Last week you may remember I wrote about the charity City of Sanctuary UK and the Charity Commission siding with it in a compliance case. Since my piece was published, the charity has released its Impact Report for 2025. I was rather astonished by the self-pitying tone of a newsletter introducing the report. “Last year was hard on us”, wrote the charity, bemoaning a so-called “misinformation campaign”.
As I wrote previously, the “misinformation campaign” was no such thing at all. To recap: in August 2025 journalists including myself accurately reported that City of Sanctuary, via its “Schools of Sanctuary” wing, had encouraged schoolchildren to make Valentine’s cards for asylum seekers (which the charity calls “people seeking sanctuary”). Following complaints, the Charity Commission launched a compliance case into City of Sanctuary, deciding that there was nothing to see here and that the cards were merely “heart-shaped general messages of welcome to refugees”.
Ever since the story was first shared on social media, City of Sanctuary has been banging on about how mean everyone has been to it over its terrible scheme. The second paragraph of its Impact Report talks about the “significant challenges” it faced in 2025, having been “the subject of a concerted misinformation campaign”, and its social media feed contains more of the same. It’s part of an overall pattern of the charity behaving like a bit of a victim rather than the well-funded, effective beast it actually is.
City of Sanctuary UK’s own Impact
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I am inclined to think charities should stand on their own two feet. If worthwhile they should be able to find funds with maybe a little help from the National lottery.
So if a migrant, an invader, a criminal, for instance, needs ‘sanctuary’ ‘cos they are just about to be arrested and/or deported, then they can walk into a ‘Sanctuary School’ and stay there for ever and no-one can touch them??
Or what is a ‘Sanctuary School’ for then?
If gift aid was abolished it would save an estimated £2.5 billion in tax relief annually. This money could then be redirected to government / local authority projects.
Or better still, could be used to cut taxes so that people could decide what to spend their own money on. I certainly don’t trust the government (national or local) to spend much of my money wisely.
What level of salaries and expenses do they draw for their little team I wonder
Search the register of charities You can search the register here, for free
This is the one the article is about, though from the search I note there are lots of specific city “City of Sanctuary” “charities” on the list: CITY OF SANCTUARY UK – 1184613
This is their last annual accounts: City of Sanctuary 31 Dec 2024 SB.xlsx
3Staff costs and numbers 2024 2023 £ £ Gross salaries 342,541 295,189 Social security costs 31,890 26,568 Employment allowance (5,000) (5,000) Pensions 17,423 15,024 Homeworking allowances- 3,420 TOTAL 386,854 335,201 Defined contribution pension scheme 2024 2023 £ £ Costs of the scheme to the charity for the year 17,423 15,024 Amount of any contributions outstanding at the year end- Amount of any contributions prepaid at the year end- City of Sanctuary UK The average number of employees during the year was 12.2, being an average of 9.7 full time equivalent (2023: 11.6, 8.6 FTE). There were no employees with emoluments above £60,000.
Sorry the above is a bit garbled but the formatting does not paste well from PDF to here – I have highlighted the latest year figures in bold.
In a similar style:
This is what we’re up againstYou’ve read 11 articles in the last year
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Gord elp us!