Three years of accounts, on one page.
What came in, what went out, what is left, and the two hundred and forty pounds that was wasted. A fund that publishes only the successful years is not publishing accounts.
Three years, in and out.
| Year | In | Out | On | Carried forward |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | £3,180 | £2,400 | One apprentice, completed | £780 |
| 2025 | £4,120 | £2,290 | One apprentice, completed | £2,610 |
| 2026 | £2,940 | £1,180 | One apprentice, left in March | £4,370 |
| 2027, so far | £1,760 | £0 | Not yet allocated | £6,130 |
Where every pound has gone.
Fifty-seven per cent of everything this fund has spent has gone on getting people to work, which is not what anybody expected when it started.
The two hundred and forty pounds we wasted.
A PA1 sprayer course, paid for in January 2026 and abandoned in March when the apprentice left. The training provider would not transfer it, would not refund it, and was entirely within its rights on both counts.
It is on this page because a fund that only reports the money that worked is not reporting. Two hundred and forty pounds is about six people’s contributions, and those six people are entitled to know that theirs was the money that did not achieve anything.
What changed: tickets are now booked term by term rather than for the year, which costs about eight per cent more and cannot waste more than a term.
How the fund is actually run.
The money
- Held
- In a separate account, not in the trading account
- Spent on
- Tickets, kit and travel. Never wages, never tuition, never cash
- Paid to
- Colleges, training providers, bus companies, kit suppliers. Against invoices
- Administration cost
- None taken. It is about four days of somebody’s year and we absorb it
The decisions
- Who is selected
- By the college, with us present. Not by us, and never by contributors
- How many at once
- One or two. The fund is small and pretending otherwise would be silly
- Journey time ceiling
- Ninety minutes each way. Introduced in 2026 for the obvious reason
- What happens on a drop-out
- Kit stays with them, travel stops, remainder returns to the fund
The reporting
- Accounts
- Published here annually, including the failures
- Write-ups
- Four a year from each apprentice, paid for at a freelance rate
- To contributors
- The same information as everybody else. There is no private version
- If it grows
- Past about £20,000 a year it should be a registered charity, and it would be
Fifty-seven per cent of this fund has been spent on bus passes. That is not the number anybody imagined when it started, and it is the most useful thing it has found out: in rural Britain the barrier to an agricultural apprenticeship is very often not the training, the wage or the interest. It is whether there is a way of getting there at half past six in the morning.
The accounts, questioned.
Because two apprentices are being matched for September and the tickets are booked term by term. It should be under two thousand by Christmas and if it is not, this page will say why.
Nobody. It is a ring-fenced account inside a private company and the figures are published in good faith. If the fund grows it should become a charity with proper accounts, and that is the intention.
Ask and we will show you them, with the apprentices’ names removed. Nobody has yet, which slightly disappoints us.
In the trading account, not the fund. Paying for writing out of a fund raised for bus passes would be the wrong pocket.
Give one, or a share of one.
Forty pounds upwards, pooled, with a card in somebody’s name.
