Freelance accountant Hilary Seaward has been awarded the first Adrian Randall Prize for her proposal to make accounts accessible to those with a non-finance background.

The prize, which includes a sum of £5,000 to aid further research, was awarded by the Charity Finance Group on Monday (18 March).

Seaward was joined by Tania Cohen and Ian White as a finalist for the award launched in memory of CFG founder Adrian Randall, who passed away last year. But Seaward's proposal to "throw away the rule book" in the design and management of accounts sufficiently impressed the judges, which included Caron Bradshaw, CFG's CEO; Dame Clare Tickell, CEO of Action for Children and CFG co-founder and Charity Finance editor Andrew Hind.

Randall "would have been delighted by the spirit of Hilary's proposal," said Hind.

In her proposal Seaward says:

"I want to create a toolkit to help charities of all sizes take an imaginative approach to producing plain and simple manangement reports which all trustees will understand because they have been instrumental in designing them."

She says that management accounts are too often full of jargon, written in accountants language and alienating to the reader, "obscuring rather than clarifying".

Seaward will now work with CFG to develop her proposal which she hopes will result in a toolkit and 'e-café' for trustees.

Shortlist

CFG advises that upwards of 20 proposals fitting the criteria for the prize were received. Narrowly missing out on the award are Tania Cohen and Ian White who were both shortlisted. Cohen, freelance fundraiser, formerly of the British Red Cross, had developed a proposal to transform the relationship between finance and fundraising professionals. White, finance manager at the Edinburgh International Festival and vice chair of the Scottish Music Centre, proposed an app to enable trustees to develop financial awareness.

Seaward is a former finance officer of the Eastern Arts Board and currently works with a number of charities and social enterprises.

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