As stated in previous Directors Reports, We Are Freewheeling Limited was originally formed to create an accessible structure that would provide a producing role for Sue Austin's artwork. Sue Austin is an independent freelance artist with an international career, a director of We Are Freewheeling Limited (WAFLtd) and she is working in the context of complex interacting physical and cognitive access needs. As part of shaping lived experience leadership, key activities undertaken by WAFLtd and Sue Austin during this period have enabled Sue and her Core Access Support Team members (mostly working within the context of complex access needs themselves) to make progress on the following Organisational Objectives:
Maintaining an emphasis on the dissemination and promotion of academic research that aims to reposition Disability Arts and the status of disabled artists within the mainstream cultural sector.
Providing a 'hub' around which to foster integrated arts projects and allow ideas and artistic concepts to develop.
To explore/innovate appropriate financial/legal structures that can reduce the financial vulnerability experienced by professional disabled artists.
While being disability led, Freewheeling will focus on valuing the interplay between disabled and non-disabled artists and arts producers, creating spaces where mutual learning can take place.
As a result of an extended and exacting R&D process (evolving since 2014), a unique body of knowledge continues to be refined that has enabled We Are Freewheeling Ltd to offer consultation services in order to make that knowledge and expertise available to other arts workers and organisations within the Arts and Cultural sectors, both on a national and an international level. Guided by the WAFLtd organisational objectives, the purpose in offering those services continues to be to increase understanding around how organisations can offer more sensitively tailored access support strategies; thereby enabling them to extend their understanding of inclusive practice and therefore support a more diverse workforce.
The 2023-2024 Directors Report anticipated that, in this 2024-2025 accounting period, WAFLtd would be able to report on the testing of an 'agency' style of support: that is, WAFLtd assisting a professional disabled artist to manage the administrative and financial aspects that arise when that artist is only able to progress their practice via a team of support workers holding very specialist knowledge. The Directors are able to confirm that this pilot was undertaken during 2024-2025, and that it has produced substantive learning. Because that learning is central both to the organisational objectives above and to the future financial position of WAFLtd, it is reported at length below.
The 'agency' support pilot: outcomes and learning
During 2024-2025, WAFLtd operated as the paying party for a number of specialist access support worker engagements, subsequently reclaiming those costs from Access to Work (ATW) or, where relevant, from the artist's Direct Payments. The purpose of the pilot was to establish whether an intermediary organisation, holding the administrative and cash flow burden, can remove the barrier to productivity and the financial vulnerability that the 2023-2024 Directors Report identified.
The pilot produced four distinct outcomes, each of which the Directors consider to be informative:
Where the support worker's invoicing was already aligned to the requirements of the claim, the model worked cleanly. In two instances, payments made by WAFLtd to a support worker were matched exactly by the corresponding ATW reimbursements received within the following four weeks. The artist was not required to fund the gap personally, and the support worker was paid promptly and in full. This is the outcome the pilot was designed to produce.
Where reimbursement was delayed, the model still held. In a further instance, WAFLtd carried the cost across the year end before reimbursement was received. The support worker was unaffected. This demonstrates the value of the intermediary specifically: a micro-organisation was able to absorb a timing risk that the individual artist could not.
Where the routing of the ATW payment was determined by factors outside WAFLtd's control, the model was defeated administratively rather than financially. Two specialist invoices, for a job coach and a job aide, were paid by WAFLtd; the corresponding ATW funds were paid into the artist's own self-employed account rather than to WAFLtd, owing to a banking access issue. The money was not lost, but an inter-entity debtor was created that must now be reconciled. This identifies a structural dependency: the model requires the funder to be able to pay the intermediary directly.
Where the support worker did not supply an invoice, no reclaim could be made at all. In one instance WAFLtd paid a support worker in good faith and the claim could not subsequently be submitted. The cost remains outstanding to WAFLtd.
The Directors regard this fourth outcome as the single most significant finding of the pilot. It confirms, from direct experience rather than from anticipation, the point made in the 2023-2024 Directors Report: that any such agency service cannot consist of payment handling alone. It must include the training and resources that enable support workers to adapt their own invoicing processes, with the explicit expectation that they will respond to the cognitive access requirements of the artist they are engaged to support. Where that element is absent, the barrier simply relocates rather than being removed.
Taken together, the four outcomes indicate that the model is sound in principle and that its failure points are identifiable and addressable. They lie in the invoicing practices of third parties and in the payment routing decisions of funders, rather than in the intermediary function itself.
The Directors also note that, during this period, discussions with Disability Arts Online independently confirmed the existence of the unmet need that this pilot addresses. It was identified that an organisation capable of assisting disabled artists with the management of support worker payments and claims would meet a very real requirement across the sector, and that existing sector organisations are not presently positioned to take on that financial management function. This external corroboration is significant for WAFLtd, as it indicates that the expertise being developed here responds to a demand that is not currently being met elsewhere.
The financial structure of the pilot should be understood correctly. The support worker payments that WAFLtd makes and subsequently reclaims are a pass-through rather than income to the company; the income arising to WAFLtd is the modest administration fee charged for bearing the timing risk and the associated administrative burden. That fee is small in the context of these accounts. Its significance is not its present scale but that it demonstrates a repeatable mechanism by which WAFLtd can generate income from expertise that the sector has independently confirmed it needs.
The Directors intend that WAFLtd will support the progress of this work by further expanding its expertise, continuing to research what strategies may be available to support any extension of this pilot in the future, and continuing to develop the financial and administrative infrastructure that any such extension would require.
Barriers, attitudinal and cognitive
As reported in previous years, the body of evidence that continues to grow from the experiential research undertaken by WAFLtd suggests that attitudinal barriers around cognitive access needs, neurodivergent cognition and learning disabilities continue to limit inclusion for those disabled artists and arts workers with the most complex access needs. Investment in building this body of specialist knowledge within WAFLtd therefore continues to be a key objective, and this activity continues to be included in the context of the WAFLtd accounts because it is anticipated that this investment will ultimately create income streams for WAFLtd.
This level of expertise arises from professional training combined with the 'lived experience' of managing complex impairments held by Director Sue Austin and by members of her Core Access Support Team. Evolving as a result of that eleven year R&D programme, this expertise also continues to refine strategies about how WAFLtd and other organisations can support disabled artists and disabled arts workers to manage the intractable barriers that arise when existing successful access support structures and teams are disrupted.
WAFLtd also continues to reference the 'Nothing for Nothing' campaign being led by Unlimited and the UK disability arts sector, which aims to raise awareness of the financial and attitudinal barriers created for disabled artists by institutional expectations. This remains very much in line with the WAFLtd organisational goals and objectives in this 2024-2025 period and in future years.
Activity
We Are Freewheeling Limited continued to perform its core role of producing Sue Austin's artwork in 2024-2025. That included the negotiation and management of commissions, exhibitions, intellectual property, sales and the creation of appropriate licences and contracts.
International exhibition. WAFLtd supported Sue Austin to deliver work for exhibition at Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Ik Ben Gewoon Hier (I am just here), between 18 April and 29 August 2025. After extended exchanges it was confirmed that 'Creating the Spectacle!' – Part 1 – Finding Freedom would be projected on a dramatic 4m by 3m floor mounted screen in the Hall of Mirrors, whereby audience members, when watching their reflection in the floor mounted mirror, would find that they had become immersed in that underwater world too. This sense of immersion was further extended by WAFLtd offering an additional licence to share a QR code that, when photographed, opens an immersive 360º film that audience members can explore in 360º on their smart phones and also could take home with them on their phones and share their experiences with others. This represents a continuation of the international reach of 'Creating the Spectacle!' and of WAFLtd's producing role in respect of it. An image of the underwater wheelchair was also licensed for use as one of the main display posters for this groundbreaking collaboration between Centraal Museum and Kreukel Collective.
Wales Millennium Centre. Income was received in this period in respect of the work delivered with BOCS at Wales Millennium Centre, the foundations for which were reported in the 2023-2024 Directors Report. The Directors note that this fee reflected both the licensing of the artwork and an artist's fee element in respect of Sue Austin's work delivered in person. The Directors note with satisfaction that the relationships built with organisations supporting learning disabled and neurodivergent artists continue to convert into delivered activity and income.
Licensing of the archive. An image licence was granted for academic publication with Routledge Press. Although modest in value, the Directors regard this as materially significant: it evidences that the media archive is capable of generating income through licensing, which has been a stated organisational intention since the 2019-2020 Directors Report. It also extends the dissemination of the artwork into academic contexts, directly serving the first of the organisational objectives above. The Directors record that WAFLtd also frequently grants a complimentary licence for the use of an image from 'Creating the Spectacle!' to exhibiting organisations, as an image from the artwork is in most cases selected as the principal promotional image for the exhibition. This is regarded as an investment in the wider dissemination of the work rather than as foregone income.
Flight development and visual research. This has been a substantial year for the Fly/Dive development, following two accounting periods in which this work necessarily proceeded at a reduced pace. Activity included:
Flying lessons undertaken under Chief Flying Instructor supervision at Kemble Flying Club in September 2024, which also served to enable instructor hours for a member of the support team;
A visit to Over Farm Microlights in November 2024 in connection with creating a video submission for a funding application. This also led to the development of a new opportunity to exhibit, in the future, the dramatic, large scale, double sided Octagonal Rig in a flight orientated, open air setting, in a way that would facilitate R&D on whether the existing suspended octagonal rig, computer and projection system might be adapted to be suitable for use in outdoor settings such as festivals;
An extended flight development and visual research residency in France during May 2025, working with the instructor at Montauban across a three week period, accompanied by a support team member;
The acquisition of new capture and display technology for the artwork R&D, including a virtual reality headset and a micro drone, together with camera mounts, an audio feed for the flexwing, high capacity memory cards and LED lighting for filming;
The continued hangarage of the Quantum flexwing microlight and the payment of the aircraft permit fee.
The Directors draw attention to the combination represented here. The year's investment covers both the means of capturing the imagery and the means of displaying it immersively. Taken with the flight development itself, this constitutes a coherent programme of work towards the next iteration of 'Creating the Spectacle!' rather than isolated purchases, and it re-establishes momentum on the artwork that the previous two Directors Reports had to record as constrained. This was an especially productive residency for facilitating further research and understanding of the visual aesthetic, and of the settings, that will one day be used to present imagery of a wheelchair flying, transcendent, up into the air.
Core Access Support Team. WAFLtd continued to support disabled arts workers to become self employed and to extend their administrative experience. Activity in the period included recruitment work towards strengthening the team, and the arrangement of insurance enabling support workers to drive the wheelchair accessible vehicle. WAFLtd also continued to operate the standard monthly hours arrangement with participating support workers, under which invoicing remained level despite variable capacity on both sides, with WAFLtd bearing the timing risk.
The Directors were especially pleased to receive the following response from a member of the support team engaged during the period. The structures described in this report are designed to make it possible for Sue Austin to sustain both her self-employed practice and her role as Director of WAFLtd; a consequence of those same structures is that they can accommodate support workers whose own capacity varies. In this instance the arrangement enabled a paid role to proceed for someone who is the primary carer for a dependent with complex needs. The response is quoted in full because it evidences the multiple levels of value created by the priorities set out in this and previous Directors Reports. The Directors note that the individual was engaged on a self-employed basis by Sue Austin Artist, the self-employed practice that WAFLtd exists to produce for, and that the terms used in the quotation are the individual's own:
'Working for Sue Austin Artist has provided me with an outstanding level of flexibility and understanding that has significantly improved my work–life balance. As the primary carer for a dependent with a chronic illness, I have been able to adapt my working hours and duties to ensure their needs are met—something that previous employers have not accommodated.
This role has given me the security of stable employment while enabling me to fulfil my caring responsibilities without compromise. In addition, Sue Austin has expressed a willingness to offer my dependent a role in the future, once her health improves. This forward-thinking and compassionate approach provides her with a sense of security, motivation, and hope, while reinforcing the organisation's commitment to supporting not just its employees, but their families as well.
The culture at Sue Austin Artist is one of empathy, flexibility, and trust—values that foster loyalty, wellbeing, and long-term engagement. It is a workplace that recognises the whole person, not just the employee, and actively creates an environment where individuals can thrive professionally and personally.'
The interface between funding streams. During the period, reclaims were made from the artist's Direct Payments in respect of the personal care element of work related travel, alongside the ATW reclaims described above. The Directors note that the successful separation and correct attribution of these two funding streams is itself a piece of administrative expertise that is not widely held, and which forms part of the knowledge asset described in this report.
Archive and infrastructure. Storage was maintained throughout the year, continuing to provide the facility for archiving, inventory and the preparation of equipment prior to exhibitions and installations. The organisation's project domains were renewed on a three year basis, providing continuity for the planned work on making the media archive more readily licensable.
Structural changes in the period
Two changes in the period are drawn to the attention of the accountants and of readers of these accounts.
First, shared operating costs previously reclaimed by WAFLtd from the artist's self-employed practice were not reclaimed in this period, as commission income came into WAFLtd directly rather than being routed via the self-employed practice. This represents a simplification of the relationship between the two entities.
Second, the agency pilot described above has created inter-entity balances that require reconciliation, arising principally from the ATW payment routing issue identified in that section.
Going concern
In order for We Are Freewheeling Limited to remain a going concern, the primary factor continues, as mentioned in previous Directors Reports, to be that it is able to ensure that the conditions exist for Sue Austin to work in a genuinely supported and accessible way that feeds her practice, extends innovative solutions to others, while minimising any potential negative impact on the health and wellbeing of Sue and her Core Access Support Team; especially as the majority of those team members are also working in the context of their own impairments.
The Directors record that the availability of appropriately skilled and appropriately funded access support remains the determining variable in what WAFLtd is able to achieve in any given year. Where that support has been in place during 2024-2025, the organisation has been able to deliver internationally, to advance the flight development, and to generate licensing income. Where it has not, planned work has necessarily been deferred. This is not a marginal observation about working conditions; it is the central financial fact about the company, and it has been consistently evidenced across every Directors Report since 2017-2018.
The positive assessments made by the Access to Work assessors in September 2019 and September 2022 continued to underpin the activity reported here, and the Directors again record that those outcomes were achieved because those assessors took the time to understand the essential nature of the specialist support worker role and the exceptional economic and cultural value being created, including income into the UK, the specialist employment opportunities created, and the expanded understanding of inclusive practice that results. The Directors have since come to understand that it was a unique package of support that had been offered by Access to Work and, on which foundation, the organisational achievements of the last six years had been possible.
However, it should be noted that the organisation faced a level of uncertainty regarding what activity would be possible in the 2025-2026 financial year and beyond. That is because Sue Austin's Access to Work Grant was due to end in mid September 2025, and WAFLtd understands that there have been reports from disabled Leaders of other Disability Led Organisations of changes to the level of support being offered or extended delays on renewal of an existing grant from Access to Work. Strategies will therefore need to be explored around how the activities of WAFLtd will need to adjust in the 2025-2026 financial year should there be a change or delay in the renewal of a grant from Access to Work to Sue Austin Austin. That is because that grant is key to enabling Sue Austin to work in her self employment as Sue Austin Artist. And the Directors highlight this because, as noted elsewhere in this report, the sustainability of Sue Austin Artist is also the key factor that enables the economically and socially valuable work with in WAFLtd to continue and thereby fulfil the Organisational Objectives listed at the beginning of this report.
The average number of persons, including directors, employed by the company during the year was as follows:
Notes to the Financial Statements
The Directors are pleased to report a profit for the year ended 28 August 2025. This is the first accounting period for a number of years in which the company has not reported a deficit, and the Directors record it as a meaningful marker of progress. As described elsewhere in this report, the company's capacity to deliver continues to be governed by the availability of access support and by the ongoing effects of Director Sue Austin's clinical vulnerability.
As stated in the 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 Directors Reports, 'Only with the financial support of director Sue Austin does the company continue as a going concern. Sue remains committed to ensuring We Are Freewheeling Limited is able to continue operating as she knows this is a unique position due to ongoing health concerns and does not reflect the success of previous years since our incorporation or the opportunities arising in the future.' We continue to recognise that personal financial support from Sue is not a long-term sustainable position. The return to profit in this period does not alter that assessment, and the Directors do not present it as doing so.
The Directors continue to consider funding strategies to support the company's development, in order that it can capitalise on the opportunities already in development, deliver its objectives, and work towards a self-sustaining business model. The return to profit in 2024-2025 is regarded by the Directors as a step towards that position rather than the achievement of it. The agency pilot reported above is regarded by the Directors as the most promising of those opportunities, both because it is now evidenced rather than projected, and because the need it addresses has been independently confirmed within the sector.
There remains a compelling case for support, as it is recognised that our work represents sought-after knowledge, informed by lived experience of complex barriers, that addresses current priorities to make the arts and cultural sector more inclusive to multiply-marginalised artists and arts workers.
We Are Freewheeling Limited is a private company limited by shares incorporated in England and Wales. The registered office is 12 High Street, TORRINGTON, Devon, England, EX38 8HN.