This year's review of the haysmacintyre / Charity Finance Charity 100 Index sees six new entrants, including two which only received full charitable status in recent years, namely the Lloyds Register Foundation and the English Heritage Trust.
Lloyd’s Register Foundation enters at position 63. Although it is the largest charity that files accounts with the Charity Commission, with a consolidated income of £1.06bn in the year ending 30 June 2015, much of this is attributable to the Lloyds Register Group, a wholly-owned technical and business services organisation and maritime classification society. Just £62m of this income was profit, and only £11.5m (1.1 per cent) was gifted to the Foundation for charitable application.
While many charities run trading subsidiaries, no charity makes such a small percentage of its overall income available as charitable funds. Therefore, as the primary objective of the Charity Indexes is to provide an indicator of funds available for charitable use, it has been decided that only the Foundation’s unconsolidated income will be recognised here.
The Foundation’s unconsolidated income stood at £19.5m at 30 June 2015, and has averaged £87.7m over the last three years. The trading group’s contributions were supplemented by returns from the Foundation’s £206m investment portfolio.
The Foundation was formed in 2012 after Lloyd’s Register converted its status from an industrial and provident society (IPS) to a company limited by shares called Lloyd’s Register Group Ltd. The shares in Lloyd’s Register Group Ltd were then taken into ownership by Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a charity registered with the Charity Commission. The move was prompted by changes introduced in the 2006 Charities Act, which required exempt charities such as industrial and provident societies to have a principal regulator.
English Heritage Trust
The second new charity to join the Charity 100 Index this year is English Heritage Trust, which came into being as a result of the restructuring of English Heritage, a non-departmental public body (NDPB) officially called the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England (HBMCE).
In April 2015, English Heritage was divided into two organisations: Historic England, a NDPB which owns and has statutory responsibility for protecting the 400-plus historic properties, and English Heritage Trust, a charity responsible for managing their day-to day operations. Under the terms of the agreement, English Heritage Trust has an eight-year license to operate the National Heritage Collection, owned by Historic England, and the freedom to pursue an independent strategy aimed at achieving financial independence by 2023.
The funding arrangement includes a one-off government grant of £80m in 2014/15 and tapering annual payments until 2023. The Trust enters the Charity 100 Index at position 99, based on three-year average income of £59.4m.
The other new entrants to the Charity 100 this year all move up from the Charity 250 Index. They are, with their positions shown in brackets: International Medical Corps UK (84), Plan International UK (87), Gatsby Charitable Foundation (98) and Alternative Futures (100).
Income requirements
Membership of both the Charity 100 and Charity 250 Indexes is reviewed every spring to take into account income fluctuations, new charities, and charities for which it had previously not been possible to obtain audited accounts. Income data is extracted from accounts with financial year ends up to and including 31 March 2016, with the index ranking based on average total income over the last three years.
The minimum income requirements for entry into the Charity 100 Index rose this year by 2 per cent from £57.0m to £58.2m, resulting in the demotion of six charities into the Charity 250 Index. These six, with their former Charity 100 positions shown in brackets, are: The Pirbright Institute (80), Bridge House Estates (94), Sustrans (96), Sheffield City Trust (97), Daughters of the Cross of Liege (98) and BBC Children in Need (99).
While this year’s review has brought new blood into the Index, there is still very little change at the top, with Nuffield Health, Cancer Research UK and the National Trust occupying the top three positions for the 13th successive year.
Indeed the composition of the top ten has remained the same with just a light reshuffling, as Save the Children and Wellcome Trust each move up one place to sixth and seventh position respectively, and United Church Schools Foundation moves down two places to eighth.
High risers
The highest riser in this year’s Charity 100 Index is International Medical Corps (UK), which jumps 31 places from position 15 in the Charity 250 Index to position 84 in the Charity 100 Index. The medical charity’s income has almost doubled from £50.6m to £98.3m in the three years under review, resulting in three-year average income of £71.8m.
The bulk of income derives from institutional donors, whose contributions more than doubled over the same period from £46m to £94.3m. The medical charity clearly believes that it can sustain this level of institutional support – if not its growth rate – and has set a target of £98m for institutional funding in the year to 30 June 2016.
A spokesperson for International Medical Corps UK attributes the charity’s success with institutional donors to “strong reporting mechanisms, clear goal-setting processes and ambitious approaches to humanitarian projects.”
Conversely, the biggest faller is Education Development Trust – known as CfBT Education Trust until January 2016 – which drops 13 places from position 24 to 37. The education charity saw its annual income more than halved in 2013/14 as a result of the Department of Education’s decision to consolidate all academies and multi-academy trusts into its own accounts. This has led to the deconsolidation of CfBT Schools Trust and St Mark’s Academy Trust from CfBT Education Trust’s accounts with effect from 1 April 2013, structured as a disposal of the £108m of net assets attributed to those trusts at that date.
The haysmacintyre / Charity Finance Charity 100 Index constituents
