Samaritans’ Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
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Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
**Trustees’ Annual Report and Accounts**
**Strategic report** ................................................................................................................................... 4 Letter from our Chair and CEO ........................................................................................................ 4 Our strategy ..................................................................................................................................... 6 About this document ....................................................................................................................... 7 Our performance ............................................................................................................................ 7 Priorities ........................................................................................................................................... 8 Access ........................................................................................................................................... 8 Reach .......................................................................................................................................... 10 Impact ........................................................................................................................................ 13 Capacity ...................................................................................................................................... 21 Sustainability .............................................................................................................................. 23 Principles ........................................................................................................................................ 25 Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) .......................................................................................... 25 Personal experience ................................................................................................................... 26 Safety and quality ...................................................................................................................... 27 Evidence-based .......................................................................................................................... 28 Vocal and visible ........................................................................................................................ 29 Innovation and technology ........................................................................................................ 31 Environmental responsibility ..................................................................................................... 32 Meeting our environmental responsibilities ............................................................................. 32 Creating our environmental road map ...................................................................................... 32 Work that was delayed, postponed or cancelled in 2024/25 ....................................................... 33 Future plans ................................................................................................................................. 34 Changes to the organisation ......................................................................................................... 34 Financial review ............................................................................................................................. 35 Risks and uncertainties .................................................................................................................. 41 **Governance report** ............................................................................................................................ 44 Our structure .................................................................................................................................. 44 Incidents and Reporting ............................................................................................................... 49 Fundraising Activities Statement .................................................................................................. 50 Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting ................................................................................... 53 Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities ......................................................................................... 55 Independent Auditor’s Report to the Members and Trustees of Samaritans................................... 57
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Financial Statements .......................................................................................................................... 62 Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities ............................................................................. 62 Charity Statement of Financial Activities ....................................................................................... 63 Consolidated and Charity Balance Sheet ....................................................................................... 64 Consolidated and Charity Statement of Cashflows ....................................................................... 65 Notes to the Accounts ................................................................................................................... 66 Reference and Administrative details ................................................................................................ 90 Board of Trustees ....................................................................................................................... 90 Samaritans senior staff .............................................................................................................. 90 Directors of Branch Operations and Regional Directors (as of 31 March 2025) ....................... 91 Samaritans' branches ......................................................................................................................... 92 Donors and supporters ...................................................................................................................... 95
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## **Strategic report**
## Letter from our Chair and CEO
Thank you to each and every one of you. That’s the first and most important thing we want to say. Whether you’re a volunteer, supporter, partner or member of staff, everything Samaritans has achieved this year has only been possible because of you.
The second thing that we want to say is that, despite the financial pressures facing the entire charity sector, Samaritans has continued to deliver its core services to people in crisis. Your contribution makes a real, positive difference in people’s lives.
The third thing that we want to say is that the Samaritans movement is reflecting on the changing needs of people who contact us, changing technologies and financial pressures to think deeply about the future. We’ve started important pieces of work to help us better understand the challenges and opportunities ahead, so we can make sure Samaritans continues to be there for everyone who needs us. Not just today, but ten years from now and beyond.
Of course, not everything will change – Samaritans will always be the charity that is focussed on fewer people dying by suicide through the power of human connection. Connecting people in crisis with trained volunteers who will always listen.
Unfortunately, the need for Samaritans is as great as it ever was. Every hour of every day, our volunteers are there to listen to people going through some of the hardest moments of their lives. We are so proud of the compassion, commitment and empathy they bring to every call, every message and every conversation.
At the same time, we are working hard to tackle the causes of suicide. Through research, policy work and the voices of people with lived experience, we’re influencing decision makers across our five jurisdictions in the UK and Ireland, changing attitudes and pushing for the support people need and deserve. Whether it’s in prisons, hospitals, workplaces or on the rail network, we’re building partnerships and helping more people understand how to support someone who may be struggling.
Although our vision will not change, we are reviewing every aspect of how we operate in order to improve our service to those who need us, while navigating a tough environment. We are not in crisis, but now is the moment for Samaritans to change in order to avoid a crisis. Demand is high, and yet capacity and resources are stretched under our current operating model. We achieve great things by working together and we are engaging with the volunteers and staff who make the service possible, with the donors and fundraisers who keep us running and, most importantly, with the people we support, who help shape our services and remind us of every day why our work matters. You can be confident that Samaritans will evolve to better serve people who need us, while changing how we operate to match these challenging times.
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Thank you for believing in us and the work we do.
Thank you for helping us save lives.
Julie Bentley, CEO
Keith Leslie, Chair
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## Our strategy
We are Samaritans. Together, we work to prevent suicide through the power of human connection. We connect people in crisis with trained volunteers who will always listen. We unite to raise awareness of people’s experiences, create partnerships and influence key stakeholders on suicide prevention. Together, we make suicide prevention a priority and reach people before it’s too late.
Since launching our strategy in 2022, _Tackling suicide together: providing a safe space in uncertain times_ , we’ve continued working to make sure we’re there, day and night, to connect people in crisis with trained volunteers who will always listen, because we make suicide prevention a priority.
This year, we’ve continued to take important steps to lift our strategy off the page and launch it into action. We’ve made it easier for people to access our support, extended our reach to more people and built stronger foundations to support our volunteers and staff. We’ve also spoken out on important issues that impact suicide risk and used our voice to push for change.
Our work is shaped by five key priority areas:
- Access: making sure we are here for those who need Samaritans’ service
- Reach: ensuring we are reaching those most in need of our service
- Impact: using our voice to influence real change in suicide prevention
- Capacity: growing a skilled, supported and inclusive volunteer and staff team
- Sustainability: focusing on how to ensure Samaritans will continue to be here for people who need us
Our seven strategic principles also guide our life-saving work:
- Equity, diversity and • Vocal and visible inclusion (EDI) • Innovation and technology
- • Personal experience • Environmental • Safety and quality responsibility
- Evidence-based
Since creating our strategy, we’ve made progress, but some areas of work have been delayed. Last year, our Board of Trustees extended our current strategy to 2029, and now that we have reached a halfway point in our strategy’s journey, we are in the process of reviewing our progress.
Despite the challenges Samaritans has faced we have delivered change in 2024/25. This includes improving volunteer training and services for our callers, reaching new audiences, and working with our partners to prevent suicide. And we plan to build on this so that Samaritans is always there as long as we are needed.
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## About this document
The following pages highlight how we performed against our strategic priorities in 2024/25.
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, Ireland’s Charities Regulator and relevant bodies within crown dependencies. In particular, Samaritans’ core listening and online services are free to the general public. 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).
Unless otherwise stated, the service statistics in this report are for the 2024 calendar year. Please see our 2024/25 Impact Report for more information about our work and how it is making a difference.
## Our performance
Every 90 minutes, someone in the UK or Ireland takes their own life. We answer a call for help every 10 seconds – calls that could save lives.
Our vision is that fewer people die by suicide and this year we’ve continued to do all that we can to make this vision a reality. Guided by our strategy, we’ve listened to people with lived experience, our volunteers, staff and supporters to find out how we can strengthen the impact of our work and reach even more people who need us.
In the following sections of this report, we detail our progress and achievements against our five key priority areas and strategic principles. This is our strategy in action, showing how we work towards our vision that fewer people die by suicide.
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## Priorities
## **Access**
We’re committed to making sure that anyone who needs our support can easily get in touch with us.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **3.3 million calls for help answered**
In 2024 we were there when people needed us most, responding to over 3.3 million calls for help. This included more than 3 million phone calls, over 180,000 emails, around 50,000 online chats, and nearly 800 letters. On average, more than 70,000 people reached out each month, and volunteers answered a call for help every 10 seconds. Just over 1 in 5 emotional support contacts involved someone talking about suicidal feelings or behaviour, and selfharm was mentioned in more than 1 in 16. The demand for support was also clear online, with almost 1.8 million visits to the contact pages on the Samaritans website.
In the UK, the average call answer rate for our helpline in 2024 was 69%. This reflects the proportion of answerable calls that were responded to that could feasibly be answered by a volunteer at the time. While we strive to answer every call, limitations such as volunteer availability and call volume mean that not all calls can be picked up immediately. This figure does not include data from Ireland, as they currently have a separate telephone helpline.
## **Supporting people in prison**
We’ve continued to deliver the Listener scheme in prisons across the UK and Ireland. Samaritans’ Prison Support volunteers visit prisons to train and support prisoners to be Listeners, who provide confidential, emotional support to their peers who are struggling to cope.
In 2024, Listeners provided support over 47,500 times. There were over 26,000 contacts facilitated by prison staff and over 21,000 Listener contacts took place informally during times where prisoners were free to move outside of their cells.
In 2024/25, we focused on improving training to ensure that Listeners and volunteers have the skills to meet the needs of people in prison. A new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) training module for Listeners was created, piloted and rolled out to existing Listeners. The training prisoners receive before becoming Listeners, was refreshed and launched, including EDI and postvention modules. The language has been reviewed by The Bell Foundation to ensure that is accessible to learners in prisons.
We’ve carried out research into self-harm and suicide in specific groups, including people with neurodevelopmental differences and transgender individuals in prison. One of the key research projects, funded by HM Prison and Probation Services (HMPPS), focused on the lived experience of self-harm in prison and the role of support. The findings from this
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research have been shared with HMPPS and will be published on our website. Alongside this, we have been able to generate new insights into the delivery of our Listener scheme programme and our postvention support in prisons by strengthening our monitoring and evaluation work. We’ve completed a new monitoring and evaluation report based on new data from 2024 data, which will help shape the future of the Listener programme and postvention support in prisons.
Prisons are higher-risk environments for suicide, and the people in prison are especially vulnerable. Last year, there were 92 suicides in prisons across England and Wales. In response, we worked with HMPPS to embed Postvention support in every prison. Postvention is the care provided after a suicide to help those affected, including prisoners, trained Listeners, and staff. This process includes prison staff informing prisoners about the death in an empathetic way, Listeners proactively offering support to those most impacted and volunteers speaking to staff.
Through postvention, Listeners offered support to over 2,500 people and had conversations with more than 800 individuals about how the suicide affected them. This approach is helping to build a more compassionate response and reduce further risks in these challenging environments.
## **Marking 10 years of our free helpline number in Ireland**
In 2024 we marked 10 years of the free 116 123 number in Ireland, which the European Commission and ComReg awarded in March 2014. The telecoms providers – BT Ireland, eir, Sky Ireland, Three Ireland, Virgin Media Ireland and Vodafone Ireland – cover the cost of calls and have extended their partnership for another five years. This partnership is supported by Ibec's Telecoms Industry Ireland group. Over the past 10 years, we have answered five million calls for help in Ireland, providing around 700,000 hours of support.
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## **Reach**
We're working to connect with all communities, so everyone knows we're here to support them.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Raising awareness on World Suicide Prevention Day**
On World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD), we aimed to show that talking about suicidal thoughts doesn’t have to be scary. People with lived experience shared their stories, showing that talking can save lives. We also shared our _Finding a way to say it_ guide to help people open up about their feelings. Our campaign pages on the website were visited 11,000 times.
One in four people will experience suicidal thoughts at some point in their life[1] , but stigma often prevents them from seeking help. A Samaritans poll found only 45 per cent of people feel comfortable discussing suicidal thoughts with family, compared to 74 per cent who talk about mental health.[2] At Samaritans, we want to change this, as conversations can save lives.
This year, our WSPD campaign reached around 1.4 million and had 300,000 video views on social media. Celebrity supporters like Rylan and Scarlett Moffatt helped us reach 8.2 million followers. We also gained media coverage in over 100 regional outlets, and our branches hosted outreach events. We have formed a working group of people with lived experience to help plan for next year’s WSPD campaign.
## **Challenging the unhelpful ’Blue Monday’ myth on Brew Monday**
At Samaritans, we know life can be tough, and we want to challenge unhelpful mental health stereotypes like ‘Blue Monday,’ which was created to sell holidays and reinforces negative mental health stereotypes. Instead, we promote ‘Brew Monday’, a day to reach out to someone for a cuppa and a chat. We believe feeling low isn’t tied to any specific day, so we encourage people to connect and check in with others and talk about how they’re feeling.
This year, Samaritans volunteers hosted over 150 Brew Monday events across the UK and Ireland, handing out thousands of tea bags and raising awareness. Our partner Three UK sponsored our Brew Monday campaign this year. Together we encouraged people to ‘take three’ and spend three minutes connecting over a cup of tea. The campaign trended on social media, with 1.2 million views, 50,000 engagements, and 280 pieces of media coverage.
> 1 Mental health and wellbeing in England: Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2023/4 (NHS Digital, 2025)
> 2 The Opinium survey was conducted between 9-13th February 2024, with a nationally representative sample of 2,001 UK adults.
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## **Encouraging people to use Small Talk to Saves Lives**
Our Small Talk Saves Lives (STSL) campaign encourages people to start a simple conversation if they think someone isn’t okay at railway stations or other public places, as long as they feel safe to do so. The campaign, delivered in partnership with Network Rail and British Transport Police, encourages people to approach others and offer support through small but meaningful interactions, helping to reduce suicide in public settings.
This year, we launched STSL at London Bridge Station, featuring an art exhibition that highlighted the power of conversation in saving lives. The Power of Words exhibition, created by artist Chris Bishop, shared the stories of individuals who used small talk to help others in crisis. The exhibition included portraits of storytellers Claire, Don and Gary, all of whom made a difference through simple human connection. The campaign ran from 4 March to 25 March 2025.
Phase 8 of STSL delivered broad and impactful reach. Our campaign video was seen by around 3.25 million people through paid media across video-on-demand and online channels. Media coverage of the campaign was extensive, with 266 articles published across regional and national outlets.
Most importantly, the campaign inspired action. Of those surveyed, 93 per cent said it motivated them to act if they saw someone who might need help. A third discussed the campaign with friends or family, and one in five shared it online. These figures reflect a strong public response and growing confidence in recognising when someone may be in distress and knowing how to start a conversation—key elements in preventing suicide in public spaces.
## **We got people to Talk More Than Football**
With two in three football fans struggling with their mental health, the need for open, honest conversations has never been greater. That’s why we partnered with Three UK to launch season two of our award-winning campaign, encouraging football fans to open up about their mental health. Talk More Than Football returned in 2024 with a team talk to the nation delivered by former footballer and actor Vinnie Jones. The film served as a reminder to reach out, open up, and support those around you who may be struggling to cope. In the video, Jones gives Chelsea players a surprise motivational team talk, encouraging them to reach out to a mate who they might not have heard from in a while. Research commissioned by Three as part of the campaign found that one in four fans said that seeing well-known people talk more regularly about mental health would help them do it too. The campaign achieved over 140 million video views, including all-day coverage on Sky Sports, and generated more than 400 media pieces, with 28 UK press articles. Beyond reach, the campaign drove real attitude shifts with 91 per cent of football fans who saw the video saying they were more likely to speak to friends and family about mental health.
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## **Growing our impact in Ireland through local partnerships**
Samaritans was honoured in 2024 to receive the Humanitarian Organisation of the Year award at the Irish Red Cross Humanitarian Awards on behalf of all our volunteers. The award recognised the outstanding contribution we've made to the lives of others through our work and commitment. The Red Cross specifically commended Samaritans for continuously targeting underserved communities most at risk of suicide through various projects and campaigns. The award has increased our visibility and credibility in Ireland, opening doors to new partnerships and raising awareness of our services. The judges' statement that "Samaritans' relentless commitment to providing emotional support 24/7 underscores their pivotal role in suicide prevention and mental health advocacy in Ireland" reinforces our position as a leading organisation in suicide prevention.
In 2024, we also marked 10 years of being the official Mental Health Partner of Ireland’s largest sporting body, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). Together, GAA players and former players join with our volunteers across Ireland and Northern Ireland to reduce the stigma around mental health and encourage anyone in need to seek help. We secured the naming rights of Wexford GAA’s second county ground. An estimated 30,000 people go through the turnstiles of the newly named Samaritans St Patrick’s Park each year. This will raise awareness of our service among players, members and supporters.
## **Raising awareness across Scotland**
This year, we launched our Samaritartan, a unique tartan created to raise awareness of Samaritans and show support for those affected by suicide. Volunteers in Scotland voted on the final design, and our Lived Experience Advisory Group helped guide the project. The tartan was officially launched in January 2025, just in time for Burns Night, with a teaser outside the Scottish Parliament on 22 January attended by members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), including the Minister for Mental Wellbeing, Maree Todd MSP and a video launch starting on 25 January. The video featured a poem by Edinburgh Makar, Michael Pedersen, explaining the meaning behind the tartan.
Samaritartan symbolises the many people in Scotland touched by suicide, with its interwoven design representing connection. It’s fast becoming a symbol for suicide prevention in Scotland, helping build brand awareness, promote help-seeking campaigns, and support fundraising.
This year, as part of our work across the West Highlands and Skye, we delivered free workplace and community training to a wide range of organisations and businesses. Our one-day Samaritans course, Conversations with Vulnerable People, helped over 60 people build the skills and confidence to support someone who might be struggling in 2024. From Skye to Oban, we worked with police officers, bus drivers, charity staff, housing association teams and ferry operators. We worked with these people because they are likely to meet someone in distress as part of their job. After the training, 98 per cent said they had a better understanding of how to actively listen and talk to someone who may be vulnerable.
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## **Supporting those at risk in Wales**
Our Welsh language helpline continued to offer vital emotional support to callers in their own language. Available every evening, the service supported around 2,000 people. Alongside this, our dedicated network of volunteers across Wales answered 225,000 calls, responded to over 7,500 emails and more than 5,000 online chats, and gave over 111,000 hours of their time. Volunteers also took part in more than 400 outreach events, helping raise awareness and connect with communities across the country.
This year, we partnered with farming support charity Tir Dewi to deliver the _Our Farming, Our Future_ project. Designed to reduce suicide risk in rural Wales, the project works closely with Wales Young Farmers Clubs to raise awareness of mental health challenges and deliver peer-led support across Mid Wales. The initiative addresses the isolation and unique pressures experienced by people in the agricultural community and is part of our wider effort to ensure no one is left to struggle alone.
We also launched Open Up Listen Up, a Welsh bilingual campaign aimed at breaking down harmful stereotypes around men and emotional expression. The campaign encouraged men to talk about their feelings and focused on the power of listening. It reached 165,000 adult males across Wales via social media, and was broadcast on YouTube, S4C, and ITVX. The campaign has helped challenge stigma and open up vital conversations around male mental health.
Our volunteers were active at several major events across Wales this year, including Pride Cymru, the Royal Welsh Show, the National Eisteddfod, In It Together, and Green Man Festival. At these events, we offered face-to-face emotional support to those struggling and raised awareness of our services. In total, our Festival Branch provided support to 391 individuals in Wales, ensuring that help was available in their moment of need.
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## **Impact**
Making sure our voice is heard across the United Kingdom and Ireland to create change.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Working with the media to support safe reporting and portrayal of suicide**
Irresponsible or sensationalist reporting of suicide can lead to imitational suicidal behaviour among vulnerable people. That’s why Samaritans works closely with the media to promote safe, accurate and sensitive coverage, helping reduce harm and save lives.
This year we celebrated 30 years of Samaritans’ media guidelines work, including through a feature in media trade press titled _Suicide reporting: How journalists can help save a life_ . We published new guidance on topics such as novel suicide methods, suicides at public places, assisted suicide, and a Suicide Prevention Communications and Campaigns guide for nonmedia organisations. We also completed a revision of our media guidelines training content and began rolling it out.
Throughout the year, we delivered almost 40 media guidelines advice sessions to media outlets, press regulators, NHS Trusts and Public Health teams. We worked with documentary and drama producers. This included a long-running male mental health and suicide attempt storyline on EastEnders. The storyline helped raise awareness of suicide prevention and Samaritans’ work, receiving positive media coverage, including a feature on _The One Show_ as part of EastEnders’ 40th anniversary.
We made significant progress with journalism students by introducing suicide reporting training. We delivered sessions at 11 universities teaching journalism courses to support responsible reporting in future newsrooms. We also made a submission to the BBC’s consultation on its editorial guidelines.
This year we monitored over 8,500 news articles, including high-profile cases and stories on deaths and inquests related to novel suicide methods. We also achieved strong engagement with coroners, with many agreeing to issue briefings to press and making redactions to Prevention of Future Death reports.
Our paper, _Reducing risk when publishing academic articles about suicide_ , was published in _Lancet Psychiatry_ .
## **Working with decision-makers to ensure suicide prevention is prioritised**
In the past year, there have been general elections in both the UK and Ireland. These events have significantly shaped our political engagement and influencing work. In the UK, preelection, we engaged political parties around their manifestos, resulting in commitments on suicide being included in the Labour and Liberal Democrat party manifestos. Post-election, we worked with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that the national suicide prevention strategy for England was retained, and we started to build strong
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relationships with the new Government, including talking with the new Minister responsible for suicide prevention on their first day in office.
In the lead-up to Ireland's 2024 general election, we engaged with political parties around our key asks, resulting in the Labour Party including specific commitments on loneliness. Post-election, we continued to meet newly elected politicians and raise awareness of our key asks which centred on loneliness, online safety, and language training for elected members. We also submitted a comprehensive consultation response to the Department of Health for Ireland's next suicide reduction policy and attended in-person consultations to shape the strategy succeeding Connecting for Life.
In the UK, we also continued to influence the implementation of the Online Safety Act, a law designed to protect children and adults online. We have submitted several consultation responses to Ofcom, the regulator responsible for implementation of the Act, relating to topics such as illegal harms and transparency guidance. We attended a roundtable with the Minister for Online Safety, Baroness Jones, to discuss the challenges of implementation, with our focus on trying to ensure that small but high-risk platforms are subject to the strictest measures.
We had the highest ever turnout of MPs at the inaugural meeting to re-establish the AllParty Parliamentary Group on Suicide and Self-harm Prevention and at our Brew Monday parliamentary event, which 60 MPs attended including the Speaker of the House of Common and the Ministers for Mental Health and Public Health.
In addition to this work, we also launched four reports this year. The All-Party Parliamentary Group’s inquiry into young people and suicide was launched in Parliament, with the report's recommendations shaped by young people. We launched three reports as part of the Suicide Prevention Consortium, covering issues such as accessing support for alcohol issues and suicidal ideation.
## **Making public spaces safer**
This year, we secured renewal and additional funding for our strategic partnership with National Highways for 2025-28. Within the existing partnership, we have progressed work to support National Highways to improve how they evaluate interventions to reduce suicide on roads, as well as commissioning research into crisis signage and phones, attended and presented at Highways UK and Interchange conference, presented to the National Highways Safety board and, separately, their Safety Executive.
We continued to work on a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funded research project with the University of Middlesex, University of Westminster, Canterbury Christ Church University and University of Glasgow. The project aims to investigate whether surveillance technology can effectively reduce suicides and suicide attempts at high-risk public locations.
We have also developed the Public Places Lived Experience Advisory Group, in collaboration with our rail programme, which aims to support and inform policy and practice in public
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spaces. We now have nine lived experience advisors (five female, four male, age ranging from 20-65) helping to inform best practice across the rail and non-rail programmes.
Over the past year, we held seven sessions with the Safer Public Spaces Network, a group for people working in high-risk locations. Topics explored included public perception of certain locations, memorials and examples of how to restrict access to prevent suicide.
We also supported 175 requests for bespoke advice and best practice from practitioners at high-risk locations, as well as 108 from Samaritans branches. This advice covered interventions, prevention measures and examples of best practice. We gathered feedback from external stakeholders, and there was a clear boost in confidence after speaking with us. For example, in one survey, before speaking to Samaritans, only 25 per cent felt very confident about their work, but after our session, 37.5 per cent felt extremely confident, and 62.5 per cent felt very confident. Across all surveys, 100 per cent of respondents said they were extremely satisfied with the programme, that responses were timely and that they would recommend the programme to others.
## **Growing the impact of our work with the rail industry**
This year we successfully retendered and retained the contract with Network Rail, securing a new, multi-year partnership. We also expanded our reach and impact, partnering with Amey Infrastructure Wales (AIW) to deliver a new programme of rail suicide prevention work across the Core Valley Lines in south Wales.
The rail programme has now trained over 31,500 rail staff in suicide prevention since 2010, with a further 6,000 trained in trauma support. Our model of upskilling other trainers in the rail industry to deliver our Managing Suicidal Contacts course has resulted in an extra 1,000 staff being trained in 2024/5, in addition to the 2,100 trained directly by us this year.
Our volunteers provided in-person emotional support at stations after suspected suicides on 136 occasions, providing an essential opportunity for rail staff and the public alike to get support. This is made possible by the 990 specially trained volunteers nationwide—a 67 per cent increase since the end of the pandemic.
As part of our new contract, we have actively and explicitly rebalanced our regional activities in order to focus on increasing visibility of Samaritans’ services and support in higher-risk communities before there are incidents on the railway. The presence of the embedded Samaritans Regional Development Leads (RDLs), a Samaritans staff team who cover different areas across the rail network, means we can swiftly bring impactful changes to local communities where we know the risk of rail-based suicides is most prevalent. In these areas the team are engaging in in-depth work within both the rail environment (such as signage and staff training) and at a community level, sharing case studies with the rail industry, outlining the works completed.
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The team also delivered 11 community roadshows in higher-risk communities, providing emotional support to over 140 people, and engaging with a more than 1,600 people about Samaritans and the work that we do.
## **Influencing Welsh policy and practice**
This year, we continued to use our research and frontline experience to influence Welsh policy and practice. We contributed to the Welsh Government’s new strategies for SelfHarm and Suicide Prevention and Mental Health, and worked closely with the NHS Executive and regional suicide prevention leads. We also published _Waiting for Change_ , a report exploring suicide and mental health challenges along the parenthood journey in Wales. Grounded in lived experience, this research helped shape policy conversations and highlighted the urgent need for more inclusive, compassionate support for parents. This year, we strengthened our national partnership with Network Rail Wales, Transport for Wales, British Transport Police and other rail industry partners to reduce suicide on the railways. As a result of this collaboration, 200 life-saving interventions were recorded across the Welsh rail network between 2023 and 2024. This partnership also supports rail staff and passengers by improving mental health awareness and emergency response.
## **Engaging with decision-makers in Northern Ireland**
In 2024, we invited Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and local councillors in Northern Ireland to visit their local Samaritans volunteers to help increase visibility and understanding of our work. During these visits, politicians had the chance to learn about different aspects of our service, including our work with prisons, volunteer training and community outreach.
As a result of spending time with our volunteers, we've seen more interest from political representatives in our policy work. We continue to build strong relationships with them, collaborating on our policy asks. Volunteers have also built stronger connections with their local elected representatives, allowing them to directly address opportunities and challenges in their areas.
## **Keeping people safer online**
Since 2019, Samaritans’ Online Excellence Programme has been focused on suicide prevention in the online environment by working to reduce harmful online content related to self-harm and suicide and increasing opportunities for support. This year, the programme took a comprehensive approach to improving online safety and support. We trained 1,550 practitioners from multiple sectors, such as healthcare, education and government, through our monthly live webinar called 'The Internet, Suicide and Self-harm'. This helped build their confidence and skills to address internet use in relation to suicide and self-harm with those they support.
We also reached 393 practitioners through our self-guided e-learning module, designed to boost their knowledge and confidence when having conversations about harmful online content. Our YouTube 'Health Shelf' video series, which includes the voices of those with
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lived experience, reached over 10,000 views on social media. These videos help challenge misconceptions and provide insight into suicide prevention. Our Resource Hub, which contains free resources for different audiences, has been accessed over 27,000 times and our Industry Guidelines have been accessed over 12,000 times. We also supported the tech industry to achieve best practice in tackling online harm through our Online Safety Advisory Service and worked closely with Ofcom as the Online Safety Act came into force.
## **Working in partnership with other organisations**
This year, we were proud to host the National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA) and Support After Suicide (SASP), two important organisations working to improve collaboration across the suicide prevention sector and support for those bereaved by suicide.
The NSPA has a wide reach across the suicide prevention community, and membership now includes over 420 organisations and 3,000 individuals. This year, the NSPA has worked to increase engagement with its membership by refining their member journey, improving communications and developing their website. One of the key highlights was the launch of the NSPA Online Forum, a dedicated space for knowledge sharing. This has helped spark new conversations and connections between members.
The NSPA’s Lived Experience Network has continued to support lived experience involvement in suicide prevention, including supporting the development of Samaritans’ Suicide Prevention in Public Places Lived Experience Advisory Group and working with the City Bridge Foundation to ensure the expertise of those with lived experience shaped the design of their £10m Suicide Prevention Fund in London. NSPA’s Lived Experience Influencers contributed to 24 different projects, helping to shape and inform suicide prevention activities.
The NSPA’s campaign, “Language Matters” was co-produced with members and Lived Experience Influencers to challenge the stigma around suicide. The campaign generated the highest engagement rates for NSPA since 2021, with a 147 per cent increase in website traffic compared to the previous year. The social media posts reached nearly 50,000 people and generated more than 2,600 engagements.
The campaign’s stigma webpage, which became the central hub for content, attracted over 1,000 views. The communications toolkit was downloaded more than 300 times, and over 40 organisations shared the campaign messaging. The campaign also featured an interview with Ruby Wax about her experiences with suicidality, reaching an additional 16,000 people.
Over the past year, SASP has helped members use tools to measure the impact of suicide bereavement support through webinars. They created two new resources on supporting those affected by suicide and gambling harms, and those from racialised communities, developed with organisations and people with lived experience.
They held member meetings on topics like supporting people affected by, but not directly bereaved by, suicide and collaborated with the Suicide Prevention Consortium on its year four report, launched in March 2025. This helped secure additional funding for the project.
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They also started NHS Wales-funded research on the experiences of children and young people bereaved by suicide, to create evidence for better support. This research also aims to improve access to services for those facing health inequalities. In total, SASP reached 242 people across seven events, showing strong interest from members. The broader impact is felt by the estimated 800,000 people affected by suicide each year.
Due to the extremely challenging funding environment, Samaritans made the difficult decision that we will no longer be able to host NSPA and SASP in the future. We have supported them to find another host organisation and will continue to be an active member of both NSPA and SASP.
## **Working to promote responsible reporting and online safety in Ireland**
We hosted a high-profile conference with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Ireland's National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP) on "Promoting Safe and Sensitive Media Reporting of Suicide and Self-harm" in September 2024. This significant event prominently featured our Media Advisory Service and brought together international experts, government officials and media professionals. Key participants included Khalid Saeed (WHO EMRO Regional Advisor), Mental Health Minister Mary Butler and prominent journalists such as Sarah Johnston from The Guardian. The conference successfully positioned Samaritans Ireland as a leading authority on responsible media reporting of suicide. It facilitated important knowledge exchange between media professionals, policymakers, and health authorities. The participation of high-profile figures like WHO representatives and government ministers elevated the issue's importance nationally. The event helped strengthen media guidelines and best practice, potentially reducing harmful reporting of suicide and self-harm in Irish and international media.
We continued to engage with the new Office of the Online Safety Commissioner within Coimisiún na Meán (Media Commission). Our ongoing dialogue with the Commission has focused on effectively implementing the Online Safety Code and ensuring appropriate safeguards are in place. This work builds on our previous submissions and consultations with the Commission as they develop their regulatory framework. Our continued engagement has helped shape the Commission's approach to suicide and self-harm content in online spaces. By providing expert input, we've contributed to a regulatory framework that balances content moderation with support opportunities for those in crisis. This helps ensure that content moderators, commission staff and others who encounter distressing content receive adequate training and support, ultimately creating safer online environments while preserving critical support pathways.
## **Bringing organisations together to push for change in Northern Ireland**
In 2024, we helped create the Mental Health Policy Alliance to bring organisations together and push for change in mental health and suicide prevention policy in Northern Ireland. We knew that no single organisation could solve these complex issues alone, so we led the way in bringing key voices together to combine our experience, resources and influence.
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The Alliance was born from a clear need: a stronger, united voice to tackle the long-standing mental health challenges shaped by Northern Ireland’s history and social issues. By working together, we knew we could make a bigger impact. The Alliance officially launched in September 2024 at an event attended by Health Minister Mike Nesbitt MLA and Mental Health Champion Siobhán O’Neill, which showed strong support for working collaboratively to improve mental health.
Today, we co-chair the Alliance alongside the Mental Health Foundation. Together, we’re focused on improving services, reducing stigma and making sure mental health remains a top priority in government policy. This partnership helps us push for real, lasting improvements that can make a genuine difference to people’s lives.
## **Contributing to Scotland’s suicide prevention strategy**
Samaritans is a strategic partner in _Creating Hope Together_ , Scotland’s national suicide prevention strategy. We led on Outcome 1: creating environments that protect against suicide risk. This includes work on government and society approaches to suicide prevention, reducing access to means and media reporting.
This work allows us to take part in national decision-making and includes funded work to support staff and delivery. We’ve held regular meetings with Scottish Government and COSLA, which represents local authorities in Scotland, to influence policy and ensure suicide prevention is considered across different areas. We also commissioned a research report on the social and economic factors that increase suicide risk, which is now shaping future priorities and has generated strong interest across sectors. To reduce access to means, we ran workshops with local leads at high-risk locations to identify barriers and encourage progress in areas where work had previously stalled.
Our media guidelines training has supported responsible reporting across Scotland. Sessions have received positive feedback, including one with Council members in Inverness who said it changed how they would talk about suicide going forward. This work is helping drive real change by bringing policy, lived experience and practical action together.
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## **Capacity**
Helping our people grow, feel appreciated and work better together as one Samaritans.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Reviewing the roles of our branch leaders**
This year, we initiated a significant redesign of how we recruit and select our volunteer directors — a key leadership role at the heart of our service delivery. This work is a critical step towards strengthening our leadership succession and ensuring every part of the organisation has the capable, confident leadership it needs to succeed.
To ensure our volunteer leaders are equipped to support the service effectively, we’re designing a consistent, organisation-wide learning offer that builds the skills, confidence and knowledge leaders need to succeed. This will also support aspiring volunteer leaders, helping them to see leadership as achievable and preparing them to step into future roles. This joined-up approach is key to building a sustainable and diverse pipeline of volunteer leaders across Samaritans for the future.
## **Developing our staff**
This year we launched a new development programme for our staff with workshops for all staff with 98 per cent of people leaders and 92 per cent of colleagues strongly agreeing or agreeing their workshop was a valuable learning experience. Attendees have since noted impact such as emphasis on linking objectives to business plans to strategy, giving better quality feedback, better quality one-to-one conversations and making more of an effort to connect with others in person.
With staff, we also launched a number of ‘how to’ sessions to build key capabilities, focused on coaching and mentoring skills, launch new apprenticeships as well as a sharing a new online learning library including eBooks, audiobooks, and live classes.
## **Samaritans Training School**
Samaritans Training School (STS) provides our central recruitment and training provision to support branches and hubs with their recruitment and training of new listening volunteers. During this period, the STS team managed recruitment and onboarding of new volunteers for our Anglia Ruskin University Hubs, Bradford Hub, Email Hub and Basingstoke branch. During the year, the team managed 257 new volunteer applications, offering and holding individual initial phone calls for potential volunteers. From this, 150 interviews for new Samaritans listening volunteers were booked, of which 102 were held. From a training perspective, the team managed and booked 502 training places to train new Listening Volunteers for a number of branches and hubs. From these, 296 completed the training and went on volunteer in their local branch/hub. The team also held 44 Embedding Development sessions to support new Listening Volunteers further develop their skills, offering 1760 training spaces out to branches and hubs. The STS team also delivered 11 placements for Anglia Ruskin University to around 200 students studying nursing, paramedic
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science and social care degrees. In addition, the team supported the delivery of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion training to staff and volunteer leaders.
## **Volunteer and staff surveys**
We ran engagement surveys for both volunteers and staff to understand the satisfaction levels of our people. Our ‘volunteer voice’ survey achieved an incredible overall response rate of 45 per cent which more than doubled our last volunteer survey response rate from 2022. We were also delighted to see the very high declaration rates of 90 per cent across all the equality monitoring questions from the survey. We had an amazing 96 per cent overall engagement score from our volunteers. Some of the highest scoring responses were that 98 per cent of our volunteers said that they are proud to volunteer for Samaritans. 97 per cent said that they feel that they belong at Samaritans, 96 per cent saying that they would recommend Samaritans as a great place to volunteer and 97 per cent intended to still be with Samaritans in 12 months’ time.
Our staff survey achieved a positive response rate of 82 per cent. We were also proud of these results, with 99 per cent of staff proud to work for Samaritans, and 98 per cent passionate about the work we do. Good working relationships also scored highly with 98 per cent saying they have good working relationships with members of their team and 95 per cent having good working relationships with colleagues from other teams. Staff also scored particularly highly on support, with 95 per cent saying that they are treated with fairness and respect, 87 per cent feeling that their wellbeing is supported, and 87 per cent saying that they would feel safe to speak up and report unacceptable behaviours from others. These were all well above benchmarked scores from other organisations.
Based on the surveys, we’ve created action plans to analyse and look for ways to further enhance the experience of our staff and volunteers.
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## **Sustainability**
Creating strong, lasting connections with our supporters so we can continue working towards our vision that fewer people die by suicide.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Helping organisations train their staff to have life-saving conversations**
This year, STEP, our Samaritans Training & Engagement Programme, delivered more than 600 training courses to over 6,000 people. We added new courses this year, including _Debriefing Conversations to Support your Team_ . Our Programme also became CPD certified, meaning it meets recognised standards for Continuing Professional Development (CPD). This certification allows professionals to count the training towards their CPD hours, adding credibility to the courses and supporting wider professional learning and development.
These courses are designed for people who may face difficult or emotional conversations in their jobs, such as emergency services, customer contact centres, and other roles that support vulnerable people. We now have strong evidence of the positive impact this training has, with feedback, statistics and case studies from the organisations we've worked with. These include Amey, Kensington Mortgages, Barclays and the Scottish Ambulance Service.
## **Inspiring people to support Samaritans through a donation or gift in their Will**
In 2024, Samaritans launched the third year of its Winter Appeal under the bold theme _Break the Silence_ , spotlighting the urgent need to talk about suicidal thoughts. The campaign aimed to challenge stigma and drive action, encouraging thousands of new and existing supporters to donate, fundraise and engage. The campaign gained additional momentum through support from the band Reverend and the Makers, who dedicated their Christmas single to Samaritans, amplifying reach and impact during the crucial festive period. The appeal raised over £500,000, attracted 4,296 new supporters, and generated 336 media articles, significantly increasing visibility of a topic too often left unspoken.
As part of the Winter Appeal, Samaritans took part for the first time in the Big Give’s Christmas campaign, the UK’s biggest collaborative fundraising campaign. Its pledge model offers supporters of participating charities the opportunity to double their donations with match funding provided by a charity’s pledgers and Big Give’s Champions. The campaign raised around £100,000, which included a pledge of £25,000 from one of our corporate funders, Cala Homes, as well as £25,000 from our Big Give champion funder, The Rausing Trust. The campaign attracted 56 new donors and 123 existing donors, 26 of which uplifted their usual gift.
In March 2025, we asked 19,800 supporters to consider leaving a gift in their Will to Samaritans in a moving letter from Laura, who called Samaritans when she was struggling. We know that the decision to leave a legacy gift often takes years. However, we continue to receive responses to the campaign including heartwarming stories from our supporters about why they have decided to pledge such a special gift to Samaritans.
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## **Harnessing the power of events to raise funds for Samaritans**
In 2024, Samaritans was the first UK charity to be chosen as one of the beneficiaries for Thankmas, a livestreaming fundraising event led by the YouTuber Jacksepticeye (Sean McLaughlin). It was viewed over 1.7 million times by people across the world, reaching people we could never hope to reach through traditional channels. We also reached over 50,000 live viewers through an in-person interview with our Director of External Engagement. After a hugely successful livestream fundraising event in Los Angeles, Thankmas raised over £450,000 for Samaritans.
In October 2024, after a year’s hiatus, we hosted our third Dawn Walk event, uniting over 2,000 participants nationwide to walk in memory of loved ones and raise vital funds for Samaritans. Spanning four days and launching on World Mental Health Day, Dawn Walk surpassed all expectations, raising over £280,000 – more than six times the previous amount raised.
Finally, one of our amazing fundraisers, James Cooper, completed the challenge of running a marathon every single day of 2024 – 366 in total as it was a leap-year. He ran over 9,589 miles, generated impressive media coverage and raised £133,000 for Samaritans.
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## **Principles**
## **Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)**
We will break down barriers to make Samaritans more diverse and inclusive, both through our people but also in who we connect with and support, making sure that we are responding to people’s needs in a way that is relevant and meaningful to them and their circumstances.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Rolling out Equity, Diversity and Inclusion learning to all our staff and volunteers**
We co-created Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) learning at Samaritans through a collaborative process involving staff, volunteers, and including people from minoritised communities. We developed learning content that addressed unconscious bias, inclusive language, intersectionality and how to challenge exclusion with empathy. Following a pilot and refinements, we rolled it out to all our people, staff, volunteers and leaders, making EDI a core part of inductions and ongoing development. This work is helping build a more inclusive culture where everyone feels seen, valued and empowered to act and will set us up for the future.
## **Launching the Speak Up Line**
As part of our ongoing commitment to inclusion, safeguarding and wellbeing, we refreshed and relaunched our concerns line in 2024/2025 as the Speak Up Line, supported by a range of resources. This confidential service is available to all staff and volunteers to report inappropriate conduct or unethical behaviour that cannot be resolved locally or where usual reporting channels are unavailable. All concerns are reviewed and investigated by the appropriate teams, in line with our policies. The Speak Up Line plays a vital role in supporting a safe, respectful and inclusive culture for everyone at Samaritans.
## **Expanding our networks**
We continued to invest in and expand our growing range of EDI networks, including LGBTQ+, Samaritans of Colour and disability networks. We hosted a series of dedicated roundtable events for staff and volunteers who identify as carers, parents, neurodiverse, or experiencing menopause, aimed at understanding their lived experiences and identifying ways to improve the support we provide. In parallel, we strengthened our network of EDI leads across our network of volunteer branches, offering ongoing support and development to help embed equity, diversity and inclusion at a local level. We also embedded our EDI Specialist Panel more consistently across key projects, ensuring inclusive thinking is integrated into planning, decision-making and delivery throughout the organisation.
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## **Personal experience**
We will ensure the voice of people with experience of suicidal feelings, suicide attempts, self-harm, or bereavement by suicide is central to and shapes all our services, products, campaigns and activities.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Lived experience shaping our work in Scotland**
This year, we set up the Scottish Lived Experience Advisory Group to involve people with lived experience of suicide in shaping our work in Scotland. The group, which meets once a month, provides valuable advice on our policies, communication and programmes.
The group is also helping with recruitment for the Samaritans Lived Experience Panel in Scotland, which is part of our wider effort to include lived experience in decision-making. This project fills the gap in Scotland, where we previously lacked such a group.
The group provided important feedback on our World Suicide Prevention Day campaign in 2024. They helped us refine our graphics, messaging and platforms for sharing the campaign. Additionally, the group has contributed to our plans for influencing ahead of the 2026 Scottish Election, reviewing past strategies and advising us on which issues and priorities to focus on.
## **Welcoming lived experience advisors to our Service and Quality Committee**
This year we’ve welcomed two new members with lived experience to our Service and Quality Committee. Their role is to make sure the voices and perspectives of people with lived experience are built into how we review and improve our services and policies. They’ll help challenge our thinking in a constructive way, ensuring we consider the real-life impact of our work on those who’ve experienced suicidal thoughts or mental health struggles.
## **Samaritans’ Lived Experience Panel**
Samaritans’ Lived Experience Panel has continued to grow in size and continues to help shape and inform the work that we do. There are currently 671 members with lived experience who support our work by completing online surveys every fortnight. These surveys help to shape and inform our thinking, as well as providing feedback about our campaigns, policy positions and media campaigns.
## **Samaritans’ Strategy Review**
Samaritans is undertaking a review of our current strategy to ensure it is achievable and that the organisation is able to meet its aims. Members of our lived experience panel have provided insights about what the purpose of the charity should be, our services and interventions, and what makes Samaritans unique compared to others in the sector. Alongside this, two lived experience consultants have been supporting the Strategy Review Project Team to share insights, provide feedback, and shape the new Strategy Roadmap.
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## **Safety and quality**
We will ensure a safe, effective and positive experience for all those who come into contact with our services. We will continue to focus on safety and quality, including safeguarding children and adults at risk of harm who seek support from us. We will always look to exceed the expectations of people we support.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Reviewing the quality of support offered by our branches**
Quality reviews take place in branches as part of a three-year cycle and focus on assessing if branches are meeting quality outcomes as well as outlining any development areas to focus on. This year, we completed 60 quality reviews with branches across the UK and Ireland, which equates to 30 per cent of all branches. As part of the improvement programme we have recruited five new quality mentors to support this quality review process.
## **Listening to feedback from the people we support**
We actively monitor feedback about the service our callers receive in order to make service improvements where required. In 2024, Samaritans volunteers answered more than 3.3 million calls for help, and 626 callers fed back about our service. Feedback includes both complaints and positive feedback and all complaints are investigated. This year there were 533 complaints and 93 messages of positive feedback _._ We also introduced a new complaints number for callers in Ireland so they receive the same level of feedback service as in the UK.
## **Reviewing our Quality Outcomes Framework**
The Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF) supports our quality assurance approach by helping branches reflect on their practice and identify areas for improvement. Completed within seven months of a new Branch Director starting, the QOF is facilitated by branch leadership with support from quality leads.
This year, we reviewed and refreshed the QOF to better align with current operational practices and to respond to feedback from the network. The updated framework reinforces our commitment to continuous improvement and highlights what good quality looks like across our three core quality aims.
## **Updating our Operating Agreement**
We’ve updated our Operating Agreement, the key document that sets out what it means to be a Samaritans branch or hub. This agreement is the foundation for our organisation-wide policies and processes. By reviewing and updating it, we’ve made things clearer and more consistent across our network.
This helps all our branches and hubs deliver the same high-quality support to everyone who reaches out, while also meeting important compliance and safeguarding standards. The clearer guidance also reduces risks and makes it easier for branches and hubs to understand
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what’s expected of them, so they can focus on providing safe, reliable, and effective support to those who need us.
## **Evidence-based**
We will use research, evidence, insight and data to inform all our services, activities and digital offerings. Where evidence is not available or clear, we will look to work with partners to fill those gaps.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Understanding our callers in Ireland**
We completed and published our first comprehensive examination of the experiences of Samaritans' callers in Ireland. This study provides a crucial evidence base that directly supports Samaritans Ireland's strategic priorities and strengthens our contribution to national suicide prevention efforts. This important research project surveyed 586 participants, including over 390 direct callers, 126 people who signposted others to Samaritans, and 65 who knew someone who used our services. The research demonstrated strong overall satisfaction with Samaritans' listening approach, with 84 per cent of callers feeling we provide a safe space, 79 per cent feeling genuinely listened to, and 73 per cent feeling supported. We found that callers more familiar with the service had an improved experience, with 100 per cent of daily, weekly, and fortnightly callers reporting feeling listened to.
By gathering insights from callers across Ireland, we can make informed decisions to enhance access to our services, particularly for underserved populations and first-time callers. Following our research launch, the issue of loneliness and our call for a national strategy was debated in the Seanad, with the matter subsequently brought to the Taoiseach's office.
## **Researching how insecure work and financial instability contribute to suicide risk**
In 2023, we launched a Scottish research project called _Paid Yesterday, Broke Today_ , in partnership with academics from Strathclyde University. The project explored how insecure work and financial instability can contribute to suicidal thoughts and behaviours. The research included an online survey, followed by in-depth interviews, and finished with a codesign workshop involving people with lived experience. Together, we developed eight key recommendations aimed at helping reduce suicide risks linked to financial and employment insecurity in Scotland.
The report was launched at the end of 2024 and shared with stakeholders, including Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), in early 2025. It’s now being used to influence change. MSPs showed strong interest, attending our drop-in event at Parliament, and we’ve followed up to discuss future collaboration. We’ve also been meeting with organisations like The Poverty Alliance, STUC, Scottish Youth Parliament, Campaign to End Loneliness, and
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Andy’s Man Club to explore joint work on the issues raised in the report. For example, Andy’s Man Club shared an article during Debt Awareness Week about how financial stress affects men’s mental health. We continue to share the report’s findings widely, helping raise awareness and push for practical changes across different sectors.
## **Evaluating our online chat pilot**
Our online chat pilot service is helping us reach people who might be more comfortable typing than talking. It allows us to give people more choice in how they contact us in real time and reach those who may not want to speak over a call or don’t have the option of talking over the phone. 700 volunteers from nearly 80 branches are currently supporting this pilot five evenings a week. This year, we launched a full evaluation of our online chat pilot service, funded by The Prudence Trust. The aim was to better understand the impact of the service on both the people who use it and the volunteers who deliver it. It also gave us a chance to reflect on everything we've learned since the service began in 2020 and to plan how we can safely grow and improve it.
To carry out an independent evaluation, we brought in expert research partners, the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and Habitus Collective, who ran focus groups with different age groups and volunteers between November 2024 and January 2025. These sessions gave us powerful insights that shaped the final evaluation, published in April 2025. The report is a major step forward, helping us build on the strong foundation already in place and guiding the future of the service.
The evaluation of the online chat service found that the service is effective in reducing distress for callers and that it offers a unique form of support that complements Samaritans' telephone-based listening services. In addition, the evaluation identified key areas for development and further improvement, particularly in managing user expectations, enhancing volunteer training, improving accessibility, and addressing wait times, all of which will be taken into account as we move towards providing this service on a 24/7/365 basis in the coming years.
## **Vocal and visible**
We will never shy away from raising our voice and campaigning on issues that matter to us, particularly those that directly or indirectly impact people’s risk of suicide, such as inequality, deprivation, prejudice and unfair treatment.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **We showed that we Believe in Tomorrow**
In 2024, for the first time in Samaritans’ history, we were the official TCS London Marathon Charity of the Year. With ambitious income generation at the heart of the project, our year as Charity of the Year also presented a huge opportunity to break down stigmas associated
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with suicide. We raised a total income of £1,159,000 from our campaign, thanks to our 286 charity place runners and the 197 ballot place runners who also chose to run for us.
We also achieved a staggering 1,653 pieces of media coverage with numerous in-depth feature pieces with Team Samaritans runners and 50 minutes of BBC TV coverage over the course of marathon week. This equated to 309 million opportunities to see. According to our brand tracking, 37 per cent of people saw our Believe in Tomorrow campaign.
## **World Suicide Prevention Day**
This World Suicide Prevention Day, we wanted to show everyone that talking about difficult feelings, including suicidal thoughts, doesn’t have to be scary. By talking more openly about suicide, we can give people the chance to express how they feel and get the support they need. As part of this campaign, we shared Rebekah’s story about how she reached out to Samaritans for support through an incredibly powerful film.
## **Responding to violence and racism**
During the tragic riots that began in August 2024, we spoke out to condemn the abhorrent racial and religious violence gripping the UK. As part of our commitment to being more vocal on issues that impact mental health and suicide risk, we shared a series of supportive and visible messages across social media.
Our post on 5 August directly addressed the violence, describing it as “distressing and frightening” and reassuring people they were not alone. This message received over 1,200 engagements, including more than 500 likes and 400 reposts, showing strong resonance with our audience. On the same day, a high-performing Instagram post achieved the greatest engagement of the series with over 2,500 interactions, including more than 1,600 likes and over 700 shares.
## **Raising our voice for change**
This year, we continued to speak out on the urgent need for suicide prevention and better support for those who are struggling. Following the release of suicide statistics by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which showed that suicide rates in England and Wales had reached their highest level since 1999, we contributed to national media coverage, including reporting in The Guardian.
We also used opinion platforms to highlight the wider social issues affecting mental health. In The Big Issue, we published an article exploring the devastating impact of debt and the rising cost of living on people’s mental wellbeing. The piece called for a more compassionate response to financial hardship and emphasised the importance of support being available before people reach crisis point.
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## **Samaritans’ presence on X**
We undertook a review of our usage of the social media channel X, formally Twitter. There have been growing challenges as a result of changes to the operating model in recent years, including content moderation, reinstatement of banned accounts, and a focus on free speech. As a result, we are concerned about the increase in hate and toxicity that goes unchallenged by the platform.
We looked at the performance of X for Samaritans, heard from branches about their experience on the platform, and looked into what other charities are doing in relation to their social media activity. As an organisation, we considered a range of options and concluded that X remains an important platform for us in many areas, and we use it to communicate with audiences connected with Samaritans and to engage with the public on issues relating to our vision that fewer people die by suicide.
We reach a wide audience and we believe that by remaining present, we can continue to provide hope, human connection, and support. So we have decided to maintain our presence on X for now. However, in light of the concerns and challenges X presents, we will continue to monitor this and, following a consultation with our branches, we will now support branches to move away from X and use alternative platforms.
## **Innovation and technology**
We will encourage innovation and keep pace with developments, so that we can offer upto-date and responsive services to the people who contact us, 24 hours a day, and the most effective platforms for our people.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Making our helpline fit for the future**
This year, we upgraded the system that receives calls and messages across the UK from members of the public in need of our service. The new platform, called the Listening Centre, now handles all our UK services, including phone calls, online chats, and the Welsh language line.
This major upgrade replaced the old system, which was due to be switched off at the end of 2024. The transition was carefully planned in phases to avoid any disruption, and by the end of November, all branches were using the new system. Thanks to this work, there was no downtime for callers, and callers and volunteers now benefit from better sound quality, easier call logging, and a more reliable system overall.
The Welsh language line is now fully integrated into the same system as our UK helpline for the first time, and we’re preparing to bring Ireland’s phone service onto the platform next. In the future, all Samaritans services will run on one streamlined system making things simpler for volunteers and more efficient for the whole organisation.
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## **Environmental responsibility**
We will build a sustainable approach as we embrace hybrid working and volunteering and develop a better understanding of our energy footprint.
## **What we achieved this year**
## **Securing green energy for Samaritans**
As part of our commitment to sustainability, we procured a new Green Energy contract that incorporates 100 per cent renewable energy from wind and hydro assets. This contract covers the supply of electricity across the central charity branch and property estate, including approximately 60 individual premises. We are committed to continuing to source green energy on an annual basis.
## **Meeting our environmental responsibilities**
We appointed an Environmental Consultant to act as our Lead Assessor and successfully completed our second Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) submission. This report captures all energy-consuming assets and activities in the UK for the 2024/25 reporting year.
This year we qualified for the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) Phase 3 and have previously submitted our first ESOS report to the Environment Agency, ensuring compliance with mandatory energy assessment and auditing requirements.
## **Creating our environmental road map**
We have created an environmental road map outlining our planned initiatives and focus areas related to environment and sustainability for the 2025/26 fiscal year. This roadmap will guide our ongoing efforts in reducing environmental impact.
A new Environmental Policy Statement has been drafted, reinforcing our strategic direction and commitment to sustainable practices across our organisation.
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## **Work that was delayed, postponed or cancelled in 2024/25**
Like many charities, we had to make some difficult decisions during 2024/25. Due to changing priorities, limited resources or capacity challenges, a small number of planned activities were delayed, postponed or cancelled.
We’ve outlined these below, along with the reasons behind each decision.
**Transitioning our email service to a new platform:** We had planned to begin transitioning our email service to the Listening Centre earlier in 2024/25. However, due to technical delays and the need to ensure the new system fully meets Samaritans’ requirements, this work has been postponed and will now continue in 2025/26.
**Piloting regional influencing:** We had planned to pilot some regional influencing work, to complement our national influencing, but didn’t have enough capacity to get it off the ground this year. We’ve now appointed a Volunteer Lead for Influencing and they’ll be working with us in 2025/26 to get this pilot started.
**Expanding our online safety research and advocacy in Ireland:** We're exploring the development of an Ireland-specific version of our Online Excellence Programme and the reactivation of the Online Safety Alliance (OSA), which Samaritans previously chaired. This coalition was instrumental in developing research and policy on suicide and self-harm content online but has been inactive since the Online Safety Codes were finalised.
While this work remains a priority, especially given Ireland's evolving online safety legislation and cross-border research challenges, resource constraints have limited progress. We remain committed to advancing this initiative to strengthen Ireland's approach to online safety when appropriate funding becomes available.
**Introducing a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool:** We had hoped to introduce a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool in Scotland to help us keep track of external contacts, improve how we work together as a team, and make our processes more efficient. But due to limited capacity and some issues integrating the chosen system, we weren’t able to move forward with this during the year.
**Launching an Ireland-specific Lived Experience Advisory Group:** Development of an Irelandspecific Lived Experience Advisory Group was delayed due to capacity issues in 2024, but it remains a priority for 2025. This initiative aims to ensure that people with lived experience of suicidal feelings, suicide attempts, self-harm, or bereavement by suicide in Ireland have a direct voice in shaping our work within the Irish context.
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## **Future plans**
Looking ahead to 2025–26, Samaritans has set out a clear and focused business plan, approved by its Board of Trustees, to help bring its long-term strategy to life. The plan centres around key areas of work that will support real transformation across the organisation.
## **Changes to the organisation**
**Mid-strategy review:** Our mid-strategy review aims to assess what we've done so far, reflect on the difference it's made and identify potential adjustments. It will be undertaken in the context of our future proofing work to ensure both the medium and long-term sustainability of the organisation. It will involve revamping the KPIs that each team uses to track their own contribution to the strategy and revising planning, budgeting and reporting.
**Listening service insights:** This programme aims to put Samaritans in a position to generate more meaningful insights into the difference that our listening service makes to the lives of those we support.
**Service redesign:** We will review the design of our listening service delivery model and what it should look like in the long term.
## **Essential projects**
**Digital transformation programme:** We will extend the Listening Centre to include voice calls for Ireland branches and provision of the email service so that all three key listening services are being delivered across the UK and Ireland using the same platform.
**Email service:** Samaritans will provide a safe, effective and sustainable email service delivered by our virtual Email Hub in partnership with physical branch volunteers.
**Online chat:** We plan to implement recommendations from the evaluation and transition to the new Listening Centre platform.
**Quality assurance in Ireland:** We will work on developing quality assurance and parity between service users in Ireland and the UK (includes developing listening in and feedback, plus feedback for written word and central complaints processes).
**Answered call rate:** We aim to improve capacity against demand for our telephone service, particularly during the night and early morning, ensuring that people are able to consistently access our services when they need them most. This includes developing and piloting regional rotas and remote volunteering.
**Volunteer and employee leadership capability:** We will focus on our approach to attract, recruit, develop and succession plan for volunteer and employee leadership roles. This will ensure that our services, work, volunteer and staff teams are well-led into the future.
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## **Financial review**
## **Overview**
This was the third year of our strategy: _Tackling suicide together_ . Given the ongoing economic challenges and uncertainty, we have continued to prioritise and focus on critical activities to support our strategy. The key strategic project during the year was the transition to our new Listening Centre platform.
The financial statements of the consolidated charity group for the year ended 31 March 2025 show a net decrease in funds of **£0.4 million** .
The financial statements do not include the value of time donated by volunteers in delivering Samaritans’ service. In 2024, our volunteers spent **more than 910,000 hours** answering calls for help, which is estimated at a value of **£17.0 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 **£27.5 million** (compared with £24.6 million in 2023/24).
The UK Giving report 2024 (Charities Aid Foundation) reports that 55 per cent of those surveyed gave to charity through donation or sponsorship in 2024, compared to 58 per cent
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in 2023. Despite the continued decline, this has slowed compared to the fall of 8 per cent in the previous year.
The Blackbaud Status of UK Fundraising: 2024 Benchmark Report found that like the previous year, the economic situation – and specifically the fall in income from donations – is a challenge across the sector. 46 per cent of organisations saw income stay the same or decline, whilst 36 per cent saw an increase. The data indicates that increases were likely due to exceptional gifts or new activity which suggests that these may not be sustainable income streams. Whilst Samaritans performed well against income targets, it should be noted that areas like Individual Giving did not reach target and therefore investment will be required to grow more sustainable income to provide long term financial growth.
Across public giving income streams, community and events and legacy income performed ahead of expectations and, alongside donations from individuals, continue to be the largest sources of income. To develop our individual giving programme we will be investing in new fundraising initiatives to grow predictable, long term, sustainable income by recruiting new regular giving supporters and increasing the number of supporters that receive our appeals. This year we also onboarded a new marketing partner to grow our supporter base and improve engagement rates. Following our initial testing across digital channels last year, we have seen positive results from this work and our winter campaign raised £500,000, showing that we are benefitting from a greater understanding of our audiences.
Once again, the legacies programme in the UK, including branch legacy income, raised its highest income total since it was established, at £4.9 million. This growth is higher than the sector average, showing that the work and investment we are putting into the programme is working. Over the coming year we will continue this investment to ensure continued growth, contributing to longer term sustainable income.
Community and events fundraising raised £4.0 million, an increase of about 50 per cent compared to the previous year. This was in part due to securing a partnership with Thankmas, a livestreaming event hosted by the influencer Jacksepticeye, raising over £450,000. Samaritans was also the TCS London Marathon charity of the year which raised our profile at this event and many others. As a result, we have seen an increase in the number of participants taking part in challenge events and raising money for Samaritans.
High value income performance improved on the whole following two difficult years. This was underpinned by strong growth in major gifts, trust income and commercial revenue from training sales as well as a more moderate increase in statutory income, whilst our position on corporate partnerships fundraising (previously in decline) stabilised.
We were able to secure significant restricted income from trusts for various programmes of work, most notably Samaritans digital transformation work. We also benefitted from extraordinary gifts from long-term funders winding down their endowments.
The growth in major gifts (60% year-on-year to £750,000) and training income (35% to £1.1 million) is a result of increasing market share and investment in these funding streams.
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We remain committed to putting supporters at the heart of our fundraising and we’re incredibly grateful to each and every donor for their support. A list of our major supporters can be found on page 95 and 96.
We recognise the importance and value of our long-term funder relationships. This year we continued to receive support from loyal supporters including Cala Homes, Pears Foundation, Prudence Trust and Three. 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 which was renewed this year, grant funding from the governing bodies of prisons across the UK and Ireland to support the prison Listener scheme, and commercial income raised through Samaritans Training and Engagement Programme (STEP).
## **Expenditure**
Total consolidated expenditure, including the value of donated advertising, increased from £25.9 million in 2023/24 to **£28.0 million** .
This position reflects the decision taken by the organisation to deliver a new Listening Centre platform in 2024/25 (£1.4 million), and while most of this is one-off in nature, it has also meant an increase to the ongoing costs for running the new platform, some of which is reflected in the 2024/25 expenditure. In addition, there was an investment in income generation expenditure to support the income growth seen this year, including to deliver the partnership with Thankmas and the TCS London Marathon charity of the year.
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During 2024/25, fundraising costs were **£6.7 million** , an increase of £0.8 million compared to 2023/24 reflecting the additional investment in income generation as well as the higher volume of commercial activity via STEP.
Total charitable expenditure amounted to **£21.3 million** in 2024/25 compared to £20.1 million in 2023/24. This 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 demand for our services and reaching more people through the communication channels they wish to use.
Charitable expenditure during 2024/25 represented 76% of total expenditure (77% in 2023/24).
## **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 activities to meet beneficiary needs.
The target range for free reserves has been set at **between four and twelve months** of general expenditure, which as of 31 March 2025 equates to £7.2 million and £21.5 million respectively.
As of 31 March 2025, the total consolidated funds held by the group amounted to **£23.5 million** . Of these funds, £21.8 million is unrestricted and £1.7 million is restricted. Within unrestricted funds there are four designated funds amounting to £9.8 million:
- £6.7 million representing fixed assets including all the SCC branch properties;
- a £2.8 million Strategy & Future Proofing fund to deliver the 2022-2029 strategy and to begin a new programme of work to secure the long-term future of Samaritans;
- a £0.3 million Service Expansion fund to widen the reach for beneficiaries; and
- a property maintenance fund to maintain SCC branch properties (topped up and fully utilised during the year).
The remaining unrestricted funds are classed as free reserves. As of 31 March 2025 free reserves stood at £12.0 million (£12.1 million in 2024), equating to **6.7 months** of general expenditure (7.2 months in 2024), which falls within the target range.
The reserves policy will continue to be reviewed on at least an annual basis.
## **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
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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 of 31 March 2025 the value of the portfolio managed was £2.2 million (£2.1 million in 2024), reflecting a net gain on investments of £0.1 million (net gain of £0.2 million in 2023/24).
Additionally, £0.1 million is held within the Charities Official Investment Fund (£0.1 million in 2024).
Samaritans endeavours to invest in a way that reflects our values and does not run counter to our charitable aims. We review our approach to ethical investment on a regular basis.
The portfolio managed by J Hambro & Partners applies screening to avoid direct investment in companies where more than 5 per cent 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. This includes the avoidance of direct investment in companies involved in the extraction, production or refining of thermal coal, oil or gas in line with our strategic principle of environmental responsibility.
The Charities Official Investment Fund is a long-term, sustainable investment solution which incorporates environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into the investment strategy.
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. 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 strategy.
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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**
The Board of Trustees is accountable for overall risk management. The Audit and Risk Committee, as a committee of the Board, reviews key risks, and the adequacy of mitigating actions, on a regular basis. The Committee reports to the Board on risk 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 Audit and Risk Committee also receives risk evaluations on major new areas of activity.
We have an established Risk Management Policy which outlines the approach towards risk management across Samaritans and defines the roles and responsibilities of the Board, Audit & Risk Committee, Executive Leadership Team, Senior Leadership Group and wider teams.
During 2024/25 our risk appetite activity has been well embedded, informing key Board decisions. This has helped develop our approach to risk appetite and is used in developing our risk register.
A summary of our top risks is as follows:
## **1. Growth and maintenance of income**
Income risks remain a common challenge in the charity sector, linked to wider economic uncertainty and pressure in the funding environment. We regularly review income streams to understand the current greatest return and areas performing well, and prioritising resources as appropriate. Where possible, we invest in a variety of income streams as a means of balancing risk from any single area. Additional investment has been budgeted for with regards to areas of income generation with positive return where we have historically had less focus.
For contracted services, delivery of high-level, impactful partnership activity is necessary to mitigate risk of harm, in order to maintain credibility and long-term funding. We also carry out activity to identify key stakeholders and opportunities for multi-year income relationships, and have moved to better focus our funded services and prioritisation where we believe the most impact can be made with regards to ‘at-risk’ groups.
## **2. Prevention and management of misuse of service**
Misuse of service risks harm to volunteers and disruption for callers who are unable to access the service in a timely way because misuse calls reduce capacity to respond. Without mitigation, consequences may include genuine callers not getting through to us, negative impact on volunteer attraction and retention, poor service perceptions, and reduced funder interest/commitment.
We have developed new approaches to UK call barring to reduce misuse of service to Samaritans’ phone lines. The development of our Listening Centre platform over the past
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year has enabled us to increase our options and messaging with respect to call barring, which are currently being explored, along with wider technical opportunities. Although we are currently unable to align call barring processes in the UK and Republic of Ireland, there has been collaboration with the UK to support consistency of process, and with Ireland in late stages of implementing the same ‘Listening Centre’ platform, this will further increase functionality.
Where misuse of service is linked to key partners who work with high-risk callers, such as prison services, we have started implementation of phone lines with targeted solutions to manage misuse.
## **3. Safety and quality monitoring in Ireland differs in approach to UK**
Ensuring safety and quality processes align across UK and Ireland will provide more consistency in service and support high quality across the jurisdictions. Some technical solutions have been unavailable in our Ireland systems for some time, however, with the introduction of the new Listening Centre platform now imminent, our technology infrastructure will allow us to better address the technology challenges.
Our Quality Assurance project in Ireland is a key focus of activity. This will take learnings from a well-embedded volunteer ‘listening in' control established in the UK, now being developed for Ireland to add to its established quality controls, along with improvements to written word feedback and central complaints processes.
Improved central coordination of complaints and feedback handling has been developed to ensure consistency of process and better oversight of the data, themes and learnings.
## **4. Resourcing core listening services, particularly at the highest hours of need**
This can both relate to the numbers of volunteers who deliver our services, their recruitment and retention, and how we enable our volunteers to be there at times when our callers need us most. Resource challenges can risk negatively impacting the quality and availability of the service.
Managing imbalance between caller demand and service capacity will better ensure the listening service is available and accessible as and when it is most needed. Entering a period of change, including focus on our service redesign, is likely to create additional challenges to the way in which we deliver our service, however our focus on risk appetite and tolerance recognises that this will help address these challenges so we can be there for those who need us most.
We have developed enhanced processes around rota management, currently being piloted. This will better focus service delivery on our hours of need, supported by improved regular data reporting, and inform future developments to rota management to help us be there for callers at times when we are most needed. Our planned work to develop and pilot a service
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prototype for remote volunteering is also aimed at increasing our answered call rate, and therefore manage the risk outcomes. This will help mitigate recruitment and retention challenges, and focus on building resilience during hours of need (overnight, when our unanswered rate is highest).
Caller choice of access routes, such as telephone and written word, and clarity of options is an added means of supporting service accessibility.
## **5. Branch leadership capacity**
We have well-embedded volunteer leadership structures, providing dedicated oversight of much of the delivery of our services.
We recognise that the changing face of volunteering across the sector, combined with increasing expectations, is a risk to leadership capacity challenges, which can pose a risk to how we deliver our service and affect service quality. Our volunteer leadership capability work focuses on enhanced skills-based recruitment of key roles, as well as developing toolkits to support delegation and improved ways of working. We will develop an aligned culture and ensure that our services, volunteer and staff teams are well-led into the future.
Separately, we are developing proposals concerning our service delivery structure, which will enable us to provide more targeted support to branch leadership, freeing up capacity so leaders can make the most impact.
## **6. Demonstration of impact**
We are aware of the impact our service makes to people’s lives. However, we are conscious that there is opportunity, particularly through the use of technology, to enhance our impact reporting. This will assist with service improvements and influence the area of suicide prevention by being vocal about the difference we make, working with partners to ensure that fewer people die by suicide. Measuring impact better will also enhance our work with funders and supporters to develop investment opportunities.
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## **Governance report**
## **Our structure**
Samaritans is a charitable company limited by guarantee. We were founded in 1953 and incorporated in 1963.
Samaritans has more than 200 branches and service locations across the UK and Ireland, as well as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. During 2024, around 23,000 people volunteered their time for Samaritans and helped ensure our services were available across our multiple platforms.
The Samaritans Central Charity team plays a vital role in supporting this work. In addition to raising income to underpin the organisation, the Central Charity provides and continues to develop the essential infrastructure that enables volunteers to deliver our services effectively. This includes safeguarding, governance, IT and digital systems, volunteer recruitment and development, research and evaluation, communications, and operational support. The Central Charity also leads our influencing work and service innovation to help shape a stronger future for Samaritans.
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. Samaritans Ireland executes specific decision-making powers with respect to a number of key Ireland-related matters, including public policy, influencing and partnership working.
## **Branches and service delivery ‘hubs’**
Branches are run by Branch Directors (a volunteer leadership role) 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. In addition to our branch structure, service delivery is also carried out by bespoke ‘hubs’, which are part of the Central Charity and have a more flexible oversight structure in
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order to meet the requirements of our strategy. These hubs are led by their own Service Directors.
## **Regions**
The branches are organised and work together in 14 geographical regions. 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, contributing to the development of and implementing agreed policy. Responsibility for guiding and supporting our Regional Director group is shared between four Directors of Branch Operations, which are senior volunteer leadership roles, reporting to our Executive Director of Operations.
## **Our governance**
We are governed by Samaritans’ Articles of Association. The governing body is our Board of Trustees, which meets at least six times a year and, as of 31 March 2025, consists of 15 members. Trustees are also the directors of the company, and a majority must be Samaritans listening volunteers. 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 over 200 Branch and Service Directors, 14 Regional Directors, up to 10 Functional Leads and the co Vice-Chairs. The legal members of Samaritans are similar, namely the Branch and Service 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
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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.
Key focus of the Ireland Board and Scotland and Wales Committees includes oversight of public policy, research, influencing and partnership working.
## **Staff team**
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), supported by an Executive Leadership and staff team, is responsible for the delivery of Samaritans’ strategy, operational plans and budgets that have been approved by the Board.
## **Appointing our Trustees**
With the exception of our Chair, who is an appointment of the Board of Trustees, the Nominations and Governance Committee appoints members of the Board. 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 nine years in total. There are limited constitutional provisions for extension of trustee terms in exceptional circumstances.
## **Board diversity**
Our latest trustee diversity review carried out in May 2025 shows the board generally reflects the societies we serve, thanks in part to focused recruitment efforts. We have identified some underrepresentation in certain groups and remain committed to encouraging applications from a diverse range of backgrounds to strengthen the board’s inclusivity and lived experience.
## **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 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 modules, and other relevant modules, including equity, diversity and inclusion.
## **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 and Culture Committee, must comprise of at least two Trustees, plus one ‘internal’ and one ‘external’ member. The
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People and Culture Committee must comprise of a minimum of two 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 External Engagement & Research Committee supports the Board through maintaining oversight of Samaritans’ public policy positions, research activities, as well as external communications and marketing.
- The Audit and Risk Committee supports the Board to provide assurance 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, including oversight of fundraising and property, and advises the Board accordingly.
- The People and Culture 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 and volunteer-related initiatives. The Committee reviews progress against people strategies and plans, drawing on ‘people metrics’ and provides oversight, guidance and scrutiny of organisation-wide culture, as well as providing assurance that principles of equity, diversity and inclusion are central to staff and volunteer decision-making.
- The Nominations and Governance Committee ensures that Trustee and other key governance roles are performed 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 extends to provisions of assurance that the governance structures and roles at Samaritans are fit for purpose.
## **Board Review and Governance code**
A Board review was carried out during 2022, showing substantial progress in board effectiveness compared with our previous board review. It is recognised that board improvement is a constantly evolving process, and a new board development plan was created based on this activity, focusing on the following priorities:
1. Enhancing stakeholder voice
2. Committee functioning and communications
3. Trustee induction and development
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4. Balance between scrutiny and strategic discussions
Progress against these priorities has been positive, and is both a standing item on the Nominations and Governance Committee agenda, as well as having direct board focus at least annually. The majority of identified actions are now complete, with some outstanding matters concerning trustee development. We believe this will put us in a positive place for the next board review cycle.
In addition to the board review, our Nominations and Governance Committee carries out a rolling review process against Charity Governance Code principles. Since March 2023, all principles of the Code have been reviewed. The process has highlighted no substantial gaps when compared with the code requirements, and allows for continued improvement, including specific action points.
The reference and administrative details on pages 90 and 91 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. Payment and benefits to all staff including the CEO and senior team are approved by the Trustee Board, based on review and recommendations by the People and Culture Committee. In considering pay and benefits, the People and Culture Committee is provided with information on the sector and similar-sized charities, and overall affordability, to inform decisions.
Additional information on payments to staff can be found at Note 8 to the Accounts.
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## **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.
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, better oversight of risk to the charity and its beneficiaries, and for further informed consideration of preventative action. During 2024/25, the Central Charity reported 16 new serious incidents to the relevant nation’s charity regulator(s) which is the same amount as the previous year. Of these, eight involved affiliated branches, seven involved Central Charity branches or the Central Charity itself. At the time of writing, the charity regulators have not required any action following the reports. One of the 16 reports were incidents that had also been reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). No action has been taken by the ICO at the time of writing.
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 affiliate, Central Charity branches and hubs. 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, including a reporting line which provides a secondary avenue to staff and volunteers to confidentially raise concerns.
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
## **Fundraising Activities Statement**
**We appreciate the unwavering dedication of our incredible supporters throughout the UK and Ireland who have stood by our side, raising £27.5 million.** We see through the year, every day and night, how the power of human connection saves lives. We know that by giving people a safe space to turn to, we can reduce feelings of distress and despair. We believe that simply being there to listen can restore hope.
Our amazing supporters make it possible to share our hope for a better, and safer, world for everyone.
Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of our supporters, major donors, companies, trusts and public bodies, we have been able to continue to be there 24/7, 365 days a year, for anyone struggling to cope. Our incredible supporters have done things their way; from livestreaming challenges to creatively fundraising with online communities. They’ve pledged their belief in Samaritans’ future, leaving special gifts to Samaritans in their Wills, whilst others have scaled mountains, walked at dawn and taken on multiple marathons.
Our Corporate, Trust and Statutory supporters have diligently supported us with both restricted grants and unrestricted funds to keep our service running and to support our digital transformation.
Through daring to dream, our fundraisers, supporters, major donors and partners have inspired us with their trailblazing fundraising, and helped to ensure that we can continue to be there for anyone struggling to cope, any time of the day or night.
## **Championing supporters**
Understanding our supporters’ needs continues to be at the heart of our fundraising. We continue to seek feedback from supporters on how we can improve their experience with us. Moving forward we will be reinstating the use of the thousands of people on our supporter insight panel who will be completing surveys and providing us with feedback on products we wish to test in the future to help build sustainable income.
We have also built improved welcome journeys for our new individual giving supporters to deliver a more tailored communication plan with the aim of strengthening our relationship with them. Alongside this we have introduced good luck and thank you calling across a variety of our activities which is having a positive impact on the engagement we have with supporters, which has been demonstrated through higher average gifts.
## **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 Gambling Commission and the Lotteries Council. We continue to review our policies to ensure they are in line and adhere to the latest regulations.
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Our Fundraising Promise sets out our aim to be open, fair and honest in the way we engage supporters. During 2024/25, we received 86 fundraising complaints. All complaints were resolved by our in-house Supporter Care team: none were escalated to the Fundraising Regulator. Our average resolution time of 2.6 days, with a quarter of complaints being resolved within a day, demonstrates the importance we place on ensuring complaints are resolved promptly to improve our supporter experience. Complaint feedback is regularly shared across the fundraising team. We value the feedback and continue to review and learn from every complaint.
## **Working with agencies**
Most of our fundraising activity is delivered directly by our Income team. We work with a small number of carefully selected external fundraising agencies to help with specialist fundraising activity, from recruiting supporters who give through their payroll to telemarketing with mass audiences to inspire potential new donors, and creative and marketing support on 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**
We take our responsibility to our vulnerable donors very seriously. In 2023, we carried out a review of our policy for working with vulnerable donors and members of the public who could reasonably be defined as ‘vulnerable’. The policy is available for all our fundraisers via our intranet. 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.
We are dedicated to protecting potentially vulnerable donors. For example, we exclude people who visit the support pages on our website from online targeting and exclude where possible potentially vulnerable donors from targeted online fundraising. When a person shows signs of vulnerability, our fundraisers are trained to prioritise their wellbeing and signpost to support if appropriate. The conversation is handled with care, and no fundraising ask is made.
## **Managing communications**
We believe that our supporters should be able to trust us and look forward to hearing from us. We respect our supporters’ privacy and we’re transparent about the ways in which they
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can change their communications preferences. If someone no longer wants to hear from us, we respect their wishes and action their request promptly. We take our data handling responsibilities very seriously, and approach data management in line with current data protection legislation.
## **A heartfelt thank you to our incredible supporters**
The cost-of-living crisis has had a significant impact on the financial and emotional health of communities across the UK and Ireland. We know that these challenging times affect our supporters, donors and partners too. We cannot thank our supporters enough for standing by us, for taking up the challenge of innovative fundraising, and for pushing us and themselves to fundraise in bigger, better and ever more inspiring ways, at a time when Samaritans is needed more than ever.
Thank you, to our amazing supporters for continuing to believe in a better tomorrow, so that we can continue to be there for anyone who needs someone to listen.
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## **Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting**
In line with the UK Government’s Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) regulations, this section shows the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and energy use data for the Samaritans group operations in the UK. This report therefore covers our five staff offices in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Ewell and London, along with our 60 Central Charity branches throughout the UK.
## **Methodology**
This report is calculated in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol and Environmental reporting guidelines: including Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting requirements.
Invoice data was used for sites where energy is directly purchased. In cases where the full measurement period was not covered, pro-rata extrapolation was applied. Data quality has improved, but where billing gaps or proxy needs remained, prior-year data or benchmark estimates were used. Where invoices were not available (eg, energy included in service charges), usage was estimated using kWh/m² averages from similar sites, validated against benchmarks from CIBSE Guide F 20.1-3.
BEIS 2024 emission factors have been used for all emission sources. Fuel-to-kWh conversions were also based on the 2024 BEIS factors.
## **Intensity ratio**
As our primary energy use is for heating and lighting our UK offices and branch network, Net Internal Floor Area (NIA, m²) remains our chosen intensity ratio. Our total floor area was 8,483.09 m² (2024: 8,319.50 m²).
|**Energy consumption**|**Energy consumption**|**2023/24**|**2024/25**|**Compare**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Totalglobal energy consumption(kWh)**||**1438783.5**|**1448425.2**|**0.7%**|
|**Total UK energy consumption(kWh)**||**1438783.5**|**1448425.2**|**0.7%**|
|Energy consumption
breakdown|Naturalgas(kWh)|781403.4|837021.6|7%|
||Direct transport(kWh)|3319.3|4776.0|44%|
||Indirect transport
(kWh)|259359.6|282032.9|9%|
||Electricity (kWh)|394701.3|324594.5|-18%|
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53
|**Carbon emissions**||**2023/24**|**2024/25**|**Compare**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Total scope 1(tCO2e)**|**143.8**|**154.3**|**7.3%**|
|Scope 1: Combustion of
fuel and
operation of facilities|Naturalgas(tCO2e)|142.9|153.1|7%|
||
Direct transport (tCO2e)|0.8|1.2|43%|
||**Total scope 2(tCO2e)**|**81.7**|**67.2**|**-17.8%**|
|Scope 2: Electricity
purchased and heat and
steamgenerated|Location based (LB)
(tCO2e)|81.7|67.2|-18%|
|**Total scope 1**|**+ 2(tCO2e) - location based**|**225.51**|**221.50**|**-1.8%**|
||**Net internal floor area m2**|**8319.50**|**8483.09**|**2.0%**|
|**Carbon intensity scope 1 + 2 (tCO2e/m2 NLFA) -**
**location based**||**0.0271**|**0.0261**|**-3.7%**|
|**Total selected scope 3(tCO2e)**|**Total selected scope 3(tCO2e)**|**129.9**|**129.9**|**133.7**|**133.7**|**2.9%**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Scope 3: other indirect
sources|Indirect transport(tCO2e)|62.9||68.1||8%|
||Fuel and energy related
activities(tCO2e)|67.0||65.6||-2%|
|**Total scope 1 - 3 (tCO2e) - location based**||**355**
**.44**|**355.20**||**-0.1%**||
|**Carbon intensity scope 1 - 3 (tCO2e/m2 NLFA) -**
**location based**||**0.0**
**427**|**0.0419**||**-2.0%**||
|**Carbon intensity SECR only (tCO2e/m2 NLFA) -**
**location based**||**0.0**
**347**|**0.0341**||**-1.5%**||
**Energy efficiency actions**
During 2024/25, Samaritans launched a sustainability roadmap and action plan to support volunteer-led branches in identifying energy-saving opportunities.
Key actions included:
- Development of a ‘best practice’ sustainability campaign for branches
- Completion of ESOS Phase 3 reporting and identification of priority actions
- Continued monitoring of baseline emissions and planning for deeper implementation of reductions across the estate
While direct quantification of energy savings is not yet possible, infrastructure for future reductions is being laid.
**Renewable energy**
Samaritans continue to benefit from a Green Energy electricity contract, originally procured in 2022/23, supplying 100 per cent renewable energy (wind and hydro) across the central charity’s 60+ premises.
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## **Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities**
The Trustees (who are also 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 United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards).
Company law requires 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 the income and expenditure, of the group for the year.
In preparing these 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 judgments and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
- state whether applicable UK accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and
- prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charitable company will continue in business.
The Trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the charitable company’s transactions, 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 Companies Act 2006, the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended) and the provisions of the charity’s constitution.
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 24 July 2025 and signed on its behalf by Annie Kent, Treasurer:
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Statement of compliance with section 172(1) of the Companies Act 2006
The Board of Trustees have acted in the way they consider, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the charitable company for the benefit of the organisation as a whole. In doing so, the Trustees have had regard to the matters set out in section 172(1a-f) of the Companies Act 2006, as detailed below; page references have been provided for information to support the Trustees' compliance to their duties in these areas.
- a) The likely consequences of any decision in the long term: see _Financial Review_ , page 35 and _Risks and Uncertainties_ , page 41
- b) The interests of the company's employees: see _Principles_ , page 25
- c) The need to foster the company's business relationships with suppliers, customers, donors and others: see _Financial Review_ , page 35 and _Fundraising Activities Statement_ , page 50
- d) The impact of the company's operations on the community and the environment: see Reach, page 10 and _Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting_ , page 53
- e) The desirability of the company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct: see _Governance Report_ , page 44
- f) The need to act fairly as between members of the company: see _Governance Report_ , page 44
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## **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 2025 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 2025 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 and the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and Regulations 6 and 8 of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (amended).
## **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 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 Trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.
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## **Other information**
The trustees are responsible for the other information contained within the annual report. 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.
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 purposes 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 group and charitable 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 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:
- adequate and proper accounting records have not been kept or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or
- the 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.
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## **Responsibilities of trustees**
As explained more fully in the trustees’ responsibilities statement (set out on page 55), 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 trustees 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.
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.
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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 and The Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 together with the Charities SORP (FRS102) 2019. 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 and the group’s ability to operate or to avoid a material penalty. We also considered the opportunities and incentives that may exist within the charitable company and the group for fraud. The laws and regulations we considered in this context for the UK operations 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, 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 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.
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## **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, as a body, in accordance with Regulation 10 of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006. 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
6 August 2025
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## **Financial Statements**
## **Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities**
Incorporating an Income & Expenditure Account For the year to 31 March 2025
|Note
**Income from:**
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**
**Expenditure on:**
Raising funds
7
Charitable activities
7
**Total expenditure**
Net realised gains/(losses) on
investments
Net unrealised gains on investments
11
Net (expenditure)
Transfers between funds
**Net movement in funds**
**Reconciliation of funds**
18
Total funds brought forward
**Total funds carried forward**|Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
funds
Total
funds
Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
funds
Total
funds
2025
2025
2025
2024
2024
2024
£’000
£’000
£’000
£’000
£’000
£’000
17,886
901
18,787
14,624
684
15,308
961
3,240
4,201
1,567
2,971
4,538
3,932
119
4,051
4,192
159
4,351
478
-
478
362
-
362
-
-
-
70
-
70|
|---|---|
||23,257
4,260
27,517
20,815
3,814
24,629|
||6,651
42
6,693
5,720
132
5,852
16,706
4,649
21,355
15,517
4,535
20,052|
||23,357
4,691
28,048
21,237
4,667
25,904|
||7
-
7
(27)
-
(27)
77
-
77
174
-
174|
||(16)
(431)
(447)
(275)
(853)
(1,128)
(29)
29
-
338
(338)
-|
||(45)
(402)
(447)
63
(1,191)
(1,128)
21,833
2,087
23,920
21,770
3,278
25,048|
||21,788
1,685
23,473
21,833
2,087
23,920|
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62
## **Charity Statement of Financial Activities**
Incorporating an Income & Expenditure Account For the year to 31 March 2025
|Note
**Income from:**
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 on:**
Raising funds
7
Charitable activities
7
**Total expenditure**
Net realised gains/(losses) on
investments
Net unrealised gains on investments
11
Net (expenditure) / income
Transfers between funds
**Net movement in funds**
**Reconciliation of funds**
18
Total funds brought forward
**Total funds carried forward**|Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
funds|Total
funds
Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
funds
Total
funds
2025
2024
2024
2024
£’000
£’000
£’000
£’000
18,418
14,574
667
15,241
3,729
1,603
2,269
3,872
3,647
3,597
-
3,597
454
361
-
361
-
70
-
70|
|---|---|---|
||2025
2025||
||£’000
£’000||
||||
||17,622
796||
||||
||1,051
2,678||
||||
||3,582
65||
||454
-||
||-
-||
||22,709
3,539|26,248
20,205
2,936
23,141
-
-
-
-|
||||
||-
-||
||||
||22,709
3,539|26,248
20,205
2,936
23,141|
|||6,391
5,581
133
5,714
20,410
14,912
3,609
18,521|
||||
||6,348
43||
||16,502
3,908||
||||
||22,850
3,951|26,801
20,493
3,742
24,235|
|||7
(27)
-
(27)
77
174
-
174|
||7
-||
||77
-||
||||
||(57)
(412)|(469)
(141)
(806)
(947)
-
338
(338)
-|
||||
||(91)
91||
||||
||(148)
(321)|(469)
197
(1,144)
(947)
22,720
21,212
2,455
23,667|
||||
||||
||21,409
1,311||
||21,261
990|22,251
21,409
1,311
22,720|
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 65 to 88 form part of these accounts.
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63
## **Consolidated and Charity Balance Sheet**
## As at 31 March 2025
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**
**Current liabilities**
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
13
Deferred income
14
**Net current assets**
**Total assets less current liabilities**
Provisions for liabilities
17
**Total net assets**
**Funds**
18
Restricted income funds
Unrestricted income funds
General unrestricted funds
Designated funds
**Total funds**|Group
2025
£’000
Group
2024
£’000
6,564
6,764
111
241
2,312
2,220|Charity
2025
£’000
Charity
2024
£’000
6,563
6,762
111
241
2,312
2,220|
|---|---|---|
||8,987
9,225|8,986
9,223|
||5
2
3,988
3,907
13,931
13,142|5
2
4,281
4,608
11,702
11,117|
||17,924
17,051|15,988
15,727|
||2,475
1,871
750
289|2,401
1,835
109
199|
||3,225
2,160|2,510
2,034|
||14,699
14,891|13,478
13,693|
||23,686
24,116
(213)
(196)|22,464
22,916
(213)
(196)|
||23,473
23,920|22,251
22,720|
||1,685
2,087
12,017
12,050
9,771
9,783|990
1,311
11,491
11,727
9,770
9,682|
||21,788
21,833|21,261
21,409|
||||
||23,473
23,920|22,251
22,720|
Approved and authorised for issue by the Board of Trustees on 24 July 2025 and signed on its behalf by Annie Kent, Honorary Treasurer:
The Notes on pages 65 to 88 form part of these accounts.
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
64
## **Consolidated and Charity Statement of Cashflows**
For the year ended 31 March 2025
|**Reconciliation of net income to net cash flow from**
**operating activities**
Net expenditure for the reporting period (as per the statement of
financial activities)
Adjustments for:
Depreciation and amortisation charges
Loss/(profit) on sale of fixed assets
Net unrealised (gains) on investments
Dividends and interest from investments
(Increase)/decrease in stock
(Increase)/decrease in debtors
Increase/(decrease) in creditors
**Net cash inflow/(outflow) from operating activities**
**Statement of cash flows**
**Cash flows from operating activities:**
Net cash provided by/(used in) 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
Proceeds from investment disposals
Purchase of investments
**Net cash (used in)/provided by investing activities**
**Change in cash and cash equivalents in the reporting period**
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the reporting period
**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
2025
£’000
Group
2024
£’000
(447)
(1,128)
340
356
79
(70)
(77)
(174)
(23)
(28)
(3)
52
(81)
(718)
1,082
(1,105)|Charity
2025
£’000
Charity
2024
£’000
(469)
(947)
339
356
79
(70)
(77)
(174)
(23)
(28)
(3)
22
327
(701)
493
(847)|
|---|---|---|
||870
(2,815)|666
(2,389)|
||870
(2,815)
23
28
(311)
(16)
222
174
914
521
(929)
(506)|666
(2,389)
23
28
(311)
(16)
222
174
914
521
(929)
(506)|
||(81)
201|(81)
201|
||789
(2,614)|585
(2,188)|
||13,142
15,756|11,117
13,305|
||13,931
13,142|11,702
11,117|
||13,931
13,142|11,702
11,117|
||13,931
13,142|11,702
11,117|
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
65
## **Notes to the Accounts**
## _1. Accounting policies_
The company is registered as a charitable company limited by guarantee incorporated in England and Wales and is governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association. Its registered office is The Upper Mill, Kingston Road, Ewell, Surrey KT17 2AF.
The principal accounting policies adopted, judgements and key sources of estimation uncertainty in the preparation of the financial statements are as follows:
## **a) Basis of preparation and going concern**
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 updated by the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023, 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 65 to 88. Further details of the subsidiaries’ activities are shown in Note 19. 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
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
66
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 1gi: Legacies).
## **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.
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 18.
## **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 expense relating to a provision for impairment is recognised in the Statement of Financial Activities (‘SOFA’) in the year in which it occurs.
## **f) Stock**
Stock is valued at the lower of cost or net realisable value.
## **g) 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_
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
67
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.
## **h) 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 strategic areas relating to charitable activities (Access, Reach, Impact and Capacity) and to Fundraising activities (the fifth strategic area of Sustainability). 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.
## _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 corporate services and other support 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.
## _vi) 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:
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
68
## 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
## **i) Capital assets**
Tangible and intangible fixed assets are capitalised if they have an individual value exceeding £5,000.
## **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 receives 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 over the year.
## **m) Pensions**
The company operates a defined contribution group personal pension plan and an autoenrolment pension scheme. Pension costs for eligible employees are charged to expenditure as they are incurred and allocated between funds and activities as described in note 1h above.
## **n) Branches**
The term ‘branches’ used throughout these Accounts refers to the branches of Samaritans, whose objectives are consistent with those of Samaritans.
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69
## **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.
Cash at bank and in hand includes cash and short term, highly liquid investments with a short maturity of three months or less from the date of the opening of the deposit. Cash equivalents on deposit includes cash on deposit with a maturity of over three months.
Creditors and provisions are recognised where the group has a present obligation arising from a past event that will probably result in the transfer of funds to a third party and the amount due to settle the obligation can be measured or estimated reliably. Creditors and provisions are recognised at their settlement amount.
## _2. Voluntary income_
|**a) Donations and legacies**|All Funds
2025
£’000
All Funds
2024
£’000|
|---|---|
|Donations - Individual Giving|9,621
8,107|
|Donations - branches|254
272|
|Donations - Corporate|3,651
2,451|
|Gifts in kind|380
390|
|Legacies|4,881
4,088|
|**Total**|18,787
15,308|
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70
## **b) Donated Services**
A valuation has been undertaken of advertising and legal services donated to the charity during the year. This valuation of £380,000 (2024: £390,000) 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 2025, the charity had been notified of a further 126 legacies (2024: 105) that have not been included in these accounts as they did not meet these criteria. These legacies have an estimated value of £4,200,000 (2024: £3,426,000).
|**d) Grants**|All Funds
2025
£’000
All Funds
2024
£’000|
|---|---|
|Ministry of Justice: HMPPS|625
618|
|Department of Health and Social Care: Suicide Prevention Fund (Samaritans, NSPA, Missing
People Partnership)|588
154|
|Wolfson Institute: Listening Centre|500
-|
|Health Service Executive: Freecall Ireland|494
509|
|Pears Foundation|200
400|
|Welsh Government/LLywodraeth Cymru|140
140|
|Scottish Government – Creating Hope Together Programme|136
90|
|Department of Health and Social Care: VCSE Health & Wellbeing Alliance|97
111|
|Scottish Government (Helpline services)|80
30|
|Irish Prison Service|68
63|
|Armed Forces Covenant Fund|5
295|
|NHS England: Support after suicide|-
98|
|Department of Health and Social Care: NSPA- Core grant|-
90|
||2,933
2,598|
|||
|Other grants*|1,268
1,940|
|||
|**Total**|4,201
4,538|
*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.
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
71
## _3. Partnership income_
New Branch Contribution is a payment by branches as a contribution to the services received from the central charity, including the core technology platform. The New Branch Contribution amounted to £798,000 (2024: £901,000) and is included within ‘partnerships and other income’.
## _4. Investment income_
|_. Investment income_||
|---|---|
|Cash or cash equivalents
Listed investments
Total investment income|All funds
2025
£’000
All funds
2024
£’000|
||455
334|
||23
28|
||478
362|
## _5. Charitable expenditure_
Further information on charitable expenditure has been provided below where required by the funder.
The funding received has been shown in Note 2d above.
## 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. Expenditure during 2024/25 was £631,000 (2023/24: £622,000).
## Scottish Government Helpline Funding
The Scottish Government grant was a contribution to Samaritans Helpline Service and the development of the online chat service. Expenditure during 2024/25 totalled £80,000 (2023/24: £30,000).
## Welsh Government
The Welsh Government funding is a contribution towards our work in Wales, including outreach to at-risk communities and resource development. Expenditure during 2024/25 totalled £140,000 (2023/24: £182,000).
## Armed Forces Covenant Fund – Veterans Funding
This grant funds a helpline service pathway for military veterans. Expenditure during 2024/25 totalled £nil (2023/24: £280,000).
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
72
## **Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) funded projects**
## Suicide Prevention Fund (Samaritans, NSPA and Missing People Partnership)
Samaritans secured funding from three grants to the Suicide Prevention Fund across two years. These include:
**Samaritans - Suicide Prevention Fund Grant** to contribute towards the Helpline across all channels, delivery of Media Advisory Services, and our work on high-risk locations.
**National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA) – Suicide Prevention Fund Grant** to support NSPA to work focus on; Building understanding of experiences of marginalised groups, Creating a step change in learning in suicide prevention and development of a suicide prevention online community hub.
**Samaritans Text Safe Suicide partnership with Missing People Grant** to deliver our suicide text safe programme by delivering emotional support for missing people at risk of suicide. This was a new grant in 2024.
Expenditure in the year over all these projects totalled £588,000 (2024: £153,000).
VCSE Health & Wellbeing Alliance: Suicide Prevention Consortium
To provide funding to the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector through Samaritans as lead of the Suicide Prevention Consortium with partners (NSPA – National Suicide Prevention Alliance, SASP Support After Suicide Partnership, and With You – We Are With You) as active members of the Health and Wellbeing (HW) Alliance. Working to share expertise and bring lived experience to support strategic, planned and responsive work to inform policy and practice across the Department of Health and wider relevant Government departments.
Expenditure during 2024/25 was £97,000 (2023/24: £116,000).
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73
## _6. Net expenditure for the year and related party transactions_
This is stated after charging:
|_6. Net expenditure for the year and related party transactions_
This is stated after charging:||
|---|---|
|Audit fees payable to parent charity’s auditors
Audit fees payable to the component auditor of the Irish subsidiary
Fees payable to the parent charity’s auditor for tax and other services
Depreciation of tangible fixed assets
Amortisation of intangible fixed assets
Loss/(profit) on sale of tangible fixed assets
Operating lease rentals|All funds 2025
£’000
All funds 2024
£’000|
||38
37|
||4
4|
||2
2|
||44
43|
||210
217|
||130
139|
||79
(70)|
||460
494|
The Directors of the charitable company are the trustees under charity law and receive no remuneration (2024: none). It is the policy of the charity to reimburse all volunteer expenses in full. During the year five Trustees (2024: six) received reimbursement for attending meetings and other incidentals amounting to £2,000 (2024: £3,000). Total unrestricted donations from trustees amounted to £3,000 (2024: £nil).
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.
Other than the above, there are no other related party transactions.
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
74
## _7. Breakdown of costs by activity_
## **Current year**
|**Expenditure on:**
**Raising funds**
General fundraising (Sustainability)
**Charitable activities**
Access
Reach
Impact
Capacity
**Total expenditure**|Direct costs
2025
£’000
Support costs
2025
£’000
All costs
2025
£’000|
|---|---|
||5,224
1,469
6,693|
|||
||8,996
2,397
11,393|
||912
190
1,102|
||4,545
1,177
5,722|
||2,464
674
3,138|
||22,141
5,907
28,048|
We have five strategic areas in our current strategy. Expenditure on the four strategic areas relating to charitable activities have been split out above. The fifth strategic area of sustainability is shown under general fundraising, in line with our treatment in 2024.
|**Expenditure on:**
Raising funds
Charitable activities
**Total expenditure**|Unrestricted
funds
2025
£’000
Restricted
funds
2025
£’000
All funds
2025
£’000|
|---|---|
||6,651
42
6,693|
||16,706
4,649
21,355|
||23,357
4,691
28,048|
## **Analysis of support costs by activity:**
|Finance and other corporate services
IS
HR
Facilities
Governance
**Support costs**|Fundraising
2025
£’000
Access
2025
£’000
Reach
2025
£’000
Impact
2025
£’000
Capacity
2025
£’000
Total
2025
£’000|
|---|---|
||344
530
29
251
154
1,308|
||529
1,019
149
545
263
2,505|
||214
303
4
136
92
749|
||240
343
5
154
104
846|
||142
202
3
91
61
499|
||1,469
2,397
190
1,177
674
5,907|
75 Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
## **Prior year**
|**Expenditure on:**
**Raising funds**
General fundraising (Sustainability)
**Charitable activities**
Access
Reach
Impact
Capacity
**Total expenditure**|Direct costs
2024
£’000
Support costs
2024
£’000
All costs
2024
£’000
4,497
1,355
5,852
8,184
2,116
10,300
1,229
25
1,254
4,567
996
5,563
2,343
592
2,935
20,820
5,084
25,904|
|---|---|
|**Expenditure on:**
Raising funds
Charitable activities
**Total expenditure**|Unrestricted
funds
2024
£’000
Restricted
funds
2024
£’000
All funds
2024
£’000|
|---|---|
||5,720
132
5,852|
||15,517
4,535
20,052|
||21,237
4,667
25,904|
## **Analysis of support costs by activity:**
|Finance and other corporate services
IS
HR
Facilities
Governance
**Support costs**|Fundraising
2024
£’000
Access
2024
£’000
Reach
2024
£’000
Impact
2024
£’000
Capacity
2024
£’000
Total
2024
£’000|
|---|---|
||330
517
6
243
144
1,240|
||478
745
9
351
209
1,792|
||208
324
4
153
91
780|
||206
322
4
151
90
773|
||133
208
2
98
58
499|
||1,355
2,116
25
996
592
5,084|
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
76
## _8. Staff costs_
|_8. Staff costs_|||
|---|---|---|
||All funds|All funds|
||2025|2024|
|**Staff costs**|£’000|£’000|
|Wages and salaries|13,993|13,278|
|Social security costs|1,513|1,336|
|Other pension costs|673|623|
|Agencystaff|40|90|
|**Total staff costs**|16,219|15,327|
|**Staff paid over £60,000***|2025|2024|
|£170,001-£180,000|-|-|
|£140,001- £150,000|-|-|
|£120,001-£130,000|1|1|
|£110,001-£120,000|1|1|
|£100,001-£110,000|3|2|
|£90,001-£100,000|-|1|
|£80,001-£90,000|6|2|
|£70,001-£80,000|8|10|
|£60,001-£70,000|20|15|
|Total|39|32|
_* Comprising consideration paid in exchange for the service rendered by employees including remuneration, salary, benefits and any termination payments made._
The Chief Executive Officer was paid a total of £125,000 (2024: £125,000).
The total amount of employee benefits received by key management personnel for their services during the year was £676,000 (2024: £665,000).
Termination payments totalling £15,000 (2024: £194,000) were paid during the year, relating to employees leaving the charity.
The pension contributions for the 39 employees (2024: 32) earning more than £60,000 in the year amounted to £161,000 (2024: £140,000).
## **Employee numbers**
At 31 March 2025, the number of employees in post was 330 (326 at 31 March 2024). The average number of employees in post during the year was 328 (2024: 331).
As at 31 March 2025, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees was 304 (301 at 31 March 2024). The average FTE number of employees during the year was 303 (2024: 305).
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
77
## _9. Tangible fixed assets_
|**Group**
**Cost**
At 1 April 2024
Additions
Disposals
Exchange rate movements
**At 31 March 2025**
**Depreciation**
At 1 April 2024
Charged in the year
Disposals
Exchange rate movements
**At 31 March 2025**
**Net book value**
**At 31 March 2025**
At 31 March 2024
**Charity**
**Cost**
At 1 April 2024
Additions
Disposals
**At 31 March 2025**
**Depreciation**
At 1 April 2024
Charge for the year
Disposals
**At 31 March 2025**
**Net book value**
**At 31 March 2025**
At 31 March 2024|Freehold
property
£’000
Leasehold
property
£’000
Computer
equipment
£’000
Office
equipment
£’000
Motor
vehicles
£’000
Total
£’000|
|---|---|
||8,665
685
391
499
42
10,282|
||304
-
-
7
-
311|
||(350)
-
(338)
-
-
(688)|
||-
-
-
-
-
-|
||8,619
685
53
506
42
9,905|
||2,540
98
391
456
33
3,518|
||151
14
-
39
6
210|
||(49)
-
(338)
-
-
(387)|
||-
-
-
-
-
-|
||2,642
112
53
495
39
3,341|
||5,977
573
-
11
3
6,564|
||6,125
587
-
43
9
6,764
Freehold
property
£’000
Leasehold
property
£’000
Computer
equipment
£’000
Office
equipment
£’000
Motor
vehicles
£’000
Total
£’000|
||8,665
685
391
337
42
10,120|
||304
-
-
7
-
311|
||(350)
-
(338)
-
-
(688)|
||8,619
685
53
344
42
9,743|
||2,540
98
391
296
33
3,358|
||151
14
-
38
6
209|
||(49)
-
(338)
-
-
(387)|
||2,642
112
53
334
39
3,180|
||5,977
573
-
10
3
6,563|
||6,125
587
-
41
9
6,762|
Depreciation at 31 March 2025 for freehold property includes an impairment of £725,000 in the carrying value of the Ewell Central Office arising from an impairment review in 2012/13.
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
78
## _10. Intangible fixed assets_
|_0. Intangible fixed assets_||
|---|---|
|**Group and charity**
**Cost**
At 1 April 2024
Additions
**At 31 March 2025**
**Amortisation**
At 1 April 2024
Charge for the year
**At 31 March 2025**
**Net book value**
**At 31 March 2025**
At 31 March 2024|Website and
software
development
£’000|
||1,329|
||-|
||1,329|
||1,088|
||130|
||1,218|
||111|
||241|
Amortisation of intangible fixed assets is included within Charitable Activities expenditure on the Statement of Financial Activities.
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
79
## _11. Fixed asset investments_
|Market value at 1 April
Acquisition at cost
Disposal proceeds
Net investment gains/(losses)
**Market value at 31 March**
**Cash and cash equivalents**
CCLA COIF charities deposit fund
Portfolio managed by Hambros Investments
**Listed investments**
Portfolio managed by Hambros Investments
Other listed investments
**Other investments – managed by Hambros Investments**
Alternative
Commodities
Fixed interest
**Total investments**|Group
2025
£’000
Group
2024
£’000
Charity
2025
£’000
Charity
2024
£’000
2,220
2,061
2,220
2,061
929
506
929
506
(914)
(521)
(914)
(521)
77
174
77
174|
|---|---|
||2,312
2,220
2,312
2,220|
||2025
£’000
2025
%
2024
£’000
2024
%
112
5%
109
5%
55
2%
16
1%|
||167
7%
125
6%
1,225
53%
1,162
52%
10
0%
9
0%|
||1,235
53%
1,171
52%
339
15%
271
12%
105
5%
132
6%
466
20%
521
24%|
||910
40%
924
42%|
||2,312
100%
2,220
100%|
Investments held by the charity include a £100 investment (2024: £100) in the subsidiary company at cost: see Note 19.
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
80
## _12. Debtors_
|Trade debtors
Gift Aid
Legacies
Accrued income
VAT, payroll tax, social security and pensions
Other debtors
Intercompany
Prepayments
**Total debtors**|Group
2025
£’000
Group
2024
£’000
Charity
2025
£’000
Charity
2024
£’000
672
774
348
627
775
1,346
775
1,346
235
156
235
156
1,151
792
1,139
735
-
-
-
-
145
74
145
74
-
-
671
925
1,010
765
968
745|
|---|---|
||3,988
3,907
4,281
4,608|
## _13. Creditors_
|Social security and taxes
Trade creditors
Intercompany
Accrued expenditure
Other creditors
**Total creditors**|Group
2025
£’000
Group
2024
£’000
Charity
2025
£’000
Charity
2024
£’000
485
453
487
453
959
418
927
404
-
-
57
35
995
950
894
893
36
50
36
50|
|---|---|
||2,475
1,871
2,401
1,835|
## _14. Deferred income_
|At 1 April
Income recognised in the year
Income deferred in the year
**At 31 March**|Group
2025
£’000
Group
2024
£’000
Charity
2025
£’000
Charity
2024
£’000
289
668
199
350
(200)
(335)
(157)
(348)
661
(44)
67
197|
|---|---|
||750
289
109
199|
Total deferred income includes £541,000 (2024: £77,000) of Network Rail deferred income within The Samaritan Enterprises Limited.
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
81
## _15. Provisions for liabilities_
|_15. Provisions for liabilities_||
|---|---|
|At 1 April
Increase in provision
**At 31 March**|Group
2025
£’000
Group
2024
£’000
Charity
2025
£’000
Charity
2024
£’000
196
183
196
183
17
13
17
13|
||213
196
213
196|
Provisions comprise potential dilapidations costs on properties leased by the group in the event of the group vacating the properties.
## 16. 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
2025
Land and
buildings
£’000
Group
2025
Other
£’000
Group
2024
Land and
buildings
£’000
Group
2024
Other
£’000
Charity
2025
Land and
buildings
£’000
Charity
2025
Other
£’000
Charity
2024
Land and
buildings
£’000
Charity
2024
Other
£’000|
|---|---|
||251
-
246
-
204
-
199
-|
||541
1
521
1
464
1
398
1|
||57
-
64
1
57
-
64
1|
||849
1
831
2
725
1
661
2|
## _17. Financial instruments_
At the balance sheet date, the group held financial assets at amortised cost of £16,909,000 (2024: £16,284,000), financial assets at fair value through income or expenditure of £2,312,000 (2024: £2,220,000) and financial liabilities at amortised cost of £2,475,000 (2024: £1,871,000).
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
82
## _18. Reconciliation of funds_
|**Current year**
**Unrestricted**
General fund
Designated fund – tangible and intangible
fixed assets
Designated fund – property maintenance
fund
Designated fund – There for Everyone
Designated fund – Service Expansion
Designated fund – Strategy & Future
Proofing
Designated fund – Ireland
**Total unrestricted funds**
**Restricted**
Branch support
Other branch funds
City Hub
Education Resources
Email service development
Helpline call costs
Helpline Freecall
Highland Programme
Listening Centre
National Suicide Prevention
Northern Ireland
Online Chat
Online Excellence Programme
Prisoner Support & Improving Safer Custody
Regional grants
Suicide & Self-harm in Wales
Support After Suicide
VSCE Health & Wellbeing Alliance
Veterans Listening Service
Other
**Total restricted funds**
**Total funds**
**Represented by:**
Tangible and intangible fixed assets
Investments
Net current assets
Provisions for liabilities
**Total**|At 1
April
2024
£’000
Income
£’000
Expenditure
£’000
Gains/
(losses)
£’000
Transfers
£’000
At 31
March
2025
£’000|
|---|---|
||12,050
23,257
(21,486)
84
(1,888)
12,017|
||7,005
-
(419)
-
89
6,675|
||28
-
(256)
-
228
-|
||1
-
(1)
-
-
-|
||902
-
(649)
-
-
253|
||1,748
-
(405)
-
1,500
2,843|
||99
-
(141)
-
42
-|
||21,833
23,257
(23,357)
84
(29)
21,788|
||198
-
(165)
-
-
33|
||89
318
(114)
-
-
293|
||104
30
(77)
-
-
57|
||96
-
(61)
-
-
35|
||111
500
(500)
-
-
111|
||-
80
(80)
-
-
-|
||294
494
(546)
-
-
242|
||45
60
(65)
-
-
40|
||189
329
(547)
-
29
-|
||141
642
(711)
-
-
72|
||9
29
(38)
-
-
-|
||110
20
(130)
-
-
-|
||351
85
(163)
-
-
273|
||78
824
(783)
-
-
119|
||-
62
(50)
-
-
12|
||55
179
(195)
-
-
39|
||86
76
(100)
-
-
62|
||-
97
(97)
-
-
-|
||15
5
-
-
-
20|
||116
430
(269)
-
-
277|
||2,087
4,260
(4,691)
-
29
1,685|
||23,920
27,517
(28,048)
84
-
23,473|
||General
Funds
£’000
Designated
funds
£’000
Restricted
funds
£’000
Total
2025
£’000
Total
2024
£‘000|
||-
6,675
-
6,675
7,005|
||2,312
-
-
2,312
2,220|
||9,918
3,096
1,685
14,699
14,891|
||(213)
-
-
(213)
(196)|
||12,017
9,771
1,685
23,473
23,920|
83 Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
|**Prior year**
**Unrestricted**
General fund
Designated fund – tangible and intangible
fixed assets
Designated fund – property maintenance
fund
Designated fund – There for Everyone
Designated fund – Service Expansion
Designated fund – Strategy Development
Designated fund – Ireland
**Total unrestricted funds**
**Restricted**
Branch support
Other branch funds
City Hub
Education Resources
Email service development
Helpline call costs
Helpline Freecall
Highland Programme
Listening Centre
Mental Health in the Rail Industry
National Suicide Prevention
National Training School
Northern Ireland
Online Chat
Online Excellence Programme
Prisoner Support & Improving Safer Custody
Reduce Gambling Harm
Regional grants
Suicide & Self-harm in Wales
Support After Suicide
VSCE Health & Wellbeing Alliance
Veterans Listening Service
Other
**Total restricted funds**
**Total funds**
**Represented by:**
Tangible and intangible fixed assets
Investments
Net current assets
Liabilities due over 1 year
**Total**|At 1
April 2023
£’000
Income
£’000
Expenditure
£’000
Gains/
(losses)
£’000
Transfers
£’000
At 31
March 2024
£’000|
|---|---|
||10,964
20,745
(20,223)
217
347
12,050|
||7,449
-
(460)
-
16
7,005|
||28
-
-
-
28|
||44
-
(18)
-
(25)
1|
||1,286
-
(384)
-
-
902|
||1,752
-
(4)
-
-
1,748|
||247
-
(148)
-
-
99|
||21,770
20,745
(21,237)
217
338
21,833|
||411
290
(311)
-
(192)
198|
||89
-
-
-
-
89|
||168
3
(67)
-
-
104|
||-
96
-
-
-
96|
||111
-
-
-
-
111|
||8
47
(55)
-
-
-|
||472
508
(686)
-
-
294|
||318
-
(273)
-
-
45|
||-
305
(116)
-
-
189|
||25
1
(26)
-
-
-|
||155
342
(356)
-
-
141|
||246
2
(248)
-
-
-|
||13
34
(38)
-
-
9|
||-
130
(20)
-
-
110|
||489
54
(192)
-
-
351|
||112
786
(820)
-
-
78|
||84
-
(84)
-
-
-|
||238
140
(194)
-
(184)
-|
||25
207
(193)
-
16
55|
||136
108
(158)
-
-
86|
||5
111
(116)
-
-
-|
||-
295
(280)
-
-
15|
||173
355
(434)
-
22
116|
||3,278
3,814
(4,667)
-
(338)
2,087|
||25,048
24,559
(25,904)
217
-
23,920|
||General
Funds
£’000
Designated
funds
£’000
Restricted
funds
£’000
Total
2024
£’000
Total
2023
£‘000|
||-
7,005
-
7,005
7,447|
||2,220
-
-
2,220
2,058|
||10,028
2,778
2,085
14,891
15,726|
||(196)
-
-
(196)
(183)|
||12,052
9,783
2,085
23,920
25,048|
84 Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
## **18 a) Unrestricted funds**
|General fund|These funds are held available for the ordinary purposes of the
charity.|
|---|---|
|Designated fund –
tangible fixed
assets|This fund comprises the Group’s tangible fixed assets. These are
therefore not readily available for other purposes. Transfers
represent net cash spent on the acquisition and disposal of assets
during the financial year.|
|Designated fund –
property
maintenance fund|This fund was established utilising cash assets transferred from
branches joining the central charity and has subsequently been
topped up from general funds. The fund is used to ensure the
ongoing maintenance, safety, and suitability of branch properties
for delivering Samaritans’ services into the future.|
|Designated fund –
service expansion|This fund supports new ways of operating our service, with the aim
of widening the reach for beneficiaries, and attracting and training
new volunteers.|
|Designated fund –
Strategy & Future
Proofing|During 2022 our new strategy was developed, informed by people
with lived experience, our volunteers, staff, and supporters. The
strategy, which runs until 2029, ensures that we can continue to be
there for those who need us most and make our voice heard to
make suicide prevention a priority. In 2024/25 a workstream was
initiated to consider long-term challenges and opportunities for our
charity and how we should respond. This programme has been
named ‘Future Proofing’ and in March 2025 £1,500,000 was
designated towards delivery over the coming period.|
|Designated fund –
There for Everyone|This fund supported the_There for Everyone_programme, which
helped us to 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 as well as creating more flexible ways to
volunteer. This fund is now fully spent.|
|Designated fund –
Ireland|This fund was established in 2023 from legacy proceeds to progress
several key workstreams in Ireland over a two year period. This
included 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 included development of the Samaritans Ireland
website, improved oversight of operational work in Ireland,
research into self-harm and support to branches in Ireland. This
fund is now fully spent.|
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
85
## **18 b) Restricted funds**
|Branch support|This fund ensures Samaritans’ critical 24/7 services remain available
nationally and locally and to meet emergency financial needs of the
branches.|
|---|---|
|Other branch funds|This fund represents the total of restricted fund balances held by
central charity branches.|
|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 online chat
service.|
|Education
Resources|This fund is used to develop our education programme.|
|Email service
development|This fund supports the development of Samaritans’ email service.|
|Helpline call costs|This fund contributes to the central costs of calls to the Samaritans
helpline in the UK.|
|Helpline Freecall|This fund contributes to the central costs of calls to the Samaritans
Freecall helpline phone number in Ireland.|
|Highland
Programme|This fund relates to 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.|
|Listening Centre|This fund relates to the development and roll-out of the new
Listening Centre platform which now handles all our UK services,
including phone calls, online chats, and the Welsh language line.|
|Mental Health in
the rail industry|This fund related to a study into mental health awareness and the
railways.|
|National Suicide
Prevention|The National Suicide Prevention Alliance (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.|
|National Training
School|This fund supported the growth of our listening services and various
service expansion pilots.|
|Northern Ireland|This fund represents the total of restricted funds held for activity in
Northern Ireland.|
86 Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
|Online Chat|This fund was for the development of our Online Chat service.|
|---|---|
|Online Excellence
Programme|This fund is for the development and delivery of a hub of excellence
in suicide prevention and the online environment.|
|Prisoner Support &
Improving Safer
Custody|This fund is for the provision of emotional support to prisoners in
distress or crisis in the UK and Ireland.|
|Reducing Gambling
Harm|This fund related to the partnership with GamCare to develop
suicide prevention guidance aimed at gambling companies and
training to support their staff working with customers expressing
suicidal thoughts.|
|Regional Grants|This fund contributes to core helpline costs, volunteer training and
other costs incurred regionally.|
|Suicide & Self-
harm in Wales|This fund supports Samaritans and NSPA to carry out our work in
Wales.|
|Support After
Suicide|The 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.|
|VCSE Health &
Wellbeing Alliance|This fund provides core funding to the Voluntary, Community and
Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector membership of the refreshed Health
and Wellbeing (HW) Alliance.|
|Veterans Listening
Service|This funding is for a veteran helpline service which provides trained
support to improve the wellbeing and resilience of military
veterans, including peer-to-peer support.|
|Other|This fund represents the total of smaller individual restricted funds.|
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
87
## _19. 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 £1,268,000 to its subsidiaries during the year (2024: £1,086,000) and made payments to its subsidiaries of £nil (2024: £nil). The Samaritans Enterprises Limited donates any surpluses to Samaritans under Gift Aid; for 2025 this amounted to £339,000 (2024: £527,000). At the year-end, £671,000 was due from Samaritans Enterprises (2024: £925,000), and £57,000 was due to Samaritans Ireland (2024: £33,000).
## **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 £1,351,000 (2024: £1,839,000), expenditure amounted to £1,012,000 (2024: £1,312,000) and a surplus of £339,000 was generated (2024: £527,000), before transfers and other recognised gains/losses. At 31 March 2025 assets were £1,356,000 (2024: £1,034,000) and liabilities were £1,356,000 (2024: £1,034,000).
A Memorandum of Understanding exists 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 £1,268,000 (2023: £1,086,000).
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
88
## **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 £1,451,000 (2024: £1,451,000), expenditure amounted to £1,428,000 (2024: £1,634,000) resulting in a surplus of £23,000 (2024: deficit of £183,000). This figure includes foreign exchange gains on translation into sterling. At 31 March 2025 assets were £1,246,000 (2024: £1,250,000), liabilities were £23,000 (2024: £52,000) and total funds were £1,223,000 (2024: £1,174,000).
The results of the company have been translated at the prevailing currency exchange rate at the average rate.
## _20. Affiliated and Central Charity branches_
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 no branches 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 92 to 94, and SCC branches are indicated on this list.
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
89
## **Reference and Administrative details**
Honorary President: Felicity Varah Harding OBE
Royal Patron: HM The King
Company name: Samaritans
Registered address and principal office: The Upper Mill, Kingston Road Ewell, Surrey KT17 2AF
Registered charity number: 219432 Company number: 757372 Scottish charity number: SC040604 Website: samaritans.org
## Board of Trustees
Keith Leslie (Chair, Board of Trustees) Dr Hester Wain (Co Vice-Chair) Richard Bartlett (Co Vice-Chair) Annie Kent (Honorary Treasurer and Chair of Finance Committee) Debbie Giwa (Chair of Audit & Risk Committee) Philip Cliff (Chair, People and Culture Committee)
Dr Anushta Sivananthan (Chair, Service & Quality Committee) Amanda Millar (Chair, Scotland Committee) Eleanor Farrell (Chair, Ireland Board, Nominations & Governance Committee) John Drew (Chair of External Engagement and Research Committee) Dr Catherine Goodwin (Chair, Wales Committee)
Andrew Donnell
John Jolly Ella Dorfman (from 01.01.2025) Rosie Allister (from 01.01.2025) Rory Girvan (Co Vice-Chair) (term ended on 31.12.2024) Gaia Marcus (term ended on 27.07.2024)
## Samaritans senior staff
**CEO:** Julie Bentley
**Executive Director of Corporate Services:** Graeme Danton
**Executive Director of External Engagement:** Sonya Trivedy
**Executive Director of Operations:** Lis Skeet
**Executive Director of People and Culture:** Tiger De Souza
**Company Secretary:** Andrew Robarts
90 Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
Directors of Branch Operations and Regional Directors (as of 31 March 2025) **Director of Branch Operations**
Director of Branch Operations: Cindy O'Shea Director of Branch Operations: Gilli Seymour Director of Branch Operations: Jayne Finch Director of Branch Operations: Shilpa Shah
**East:** Susannah Fenton and Jenny Meads **East Midlands:** Joy Baker **London:** Sue Christopher **North:** Libby Dicken (term ended on 31.08.2024) Anne Nettleship (Interim) (from 01.09.2024) **Northern Ireland:** Marcella Taylor **North West:** Christina Morgan **Ireland:** Jonathan Neville **Scotland:** John Knight (term ended 30.01.2025) Wilma Goodlad (from 31.01.2025) **South:** Liz Hebden **South East:** Kay Turner **South West:** John Huxtable **Wales:** Christine Gwyther **West Midlands:** Pam Rutter **Yorkshire and Humberside:** Belinda Merrison
**Bankers:** Lloyds Bank Plc, 25 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7HN
HSBC Bank Plc, Units A-J, Austen House, Station View, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 4AR **Investment managers:** James Hambro & Partners LLP, 45 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JG **External auditors:** Crowe U.K. LLP, 55 Ludgate Hill, London, EC4M 7JW
Samaritans Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
91
## Samaritans' branches
Samaritans has more than 200 branches, satellites and hubs across the UK and Ireland. Our dedicated volunteers are our greatest asset, and we couldn’t achieve all that we do without their steadfast support.
Thank you to each and every one of our wonderful volunteers for the difference you make in people’s lives every day.
Aberdeen Aberystwyth* Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge (Hub) Anglia Ruskin University Chelmsford (Hub) Arklow (East Coast) Ashford & Tenterden Athlone & Midland Ayrshire Ballymena Banbury & District* Bangor & North Down Barnsley Barrow, Furness & South Lakes* Basildon & Thurrock* Basingstoke* Bath & District Bedford* Belfast Berwick (Satellite)* Bexley & Dartford* Birmingham Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn & Ribble Valley Blackpool, Fylde & Wyre Bognor Regis, Chichester & District* Bolton Borders (Selkirk)* Boston, Lincolnshire* Bournemouth & District* Bracknell, Wokingham, Ascot & Districts Bradford (Hub)* 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 Castlebar (Satellite) 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
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Doncaster* Dorset at Weymouth Drogheda Dublin Dumfries* Dundee Dunfermline Durham (Central) Ealing Eastbourne & District East Surrey Edinburgh and the Lothians Elgin* Email Hub (Hub) 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 Irish Festival Isle of Man Isle of Wight* Jersey Kerry Kettering & District Kilkenny and Carlow King’s Lynn Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Thames Kirkcaldy & District* Lanarkshire in Hamilton* Lancaster & District Leatherhead & Mid-Surrey Leeds* Leek & District Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Lewisham, Greenwich & Southwark Limerick & Tipperary Lincoln* Liverpool & Merseyside London City Hub (Hub)* Lowestoft & Waveney District* Luton, South Beds & Harpenden Macclesfield & District Maidstone & Weald Manchester & Salford Mansfield* Medway, Gravesham & Swale* Mid-Cheshire Milton Keynes Newbridge & Kildare Newbury Newport & Gwent Newry North Devon & North Cornwall North East Wales* North Herts & Stevenage North London (Enfield, Haringey & Barnet) North West Surrey*
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North West Wales Northallerton & The Dales* Northampton Northumbria* Norwich Nottingham Omagh Orkney* Oxford Pembrokeshire Pendle, Burnley, Craven & Rossendale Perth Peterborough & District Plymouth, East Cornwall & South West Devon Portsmouth & East Hampshire Powys in Llandrindod Wells Preston & District Reading Redbridge* Rochdale, Oldham & District* Rotherham Salisbury & District Scarborough Scunthorpe* Sevenoaks (Hub)* Sheffield Shetland Shrewsbury Sligo Slough, Windsor & Maidenhead Solihull* South Cheshire South Devon
South Wales Valleys (Hub)* South West Herts Southampton & District Southend-on-Sea Southport & District* Stafford Stockport* Stoke-on-Trent & Newcastle Stratford-upon-Avon & District Sunderland* Swansea Swindon & District* Tamworth Taunton & Somerset Teeside (Middlesbrough)* Telford Tunbridge Wells & District Tyneside* Wakefield & District* Walsall & District* Waltham Forest (Leyton)* Warrington, Halton & St Helens* Waterford & the South-East West Cork (Satellite) West Cumbria Western Isles Weston Super Mare & North Somerset Wigan Winchester & District Wolverhampton Worcester Worthing York Yeovil, Sherborne & District
*These are part of Samaritans Central Charity as of 31 March 2025
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## Donors and supporters
29th May 1961 Charitable Trust
Henry Oldfield Charitable TrustHis Majesty's Prison and Probation Service
Accurasale
Hosking Charitable Trust
Alan Boswell Group Charitable Trust
Inman Charity
Anthony and Elizabeth Mellows Charitable Settlement
Atlas Fund
Baillie Gifford
Berry's Jewellers Bloomberg
Irish Prison Service
J & M Britton Charitable Trust
J J Fenwick Charitable Trust
James and Patricia Hamilton Charitable Trust
James Tysoe Trust
Bukhman Philanthropies
John Armitage Foundation
Cadogan Charity
Cala Homes Central Co-op Chris and Gilda Haskins
Computacenter Constance Travis Charitable Trust
Costain CRH Charitable Trust
John Browne Charitable Trust Leslie Mary Carter Charitable Trust
Lincolnshire Freemasons Llywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government Mayer Brown Michael Cornish Charitable Trust Moondance Foundation
Netherdale Trust
Department of Health and Social Care
Next plc
Derek Raphael Charitable Trust
Northern Ireland Prison Service
Dr Vik Bansal
Dr Vivian Child Charitable Trust
FirstGroup plc Flying Tiger Copenhagen Frenchic Gemma Booker
Options Fund P F Charitable Trust
Peacock Charitable Trust
Pears Foundation
Penelope Martin Charitable Trust
Price Bailey
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Procurement Hub Reinsurance Group of America Schroders Scottish Government Scottish Prison Service SE Trains Limited ShareGift Siemens Mobility Stefan & May Frances Kwasniewski Charitable Trust T. G. Piggot Trust Teneo The 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust The Bothwell Charitable Trust The David Meek Discretionary Trust The Grocers' Charity The John Browne Charitable Trust The Julia Rausing Trust The Millenium Stadium Charitable Trust The NFU Mutual Charitable Trust The Oakdale Trust The Prudence Trust The Rank Foundation The Waterloo Foundation The White Company The Wolfson Foundation The Worshipful Company of Girdlers The Worshipful Company of Innholders The Worshipful Company of Plaisterers
Three UK Trott Family Charitable Trust Unbiased Version 1 Walter Guinness Charitable Trust World Gold Council
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