**3**
**-**
**151**
**7,776**|
||7,180
624
-
-
185
7,989|
Depreciation at 31 March 2022 for freehold property, includes an impairment of £725,000 in the carrying value of the Ewell Central Office arising from an impairment review 2012/13.
54
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## 10. Intangible fixed assets
|**Group and charity**
**Cost**
At 1 April 2021
Additions – new software
**At 31 March 2022**
**Depreciation**
At 1 April 2021
Charge for the year
**At 31 March 2022**
**Net book value**
**At 31 March 2022**
At 31 March 2021|**Website and**
**software**
**development**
**£’000**|
|---|---|
||1,278|
||51|
||**1,329**|
||430|
||295|
||**725**|
||**604**|
||848|
Amortisation of intangible fixed assets is included within Charitable Activities expenditure on the Statement of Financial Activities.
## 11. Fixed asset investments
|Market value at 1 April
Acquisition at cost
Disposals at carrying value
Net investment gains/losses
**Market value at 31 March 2022**
**Cash and cash equivalents**
CCLA COIF charities deposit fund
Portfolio managed by Hambros Investments
Scotland endowed fund
**Total**
**Listed investments**
Portfolio managed by Hambros Investments
Other quoted equities
**Total**
**Commodities**
Managed by Hambros Investments
**Total investments**|**Group**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Group**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2021**
**£’000**
4,458
4,277
4,458
4,275
932
441
932
441
(428)
(449)
(428)
(447)
10
189
10
189|
|---|---|
||**4,972**
**4,458**
**4,972**
**4,458**|
||**2022**
**£’000**
**2022**
**%**
**2021**
**£’000**
**2021**
**%**
2,969
59.7
2,968
66.6
849
17.1
606
13.6
-
0.0
-
0.0|
||**3,818**
**76.8**
**3,574**
**80.2**
1,033
20.7
814
18.2
9
0.2
9
0.2|
||**1,042**
**20.9**
**823**
**18.4**
112
2.3
61
1.4|
||**4,972**
**100.0**
**4,458**
**100.0**|
Investments held by the charity include a £100 investment (2021: £100) in the subsidiary company at cost, as referred to in Note 17.
55
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## 12. Debtors
|12. Debtors||
|---|---|
|Trade debtors
Regions and branches
Gift Aid
Legacies
Accrued income
VAT, payroll tax, social security and pensions
Other debtors
Intercompany
Prepayments
**Total debtors**|**Group**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Group**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2021**
**£’000**
1,416
1,841
618
1,302
5
44
5
44
1,086
291
1,086
291
61
26
61
26
629
507
578
507
49
0
-
-
49
1
48
1
-
-
1,938
1,603
423
315
392
281|
||**3,718**
**3,025**
**4,726**
**4,055**|
## 13. Creditors
|Social security and taxes
Regions and branches
Trade creditors
Accrued expenditure
Other creditors
**Total creditors**|**Group**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Group**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2021**
**£’000**
494
491
494
491
-
10
-
10
540
695
614
627
1,482
1,433
1,409
1,391
31
210
31
210|
|---|---|
||**2,547**
**2,839**
**2,548**
**2,729**|
## 14. Deferred income
|At 1 April
Income recognised in the year
Income deferred in the year
**At 31 March 2022**|**Group**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Group**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2021**
**£’000**
3,271
674
2,314
182
(2,666)
(1,182)
(1,623)
(296)
1,078
3,779
607
2,428|
|---|---|
||**1,683**
**3,271**
**1,298**
**2,314**|
Total deferred income includes £305,000 (2021: £826,000) Network Rail deferred income within The Samaritan Enterprises Limited.
56
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## 15. Financial and other commitments
## **a) Operating leases**
At 31 March the Group and Charity had total commitments under non-cancellable operating leases as set out below:
|**Operating**
**lease**
**commitments**
Within one
year
Between two
and five years
Over five years
Total|**Group**
**2022**
**Land and**
**buildings£’000**
**Group**
**2022**
**Other**
**£’000**
**Group**
**2021**
**Land and**
**buildings£’000**
**Group**
**2021**
**Other**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2022**
**Land and**
**buildings£’000**
**Charity**
**2022**
**Other**
**£’000**
**Charity**
**2021**
**Land and**
**buildings£’000**
**Charity**
**2021**
**Other**
**£’000**|
|---|---|
||332
10
198
3
286
10
160
3|
||247
20
327
4
247
20
297
4|
||87
-
154
-
87
-
154
-|
||**667**
**30**
**679**
**7**
**621**
**30**
**611**
**7**|
## 16. Financial instruments
At the balance sheet date, the charity held financial assets at amortised cost of £19,609,000 (2021: £21,885,000), financial assets at fair value through income or expenditure of £4,972,000 (2021: £4,458,000) and financial liabilities at amortised cost of £2,053,000 (2021: £2,608,000).
57
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## 17. Reconciliation of reserves
## **Current year**
|**Unrestricted**
General fund
Designated fund – tangible and intangible fixed assets
Designated fund – property maintenance fund
Designated fund – Digital
Designated fund – There for Everyone
Designated fund – Service Expansion
Designated fund – Strategy Development & Delivery
Designated fund – Ireland
**Total unrestricted funds**
**Restricted**
Branch support
City Hub
Email service development
Helpline call costs
Helpline Freecall
Highland Programme
Mental Health in the Rail Industry
Military – SSAFA partnership
National Suicide Prevention
National Training School
Online Excellence Programme
Prisoner Support & Improving Safer Custody
Reduce Gambling Harm
Regional grants
Suicide & Self-harm in Wales
Suicide Prevention
Support After Suicide
There for Everyone
VSCE Health & Wellbeing Alliance
Wellbeing & Resilience Hub: Construction
Other*
**Total restricted funds**
**Total funds**|**At 31**
**March**
**2021**
**£’000**
**Income**
**£’000**
**Expenditure**
**£’000**
**Transfer**
**between**
**funds**
**£’000**
**At 31**
**March**
**2022**
**£’000**|
|---|---|
||11,793
22,251
(21,795)
(536)
11,713|
||8,838
73
(530)
-
8,381|
||669
-
(387)
-
282|
||154
-
(154)
-
-|
||722
-
(508)
-
214|
||1,250
-
-
-
1,250|
||3,500
(257)
-
3,243|
||-
-
-
536
536|
||**26,926**
**22,324**
**(23,631)**
**-**
**25,619**|
||275
739
(610)
-
404|
||252
-
(85)
-
167|
||-
277
-
-
277|
||-
582
(582)
-
-|
||436
517
(521)
-
432|
||-
81
(32)
-
49|
||-
50
-
-
50|
||-
111
(19)
-
92|
||63
517
(405)
-
175|
||-
108
-
-
108|
||625
429
(302)
-
752|
||7
732
(549)
-
190|
||300
-
27
-
327|
||55
-
-
-
55|
||-
166
(120)
-
46|
||-
394
(394)
-
-|
||122
117
(119)
-
120|
||298
-
(224)
-
74|
||-
84
(84)
-
-|
||-
159
(59)
-
100|
||74
67
(46)
-
95|
||**2,507**
**5,130**
**(4,124)**
**-**
**3,513**|
||**29,433**
**27,454**
**(27,755)**
**-**
**29,132**|
58
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
|**Represented by:**
Tangible and intangible fixed assets
Investments
Net current assets
**Total**|**General**
**Funds**
**£’000**
**Designated**
**funds**
**£’000**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**£’000**
**Total**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Total**
**2021**
**£‘000**|
|---|---|
||-
8,381
-
8,381
8,838|
||4,972
-
-
4,972
4,458|
||6,741
5,525
3,513
15,779
16,137|
||**11,713**
**13,906**
**3,513**
**29,132**
**29,433**|
*Other funds include funds with either opening balance, closing balance, income, or expenditure less than £50k.
Transfers between general funds and restricted funds relate to Central Charity contributions to restricted projects.
59
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## **Prior year**
|**Unrestricted**
General fund
Designated fund – tangible and intangible fixed assets
Designated fund – property maintenance fund
Designated fund – Digital
Designated fund – There for Everyone
Designated fund – Service Expansion
Designated fund – Strategy Development & Delivery
**Total unrestricted funds**
**Restricted**
There for Everyone
Helpline Freecall
Helpline call costs
Reduce Gambling Harm
Online Excellence Programme
Branch Support
City Hub
Prisoner Support & Improving Safer Custody
Support After Suicide
Regional Grants
National Suicide Prevention
Suicide & Self-harm in Wales
Covid Support
Other*
**Total restricted funds**
**Total funds**
**Represented by:**
Tangible and intangible fixed assets
Investments
Net current assets
**Total**|**At 31**
**March**
**2020**
**£’000**
**Income**
**£’000**
**Expenditure**
**£’000**
**Transfer**
**between**
**funds**
**£’000**
**At 31**
**March**
**2021**
**£’000**|
|---|---|
||8,419
23,422
(15,258)
(4,790)
11,793|
||9,367
307
(836)
-
8,838|
||800
-
(131)
-
669|
||244
-
(90)
-
154|
||1,034
30
(342)
-
722|
||-
-
-
1,250
1,250|
||-
-
-
3,500
3,500|
||**19,864**
**23,759**
**(16,657)**
**(40)**
**26,926**|
||1,037
221
(949)
-
309|
||435
529
(528)
-
436|
||-
531
(531)
-
-|
||423
-
(123)
-
300|
||419
404
(181)
-
642|
||280
896
(901)
-
275|
||152
160
(60)
-
252|
||139
572
(702)
-
9|
||71
164
(113)
-
122|
||70
58
(73)
-
55|
||54
61
(92)
-
63|
||36
162
(198)
40
-|
||-
787
(787)
-
-|
||90
107
(153)
-
44|
||**3,206**
**4,652**
**(5,391)**
**40**
**2,507**|
||**23,070**
**28,411**
**(22,048)**
**-**
**29,433**|
||**General**
**Funds**
**£’000**
**Designated**
**funds**
**£’000**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**£’000**
**Total**
**2022**
**£’000**
**Total**
**2021**
**‘000**|
||-
8,838
-
8,838
9,367|
||4,458
-
-
4,458
4,277|
||12,085
1,545
2,507
16,137
9,427|
||**16,543**
**10,383**
**2,507**
**29,433**
**23,070**|
*Other funds include funds with either opening balance, closing balance, income, or expenditure less than £50k.
Transfers between general funds and restricted funds relate to Central Charity contributions to restricted projects.
60
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
**17a) Unrestricted funds**
|**17a) Unrestricted funds**||
|---|---|
|General fund|These funds are held available for the ordinary purposes of the charity.|
|Designated fund –
tangible fixed assets|This designated fund comprises unrestricted expenditure in the purchase of the
Group’s tangible fixed assets to invest in the charity’s future capacity and growth.
These are therefore not readily available for other purposes. Fixed asset
expenditure financed from restricted funds is shown within the restricted fund
balances.|
|Designated fund –
property maintenance
fund|This designated fund has been established utilising cash assets transferred from
branches joining the central charity. The fund will be used to ensure the ongoing
maintenance, safety, and suitability of branch properties for delivering
Samaritans’ services into the future.|
|Designated fund –
Digital|This designated fund was used to make our service more accessible to a larger
number of people through using digital technology to create new communication
channels for the service. It was established by a transfer of funds from the Claire
Squires Fund and through a generous donation of £400,000 from the Isle of Man
branch to invest in the development of the service.|
|Designated fund –
service provision|A pilot is currently underway trialling new ways of operating our service, with the
aim of widening the reach for beneficiaries, and attracting and training new
volunteers. This has been a long-standing risk area for Samaritans: trying to widen
and increase the supply of volunteers/service options to match the demand from
current and new potential beneficiaries. Following the completion of the pilot in
early autumn, a decision will be taken on which areas to expand. The options
currently being piloted, cover virtual hubs, satellite branches, a university hub and
the Samaritans Training School.|
|Designated fund –
Strategy Development
& Delivery|During the year the new strategy was developed and informed by people with
lived experience, our volunteers, staff, and supporters. Launching in 2022, the
strategy will steer our work for the coming five years, ensuring we continue to be
there for those who need us most, reach out to more people to let them know
we’re here, and make our voice heard to make suicide prevention a priority.|
|Designated fund –
There for Everyone|This designated fund supports the There for Everyone programme, to help us
make a step change in our ability to offer our callers greater choice in how they
access our services, raising awareness and reaching more people through the
education and information we provide, as well as creating flexible ways to
volunteer with us that fit better with our modern lives.|
|Designated fund –
Ireland|This designated fund has been established from legacy proceeds to progress
several key workstreams in Ireland over the next two years. This includes the
development of income generation, public policy, brand awareness and
partnerships following the decision to increase autonomy of the Samaritans
Ireland Board in these areas. Other workstreams include development of the
Samaritans Ireland website, improved oversight of operational work in Ireland,
research into self-harm and support to branches in Ireland.|
61
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
**17b) Restricted funds**
|**17b) Restricted funds**||
|---|---|
|There for Everyone|This fund supports the There for Everyone programme, to help us make a step
change in our ability to offer our callers greater choice in how they access our
services, raise awareness and reach more people through the education and
information we provide, as well as creating flexible ways to volunteer with us that
fit better with their modern lives.|
|Helpline Freecall|These funds contribute to the costs of calls to the Samaritans Freecall helpline
phone number in Ireland.|
|Helpline call costs|These funds contribute to the costs of calls to the Samaritans Freecall helpline
phone number in the UK.|
|Reducing Gambling
Harm|Samaritans is working in partnership with GamCare, to develop suicide
prevention guidance aimed at gambling companies and training to support their
staff working with customers expressing suicidal thoughts.|
|Online Excellence
Programme|This fund is to be used to develop a hub of excellence in suicide prevention and
the online environment.|
|Branch support|These funds are to be used to ensure Samaritans’ critical 24/7 services remain
available to vulnerable people in the short and longer term nationally and locally,
and to meet emergency financial needs of the branches.|
|Prisoner Support &
Improving Safer
Custody|These funds are to provide Emotional Support to Prisoners in Distress or Crisis in
the UK and Ireland.|
|City Hub|This fund is to develop and roll out a new innovating volunteering model to offer
people who work in the City opportunities to support suicide prevention locally
and nationally, including the new online chat service.|
|Support After Suicide|SASP is a UK wide network of over 70 members and supporters. It was founded in
2013 to bring together national and local organisations that are involved in
delivering suicide bereavement support across the UK and to address the need
for formal, multi-agency, proactive suicide bereavement support.|
|Regional Grants|This funding contributes to core helpline costs, volunteer training and other costs
incurred regionally.|
|National Suicide
Prevention|NSPA is a cross-sector, England-wide, coalition committed to reducing the
number of suicides in England and improving support for those bereaved or
affected by suicide.|
|Suicide & Self-harm in
Wales|To allow Samaritans and NSPA to carry out new covid-19 related work for the
immediate benefit of service users.|
|Suicide Prevention|A Suicide Prevention Fund to support Voluntary, Community, Social Enterprise
(VCSE) organisations that work to prevent suicide, including supporting their
ability to meet increased demands or needs for their services as a result of covid-
19.|
|Email service
development|Funding to support the development of Samaritans’ email service.|
|Military – SSAFA
partnership|A partnership with SSAFA to work together to gather the insight, research, and
evidence to inform and create an ambitious strategy focusing on reducing suicide
in veterans.|
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|National Training
School|To help support the future growth of our listening services and the various service
expansion pilots already underway. As the introduction of new service delivery
locations like hubs and satellites place considerable additional demands on
nearby branches and their existing volunteering teams, we've established a new
central recruitment and training team (known as Samaritans Training School) to
help support the training requirements for our service expansion programme.|
|---|---|
|Wellbeing & Resilience
Hub: Construction|To create a resource hub for use by workers in the UK construction industry, and
to develop a Wellbeing & Resilience Learning Module as part of such a hub. The
aim is to raise awareness, develop skills and inform construction workers of
wellbeing, mental health and resilience. Specifically, the project will target
individuals who work for smaller businesses and those classed as hard to reach.
Lighthouse will work with Samaritans to deliver a marketing campaign to drive
traffic to the digital hub, increasing participation and long-term engagement.|
|VCSE Health &
Wellbeing Alliance|To provide core funding to the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise
(VCSE) sector membership of the refreshed Health and Wellbeing (HW) Alliance.
Core work: strategic planned and responsive work, which will be identified with
policy leads from across the three system partner organisations.|
|Highland Programme|Initiation work for Samaritans’ targeted promotion of service and new resources
to improve mental health and resilience in the West Highlands of Scotland and
Skye.|
|Other restricted funds|These funds represent a number of donations received which carry specific
restrictions imposed by the donor. They are mainly received from Corporate or
Trust donors.|
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## 18. Samaritans group companies
## **a) Samaritans**
The charity is a private limited company (registered number 757372), which is incorporated and domiciled in the UK and is a public benefit entity. The address of the registered office is The Upper Mill, Kingston Road, Ewell, Surrey, KT17 2AF.
Samaritans uses the exemption in Section 408 of the Companies Act 2006 in not preparing a separate Income and Expenditure account for Samaritans as a separate entity.
Samaritans recharged expenditure of £862,000 to its subsidiaries during the year (2021: £770,000) and made payments to its subsidiaries of £229,000 (2021: £120,000). The Samaritans Enterprises Limited donates any surpluses to Samaritans under Gift Aid; for 2021 this amounted to £1,156,000 (2021: £1,236,000). At the yearend, £1,920,000 was due from Samaritans subsidiaries (2021: £482,000), and £19,000 was due from Samaritans Ireland (2021: Nil).
## **b) The Samaritan Enterprises Limited**
Company number: 01451175
The Samaritan Enterprises Limited is incorporated in the United Kingdom and has an issued share capital of £100, 100% of which is owned by Samaritans. The address of the registered office is The Upper Mill, Kingston Road, Ewell, Surrey, KT17 2AF.
The principal activity of the company is the delivery of a contract with Network Rail – ‘Tackling Suicide on the Railway’; income also includes that derived from certain sponsorship and training activities. Any net profit made by the company is transferred to the charity.
The Samaritan Enterprises Limited’s income amounted to £2,573,000 (2021: £2,582,000), expenditure amounted to £1,417,000 (2021: £1,346,000) and a surplus of £1,156,000 was generated (2021: surplus of £1,236,000), before transfers and other recognised gains/losses. At 31 March 2022 assets were £2,325,000 (2021: £3,006,000) and liabilities were £2,325,000 (2021: £3,006,000).
A Memorandum of Understanding has been agreed with Samaritans Central Charity to deliver certain requirements of the Network Rail contract. In accordance with this agreement, services of the central charity have been procured. As such, this year’s accounts include inter-company charges of £862,000 (2021: £770,000).
## **c) Samaritans Ireland**
Company number: 450409
Charity Number: CHY11880
Samaritans Ireland was established in the Republic of Ireland in December 2007 and became operational in April 2008. Samaritans Ireland is incorporated in the Republic as a company limited by guarantee. The address of the registered office is 4-5 Usher’s Court, Usher’s Quay, Dublin 8, Ireland.
By virtue of its constitution, Samaritans is able to exert control over Samaritans Ireland.
Samaritans Ireland’s income amounted to £1,047,000 (2021: £1,678,000), expenditure amounted to £1,069,000 (2021: £1,010,000) resulting in a deficit of £22,000 (2021: surplus of £668,000), before transfers and other recognised gains/losses. At 31 March 2022 assets were £1,426,000 (2021: £1,415,000), liabilities were £74,000 (2021: £39,000) and total funds were £1,353,000 (2021: £1,375,000).
The results of the company have been translated at the prevailing currency exchange rate at the average rate.
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## 19. Custodian trusteeship
The Charity no longer acts as Custodian Trustee for Samaritans branches.
## 20. Affiliated and Central Charity branches
As part of changes to our ways of working across the organisation, since April 2016 all branches have either been through an incorporation process and then affiliated to Samaritans Central Charity or joined Samaritans Central Charity, at which point they are no longer separate legal entities.
No branches completed the process this year, and 1 affiliate branch closed. Ongoing financial activity relating to these branches has been incorporated into the results of the central charity.
For SCC branches, the unincorporated entities have been retained and, in England and Wales, have been linked to the central charity on the Charity Commission register. Registered addresses for these entities are listed under Samaritans’ entry on the register. Each SCC branch holds net assets of £100, which are included within these group accounts as unrestricted funds. The unincorporated entities have charitable objectives which are consistent with those of the central charity.
A listing of Samaritans branches is included on pages 68 to 69, and SCC branches are indicated on this list.
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## Reference and administrative details
HRH The Prince of Wales
**Patron** HRH The Prince of Wales **Founder** The Late Prebendary Dr Chad Varah CH CBE MA **Company name** Samaritans The Upper Mill, Kingston Road **Registered address and principal office** Ewell, Surrey KT17 2AF **Registered charity** 219432 **Company number** 757372 **Scottish charity number** SC040604 **Website** samaritans.org
## Board of Trustees
Keith Leslie (Chair, Board of Trustees)
Hester Wain (Co Vice-Chair) (from 23 July 2021) Rory Girvan (Co Vice-Chair) (from 23 July 2021)
Laura Bunt
Philip Cliff (Chair, People Committee) (from 3 November 2021)
Ann John (Chair, Policy, Partnerships and Research Committee) (from 23 July 2021) Dr Jackie Craissati MBE (Chair, Service & Quality Committee) (stepped down 8 May 2021) Dr Anushta Sivananthan (Chair, Service & Quality Committee) (from 4 August 2021) Eleanor Farrell (Chair, Ireland Board)
Ana Laing (Chair, Wales Committee)
Gaia Marcus
Simon Salem (Chair, Audit & Risk Committee)
Angela Slaven
Natalie Stevenson (Chair, Scotland Committee) (stepped down 29 March)
Amanda Millar (Chair, Scotland Committee) (from 30 March) John Tennent (Honorary Treasurer and Chair of Finance Committee) (stepped down 27 July 2021) Annie Kent (Honorary Treasurer and Chair of Finance Committee) (from 25 September 2021)
Debbie Giwa
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
Samaritans senior staff
**CEO**
**Chief Operating Officer**
**Executive Director of Corporate Services and Company Secretary Executive Director of External Affairs Executive Director of Income**
Julie Bentley Gareth Germer Graeme Danton Paul McDonald Sonya Trivedy
Regional Directors (as of 31 March 2022)
Lissa Davenport (Interim Chair, Regional Directors) **Chair** (as of 31 March 2022) **East** Mark Smith **East Midlands** Mathew Shepherd **London** Ann McLaughlin Elizabeth Dicken (Interim) (from 15 August 2021) **North** (Mike Whelan stepped down 15 August 2021) **Northern Ireland** Alan Heron Christina Morgan (from 10 February 2022) **North West** (Eileen Brierley stepped down 9 February 2022) **Republic of Ireland** Rory Fitzgerald John Knight (from 1 November 2021) **Scotland** (Catherine Simpson stepped down 31 October 2021) **South** John McNeil **South East** Peter Rowland **South West** Penny Church **Wales** Meryl James **West Midlands** Peter Hammond **Yorkshire and Humberside** Michael George **Service Expansion** Tracey Fuller
Bankers: Lloyds Bank Plc, 25 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7HN HSBC Bank Plc, One London Square, Cross Lanes, Guildford, Surrey GU1 1UN
Investment managers: James Hambro & Partners LLP, 45 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JG External auditors: Crowe U.K. LLP, 55 Ludgate Hill, London, EC4M 7JW
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22
## Samaritans branches (A-J)
Aberdeen Aberystwyth* Ashford & Tenterden Athlone & Midland Ayrshire Ballymena Banbury & District* Bangor & North Down Barnsley Barrow, Furness & South Lakes* Basildon & Thurrock* Basingstoke* Bath & District Bedford* Belfast Bexley & Dartford* Birmingham Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn & Ribble Valley Blackpool, Fylde & Wyre Bognor Regis, Chichester & District* Bolton Borders* Boston, Lincolnshire* Bournemouth & District* Bracknell, Wokingham, Ascot & Districts Brent* Bridgend Bridlington & District* Brierley Hill Brighton, Hove & District Bristol Bromley & Orpington Bury* Bury St Edmunds & West Suffolk Buxton & High Peak* Caithness Cambridge Canterbury & District Cardiff & District* Carlisle Central London Chelmsford & Mid-Essex* Cheltenham & District Chester & District Chesterfield Chiltern Colchester Coleraine & District Cork Cornwall at Truro Correspondence* Coventry & District Craigavon Croydon & Sutton* Darlington & District* Derby & District Derry Doncaster* Dorset at Weymouth Drogheda Dublin Dumfries* Dundee Dunfermline Durham (Central) Ealing Eastbourne & District East Coast Samaritans East Surrey Edinburgh and the Lothians Elgin* Ennis & Clare Exeter, Mid & East Devon Falkirk & Central Scotland Farnborough & District* Festival* Folkestone, Dover & Hythe Galway Glasgow Gloucester & District* Grantham Great Yarmouth* Grimsby, Cleethorpes & District* Guernsey Guildford Halifax & Calderdale Harrogate & District Harrow Hastings & Rother Havering (Romford)* Herefordshire Herts & Essex (Ware) Hillingdon Horsham & Crawley Huddersfield Inner South West London Inverclyde* Inverness Ipswich and East Suffolk Isle of Man Isle of Wight* Jersey
*These branches are part of Samaritans Central Charity as of 31 March 2022.
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Samaritans branches (K-Z)
Kerry Kilkenny and Carlow Kingston upon Hull Kirkcaldy & District* Lancaster & District Leeds* Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Limerick & Tipperary Liverpool & Merseyside Luton, South Beds & Harpenden Maidstone & Weald Mansfield* Mid-Cheshire Newbridge & Kildare Newport & Gwent North Devon & North Cornwall North Herts & Stevenage North West Surrey* Northallerton & The Dales* Northumbria* Nottingham Orkney* Pembrokeshire Perth Plymouth, East Cornwall & South West Devon Powys in Llandrindod Wells Reading Rochdale, Oldham & District* Salisbury & District Scunthorpe* Shetland Sligo Solihull* South Devon Southampton & District Southport & District* Stockport* Stratford-upon-Avon & District Swansea Tamworth Teeside (Middlesbrough)* Tunbridge Wells & District Wakefield & District* Waltham Forest (Leyton)* Waterford & the South-East Western Isles Wigan Wolverhampton Worthing York
Kettering & District King’s Lynn Kingston upon Thames Lanarkshire in Hamilton* Leatherhead & Mid-Surrey Leek & District Lewisham, Greenwich & Southwark Lincoln* Lowestoft & Waveney District* Macclesfield & District Manchester & Salford Medway, Gravesham & Swale* Milton Keynes Newbury Newry North East Wales* North London (Enfield, Haringey & Barnet) North West Wales Northampton Norwich Omagh Oxford Pendle, Burnley, Craven & Rossendale Peterborough & District Portsmouth & East Hampshire Preston & District Redbridge* Rotherham Scarborough Sheffield Shrewsbury Slough, Windsor & Maidenhead South Cheshire South West Herts Southend-on-Sea Stafford Stoke-on-Trent & Newcastle Sunderland* Swindon & District* Taunton & Somerset Telford Tyneside* Walsall & District* Warrington, Halton & St Helens* West Cumbria Weston Super Mare & North Somerset Winchester & District Worcester Yeovil, Sherborne & District
*These branches are part of Samaritans Central Charity as of 31 March 2022.
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## Donors and supporters
Samaritans’ focus is always on those struggling to cope and those who use our service. Our staff and volunteers are central to our ability to provide a service we’re proud of. Yet we wouldn’t be able to provide it without the people who support our work. We’re so grateful for the money, time and passion they give to help us work towards our vision. We’re thankful for every penny, from the core funding that allows us to do what we do best, to the specific funding of programmes and innovations that help us continually improve our service for those who need us. We’d like to thank all our donors and supporters – including those who wish to remain anonymous. We couldn't do what we do without you.
29th May 1961 Charitable Trust Admiral Group Alice Ellen Cooper Dean Charitable Foundation Anthony Scholefield Foundation ASAP Baillie Gifford Beder Burberry Cala Homes Chris and Gilda Haskins DCMS Community Match Challenge Department of Health Northern Ireland Dojo East Sussex County Council The Fidelity UK Foundation Garfield Weston Foundation Grace Trust Guthrie Essame Charitable Trust Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service Inman Charity John Coates Charitable Trust Legal & General The Lord Mayors Appeal National Highways NHS England and Improvement Nominet The Options Fund Peacock Charitable Trust Permira Foundation Phoenix Schroders Scottish Prison Service Stone Family Foundation Tides Foundation TP ICAP Trott Family Charitable Trust VolkerWessels Walter Guinness Charitable Trust Welsh Government World Gold Council
3 Ts Charitable Trust Alan Boswell Group Charitable Trust Andy Briggs Ardonagh Community Trust Atlas Fund Barclays BGL Group Cadogan Charity Calor Curtins Department of Health and Social Care Derek Raphael Charitable Trust Dr Vivian Child Charitable Trust ERA Freddie Green and Family Charitable Foundation The Golding Family GRAHAM Hannover RE Hutchinson Charitable Trust Irish Prison Service KKR Leslie Mary Carter Charitable Trust Misses Robinson Charitable Trust Network Rail The NFU Mutual Charitable Trust Northern Ireland Prison Service P F Charitable Trust Pears Foundation Peter Harrison Porta Pia 2012 Foundation Scottish Government Souter Charitable Trust Three Tim Minchin TraceLink UK Greetings Ltd VPS Group The Waterloo Foundation Wilson Family Trust
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