Families in Telford. Annual Report 2025
Charity Details
Families in Telford – Reg No 1130708
Hub on the Hill 104 – 106 Southgate Telford TF7 4HG
Trustees: David Johns (Chair), Raja Bandak (Treasurer), Kath Dennison (Acting Secretary) Jo Warburton, Rev Dawn Taffinder, Jayne Stevens
The Management Structure is: Executive Committee (Trustees) – strategic direction and overall accountability, Management Committee reporting to Executive Committee led by Project managers for day to day operations, attendees include Trustees and parents who attend groups. Project Managers, staff and volunteers delivering day to day groups and activities.
Areas of activity - the Borough of Telford and Wrekin, but in particular, South Telford (Sutton Hill, Woodside and Brookside)
The Charity’s objects (“the objectives”) are:
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To provide an appropriate meeting place for parents and carers and their pre-school children regardless of race, culture, religion, gender, sexuality, physical or mental abilities, where members can seek advice and support
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To advance the development and education of children aged 0 to 5, their families, parents and carers in particular but not exclusively by:
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a. The provision of a safe, secure and stimulating environment
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b. The provision of training and learning activities
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c. the provision of help and family support
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To give parents/carers the right to participate in, and take responsibility for, the activities and organisation of the Project.
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To do all such things as shall be conducive to the attainment of the above objects.
Chair’s Report
2024 to 2025 has been a great year for FIT and our STEP Project. We have seen numbers continue to increase at our groups with lots of new families joining and a move to Brookside Community Centre for an additional under 2s group – following encouragement from and supported by funding from Family Hubs. Our success is strongly linked to the dedication and enthusiasm of our staff and volunteers and the word-of-mouth recommendations from our wonderful families. Our move to Brookside was enabled by ending the Dawley Group, that had patchy support, allowing us to optimise staff utilisation.
Following improvement works we are pleased this year to be back to having access to outdoor space at our venues. This allows us to provide additional activities and experiences for our families and our funding streams giving us the financial security to update our equipment and keep us in line with the EYFS
Families in Telford. Annual Report 2025
guidelines and school readiness programme that the government has put in place.
Financially we have previously been underspending the Reaching Communities budget as some forecast activities or costs has been free of charge. Total staff costs have been less than originally anticipated but this is changing. Recently staff costs have increased to reflect:
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●recent high rates of inflation that had a major impact on the cost of living for our staff
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●increasing staff hours to provide more time for them to deal with the increase in issues that our families face
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●increases in living wage
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●increased pension costs
We have also firmly established new groups, called Rise and Shine, for babies who have become independently mobile and are no longer appropriate to attend a Tums and Tinies group. Following agreement with our funding officer this is funded by Reaching Communities budget. Our overall spending is now within budget expectation. Funding from Family Hubs has allowed us to add Brookside to our area of activity. Brookside is a similarly disadvantaged area to Sutton Hill and Woodside.
Storage continues to be a challenge for our staff and requires careful management to ensure items remain for purpose.
Our venue in Sutton Hill, the Hub on The Hill, continues to be operated by Madeley Town Council. It is their intention to modernise and furbish it to bring it up to their standards for other similar facilities. We support the need for the modernisation, but it remains a risk to our activities there and we continue to monitor closely what is being planned.
We currently have 6 trustees on our Executive Committee and are seeking to recruit more to provide a broad balance of community experience.
Our staff – the Green Team – continue to be our core strength. Without their dedication, enthusiasm, energy, ideas and commitment the communities we serve would not benefit as fully as they do.
Manager’s Report
What we provide in our sessions is continuously evolving in response to what is seen as a need both directly from members or from observations by staff.
We work very closely with many Family Hubs’ partners including Breastfeeding Network, School Readiness, Eat Well, Home Start and NHS partners such as midwives and health visitors. We have visits weekly from these partners so that our families don’t have to go out of their way to seek additional support.
We also work with local policing teams who visit us so that they are approachable to families who may need to speak to them.
We maintain an excellent working relationship with the main pre-school and nursery sites that our families use as well as the Church so that we can support transitions the families make. One of our trustees is the local vicar and has a close insight into our community pastoral needs.
Families in Telford. Annual Report 2025
We have numerous adults who come back to us, once their children have started school, to volunteer with us. This year this has included one who will be running our new under 2s group in Brookside and another returning to be our charities secretary.
The differences we are making
Observation by staff remains the strongest way of measuring benefits to our families as well as the feedback from our members. Numbers continue to steadily increase and a large percentage of families who join us for our summer programme are families whose children are now at school but still want to join us when they can.
The adults choosing to return also shows how, even outside of the pre-school age bracket, we are still providing them with information and support that they find valuable.
Even when families do not have to be up for school, they still choose to get out of the house in order to meet up with us and join in our activities. We set our start times slightly later (as requested by the families) to give everyone a bit of extra time to get ready and then spend the morning with them three times a week.
This summer we had 55 families (152 individuals) attending our park meet ups (twice a week) and 34 different families (107 individuals) joining us for trips out that the project was able to fund. These included museums, farm parks and forest school.
Feedback from our families is our strongest indicator of the difference we make.
Parents regularly ask to pop in even if their child is at nursery that day as they want to speak with a member of staff about something This shows how valued and trusted our support is.
Parents having new babies cannot wait to come in and introduce the ‘newest member of the FiT family’ and share those special early days with us.
The comments made about the project to others also shows that this support is making a difference. One parent recently put on her own social feed after we supported her for the last year with her neurodiverse son “Well nursery will be watching him more closely now. They are getting a report from (name)'s assessment today, being put on medium risk level only a few more assessments to go. Some days are very hard but he’s one of the most loving children you can have. Thank you so much Families in Telford for your support.”
We also get lovely feedback posted on our Facebook page when families have had a day with us.
“Great day again, thank you so much Green Team. Such a lovely community we belong to”
“Thank you Green Team for another great outing. We very much enjoyed ourselves”
Families in Telford. Annual Report 2025
What we have learned
As always, it is our families that tell us that our staff make a huge impact on the support we are able to offer. They are genuine, approachable and nonjudgmental and this puts everyone at ease. As a project we love that our families affectionately refer to us all as ‘The Green Team’ (we wear green polo shirts) as this shows that they see how we strive to be precisely that, a team.
This year we have again seen the benefit of having a young volunteer join us over the summer. They demonstrate to some of the older children (between 10 and 15) that it is OK to still be silly and have fun playing and have encouraged others to consider volunteering in their community.
We continue to support a wide-ranging demographic which shows that our nonjudgmental and genuine approach works within a wide-ranging community and we are very proud of how many different people join us each week. We have mums, dads, stepparents, grandparents, great grandparents, child minders, carers, support workers, many families who do not speak English as their first language and a very wide range of neurodiversity.
In order to be an approachable and supportive team to our families, it is also important that we are approachable and supportive as a team to each other. We have therefore found the importance of having additional office time for staff to sit and work through tasks together without a strict time pressure and to have the opportunity for discussions in a safe and confidential environment.
Changed staffing needs
In response to ongoing pressures and challenges faced by our families the demands on our team continue to increase. For the first time we are running two groups simultaneously at different venues so one of the managers will be required to change her office hours so that she can be at the new group and support the staff and volunteers there.
We have also found a need for ‘open office’ hours once a week where staff are able to have drop ins from families outside of the group so questions can be answered, and information shared without staff being asked outside of the work environment.
Having trustees with a wide-ranging knowledge base is essential and ours include members of PODS (parents opening doors), the Church, YMCA as well as those working within the local community. This provides additional support to the staff team when needed.
Promoting what we do
Word of mouth and personal recommendations remain our strongest advertisement. This has highlighted the importance of Facebook and our website and also the time needed to monitor and maintain them.
The storage challenge
The biggest practical challenge the project faces is storage. It is an ongoing issue to ensure we have an appropriate range of high-quality equipment and resources for our families without taking up the space they need to enjoy them. We also need to ensure that we maintain adequate space in our office so that staff can work comfortably, have meetings and welcome people in when they need to seek advice.
Families in Telford. Annual Report 2025
Staff use breaks to check and sort all outdoor containers to try and ensure things are dealt with as well as possible.
A steady increase in numbers
Numbers continue to be strong at all venues with us regularly reaching our safe maximum capacity.
Sutton Hill and Woodside are always well attended, and we are looking forward to establishing our new under 2s group at Brookside.
We have new families joining us regularly as well as our many returning families each week. Even if people have had a change of circumstance and can’t get to us every week, they still come back when they can.
Treasurer’s Report
From 1st September 2024 we started year 4 of the Reaching Communities grant for our South Telford Empowerment Project (STEP). The budget for Year 4 in our submitted bid calculations was £44557.02. The actual spend was £42,866 an underspend of £1,1691.02 compared to the original STEP Bid Budget proposal.
Due to healthy financial reserves the last payments from Reaching Communities were on 15/3/24 when we received £21,167.5 and then delayed till 9/5/25 when we received payment 7, a further £21,167.5. The total income from Reaching Communities would have been twice this amount between September 2024 and March 2025, if we had not requested that we delay the payment to reduce the reserves.
From September 2022 Families in Telford commenced extra groups paid for by a contract with Family Hubs. From April 2024 this contract was increased to £18,000 annually and allowed us to extend our services to Dawley, a area of Telford that our charity has not covered in the past. Due to low numbers of attendees in Dawley, Family Hubs asked us to move to another estate, Brookside, that does not yet have a Family Hubs centre. This commenced in September 2025 and we hope to be able to build up our user base. The cost of this activity is allocated 100% to the Family Hubs funding.
Other costs incurred are allocated directly to either Reaching Communities or Family Hubs alone but in many areas are shared proportionately between the two, depending on the category of expenditure.
The areas of overspend in the Reaching Communities budget in the current financial year ending 31/8/24:
Staff salaries in the application for year 4 of STEP were costed at £ 30591.95
However, following staff pay increases to compensate for the steep rises in the cost of living and subsequently in line with the Living Wage level, year 4 salaries rose to £ £ 31,109.09 inclusive of pension contributions that started last year. The salary costs from year 3 also included some increased hours to manage the increased complexity of the family issues that we need to support and record, including neurodiversity and child protection concerns.
Summer activities was budgeted at £ 1273.45 for year 4. the actual cost of coach hire was £450, additional activities provided through the summer holiday period and costs of admission to some venues led to the total cost of £2,064.35
Families in Telford. Annual Report 2025
Toys, equipment and office consumables estimated at £ 1012 but the actual cost was £1162 with a further £387 allocated to Family Hubs, giving a total of £ 1549
The areas of underspend were:
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●The office cost was estimated for year 4 to be £1910. The actual cost was £2,415 With £ 875 of the total annual cost paid for by our Family Hubs contract.
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Room hire costs estimated at £ 5463. The actual cost was £ £ 4,521 with an additional £1,361 paid for by Family Hubs.
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Staff supervision , including the separate costs of staff salaries attending supervision and rent for room hire for the supervision sessions estimated at £ 1820. However, these costs are included in the figures for salaries and office rent and are not a separate cost.
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Creche costs for management, trustee, AGM meetings and workshops estimated at £1186 but again these costs are already included in the staff salaries, with some staff redeployed to run the creches.
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Payroll administration was estimated at £509 with the actual cost of £360 and Family Hubs contributing a further £90.
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Insurance, registration with the information commissioner’s office and internet domain costs for our website was estimated at £ 530 with the actual cost of £ 839 and Family Hubs contributing a further £280
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Workshops estimated at £869. The actual cost has been zero as families are more easily able to attend and interact with the guest speakers if these are held within some of the groups, rather than having to find additional time to attend a workshop. Therefore there have not been additional costs for the training of users, as the guest speakers we have used have been available through our networks and have not charged us.
Overall the underspend in our STEP Budget by the end of Year One was £ 13,487.31. By the end of Year Two it was £ 25,341.41 and at the end of Year Three £ 28,373.39 in total. However this underspend has now reduced due to additional costs of employing staff with the living wage increases and NI employers contributions. Also the cost of a toddler group, Rise and Shine, was not initially funded by our original budget proposal. These groups have become an integral part of our offer to families and their costs absorbed within our general expenditure, funded by part of our underspend.
Other funding secured and how it will be used
Following the request FiT made to have Reaching Communities payment deferred from September 2024 to May 2025, we hope that Reaching Communities will allow us to utilise the deferred funding to allow us to continue our activities into year 6 by possibly a further 8-9 months. With the additional funding secured from Family Hubs we have not actively sought further substantial funding during this year. Staff and venue capacity limit further expansion of our services. Further funding from Family Hubs from April 2026 cannot be guaranteed but could be repeated. We will need to consider overall future funding towards the end of 2025 when we will need to seek further funding for our next project from suitable sources.
FAMILIES IN TELFORD Registered Charity Number 1130708
c/o Hub on the Hill 104 - 106 Southgate Telford TF7 4HG Shropshire
RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT FOR
YEAR ENDED 31% AUGUST 2025
Together with
STATEMENT OF ASSETS & LIABILITIES AS AT 31" AUGUST 2025
Report to the Trustees of Families In Telford
On accounts for the year ended 31st August 2025
Respective responsibilities of Trustees and Examiner
The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity's trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 43 (2) of the Charitics Act 1993 (the 1993 Act) and that an independent examination is needed.
It is my responsibility to:
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¢ Examine the accounts under section 43 ofthe 1993 Act * To follow the procedures laid down in the general Directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 43(7)(b) of the 1993 Act
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To state whether particular matters have come to my attention
Basis of Independent Examiner's Statement
My examination was carried out in accordance with general Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a "true and fair" view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the examination below.
Independent Examiner's Statement
In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:
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1) Which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in, any material respect, the requirements:
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To keep accounting records in accordance with section 41 of the 1993 Act; and
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- To prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the 1993 Act
Have not been met: Or
- 2) To which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
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Date /0 [/'][0/25]
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Mr Paul Clifford, @ /py £274 Aecounts Examiner, The Manse, Madeley Read, lronbridge TFS 7Q2
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|ED)|SIARFOR|ENGLANDCLASB|MNDAND HacWALES|
|Receipts|and|payments|accounts|CC16a|
|For the|period|Period|start date|To|Period end date|
|from|01/09/2024|34/08/2025|
|Section|A|Receipts|and|payments|
|Unrestricted|Restricted|
|funds|ini|Endowment funds|Total funds|Last year|
|tothe‘oe|to the nearest £|to the nearest £|tothenearest£|to the nearest £|
|Ai Receipts|es|[22.385|
|Localgiving Donations +Gift|Aid|2206|[TT|2,206|]|
|LL|ee|ae|54|[||
|pe|jt|
|i|| ee ||
|[FamilyCTHubs|ee]|PafeeOIet|[47||
|ub|ee|)ee ne on|
|A2|Asset|and|investment sales,|(see|table).|total|(Gross|income forAR)||[___3,228]|||SRG|
|Sub|total[~iJ||
|A3|Payments.|
|41558|41558|£|39,420.00|
|400|[a0]|80||
|‘|2|238|L888||
|£|3,287.003,045.00 /{=|||8,400|
|Cy)|[828T| 1813)|
|i §on|
|[Miscellaneous|200.00]|[aa TC|aaa.|
|[NG FISHOPS|hc|seseccroe|eee) neem|tos age|oe|ie|ees atm|sommes|aon|fe|ener|oceans|ganecmccccae||nnn |ee|
|Room|Hire-|Dawley|Christian Centreor|Brookside|Central|1490ss|||te||1,160|
|P||184|
|zoe]|[SC|
|Sub|ES||ee se|
|A4|Asset and|investment|purchases,|(see|table’|total||200|aE|L__s2ee||
|eaeOT|||
|a|
|||
|Sub|total||||
|Total payments||———_200}|57,959|53,656|
|Net of receipts(payments)||——-3,028}|||-|17,767]|-|14,739|11,269|
|AS5|Transfers|between|funds|
|A6 Cash funds|last vear end|15,661|29,581|LONae|aa|
|Cash funds this year end|18,689)|11,814)|||30,603|||46,242|
|Section|B|Statement|of|assets|and|liabilities|at|the|end|of the|periog|
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CCXX Rit accounts (SS)
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10/10/2025
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Bi Cash funds
B2 Other monetary assets
B3 Investmentm assets
B4 Assets retained for the charity’sity? own use
B5 Liabilities
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees Receipts and Payments Accounts Examined By
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
Unrestricted funds Restricted funds Endowment Details funds to nearest £ to nearest £ to nearest £ | ed | ~[Total] (agree balances with receiptscashand fundspayments | TE | account(s)) Ok I Unrestricted funds Restricted funds Endowment funds to nearest[£] to nearest£ to nearest £
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Details Fund tomeshes which asset Cost (optional) Currenteal value
Details Fund toBelonaswhich asset Cost (optional)' Currentastional value
. Fund to which liability Amount due When due
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, tp ‘ Date of
Signature po Print N
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2
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10/10/2025
FAMILIES IN TELFORD Registered Charity Number 1130708
c/o Hub on the Hill 104 - 106 Southgate Telford TF7 4HG Shropshire
RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT FOR
YEAR ENDED 31% AUGUST 2025
Together with
STATEMENT OF ASSETS & LIABILITIES AS AT 31" AUGUST 2025
Report to the Trustees of Families In Telford
On accounts for the year ended 31st August 2025
Respective responsibilities of Trustees and Examiner
The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity's trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 43 (2) of the Charitics Act 1993 (the 1993 Act) and that an independent examination is needed.
It is my responsibility to:
-
¢ Examine the accounts under section 43 ofthe 1993 Act * To follow the procedures laid down in the general Directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 43(7)(b) of the 1993 Act
-
To state whether particular matters have come to my attention
Basis of Independent Examiner's Statement
My examination was carried out in accordance with general Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a "true and fair" view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the examination below.
Independent Examiner's Statement
In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:
-
1) Which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in, any material respect, the requirements:
-
To keep accounting records in accordance with section 41 of the 1993 Act; and
-
- To prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the 1993 Act
Have not been met: Or
- 2) To which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
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Z
LAR ey J
Signed (fi
LID
CTESP ~/
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Date /0 [/'][0/25]
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Mr Paul Clifford, @ /py £274 Aecounts Examiner, The Manse, Madeley Read, lronbridge TFS 7Q2
;
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|ED)|SIARFOR|ENGLANDCLASB|MNDAND HacWALES|
|Receipts|and|payments|accounts|CC16a|
|For the|period|Period|start date|To|Period end date|
|from|01/09/2024|34/08/2025|
|Section|A|Receipts|and|payments|
|Unrestricted|Restricted|
|funds|ini|Endowment funds|Total funds|Last year|
|tothe‘oe|to the nearest £|to the nearest £|tothenearest£|to the nearest £|
|Ai Receipts|es|[22.385|
|Localgiving Donations +Gift|Aid|2206|[TT|2,206|]|
|LL|ee|ae|54|[||
|pe|jt|
|i|| ee ||
|[FamilyCTHubs|ee]|PafeeOIet|[47||
|ub|ee|)ee ne on|
|A2|Asset|and|investment sales,|(see|table).|total|(Gross|income forAR)||[___3,228]|||SRG|
|Sub|total[~iJ||
|A3|Payments.|
|41558|41558|£|39,420.00|
|400|[a0]|80||
|‘|2|238|L888||
|£|3,287.003,045.00 /{=|||8,400|
|Cy)|[828T| 1813)|
|i §on|
|[Miscellaneous|200.00]|[aa TC|aaa.|
|[NG FISHOPS|hc|seseccroe|eee) neem|tos age|oe|ie|ees atm|sommes|aon|fe|ener|oceans|ganecmccccae||nnn |ee|
|Room|Hire-|Dawley|Christian Centreor|Brookside|Central|1490ss|||te||1,160|
|P||184|
|zoe]|[SC|
|Sub|ES||ee se|
|A4|Asset and|investment|purchases,|(see|table’|total||200|aE|L__s2ee||
|eaeOT|||
|a|
|||
|Sub|total||||
|Total payments||———_200}|57,959|53,656|
|Net of receipts(payments)||——-3,028}|||-|17,767]|-|14,739|11,269|
|AS5|Transfers|between|funds|
|A6 Cash funds|last vear end|15,661|29,581|LONae|aa|
|Cash funds this year end|18,689)|11,814)|||30,603|||46,242|
|Section|B|Statement|of|assets|and|liabilities|at|the|end|of the|periog|
----- End of picture text -----
CCXX Rit accounts (SS)
1
10/10/2025
LC)
Bi Cash funds
B2 Other monetary assets
B3 Investmentm assets
B4 Assets retained for the charity’sity? own use
B5 Liabilities
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees Receipts and Payments Accounts Examined By
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
Unrestricted funds Restricted funds Endowment Details funds to nearest £ to nearest £ to nearest £ | ed | ~[Total] (agree balances with receiptscashand fundspayments | TE | account(s)) Ok I Unrestricted funds Restricted funds Endowment funds to nearest[£] to nearest£ to nearest £
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----- Start of picture text -----
Details Fund tomeshes which asset Cost (optional) Currenteal value
Details Fund toBelonaswhich asset Cost (optional)' Currentastional value
. Fund to which liability Amount due When due
Details : : =
, tp ‘ Date of
Signature po Print N
a . a7 duiaiaai approval
| SC]>. Dr Raja Bandak | JOA /Z Ss
|! PY)4S LF| Mr Paul Cliffordi fcg PAASZZ
2
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10/10/2025