STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

WHAT WE ARE

Unities is a Community Interest Company — a legal entity designed for organisations that exist to benefit a community rather than to generate private profit. We are registered with Companies House and regulated by the CIC Regulator. Our company is subject to a statutory asset lock: company assets and surpluses must be used for the community purpose stated in our constitution, and cannot be extracted for private gain beyond the limits set by the Regulator.

We operate as a practitioner cooperative. A small core team produces original research and curates the shared library. A growing network of contributor-members — experienced practitioners from across government, industry, health, education, and civil society — share what they are learning from navigating AI adoption in their own organisations. Together, we build a body of evidence-based, practical resources that any leader can use.

We are not a consultancy, a membership body, or an events company. We make things — tools, frameworks, guides, research, analysis — and share them openly.

WHO WE SERVE

Senior leaders, managers, decision-makers, and policy-makers who are responsible for navigating AI adoption and digital transformation in complex organisations. This includes leaders in central and local government, the NHS and public services, regulated industries, SMEs, educational institutions, and civil society.

These leaders are currently underserved and oversold. The AI guidance available to them is dominated by commercial vendors, technology consultancies, and organisations with conflicts of interest. As a result, many leaders lack access to independent, evidence-based, practical support when making consequential decisions about AI governance, procurement, workforce transitions, and public trust.

Unities exists to close that gap.

HOW WE DIFFER FROM A COMMERCIAL COMPANY

Several features distinguish Unities CIC from commercial consultancies and vendors producing AI guidance:

• Statutory asset lock. Company assets and surpluses are used for the stated community purpose and cannot be distributed for private gain. Any residual assets on dissolution transfer to another asset-locked body — a charity or another CIC — not to shareholders or directors.
• Editorial independence. No funder, partner, sponsor, or commissioner reviews or approves our content before publication. All funding relationships are publicly disclosed on our website. This independence is our core asset and is protected as a constitutional commitment.
• Open outputs. The resources we produce and curate are shared freely. They are designed to be used by any leader who needs them, not restricted to paying clients. Our founding publication is licensed under Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-SA).
• Cooperative contribution model. Our knowledge base grows through collective contribution from practitioner-members, not through commercial engagement. The benefits are shared with the entire community, not restricted to those who can afford advisory fees.
• Transparent funding. We sustain ourselves through research commissions, grants, and university partnerships. Every piece of funded work produces shared assets that become part of the open library — available to everyone, not just the commissioner.
• We serve communities, not compete with them. We support existing professional networks — Digital Leaders, the Digital Policy Alliance, university networks, and professional bodies — by providing independent, high-quality resources for their members. We do not seek to build a competing community.

OUR COMMITMENTS

Independence. Nobody pays us to say what they want to hear. No funder reviews our content. All funding is disclosed publicly. If we cannot maintain independence on a piece of work, we will not do it. There are no exceptions to this commitment.

Evidence. We show our working. When the evidence supports a claim, we say so. When it doesn't, we say that too. The difference between documented evidence and our own interpretation or recommendation is always made clear. We correct errors publicly and promptly.

Practicality. Everything we share is designed for people who have to make real decisions with real consequences in complex institutional settings. If a tool or framework cannot be used by a leader facing a genuine decision, it has not met our standard.

Honesty about failure. We document what doesn't work as rigorously as what does. The leadership community learns more from honest accounts of failure than from curated success stories. We create a safe space for contributors to share difficulties and setbacks without reputational risk.

Respect for contributors. Practitioner-members who contribute their experience to the cooperative retain ownership of their knowledge. We curate and publish with their consent, credit their contribution (unless they prefer anonymity), and never exploit contributed material for commercial gain.

GOVERNANCE

Unities CIC is governed by its directors, who carry fiduciary responsibility under CIC law. The directors have an additional duty — beyond the standard duties of company directors under the Companies Act 2006 — to act in the interests of the community as specified in the company's community interest statement.

The company files an annual CIC report alongside its accounts, which is publicly available through Companies House. This report describes the company's activities during the year and how they have benefited the community.

This Statement of Principles is a public document. It is reviewed annually by the directors and any substantive changes are published on the website with a dated record of what changed and why.