ARCHITECTS BENEVOLENT SOCIETY

Company number

01084747

Status

Active

Incorporation

1972-12-01

Last accounts made up

2024-09-30

Account category

FULL

Primary SIC

88100

Hubs

UK Healthcare

Accounting basis

FRS 102

Reporting scope

Standalone (parent only)

Auditor

Moore Kingston Smith

Audit opinion

Unqualified (clean)

Going concern

Affirmed

“In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees' use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate. Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charitable company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.”

Significant events

• “2024 has been a year of significant change for our Society. The economic pressures and trends within the profession has meant that our support is needed more now than ever before.”
• “Enquiries have continued to increase and although the number of people we supported financially has remained largely flat, the average amount grant per person has risen considerably.”
• “2024 was a difficult year for income generation. Gifts via legacies were down on previous years and in the face of the cost-of-living crisis - there was no growth in the level of donations. The post pandemic shift to hybrid working has increased the volatility of rental returns on our building assets. While reduced levels of income from fundraising and rent were significantly offset by the improved market return on invested funds, 2024 saw a significant deficit.”
• “In recent years the ABS has funded significant annual deficits from its reserves as the demand for support grew and income levels became more volatile. Recognising that such deficits are not sustainable in the long term, the Trustees have taken short term actions to amend the grant giving policy to reduce the financial deficit. 2025 will see ABS undertake a strategic review with the long-term aim of providing support to those in need in a financially sustainability manner.”
• “Finally, during 2024 our CEO Rob Ball elected to leave the organisation after 23 years. Rob steered the ABS through challenging times for the architectural community and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Rob for his tireless effort and steady guidance, which brought the Society to a level of which we can all be proud.”
• “The Trustees have appointed Simon Ashmore to replace Rob Ball. We look forward to welcoming Simon in January 2025.”
• “We helped a total of 1,631 people this year. Demand for our support continues to increase year-on-year and we opened 16% more cases this year compared to the previous year.”
• “The uncertain economic climate has also impacted specifically in the area of employment, and we have seen many redundancies in the architectural sector this year.”
• “The cost of running the commercial properties decreased to £130k from £240k the previous year when the costs of leasing empty units were incurred.”
• “Charitable expenditure. The Society's overall charitable expenditure in 2023-24 of £1.885m was very similar to last year (£1.869m).”
• “The Society's net expenditure for the year (before applying investment gains and losses) was a deficit of £1.380m, as we utilised our reserves to meet the increasing demand. The net result after applying net gains on financial and property investments was a small surplus of £176k.”
• “The increase in the number of beneficiaries and the level of financial support provided this year led to using more reserves than budgeted to fund our charitable activities.”
• “Following a review, amendments were made to the Grant Giving Policy (to be enacted in 2025) to enable the Society to support those in greatest need, and to make provision for increasing numbers of beneficiaries.”
• “High levels of grants expenditure over several years has created a potential risk to the Society's long term financial sustainability. Decisions were made during the year to review our Grant Giving Policy and other areas of expenditure. 2024-25 will see these changes implemented.”

Auditor / going-concern / subsidiary information is extracted from the PDF version of the latest annual accounts and is not tagged in iXBRL. About these numbers