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The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland
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North City Business Centre

  • Status

    Received: on time

  • Income

    £732.8K

  • Spending

    £516.3K

Charity no. 102266 Date registered. 20/04/2015

Public benefits

The public benefits that flow from our purposes are:- (i) The creation of employment, training and work experience opportunities for residents living in economically and socially deprived areas, mainly in North Belfast and consequently a reduction in unemployment and financial hardship, leading to a better quality of life for the beneficiaries and

consequent improvements in health and well-being. (ii) Enhanced knowledge about setting up and running small businesses or social enterprise resulting in increased levels of self-employment and better prospects of sustainable development. (iii) Increased levels of knowledge and transferable vocational skills among employees / work experience trainees, assisting in the creation of a more educated, skilled and qualified community. (iv) A greater sense among the beneficiaries of more fulfilled and purposeful lives, resulting in a safer, more stable and cohesive community. The beneficiaries are the general public, particularly those who are unemployed. These benefits can be evidenced in records kept internally and by public sector agencies of the number of jobs and work experience opportunities created and the numbers of those who have successfully completed training courses. Evidence can also be found in internal and independent evaluations of the activities and impact of the work of North City Business Centre and the findings of social and community surveys. Some private benefit is obtained by the owners of small businesses who rent units on favourable terms, but this is ancillary to the main purpose and is greatly outweighed by the gains in public benefit. No harm arises from these purposes.

What your organisation does

North City Business Centre is the Local Enterprise Agency for North Belfast. The area covers the North Belfast parliamentary constituency which therefore means that our support is provided in North Belfast and some parts of the Newtownabbey council area. We provide business start up advice and guidance for people thinking about starting a

business. We do outreach in community areas throughout North Belfast to a diverse range of community organisations such as Neighbourhood Renewal Partnerships, local community groups of all kinds to encourage individuals to consider self employment as an employment option and to encourage people to consider any type of economic activity at an individual or community level through a social enterprise. We also provide support to encourage long term unemployed people to gain employment, by providing short training courses on preparing their CV, job search, completing job applications, going for interviews and preparing for work, including better off calculations for those on benefits. We place clients in work and mentor both the client and the small business to ensure that the clients stays in the job and hopefully is retained by the employer.

The charity’s classifications

  • The prevention or relief of poverty
  • The advancement of education
  • The advancement of citizenship or community development

Who the charity helps

  • Adult training
  • General public
  • Unemployed/low income

How the charity works

  • Advice/advocacy/information
  • Community enterprise
  • Economic development
  • Education/training
  • Relief of poverty

This display is a broad summary of the charity’s financial information. For a full understanding of the charity’s finances, the reader should view the PDF accounts and reports under the Documents tab above.

Income

£732.8K

Spending

£516.3K

Charity accounts & reports for financial year end 31 March 2024

Independent examiners report Charity accounts Trustee annual report

Charity accounts & reports for financial year end 31 March 2023

Independent examiners report Charity accounts Trustee annual report

Charity accounts & reports for financial year end 31 March 2022

Independent examiners report Charity accounts Trustee annual report

Charitable purposes

The relief of poverty in such ways as may be thought fit; The relief of unemployment in such ways as may be thought fit, including assistance to find employment; The advancement of education, training or retraining, particularly among unemployed people, providing unemployed people with work experience; The provision of financial assistance, technical assistance or business advice or consultancy in order to provide training and employment opportunities for unemployed people in cases of financial or other charitable need through help (1) in setting up their own business (2) to existing businesses; The creation of training and employment opportunities by the provision of workspace, buildings and/or land for use on favourable terms.

Governing document

Memorandum and Articles

Other name

NCBC
  • 7 Trustees
  • 6 Employees
  • 0 Volunteers

Contact details

Public address

  • Mr Bill Atkinson, North City Business Centre, 2 Duncairn Gardens, Belfast, BT15 2GG

Trustee board

Trustee
Mr David Ritchie Williamson
Paul Carlin
Mr Ian Mcavoy
Mr Damian Deazley
Mr Duncan Morrow
Ms Hannah Coghlan
Ms Katrina Darcy-Smith

List of regions

  • Antrim And Newtownabbey Borough Council
  • Belfast City Council