The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has submitted its first set of annual accounts to Companies House and they are published today (5 September 2018) on this website. These accounts follow the complex merger of institutions, which included the transfer of staff, activities and certain net assets as detailed in the accounts, from the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (TBFF) and Windrush Ventures Limited.

The Institute is a company limited by guarantee and is a not-for-profit organisation. Tony Blair is the sole owner and executive chairman of the Institute. Its articles of association stipulate that he will not receive any salary or remuneration for his work at the Institute, to which he devotes at least 80 per cent of his time. As the accounts show, the amount gifted by Tony Blair to the Institute was $8.8 million.

Established in December 2016, the Institute aims to help make globalisation work for the many, not the few. We do this by helping countries, their people and their governments address some of the most difficult challenges in the world today.

Our accounts are presented in US dollars, which best reflects the global scale of our operations. They show a robust platform to build on and signal the scope and breadth of the work we do around the world. Today, we employ 221 staff of more than 35 different nationalities and work in more than 30 countries. In the first year, turnover was $34.8 million. Running costs for this period include the one-off initial costs to set up the Institute and establish a new office in London. The consolidated statement of the financial position as at 31 December 2017 shows total reserves of $5.8 million. All future surplus amounts will be reinvested into the organisation, which we are confident will grow in scope and scale in the coming years.   

By merging the organisations Tony Blair founded after leaving office as prime minister, we have streamlined our activities and made our work more coherent, reflecting the overlap between extremism, governance, the Middle East and the policies needed to fight back against populism in the West. All are key to peace and prosperity, and all are interrelated. Countries will not develop where extremism flourishes. Without peace in the Middle East, grievances will continue to fester and conflict spill over to other countries. Those seeking refuge have also been used by populists to whip up anger in the West—and the centre-ground has to find a way to deal with this issue and renew a politics of hope and optimism, not fear and pessimism.

Our staff, in the UK, the US, Africa and the Middle East, comprises a range of expertise, all joining together to work on some of the world’s most pressing challenges faced by leaders today.

Our strategic report can be seen in the accounts, but below are some examples of our work so far:

• Governance:

   

  Working in partnership with 14 African governments to build their capability and improve living standards for their people, this year we have assisted a democratic transition in Sierra Leone; continued to implement a rural electrification strategy in Rwanda, which will increase access to 500,000 households by 2020; and helped to develop Ethiopia’s pharmaceutical strategy and approach to four new industrial parks designed to create 50,000 jobs.

• Co-Existence:

   Our research on religious extremism to help understand how ideology fuels violence has included the reports

   

  Struggle Over Scripture

  , which looked at the overlap of extremist and non-extremist interpretations of theology, as well as

   

  For Caliph and Country

  , which explored what connects jihadis from across the UK and how they made their journey into jihadism. Our three pioneering programmes, Generation Global, Compass and Supporting Leaders, have also had significant success:

• Generation Global:

   Our schools programme brings evidence-based teaching to schools and students aged 12 to 17 to promote open-minded attitudes and critical thinking. It has schools registered in 55 countries and in 2017 alone reached more than 73,000 students.

• Compass:

   A pilot project based in four schools in three East London boroughs, focused on creating more inclusive communities that are resilient to division and destructive ideologies. Through a network of 36 volunteer mentors, it last year supported 98 young women in communities affected by inequality, deprivation, hate crime and extremism.

• Supporting Leaders:

   By working with trusted religious leaders, we help build community resilience to extremist narratives in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2017 we worked with 34 local trainers and 65 Muslim and Christian leaders, who trained a further 91 community leaders in northeast Nigeria. We plan on replicating the model in Kenya in 2019 to support female religious leaders.

• Middle East:

   Our team engages with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and key officials, influential regional actors, diplomatic missions and multinational institutions, to inform and guide thinking and decision-making. We develop and advocate practical recommendations on the peace process and to improve the economic, political and humanitarian realities on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza, which has been a major recent focus of our work.

• Renewing the Centre:

   In addressing the major policy challenges presented by globalisation, we have produced reports on a modern technology programme needed to transform government and society in the 21st century, a progressive policy platform for immigration and a new agenda for housing and how we revitalise and liberal democracies and combat the rise of populism.

Please note that this page has been updated with a further note added below.

The annual financial statements, including Windrush Ventures Limited and Firerush Ventures Limited, have been submitted to Companies House and are published on this website today.  

Closure of Tony Blair Associates 

In September 2016 Tony Blair announced his decision to close Tony Blair Associates and wind up the Firerush and Windrush structures. 

As a result of the decision to wind up the business structures, the financial statements of the Firerush entities and Windrush Ventures No.2 LLP have not been prepared on a going concern basis, as they will not continue operating beyond one year from the date of signing of the financial statements. 

Tony Blair Institute

Tony Blair Institute (“TBI”), a not for profit organisation owned entirely by Mr. Blair, was established in December 2016. 

TBI is a company limited by guarantee, founded with the purpose of making globalisation work for all. Its objectives include helping countries alleviate poverty, raising people’s standards of living, fostering religious and cultural tolerance and advancing peace and reconciliation. 

Mr Blair is the sole owner and Executive Director of TBI. On his instruction, the articles of association stipulate that he will not receive any salary or remuneration for this role.

As previously announced, Mr Blair has gifted the entirety of the total net assets of Windrush Ventures Limited (WVL) to TBI. The gift was made upon the incorporation of TBI when Mr Blair transferred his ownership of WVL to TBI on 1st December 2016. The amount gifted was £9.257m, i.e. the net assets of WVL as reported in its 2016 financial statements (Page 8).

Ownership of WVL was transferred to provide the seed funding for TBI and its new premises, as well as ensure the continuity of operations, which includes the existing staff contracts and property lease.

As WVL will continue to provide services to TBI throughout 2017, until it is dissolved, the financial statements of WVL have been prepared on a going concern basis. 

Windrush Ventures Limited

Like other UK companies, the Windrush Group pays corporation taxes on its pre-tax profits, i.e. the surplus that remains after deducting operating costs from turnover. For this financial year, £879,000 of corporation tax is due on the surplus of £2.2m.

Please note: for all UK businesses, corporation tax is based on profit not turnover.

As reported in last year’s financial statements, WVL invested £2.0m in Firerush Ventures Limited (FVL) in April 2016 via a subscription for Redeemable Preference Shares, with the intention to expand the FVL business. The subsequent decision to close FVL means the value of the investment has been fully written off, with funds retained by FVL to manage an orderly wind down. 

Note 1

Windrush and Firerush are the two entities through which commercial activities were conducted and through which the operating costs of the Tony Blair group’s global activities were paid. 

As we stress every year, the financial results released do not present the overall profits of either of the Windrush or Firerush businesses. Instead they present the operating, and where appropriate closing, costs of the businesses.

Prior to the transfer or closure of the businesses these companies retain sufficient profits in each year to cover the cost of its annual operations. 

Readers of the financial statements should note that the structure of the business provided: limited liability protection; confidentiality of business results; and transparency for tax purposes. 

Mr Blair is a UK taxpayer and pays full personal tax on all his earnings worldwide.  

These financial statements do not represent his earnings or the earnings or the profit of his businesses and are not referable to them.  They represent neither the accounts of the charities he founded nor his donations to them. The financial statements have been audited by KPMG LLP. 

Note 2

Due to minor typographical errors in the wording of sections of the audit report, the accounts of WVL have been re-submitted to Companies House on 16 January 2017. The corrections do not change the numbers within the accounts, the disclosures to the accounts or the nature of the audit opinion – they remain the same. 

The corrected document is now published on this website. On page 4 under ‘Opinion on financial statements’ the first bullet point now says ‘give a true and fair view of the state of the company’s and group’s affairs as at 31 March 2016 and of the group’s profit for the year then ended.”  

On page 5 under “Matters on which we are required to report by exception” the first bullet point now reads “We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters where the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:  adequate accounting records have not been kept by the parent company, or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches nor visited by us; ” 

The following sentences previously shown on page 4 under “Opinion on other matter prescribed by the Companies Act 2006” are not required and therefore were removed:  “Based solely on the work required to be undertaken in the course of the audit of the financial statements and from reading the Strategic Report and the Directors’ Report:

• We have not identified material misstatements in those reports; and

• In our opinion, those reports have been prepared in accordance with the Companies Act 2006.”