THE PORTICO LIBRARY AND NEWSROOM

Registered charity 1143639 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as PORTICO, PORTICO LIBRARY AND NEWSROOM LIMITED

FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION, LITERACY, THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE, AND THE PROVISION OF LITERATURE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND THE WIDENING OF PUBLIC INTEREST IN MATTERS OF LITERACY, ARTISTIC, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INTEREST OF EVERY KIND; TO CONDUCT A LIBRARY IN THE PREMISES AT MOSLEY STREET, MANCHESTER, AND BUY OR HIRE AND LEND BOOKS, MAGAZINES, MUSIC, PERIODICALS AND PUBLICATIONS GENERALLY.

Objects

FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION, LITERACY, THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE, AND THE PROVISION OF LITERATURE, TO MAINTAIN THE PREMISES IN MOSLEY STREET, MANCHESTER, OR SUCH OTHER PLACE OR PLACES AS SHALL FROM TIME TO TIME BE DETERMINED AS A LIBRARY, NEWSROOM AND ART GALLERY, FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND THE WIDENING OF PUBLIC INTEREST IN MATTERS OF LITERACY, ARTISTIC, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INTEREST OF EVERY KIND; TO CONDUCT A LIBRARY IN THE PREMISES AT MOSLEY STREET, MANCHESTER, OR AT SUCH OTHER PLACE OR PLACES AS SHALL FROM TIME TO TIME BE DETERMINED AND BUY OR HIRE AND LEND BOOKS, MAGAZINES, MUSIC, PERIODICALS AND PUBLICATIONS GENERALLY.

Area of benefit: NOT DEFINED

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

Causes: General Charitable Purposes · Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Manchester, North West, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity reported a net expenditure of £45,894 for the year, a significant improvement from the £179,009 deficit in the prior year, largely due to a £210,045 revaluation gain on fixed assets. Per the trustees' report, unrestricted net current assets stood at £149,971, while total unrestricted funds were £8,120,952, though the majority of this total is tied up in fixed and heritage assets rather than liquid reserves. The trustees acknowledge that the ability to build liquid unrestricted reserves remains constrained by the resources required to progress the Portico Reunited project.

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

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by BTMR Ltd. Discloses 5 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
• Complaints 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
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures

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.

Annual return filing dates (Charity Commission record)

Of its last 5 annual returns with a recorded received date, 1 was received after the due date: year ending 31/12/2021 (received 08/11/2022, 8 days after the 31/10/2022 due date).

Due and received dates as recorded in the Commission’s annual-return data; the data does not say whether an extension was agreed. Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Property (HM Land Registry)

1 registered title in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (1 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 · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/12/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~2.2 months of spending — in the bottom quarter for charities its size (median 5.2 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (74% 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: 46.2% of total income — above the 90th percentile for charities its size (median 4.9%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (30/06/2020) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• Susan Catherine Diggineschair
• Alison Louise Pearce
• Dr David Christopher Cooper
• Dr Louisa Jayne Yates
• Esther Olivia Lisk-Carew
• Karen Chancellor
• Kathryn Ann Graham · trustee of 2 other charities
• Kevin Dalton-Johnson
• Paul Deehan
• Sade Regina Chinelo Omeje
• Sarah Elizabeth Lay
• Tam Watson · trustee of 1 other charity

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

Operates in: Manchester City

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

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

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

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 PRESTON COMMUNITY LIBRARY.

• PRESTON COMMUNITY LIBRARY income £28k
• THE JAMES RECKITT LIBRARY ENDOWMENT income £506k
• MOSELEY ROAD COMMUNITY CENTRE income £93k
• THE LONDON READING CENTRE income £104k
• CATTERICK, RICHMOND AND COLBURN COMMUNITY LIBRARIES income £75k
• THE LONDON LIBRARY income £6.3m

Side by side with its peers

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