These financial statements have been prepared and delivered in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime.

The directors of the company have elected not to include a copy of the income and expenditure account within the financial statements.true

Educational Competencies Consortium Limited is a private company limited by guarantee incorporated in England and Wales. The registered office is Bates Mill, Colne Road, Huddersfield, HD1 3AG.

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with FRS 102 “The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland” (“FRS 102”) and the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 as applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime. The disclosure requirements of section 1A of FRS 102 have been applied other than where additional disclosure is required to show a true and fair view.

The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the company. Monetary amounts in these financial statements are rounded to the nearest £.

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention. The principal accounting policies adopted are set out below.

The company has reported a surplus for the year. The balance sheet shows a positive cash position at 31 July 2025 and no reliance is placed on bank facilities. The directors have reviewed the current position and budgets of the company, and after making appropriate enquiries they have a reasonable expectation that the company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Thus they continue to adopt the going concern basis of accounting in preparing the financial statements.

Subscriptions from members are recognised as income over the period of membership.

Members' joining fees are recognised on initial invoice.

Consultancy income is recognised when the work is performed.

Research expenditure is written off to the profit and loss account in the year in which it is incurred.

Development expenditure is written off in the same way unless the directors are satisfied as to the technical, commercial and financial viability of individual projects and can assess the outcome of the project with reasonable certainty. In this situation, the expenditure is capitalised and amortised, once complete and in use, over the period during which the company is expected to benefit.

Tangible fixed assets are initially measured at cost and subsequently measured at cost, net of depreciation and any impairment losses.

Depreciation is recognised so as to write off the cost of assets less their residual values over their useful lives on the following bases:

The gain or loss arising on the disposal of an asset is determined as the difference between the sale proceeds and the carrying value of the asset, and is credited or charged to surplus or deficit.

The tax expense represents the sum of the tax currently payable.

The company is a mutual trading company for tax purposes and only pays tax on investment income and any surplus on non-member related activities.

Retirement benefits

The institution participates in Universities Superannuation Scheme. The assets of the scheme are held in a separate trustee-administered fund. Because of the mutual nature of the scheme, the assets are not attributed to individual institutions and a scheme-wide contribution rate is set. The institution is therefore exposed to actuarial risks associated with other institutions’ employees and is unable to identify its share of the underlying assets and liabilities of the scheme on a consistent and reasonable basis. As required by Section 28 of FRS 102 “Employee benefits”, the institution therefore accounts for the scheme as if it were a defined contribution scheme. As a result, the amount charged to the profit and loss account represents the contributions payable to the scheme and any deficit recovery contributions payable under a scheme’s Recovery Plan, should there be a Recovery Plan in place.

In the application of the company’s accounting policies, the directors are required to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying amount of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and associated assumptions are based on historical experience and other factors that are considered to be relevant. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised where the revision affects only that period, or in the period of the revision and future periods where the revision affects both current and future periods.

The estimates and assumptions which have a significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the carrying amount of assets and liabilities are as follows.

The value of the pension liability recognised in the financial statements depends on a number of factors and parameters determined by both the actuary and the company and uses a variety of assumptions. Any changes in these assumptions, which are disclosed in the note on pension liability, will impact on the carrying amount.

This involves judgement about the period over which the asset is expected to generate economic benefits, which can be influenced by factors such as technological obsolescence, market demand, legal or contractual limits and the expected pattern of consumption. Changes in any of these factors may significantly impact the chosen amortisation rate. Due to the inherent subjectivity involved, this estimation is sensitive to assumptions and may require regular reassessment.

The average monthly number of persons employed by the company during the year was:

No director received any remuneration from the company or had a beneficial interest in any contract with the company. However, the company has been charged £6,000 (2024 - £6,000) by Jmm & Associates Ltd for the services of Joanna Marshall, chair and director, £4,000 (2024 - £4,000) by Ulster University for the services of Damian McAlister, vice-chair and director and £2,000 (2024 - £2,000) by David Williams for services of David Williams, committee chair and director.

The company participates in the Universities Superannuation Scheme, a defined benefit scheme which is externally funded and contracted out of the State Second Pension (S2P).

The most recent actuarial valuation of the scheme was in 2023. As set out in the pension modeller, no deficit recovery plan was required under the 2023 valuation because the scheme was in surplus on a technical provisions basis. The institution was no longer required to make deficit recovery contributions from 1 January 2024 and accordingly released the outstanding provision of £587,392 to the profit and loss account.

The latest available complete actuarial valuation of the Retirement Income Builder is as at 31 March 2023 (the valuation date), which was carried out using the projected unit method.

Since the institution cannot identify its share of USS Retirement Income Builder (defined benefit) assets and liabilities, the following disclosures reflect those relevant for those assets and liabilities as a whole.

The 2023 valuation was the seventh valuation for the scheme under the scheme-specific funding regime introduced by the Pensions Act 2004, which requires schemes to have sufficient and appropriate assets to cover their technical provisions (the statutory funding objective). At the valuation date, the value of the assets of the scheme was £73.1 billion and the value of the scheme’s technical provisions was £65.7 billion indicating a surplus of £7.4 billion and a funding ratio of 111%.

The key financial assumptions used in the 2023 valuation are described below. More detail is set out in the USS Statement of Funding Principles.

CPI assumption

Term dependent rates in line with the difference between the Fixed Interest and

Index Linked yield curves less:

1.0% p.a. to 2030, reducing linearly by 0.1% p.a. from 2030

Pension increases (subject to a floor of 0%)

Benefits with no cap:

CPI assumption plus 3bps

Benefits subject to a “soft cap” of 5% (providing inflationary increases up to 5%,

and half of any excess inflation over 5% up to a maximum of 10%):

CPI assumption minus 3bps

As the income statement has been omitted from the filing copy of the financial statements, the following information in relation to the audit report on the statutory financial statements is provided in accordance with s444(5B) of the Companies Act 2006.

The auditor's report is unqualified and includes the following:

In our opinion the financial statements:

• give a true and fair view of the state of the company's affairs as at 31 July 2025 and of its surplus for the year then ended;

• have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and

• have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

At the reporting end date the company had outstanding commitments for future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable operating leases, as follows:

The company keeps the reserves policy under review. This year's surplus of £16,671 is arrived at after spending approximately £52,526 on software and product development, funded from the company's Short Term Development Reserve. This means that £69,197 is available to allocate across reserves and the Board recommends the following:

- addition of £20,000 to the Pension reserve, giving a closing balance of £200,000 against a target of £250,000. This reserve was created in 2024 as a provision against potential future volatility of the pension deficit, given the history of fluctuations in the USS scheme liabilities.

- addition of £20,000 to the Long Term Development reserve, giving a closing balance of £220,000 against a target of £250,000. This reserve is intended to provide for future IT and digital investment.

- the remainder of the surplus to be added to General reserves, giving a closing balance of £330,542 against a target of £350,000. This reserve is intended to cover closure costs (other than pension liabilities) should the company cease operating or face potential income shortfall.

The company aims to achieve its Reserve targets over the next 1-2 years (General) and 3-5 years (Pension and Long Term Development).

The Short Term Development reserve currently stand at just over £197,000 having funded spending in the year. This is considered adequate to cover the company’s short term planned development spend and is in line with the 25/26 budgets.

The company is a private company limited by guarantee and consequently does not have share capital. Clause 5 of the Memorandum of Association provides that every member, as defined in the Articles of Association, is liable to contribute a sum not exceeding £1 in the event of the company being wound up while they are a member or within one year of ceasing to be a member.