LISTENING BOOKS

Registered charity 264221 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as THE LISTENING LIBRARY, THE NATIONAL LISTENING LIBRARY LIMITED

To provide a postal and internet based audiobook service to: Any child or adult who suffers from an illness or disability which makes it hard to hold a book, turn its pages or read in the usual way; including people with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, and people with visual impairments.

Objects

TO RELIEVE DISABILITY OR INCAPACITY, WHETHER PERMANENT OR TEMPORARY, ARISING FROM ANY SICKNESS, INJURY OR OTHER PHYSICAL OR MENTAL CONDITION, IN PARTICULAR, BY THE PROVISION OF AN AUDIO BOOK LIBRARY SERVICE INCLUDING RECORDED LITERATURE AND OTHER MATERIAL, TOGETHER WITH EQUIPMENT FOR THE REPRODUCTION OF SUCH LITERATURE OR OTHER MATERIAL, INCLUDING THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION OF PERSONS SUFFERING FROM SUCH CONDITIONS.

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 · Disability · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Southwark, London, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2026 accounts

The charity reported a net surplus of unrestricted funds of £353,474 for the year ended 31 March 2026, resulting in total unrestricted funds of £2,282,167. Free reserves stood at £357,568, which the trustees confirmed was within their stated target range of £300,000 to £450,000. The independent auditors issued an unqualified opinion, confirming the financial statements give a true and fair view and that there are no material uncertainties regarding the charity's ability to continue as a going concern.

Automated summary of the FY2026 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Xeinadin Audit Limited. Discloses 6 of 6 completeness components.

Year-over-year changes

• Reserves position vs the charity's own policy moved from "below" (FY2025) to "within" (FY2026).

Comparing this charity’s FY2025 and FY2026 accounts as analysed by this site.

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 handling
• 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
• 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
• 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.

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• William (Bill) Dee — Chief Executive (source)
• Gillie Howarth — Chair of Trustees (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 31/03/2026)

Reported reserves equal ~4.4 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.7 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 2.2% of total income — below the median for charities its size (5.3%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• Gillian Martha Howarthchair
• Charlotte Bainbridge
• DAVID OWEN O' NEILL
• Helen Rosalind Miriam GRANT
• Julia Jessica Hammond
• NICHOLAS DAVID FORSTER
• Sayra Tekin

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

Operates in: Northern Ireland · Scotland · Throughout England And Wales

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.

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 THE LISTENING PLACE.

• THE LISTENING PLACE income £2.7m
• Liquid Listening income £168k
• REACH LEARNING DISABILITY income £3.9m
• BID SERVICES income £6.6m
• LISTEN-HEAR! income £112k
• ADULT LITERACY TRUST income £360k

Side by side with its peers

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