BOOKTRUST
Registered charity 313343 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as BOOK TRUST, NATIONAL BOOK LEAGUE
Reading changes lives. Booktrust ensures all children and families have the opportunity to enjoy and be confident in their reading. We provide expertise for parents and professionals to make quality choices of reading for children. We engage with communities in the promotion of reading. And we advocate for national and local policies to recognise the social and economic importance of reading.
Causes: Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · website · Get email alerts
Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts
The accounts state that total income increased to £12.4m while total expenditure rose to £12.5m, resulting in a planned operating deficit of £0.1m. The charity holds unrestricted funds of £6.2m, which is significantly above its stated minimum reserve requirement of £4.5m, and free reserves of £2.6m, indicating strong liquidity and financial stability.
Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.
What the accounts disclose
Related-party transaction: BookTrust pays an annual subscription to EURead, where Diana Gerald is co-chair/trustee.
“Diana is also co-chair/ trustee of EURead, a non-profit association in Belgium. BookTrust pays an annual subsciption of €2,500.” — page 56
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Accounts audited by Sayer Vincent LLP. Discloses 3 of 6 completeness components.
Corporate structure
Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — BookTrust (matched by registered charity number).
Leadership, per the charity’s website
- Ruthann Hughes — Director of Research and Impact (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.
Company officers (Companies House)
Current officers of the charity’s own company per the Companies House register, cross-checked against the Charity Commission trustee list by name. A director not on the trustee list is usually a timing or naming difference between the two registers — check both records before drawing conclusions.
- CROCKER, Steven James — director, appointed 01/03/2026not on trustee list
- POULTNEY, Edward David — director, appointed 01/09/2024on trustee list
- BROOMÉ, Ellen Kristina — director, appointed 01/09/2024not on trustee list
- HOBBS, Tim Michael, Professor — director, appointed 01/09/2024on trustee list
- MURRAY HILL, Hilary Anne — director, appointed 03/05/2022not on trustee list
- CRIPPS, Matthew Ellis Rowland, Professor — director, appointed 01/10/2021on trustee list
- SELLICK, Victoria Kate — director, appointed 25/06/2021on trustee list
- DALAL, Gautam Shashichandra — director, appointed 25/06/2021on trustee list
- LANGSTAFF, Nigel Jeremy — director, appointed 25/06/2021on trustee list
- O'SULLIVAN, June Antoinette — director, appointed 19/12/2018not on trustee list
- BAILEY, Jennifer Rachael — secretary, appointed 28/02/2018
Official officers record.
Public-sector contracts awarded
From the official Contracts Finder and Find a Tender notices (supplier matched by exact registered name). Contract income is distinct from grants.
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)
Cost of raising funds
£1.1m
Reported reserves equal ~5.9 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 4.6 months; benchmarks).
Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (82% 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: 8.9% of total income — above the median for charities its size (3.8%) (benchmarks).
Register events
- Received assets from another charity (21/05/2026) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
- Received assets from another charity (01/06/2023) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).
Operates in: Northern Ireland · Throughout England And Wales
Income and spending
Common questions
Is BOOKTRUST financially healthy?
Per its FY2025 accounts: The accounts state that total income increased to £12.4m while total expenditure rose to £12.5m, resulting in a planned operating deficit of £0.1m. The charity holds unrestricted funds of £6.2m, which is significantly above its stated minimum reserve requirement of £4.5m, and free reserves of £2.6m, indicating strong liquidity and financial stability. Its FY2025 accounts were audited by Sayer Vincent LLP.
Who funds BOOKTRUST?
Funders whose own accounts filings name BOOKTRUST as a grant recipient include THE MOHN WESTLAKE FOUNDATION, THE JULIA RAUSING TRUST, THE MASTER CHARITABLE TRUST, THE FIDELITY UK FOUNDATION, HOLLYHOCK CHARITABLE FOUNDATION.
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 THE NATIONAL LITERACY TRUST.
Side by side with its peers
Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.