ENGLISH- SPEAKING UNION OF THE COMMONWEALTH

Registered charity 273136 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as ENGLISH SPEAKING UNION OF THE COMMONWEALTH, ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNION

The promotion of good communication in the English language through public speaking and debate; running educational programmes; initiating and administering scholarships; youth and academic exchanges. The charity focuses on oracy development in schools, promoting social equality and international understanding and facilitates and assists in the establishment of independent ESUs worldwide.

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

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that unrestricted reserves of £55,133,373 are held, which the trustees confirm is sufficient to meet their policy requirement of covering six months of forward operating expenditure. The charity reports a net movement in funds of £245,111 for the year, driven by investment gains and revaluation of fixed assets, while operating expenditure decreased by five percent compared to the prior year.

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

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by WR Partners. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

Property (HM Land Registry)

4 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (4 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 31/03/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~9.7 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 4.8 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Investments (65% 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: 28.6% of total income — in the top quarter for charities its size (median 5.2%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• Caroline Sarah Walker
• Claire Wright · trustee of 1 other charity
• David Hatchett
• Edward HUMBERT
• Francesca King
• Gillian Anne Holgate
• Laurence Mutkin
• Miles Young
• Nicholas Archer
• Professor Jane Setter
• Rebecca Preen
• Richard Michael Proctor Smith
• Simon Kearey · trustee of 6 other charities
• Simon Orme
• Stephen Purcell

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

Operates in: Albania · Argentina · Armenia · Bangladesh · Belarus · Belgium · Bermuda · Brazil · Bulgaria · Canada · Chile · China

Income and spending

Common questions

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 ENGLISH SPEAKING BOARD (INTERNATIONAL) LIMITED.

• ENGLISH SPEAKING BOARD (INTERNATIONAL) LIMITED income £1.4m
• THE ENGLISH ASSOCIATION income £245k
• THE CAMBRIDGE UNION SOCIETY income £2.5m
• The English Language Centre income £6.8m
• ASSOCIATION OF COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITIES income £8.1m
• CENTRAL LANGUAGE SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE income £300k

Side by side with its peers

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