POHWER

Registered charity 1061543 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also registered in Scotland as SC048858 (OSCR)

POhWER provides information, advice, statutory and non statutory advocacy services to people with disabilities or who are vulnerable or disadvantaged, supporting them to speak up and have a voice that is heard when important decisions are being made about them. Our statutory advocacy services include Community Advocacy, Mental Health and Mental Capacity advocacy and NHS/Health Complaints advocacy.

Objects

4. Objects4.1 The Charity’s Objects are, for the public benefit in the United Kingdom:(a) To relieve people in need; (b) To promote social inclusion by preventing people from becoming socially excluded and relieving the needs of those who are social excluded; and(c) To promote human rights by raising awareness of human rights,in particular but without limitation by providing advocacy, information, advice and guidance.4.2 In these Objects, “social excluded” means being excluded from society or parts of society because of one or more of the following factors: youth or old age, ill health (physical or mental), disability, requiring care, substance abuse or dependency; financial hardship, discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, disability, ethnic origin, religion, belief, creed, sexual orientation or gender re-assignment, poor educational or skill attainment or relationship or family breakdown; and “human rights” is as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent United Nations conventions and declarations.”Nothing in the Articles shall authorise an application of the property of the Charity for the purposes which are not charitable in accordance with section 7 of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and section 2 of the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008.

Area of benefit: NATIONAL

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: The Advancement Of Health Or Saving Of Lives · Disability · The Prevention Or Relief Of Poverty · Economic/community Development/employment · Other Charitable Purposes · Grant history (this charity is a funder) · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Stevenage, East of England, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that POhWER reported a surplus of £121,136 for the year ended 31 March 2025, with total income of £15,975,771 and total expenditure of £15,854,802. The charity holds free unrestricted reserves of £3,746,308, which the trustees confirm are within their stated policy target of holding between 1.5 and 4 months of operating expenditure. The trustees and auditors have concluded that the charity is a going concern with no material uncertainties.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by HaysMac LLP. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Campaigns and political activity policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Engaging external speakers at charity events policy and procedures
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• Investment
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures
• Volunteer management

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Corporate structure

• Registered company of the charity Companies House 03323040 · Financial health read from its filings

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — POhWER (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Robert Templeton — Chair (source)
• Antony Kildare — Chair (Outgoing) (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Company officers (Companies House)

Current officers of the charity’s own company per the Companies House register, cross-checked against the Charity Commission trustee list by name. A director not on the trustee list is usually a timing or naming difference between the two registers — check both records before drawing conclusions.

• TESSARO, Michelle — director, appointed 26/03/2026on trustee list
• AGUILAR, Maria Gloria — director, appointed 26/03/2026on trustee list
• KANES, John — director, appointed 26/03/2026on trustee list
• TEMPLETON, Robert Stuart — director, appointed 11/07/2024on trustee list
• HOPE, Gemma Rebecca — director, appointed 26/10/2022on trustee list
• ROBINSON, Paul — director, appointed 26/10/2022on trustee list
• GILTHORPE, Rachael — director, appointed 26/10/2022on trustee list
• BARNES, Laura Anne — secretary, appointed 30/10/2025

Official officers record.

Public-sector contracts awarded

From the official Contracts Finder and Find a Tender notices (supplier matched by exact registered name). Contract income is distinct from grants.

Property (HM Land Registry)

2 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (0 freehold). All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook (1,541 followers) · instagram (880 followers) · linkedin

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 30/03/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~3.5 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (99% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 0.0% of total income — below the median for charities its size (3.7%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (08/03/2020) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• Robert Templetonchair
• Gemma Hope
• John Kanes
• Maria Aguilar
• Michelle Tessaro
• Paul Robinson
• Rachael Gilthorpe · trustee of 1 other charity

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Scotland · Throughout England

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with VOICEABILITY ADVOCACY.

• VOICEABILITY ADVOCACY income £15.9m
• Accessibility Powys income £301k
• ASIST income £1.4m
• ADVOCACY MATTERS (WALES) income £264k
• COMMUNITY CARE OPTIONS income £705k
• ADVOCACY FOCUS income £2.6m

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.