CITY OF LONDON SINFONIA LIMITED

Registered charity 286818 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register

The principal object of the charity is:to promote, maintain, improve and advance the education of the public in all aspects of the arts including music, drama, mime and dance; to contribute to the development of public appreciation of art through the presentation of public performances;to further the social and cultural welfare of communities of various London boroughs and UK communities.

Objects

TO PROMOTE MAINTAIN IMPROVE AND ADVANCE EDUCATION FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC PARTICULARLY MUSICAL EDUCATION. TO ENCOURAGE THE ARTS INCLUDING THE ARTS OF DRAMA,MIME,AND DANCE AND TO FORMULATE PREPARE AND ESTABLISH SCHEMES, PROVIDED THAT ALL OBJECTS OF THE COMPANY SHALL BE OF A CHARITABLE NATURE.

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

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

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity ended the year with a small surplus of £26,838, resulting in total unrestricted funds of £303,583. The trustees have designated £127,500 of these funds for investment, leaving £176,083 in general unrestricted reserves, which represents 3.5 months of operational expenditure. This level is above the charity's stated policy target of three months' operational costs.

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

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Anstey Bond LLP. Discloses 6 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 handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• 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

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 31/03/2022 (received 30/03/2023, 58 days after the 31/01/2023 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.

What the charity says about itself (2023/24)

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

Funders the charity credits

Named as funders/supporters on the charity’s own website (the charity’s claim, distinct from accounts-verified grants).

• Garfield Weston Foundation — “City of London Sinfonia is supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation.” (source page)

Property (HM Land Registry)

1 registered title 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 · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/03/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~2.7 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.7 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (72% 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: 2.5% of total income — below the median for charities its size (5.3%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• JOHN SINGERchair
• COUNTESS SARAH THUN-HOHENSTEIN
• Daniel Sandelson
• David Shriver · trustee of 1 other charity
• Joanna Livesey
• Julian Dominic Schild
• Michael Mark Redman
• Patricia Millett
• TERUKO IWANAGA
• William David John Spurgin

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

Operates in: 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 SINFONIA OF LEEDS.

• SINFONIA OF LEEDS income £31k
• NEW SINFONIA income £203k
• BRITTEN SINFONIA LTD income £1.6m
• PHILHARMONIA LTD income £11.1m
• LONDON CITY ORCHESTRA income £47k
• SINFONIETTA PRODUCTIONS LIMITED income £1.2m

Side by side with its peers

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