WEST SUSSEX MUSIC TRUST

Registered charity 1152703 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register

West Sussex Music is the largest provider of high-quality music education in West Sussex. It is dedicated to supporting schools and teachers to achieve the best outcomes for children and young people. West Sussex Music fulfills its role as the Music Education Hub for West Sussex by collaborating with a range of strategic partners to nurture, inspire and enrich; changing lives through music.

Causes: Education/training · The Prevention Or Relief Of Poverty · Arts/culture/heritage/science · Economic/community Development/employment · Recreation · website · Get email alerts

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity generated a surplus of £12,849 for the year ended 31 August 2025, with total income of £2,124,432 against total expenditure of £2,111,583. Per the trustees' report, unrestricted reserves stood at £930,703, and the trustees concluded there was no material uncertainty regarding the entity's ability to continue as a going concern.

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

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Chariot House Limited. Discloses 6 of 6 completeness components.

What the charity says about itself (2024-25)

From its own voluntary annual review / impact report — the charity’s account of its work, distinct from the statutory accounts analysed above.

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• James Underwood — Chief Executive (source)
• Lou Pickett — Head of Operations (source)
• Lee Hume — Head of Finance (source)
• Alison Sutton — Head of Learning (source)
• Paul Smyth — Head of Participation (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.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/08/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~3.9 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.8 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (52% 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 (5.2%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (14/05/2025) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (08/07/2019) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• CLAUDIA EMILY GOLDEN
• Dr David Gordon Skipp · trustee of 2 other charities
• James Rhys Bartlett
• Nicola Hughes
• Susanne Elizabeth Harris
• Timothy Riches

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

Operates in: West Sussex

Income and spending

Common questions

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 BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MUSIC TRUST.

• BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MUSIC TRUST income £2.9m
• CORNWALL MUSIC SERVICE TRUST income £1.8m
• WANDSWORTH MUSIC income £2.0m
• LEWISHAM MUSIC income £1.3m
• RICHMOND UPON THAMES MUSIC TRUST COMPANY LIMITED income £1.8m
• Sussex Community NHS Charity income £141k

Side by side with its peers

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