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2023-03-31-accounts

acis bette servi forb group Annual eport and Financial Statements I Year Ended 31 Ma h 2023 Company No: 03593345

Acis Group Limited

Contents

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 2 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Board Members, Executive Officers, Advisors and Bankers

Board:
Chair
Kathryn Smart
Vice Chair
Carole Hodson
Other Members
Mike Kay
Graham Ward
Nigel Whitaker
Ronan O’Hara
Paul Satchwell
Bruce Kerr
Julie Haywood
Paul Wilkin
Please see pages 37-39 for board appointment and
resignations
Executive officers:
Chief Executive
Greg Bacon
Finance Director
Adrian Chamberlain
Director for Customer
Excellence
Paul Woollam
Director of Property
Services
Mark Jones
Company Secretary
Catherine Kelly
Registered numbers:
Registered as a private company limited by guarantee
under the Companies Act 2006, No. 03593345
Registered as a charity with The Charity Commission,
No. 1141067
Registered by the Regulator for Social Housing, No.
L4229		 Registered office:
Acis House
Bridge Street
Gainsborough
Lincolnshire
DN21 1GG
www.acisgroup.co.uk
External Auditor:
Beevers and Struthers
Statutory Auditors
One Express
1 George Leigh Street
Manchester
M4 5DL
Solicitors:
Trowers & Hamlins
3 Bunhill Row
London
EC1Y 8YZ
Forbes Solicitors
Rutherford House
4 Wellington Street
Blackburn, Lancashire
BB1 8DD
Devonshires
37 Temple Street
Birmingham
B2 5DP
Bankers:
National Westminster Bank Plc
Leicester Customer Service Centre
Bede House
11 Western Boulevard
Leicester
LE2 7EJ

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Chair’s Statement

The year has been, without doubt, one filled with political and economic turbulence that has challenged the foundations of economic and financial stability that we have all grown accustomed to over recent years. Rocketing fuel costs, high levels of inflation, increased borrowing costs and a wider cost of living challenge are now synonymous with the events of the last financial year.

Despite the uncertainties and obvious challenges, Acis continued to thrive throughout the year – delivering improved services to our customers, growing and developing as an organisation. It’s been another great but very busy year where we have had to adapt to significant changes whilst we continue to prepare for more.

This year has seen significant change on the Acis Group Board. With our chair and vice chair both approaching the end of their respective tenures in September 2023, they stepped down from their roles at the September 2022 annual general meeting. I was delighted to be appointed as the new chair and for Carole Hodson to be appointed as the new vice chair. We also welcomed two new substantive members during the year and started our trainee board member development programme in partnership with the Housing Diversity Network.

We have always known that our repairs service is a key provision for our customers, and a major contributor to our customer satisfaction. We started the

transformation of our repairs service in earnest this year, introducing shift working patterns which makes our repairs service available from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week. We’ve also worked to modernise our repairs delivery, launching “Repairs on Demand” where operatives liaise directly with customers to diagnose repairs and make their own appointments. This provides a much more responsive service designed to meet customers’ needs. Together, these changes have increased our repairs satisfaction over the year. We were delighted when that hard work was recognised as the repairs team was awarded In House Maintenance Team of the Year as part of the Building Communities Awards – congratulations to everyone involved!

The social housing sector is still experiencing increased scrutiny over damp, mould and the quality of homes following tragic cases across the country, especially in relation to damp & mould in properties, and Acis welcomes the opportunity to learn from these and adopt policies and practices to ensure that we provide high quality, safe homes.

During the year the Board took the very difficult decision to close Acis HomePlus as we could no longer continue to financially support it. We did this with a heavy heart, as it’s clear that those valuable services are still needed by parts of the community to enable vulnerable people to stay in their homes. However, our commitment to achieving Value for Money means

that sometimes we must make difficult decisions in order to protect the interests of our customers and the business in the long term.

Despite the closure of Acis HomePlus, our growth ambition to deliver on our charitable aims, and to provide more social investment in the communities we work in, has continued throughout the year.

We brought Community Learning in Partnership CIC (CLIP) into the Acis family in August. CLIP has been operating since 1995 and aims to widen participation in learning for people from rural, coastal and isolated communities. It works with young people and adults who are looking to refresh their skills – for personal development, family, higher education or work. CLIP is also committed to supporting people who have experienced mental health difficulties and complements Riverside Access and Training Centre CIC which we acquired in September 2020.

At the end of August, we brought Eione LLP to a close, ending the facilities management agreement for our student accommodation management. Since then, we’ve embarked on a process of integrating our student sites of Raleigh Park in Nottingham and The Trigon, in Sheffield into the group.

The organisational changes that have occurred throughout the year prompted us to take stock of our business activities and the way that Board has oversight. This resulted in us establishing a new Enterprise Committee to focus on our social and charitable purpose activities.

As we start the journey to net zero carbon, a Boardsponsored Asset Management Working Group was formed. The group is considering immediate actions to address hard to heat / hard to treat properties and develop a plan to deal with a number of properties rated at EPC “D” and below.

Throughout the year, the Board has received regular reports showcasing the excellent work we do around the “Your Voice” initiative. Your Voice is designed to not only ensure that we respond to customer demands, but also offer our customers the opportunity to be involved with the services we deliver and how we shape them.

We’ve also been working to prepare the organisation for the outcomes of the Social Housing White Paper, and greater emphasis on consumer standards. We are closely following the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill as it transits through Parliament.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Chairman’s Statement Continued

We welcome the new regulation and are wholly supportive of the regulatory commitment to greater tenant involvement and say in shaping services. We have taken steps throughout the year to grow our tenant engagement, and offered opportunities for customer scrutiny. Board level involvement of customers has been challenging, however, we are maintaining our commitment and are ramping up activity to get people involved.

As we face the new financial year, we recognise the financial uncertainty that we have seen in the last year is likely to continue to affect both Acis and our customers. We will continue to closely monitor any impact on our business plan and respond accordingly whilst ensuring that we have appropriate signposting routes available to offer support to all of our customers.

So, as I reflect and look back on my first year as Chair, it’s been both a challenging and rewarding year. I’m proud of the way that the whole team has continued to challenge the status quo, to embrace change positively and to work closer together to drive the business forward.

Kathryn Smart, Chair July 2023

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report

Business overview

Acis Group Limited (Acis) is a diverse organisation with substantial diversity in our customers; our people; our physical locations and in the wide range of services that we offer across the Group. This is something we are proud of and we believe it enables us to adapt to our ever-changing operating environment, and to make noticeable improvements to our customers’ lives.

Acis began life in 1999 out of the large-scale voluntary transfer of properties previously owned by West Lindsey District Council. Since then, the organisation has grown significantly. Today, we develop new homes, provide housing and related services, deliver community regeneration and provide training and employability support across 26 local authority areas.

We own and manage nearly 8,000 properties to rent or lease, including a growing portfolio of low-cost home ownership products and more than 1,100 student accommodation bed-spaces in Nottingham and Sheffield.

We deliver an active new development programme across our areas of operation, and we continue to invest in our existing estates and communities in order to improve both the quality of life of our customers and the long-term performance potential of our asset base.

We are a regional housing provider, but we are not prescriptive about how our area of operations is defined. We will consider opportunities in varied locations, the key being that they are viable both operationally and financially.

Group activities

Acis consists of a parent registered provider, Acis Group Limited, and eight subsidiaries, as follows:

Acis Group Limited is the main asset-holding entity of the Group, including all the Group’s housing properties held for rent. Student accommodation management was delivered via Eione LLP; a 60 per cent owned joint venture with Derwent Facilities Management Limited until 31 August 2022, when we transferred the activity back into Acis. Repairs and maintenance activities were delivered via Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited until 1 April 2022, when we also transferred this activity back into Acis. Acis HomePlus Limited provided home independence services on behalf of local authorities under Disabled Facilities Grant arrangements and to private customers until this activity ceased on 31 March 2023. Riverside Access and Training Centre and Community Learning in Partnership both provide a wide range of training opportunities to our customers and the wider communities. Other subsidiary entities provide services for specific activities carried out within the Group, primarily development services and commercial investments.

Our goals

At Acis, we want to create opportunities for people to have better lives through the provision of better homes and better services. Our corporate strategy aims to drive the organisation to achieve long-term success across four priority areas:

Priority 1:
Customers		 Provide the best possible service to
thepeople in our communities.
Priority 2:
Partnerships		 Work with others to grow the
service we offer and improve the
lives of those living in our homes
and the communities in which we
work.
Priority 3:
Growth		 Grow our organisation, creating
financial efficiency and strength to
support more customers.
Priority 4:
Efficiency		 Ensuring we deliver a customer
focused and efficient service that
drives value for money through the
way we work.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

We are now approaching the end of our current strategy which set out our plans up to 2024 and we are busy planning exciting things for our new strategy.

In our current strategy we set out our ambition to become an organisation that provides more supportive products and services so that we can give help and support to those most vulnerable in society, helping them live better lives. The additions to the Group of Riverside Training and Community Learning in Partnership have helped us to deliver against this target, along with our ever increasing network of partners we are now able to offer wider services and support to our customers and those living in the wider communities in which we operate.

Above everything we want to provide a good service to all our customers, continue to look after their homes through delivering a fantastic repairs and maintenance service and ensuring their home is safe and secure. Throughout the year we have made significant improvements to our repairs and now offer a much more modern and flexible approach to ensure we provide the best possible service for our customers. These improvements have clearly been recognised by our customers through the transactional and perceptional satisfaction scores and feedback that they give us.

Whilst doing this we have continued to maintain our excellent track record for our property health and safety compliance ensuring that customers homes are safe and secure.

The financial strength of the organisation is the foundation that enables us to meet these objectives. We continue to drive up efficiency, cost effectiveness delivered through procurement and contract management, and a strongly commercial approach to our work.

Corporate priorities

Our corporate strategy sets out the strands of activity that we will undertake in support of our four corporate priority areas, these are set out in more detail below:

Priority 1: Our Customers

Our customers are our absolute priority. Everything we do is for the people we serve. We recognise that one size doesn’t fit all. We need to adapt our approach to ensure all customers have access to the same high standard of service across the board.

Measure of success:

Increase customer satisfaction and then sustain it at a level above 90%

We will do this by:

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Priority 2: Our Partnerships

Work with others to grow the service we offer and improve the lives of those living in our homes and the communities in which we work.

We know we cannot work alone to achieve our goals. Through partnership working, we aim to add real value to everyone who lives in our homes, the community and neighbourhood. Ultimately, we will work with others to enhance our service offering and improve the lives of those living in our homes.

Measure of success:

Develop new services to meet the demands and needs of our customers and communities. We aim for those services to be at least 10% of our turnover.

We will do this by:

Priority 3: Our Growth

Grow our organisation, creating financial efficiency and strength to support more customers.

Growth is fundamental to our strategy. Our aspiration to grow not only provides more financial stability but it enables us to make a bigger impact on our charitable aims by helping more people.

Measure of success:

Increasing the number of homes we own or manage towards our target of 10,000. Develop 1,000 new homes.

We will grow by:

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Priority 4: Our Efficiency

Ensuring we deliver an efficient and customer-focused service that drives value for money through the way we work.

We have always taken a commercial approach, operating in an efficient manner, diversifying into other income streams. As a result, the organisation is financially robust and is well placed to achieve great things in a challenging sector.

Our focus during the lifetime of this strategy is on generating maximum value for money (VFM). We will ensure the way we work is not only delivered in the best way for our customers but maximises efficiencies too.

Measure of success:

At least 90% or our customers feel their rent provides value for money.

Increase customers’ satisfaction with our repairs and maintenance service to 83% or over.

We will do this by:

Culturally, we continue to promote and exhibit the three values that are most fundamental to how we go about our activities. These are the core values which help us to understand what behaviors and attitudes we need to exhibit in order to deliver for our customers:

Honest We work on a basis of trust. We are honest and behave
responsibly with a shared purpose
Positive We are positive in our thinking and the choices we make
Ambitious We are ambitious, take pride in our achievements and are constantly
innovating and improving

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Our resources and services – in the year and looking forward

Our finances

Despite the economic challenges that the whole country has faced in the last year our financial performance results for 2022/23 represent another good outturn position. We had to change and adapt our plans during the year in response to high levels of inflation, rising interest costs and high fuel costs but through our stress testing triggers, we were able to respond promptly with necessary mitigations to ensure the underlying business plan remained solid. At the same time, we have continued to develop and grow, implementing new core systems, changing our repairs delivery model and bringing two business streams into the Acis Family.

Our Group net surplus before taxation decreased to £4.9m (2022: £6.4m) largely due to a £700k reduction in profits generated from outright sales following completion of a big scheme in the prior year and also a £500k increase in interest payable.

We were however able to invest more on capital improvements to our existing stock which increased to £8.3m (2022: £6m), allowing us to provide better homes for our customers.

Group turnover reduced by £4.6m, Turnover from Social housing lettings increased by £1.7m due to an increased stock holding and rent increases. Turnover generated from property developed for sale decreased by £6.9m which was made up of a £2.0m reduction in shared ownership first tranche sales and a £4.9m reduction in turnover generated from outright sales.

Operating surplus from social housing lettings, excluding depreciation and impairment increased slightly by 1.9% to £14.4m (2022: £14.1m).

Net debt (drawn loans less cash and cash equivalents held by the Group) increased to £183.7m (2022: £169.7m) through the year as we continued to invest heavily in our existing stock whilst continuing to build new stock both for future rental and for sale.

Our people

While we can reflect with pride on our achievements since the organisation was formed in 1999, we recognise that we must continue to adapt to our operating environment. Customer expectations and external political, technological and economic factors will shape our services in a number of ways.

The new ways of working which were initially necessary in response to Covid-19 have settled over the year into a new blended home and office working approach. There were significant benefits identified from this approach during the pandemic which we didn’t want to lose. Along with the changes that we made to our head office we now have a blended approach which allows our people to work in a much more flexible way, enabling them to better deliver the customer and business needs.

Following the significant increase in staff recruitment in the previous year we are pleased to see staff turnover beginning to fall back slightly. The work that we did in the previous year to review our recruitment processes and add a recruitment partner to the structure has meant that we have been able to respond much more swiftly to potential candidates.

In terms of our Board, this year has seen some significant change, with our chair and vice chair both approaching the end of their respective tenures in September 2023, they stepped down from their roles at the September 2022 annual general meeting. With existing board members Kathryn Smart and Carole Hodson being appointed to these roles. We also welcomed two new substantive members during the year and started our trainee board member development programme in partnership with the Housing Diversity Network.

Our Executive and Senior Management Teams were stable in the year. With only, Rob Main- Head of Property Development, leaving in the period. This led to the decision to merge the asset and development teams to drive greater efficiencies and integration.

We hold the Investors in People Silver Award following the improvements demonstrated in our 2021 re-accreditation.

Our employee forum, Our People’s Voice, has continued to meet monthly. The forum acts as the official staff consultative body for our people across the organisation.

Business infrastructure

This year has seen the introduction of a number of new systems which all provide enhanced reporting capabilities, better integration and increased efficiencies.

We started the year with the go live of our new Open Accounts finance software which went live on 1st April 2022. This has seen a huge effort from all of the Finance Team to manage the transition. The new system provides enhanced reporting capability, integrated purchase to pay processes and fixed asset registers and enhanced integrations with other core systems.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

This was promptly followed by the introduction of Accuserv, our new end to end repairs solution which has helped simplify processes and removed reliance on numerous systems to provide a fully integrated solution. This has set the path for the first year of transformative change in our repairs service.

The introduction of new systems didn’t stop there and continued with the implementation of Kinetics to help manage our student accommodation and the introduction of new property development software, Proval and Sequel, across our property development team in order to model projects and monitor project cash flows.

With the increasing threat on cyber security we have continued to implement upgrades to our IT infrastructure to make sure we are as protected as possible, we have also continued our focus on educating our staff and Board, to ensure they have the skills and knowledge to defend against such threats.

Towards the end of the year, we have started to look at Phase 2 of MyACIS portal to identify future system improvements and enhancements.

We have made a number of changes to our Group structure during the year, firstly with the addition of Community Learning In Partnership (CLIP) to the Acis Family in August. CLIP has been operating since 1995 and seeks to widen participation in learning for people from rural, coastal and isolated communities. It works with young people aged 16-18 years who have underachieved at school and with adults who are looking to refresh their skills – for personal development, family, higher education or work. CLIP is also committed to supporting people who have experienced mental health difficulties. CLIP compliments the services provided by Riverside Access and Training Centre which was acquired in September 2020.

At the end of August, we brought Eione LLP to a close ending the facilities management agreement with Derwent Facilities Management Limited for our student accommodation management and have embarked on a process of integrating our Acis Student sites in Nottingham and Sheffield into the Group.

In addition we completed the unwinding of Prime following the transfer of its repairs and maintenance activities back into Group at the end of last year and have started the processes of winding up Acis Homeplus following its cessation of trade in March 2023.

Our customer and their homes

Throughout the year we have sought to ensure our Board has greater exposure to the work we do around hearing our customers’ voice. Regular reports show our excellent work around the “Our Voice” initiative which has been designed to ensure that we respond to customer demands and offer our customers the opportunity to be involved with the services we deliver.

As a sector, we watched in horror at the increasing numbers of appallingly bad social housing conditions being reported in the media; tenants laid undiscovered in properties, damp and mould issues and a plethora of severe maladministration findings made by the Housing Ombudsman. All of which has lead to the suggestion that the sector suffers from systemic discriminatory bias and have caused reputational damage across the sector.

The Better Social Housing Review was published in December 2022 and represented the output of a sixmonth investigation, by an independent panel, into the poor quality of some social housing. This resulted in a detailed report and recommendations. We accord fully with the principle that the role of housing associations is to provide decent safe homes for those who can’t afford access to the wider market and are supportive of any actions that seek to improve these aspects.

We have continued to prepare the organisation for the outcomes of the Social Housing White Paper and the greater emphasis on customer standards, we are closely following the Social Housing (regulation) Bill as it transits through parliament.

We welcome the new regulation and are wholly supportive of the regulatory commitment to greater tenant involvement and say in shaping services. We have taken steps throughout the year to grow our tenant engagement and opportunities for scrutiny and Board level involvement.

We have embarked on a programme of inclusion to understand how we ensure that we listen and respond to minority interest groups within our customer base. Our Board agreed to adopt a modified version of the National Housing Federation Code of Governance which places enhanced responsibilities on the board to monitor the organisations objectives and progress on the issues of diversity and inclusion.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Our new Asset Management Strategy was approved last-year, and this set the foundations for preparing the organisation for future investment into net zero carbon by 2050. Works undertaken in conjunction with our consultants has identified significant investment challenges which are further exacerbated by skills shortages and supply chain issues which are driving retrofit prices even higher.

Due to currently unknown replacement technologies for our existing fuel sources and, perhaps more importantly, an unknown funding obligation on the business. Our business plan does not include the potential cost of full net zero carbon.

Our current focus is on establishing the base data from which no regret decisions can be made about improving the thermal efficiency of our existing housing stock and so helping to combat fuel poverty issues that so many of our customers continue to face.

A Board sponsored Asset Management Working Group was formed and has met throughout the year to consider immediate actions to address hard to heat/hard to treat properties and establish a plan to deal with properties rated at EPC “D” and below.

----- Start of picture text -----
Property EPC ratings
A & B 12%
C 45%
D 39%
E and
4%
below
----- End of picture text -----

Our plans for the coming year will see us invest £1.3m to improve the energy efficiency of these hard to heat/hard to treat homes which aims to help reduce customer’s energy bills.

Building new homes

We have continued to respond to the national shortage of affordable housing in the year with 89 new homes handed over and many more on site being developed for handover in the coming years. These included 27 new homes at North Parade in Gainsborough as part of the regeneration of this area.

Construction works on the 138 new homes at Bowling Green Road, Gainsborough continues, and we have now received the first of those new homes and have made the first sales on the site under the new Shared Ownership model which provides a repair commitment for the next ten years.

Our development aspirations reflect the continuing need for cross subsidy, and we intend to continue to develop on a mixed tenure basis, utilising the surpluses made from outright and shared ownership property sales to support provision of new rented homes in the communities which need them.

Mixed tenure development clearly builds housing market risk into the organisation. Our financial planning and stress-testing on both an individual scheme and organisation-wide basis factors this in, and schemes are not approved unless they add value and have a feasible exit or mitigation strategy in the event of market downturn.

Supporting our communities

We recognise that we are in very challenging times with high levels of economic uncertainty as a result of Brexit, Coronavirus, the war in Ukraine and the associated cost of living crisis. Our immediate priority is to work with customers to make sure they can sustain their tenancies, including meeting their rent payment obligations. When this becomes difficult, we work proactively with other agencies to offer access to support and guidance.

More broadly, we recognise that some of our customers require help to improve their employability, skills and financial independence. We have done some valuable work in this area in the past and have continued to grow our offer through the services provided by Riverside Training and CLIP meaning we are now able to support even more customers and those in the wider communities in which we work.

We also work with other agencies to provide specialist advice and are actively engaged in seeking to establish partnership arrangements that can support this further.

We believe that community safety and community investment play a vital part in overall community wellbeing, and our investment in them protects our income streams by helping to create safe, secure and well-integrated communities. We have focused on growing our business and building in the efficiencies and economies of scale that can enable us to continue to deliver these valuable extra services.

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Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Section 172 Statement

The Directors have had regard to their duties as set out in section 172 of the companies act 2006. As a registered charity, the duty of a director is to act in the way he considers, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its charitable beneficiaries. The key factors that demonstrate this duty are:

Decision making

All decisions taken by the Board are done so after considering the short, medium and long term financial and non-financial impact on the Group. The Group has a long-term financial plan which all material decisions are considered against; the plan is stress tested for multi variable scenarios and early warning triggers are in place and are reported to the Board. All investment decisions are supported by detailed financial modelling using financial assumptions set out in the Group’s Investment Policy.

Examples of Board decision making in the year include:

Employee engagement

Our people form a key part of our corporate strategy, we have a commitment to equip our people to ensure they have the skills, tools, support and empowerment they need to do what needs to be done to serve our customers. We regularly benchmark our salaries and benefits to ensure that they remain competitive. We

have an employee forum, Our People’s Voice, which meets monthly, The forum acts as the official staff consultative body for our people across the organisation. We also hold the Investors in People accreditation.

Examples of engagement with employees during the year include:

Supplier relationships

Good relationships with suppliers are key to us being able to deliver our services to our customers. These are managed through dedicated contract managers and supported by our Procurement Manager. We work with our suppliers to develop and build effective relationships.

Examples of engagement with suppliers during the year include:

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Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Customer Engagement

The relationship with our customers is key to our success and is our number one priority in our corporate strategy. We strive to provide an amazing service to all of our customers and continue to look after their home ensuring it is safe and secure. We ensure that the customer’s voice is heard through a variety of initiatives to help us improve our services and deliver value for money.

Examples of engagement with customers during the year include:

Communities and Environment

We actively consider our effect on the wider communities and the environment. In addition to providing a large portfolio of mixed tenure housing and associated estate management services, we go beyond the bricks and mortar, to focus on the people who live in our homes and the wider communities in which they live. Our homes are the starting point to help people achieve whatever they want to and our wider service offering is continuing to grow. This now includes more training and employability support services which means we can support even more people in our communities.

Business Conduct

The Group strives to maintain a reputation for high standards of business conduct. The Group has the top governance grade (G1) as assessed by the Regulator of Social Housing and undertakes an annual assessment of compliance against the regulatory standard. In addition, the Group also carries out an annual assessment of compliance with the adopted code of Governance.

The Group has core policies in place which the directors agree to uphold. This includes a code of conduct, Group standing orders, financial regulations and a confidential reporting (whistleblowing) policy.

The directors also complete declarations of interest disclosures to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. Collectively, these measures help to ensure that the Board acts in the best interest of the Group at all times.

Below are some of our activities in the year:

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Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Strategic risk overview

Risk evaluation remains integral to the formulation and delivery of our business strategy. Our Board and Executive Management Team has maintained its programme of risk review throughout the year.

The board revisited its assessment of risk appetite again at its May 2023 strategy session.

Operational and project specific risk maps help in support of the corporate risk register – this work has driven increased risk awareness into operational teams, providing another level of assurance that our staff are thinking about what could impede successful delivery of targets and what can be done to manage these risks.

Our Audit and Risk Committee performs a detailed risk management scrutiny function on behalf of the Board. The most significant risks currently facing the organisation are shown in the table below. These, along with the other main risks captured on the corporate risk register, are reviewed by the Board on at least a quarterly basis and at every Audit and Risk Committee meeting. We continue to map our risks against external sector information including the regulators sector risk profile.

These risks link closely to the work we do to stress-test our financial plans against a range of adverse scenarios. For each of the scenarios we identify the necessary mitigations and early warning triggers which are continuously monitored and reported quarterly to the Finance and Development Committee. These triggers allow us to respond quickly if necessary.

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Risk area Consequences Mitigation Control measures
Energy costs Many contributing factors have
driven up energy costs
increasing our costs and
possiblyresultingin shortages.		 Prudent business plan assumption
in the short term; investigating
ways to reduce usage.		 Close monitoring of contract
and market conditions.
Cost and income
inflation divergence		 Costs have risen over recent
years with uncertainty over
prospects for inflation;
introduction of rent cap in 2023
and uncertainty over future
rent settlements.
Stress testing of business plan,
early warning triggers monitored
and reported to Finance
Committee and Board including
inflation sensitivities. Business plan
predicated on CPI after current
settlement.		 Performance management.
Board and committee
reporting.
Interest rate increases
on new and existing
debt/availability of
funding		 Acis has an element of variable
rate debt and a refinancing
requirement. Higher rates will
result in increased funding costs
High levels of fixed rates on existing
debt with newest round of funding
forward fixed. Strategy for
managing refinancing risk.		 Risk adverse treasury policy.
Stress testing with triggers.
Regular reporting to
committee includes cash
forecasting.
Reduced demand for
student
accommodation		 External factors such as
Coronavirus and changes in
student approach to studies
could lead to a short-term
reduction in occupancy and
income.		 Strong established relationship
with both Universities; close early
monitoring of bookings; stock
assessment taken by third party
experts on a periodic basis.		 Performance management.
Financial planning and
modelling.
Financial impact of net
carbon zero agenda		 To achieve the Government
targets for net carbon zero
there will be a requirement to
improve the energy efficiency
of our homes the costs of
retrofit are significant.		 Factor low carbon into new
development design; collect EPC
data for all existing stock; New
asset management strategy sets
path for no regrets thermal
measures.		 Collection of all necessary base
data to make an informed
decision; consultants engaged
to model financial impact.
Stress testing scenario to
demonstrate the impact.
Ability to meet the
financial plan and
maintain covenant
compliance		 Impact of external changes or
an unexpected event could
impact negatively on the
business plan.		 Stress testing of business plan, early
warning triggers monitored and
reported to Finance Committee and
Board which aim to explore all
possible scenarios.
Committee/Board scrutiny of
monthly accounts, cashflows
and triggers.
Strong financial planning.
Strong governance and Board
reporting.
Health and safety
compliance		 Failure of health and safety
responsibilities resulting in a
failure to keep customers and
others safe.		 Good track record of compliance
across all statutory duties; routine
performance monitoring; working
towards a ISO45001 equivalent
health and safety management
framework.		 Performance management.
Board and committee
reporting.
Cost of living impact on
Acis and its customers
Increased pressure on rent
arrears and bad debts due to
unemployment, energy cost
rises and the wider cost of living
crisis.
Prudent business plan
assumptions; proactive but
empathetic arrears management;
increased signposting to additional
support where necessary.		 Performance management;
scenario testing models the
impact which is monitored
through early warning triggers.
Poor
customer/stakeholder
perception		 Customer/stakeholders view
our actions negatively resulting
in reputational damage.		 KPI monitoring and surveying in
place; customer first approach;
customer involvement and
feedbackpromoted.		 Reporting of stakeholder
contact and customer
satisfaction to Board.
Climate change Impact of extreme weather
events which have a financial or
operational impact on the
business.
Insurances in place which are
revised regularly for coverage;
understanding of risk areas
beingfurther developed.		 Early warning measures and
business continuity planning.
Development and sales Impact of the economic
environment on the
development and sales
programme		 Structure deals to protect as
much as possible against price
changes and allow tenure
change		 Close oversight of
development and sale
performance by committee.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Financial Performance

The reported results for 2022/23 evidence continued strong financial performance.

Income

Group turnover reduced by £4.6m to £40.1m in 2022/23 due to a reduction of £6.9m in turnover generated by property sales activities comprising both shared ownership first tranche sales as well as properties developed for outright sale, following completion of some large schemes in the prior year.

Rent receivable from general needs, sheltered and shared ownership properties increased to £29.0m (2022: £27.4m) due to rent increases and increased stock numbers. The associated losses due to empty properties reduced slightly again this year to £0.31m (2022: £0.34m).

When setting rents the Group ensures that rents remain affordable taking account of local factors and we ensure that all rents comply with the Regulator of Social Housing’s rent standard. The rent standard allows for an element of flexibility and the Group has elected to apply a ten percent tolerance to the target rent of its supported housing and a five percent tolerance to the target rent on its general needs housing. With these tolerances applied, rents remain below affordable rents levels and within the local housing allowances in the areas in which we operate, demonstrating affordability. Applying the tolerance allows the Group to remain financially viable whilst it strives to deliver additional affordable homes for more customers, in keeping with its corporate objectives.

Net Surplus

Ongoing cost efficiency continues to be embedded within our reported results. Our costs per unit benchmark particularly well against the sector as a whole, further details are available in the Value for Money Statement section of these accounts.

Group net surplus decreased to £5.0m in 2022/23 down from £6.4m last year. Again primarily driven by a reduced property sales programme with surpluses from these activities being down by over £1m on the previous year.

Surpluses generated by the Group are reinvested back into the stock primarily through a programme of capital major component replacements.

Statement of Financial Position

The Group Statement of Financial Position saw a net addition of £15.0m (2022: £10.6m) tangible fixed assets through the year. This is after taking account of new housing additions of £14.2m (2022: £11.6m) and works to existing stock of £8.3m (2022: £6.0m).

The Group has a fully secured revolving credit facility in place with an undrawn balance of £11.6m (2022: £16.1m) plus an additional £10m forward fixed, fully secured, facility which is due to be drawn in the coming financial year.

Future financial performance

Our financial results exhibit a strong and consistent trend. We want to ensure that we can make decisions about customer services delivery and asset investment from a position of choice and strength.

Our financial plan aligns with our corporate strategy, which emphasises the need for ongoing operational efficiency to underpin service delivery, for growth in our housing portfolio, for greater partnership working to deliver more and for our continued commitment to our customers. The ambition for 2023/24 and beyond is therefore to remain on a path of continuous financial strength whilst continuing to build on all our strategic priorities.

Commercial strength is fundamental to the achievement of our broader objectives and delivery of healthy surpluses is vital to our success. Increased financial capacity leads to increased investment options – we need to evidence to our customers and stakeholders how financial strength has a direct and positive influence on our social value and particularly in the current environment, our ability to meet the demand for new housing provision.

Achievement of our goals is dependent on sound financial management at all levels of the organisation. We have made good strides with raising the profile of financial management within our business, and we have ambition to continue ratcheting up this work so that finance becomes an enabler of business transformation. We believe that it’s right and natural for financial awareness and responsibility to be at the heart of all our daily actions and activities.

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Environmental, Social and Governance

Acis has a strong track record of delivering social value for our customers and the wider communities in which we operate. Whilst others have cut back, we have continued to grow our offer so that we can provide more services and help more people in our communities. We are conscious of our environmental impact and are focused on achieving EPC C or above for all of our properties. We also continue to put the foundations in place to achieve net zero carbon but we are aware of the challenges that the social housing sector and wider society will face in achieving this. We are working hard to get our base data

right so that we can charter a course for a no regrets strategy to improving the thermal efficiency of our existing social housing stock.

The Group has strong governance arrangements in place and an embedded internal controls framework. We hold the top governance grade (G1) as assessed by the Regulator of Social Housing.

In the coming year, we will be looking at ways to improve the reporting, on all the great work that we do under the ESG agenda.

Below is some of the work that we are doing across these areas, the table also includes signposting to more information where it is included in these financial statements.

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Treasury and Liquidity

Treasury management

Acis operates a treasury function within its core finance team, with responsibility for the management of liquidity, interest rate risk and counterparty risks. These activities are governed by a treasury management policy and strategy which are approved each year by the Board. The policy is based on industry good practice standards and was constructed with the assistance of expert external advice.

The organisation adopts a risk-based approach to liquidity and interest rate management. The overriding objective is the avoidance of unacceptable risk. Surplus cash is invested with approved banks and counterparties in line with the Treasury Management Policy (ensuring the preservation of capital rather than maximising returns). The Group is funded from a number of sources including long-term loans, retained earnings and grant (primarily provided by government agencies). All funding is in sterling and, therefore, there is no currency exchange exposure to the Group.

Loans and credit structure

Acis Group Limited (‘AGL’) is the parent company of the Group and the main borrowing vehicle. As at 31 March 2023 the Group had committed facilities of £208.0 million (2022: £224.7 million). Drawn loans as at 31 March 2023 totalled £186.4 million (2022: £173.6 million). Current loan facilities are sourced from the banking sector and from a private placement arranged directly with institutional investors and include a revolving credit facility. A significant amount of debt is repayable over the next ten years and in order to deliver its long-term financial plan, the Group will require additional debt facilities to maintain its future operation.

Interest rate management

The organisation has a risk-averse attitude to interest rate movements, and our treasury strategy requires at least 50 per cent of drawn funds to be held on fixed or hedged rates of interest. As at 31 March 2023, 81 per cent of drawn monies were held on this basis (2022: 85 per cent), comprising a combination of standard fixed

rate debt and cancellable fixed rate debt. All such hedges are embedded within loan agreements; the organisation does not enter into free-standing derivatives and so has no mark to market exposure. Interest and related expense on our loans was £7.4m across the Group during the year (2022: £6.9m). The weighted average cost of funds as at 31 March 2023 was 4.30 per cent (2022: 4.02 per cent)

Covenant compliance

AGL’s loan facility financial covenants are based on interest cover and gearing ratios. Interest cover is calculated on Operating Surplus after adding back housing property depreciation and includes surpluses from property sales and capital improvements expenditure. Gearing is based on total debt compared to the balance sheet historic cost of housing assets. Covenants are monitored monthly, reported to the Board and Finance and Development Committee on a quarterly basis and annually to the finance providers. Covenants were met as at the balance sheet date and we expect this to continue to be the case going forward.

Liquidity and cash flow

Surplus funds from operations and drawdowns from the revolving credit facility are used for the purposes of funding new development activity. Any additional cash balances are placed on short-term deposit. The organisation will only deposit monies with institutions which comply with stringent Treasury Management Policy parameters, based on credit rating agency assessments of financial strength. The combination of internal cash generated by the organisation, cash held by the organisation, new undrawn facilities and a revolving credit facility are sufficient to fund the Group’s anticipated development programme for at least the next eighteen months.

Governing Document

Acis Group Limited is a company limited by guarantee governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association dated 14 October 2022. It is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission.

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Aci5 Group Limited Value for Money Statement

Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Acis Group Limited

Value for Money Statement for the financial year ended 31 March 2023

Introduction

Value for money (VFM) isn’t just about saving money. It’s about making sure that whenever we spend, we do so wisely and with customer benefits in mind. Every day, our people strive to deliver better outcomes for our customers and to ensure they see our services as good value for money. We continually reinvest our income to improve the homes and services we provide across our communities.

Our VFM approach is underpinned by the corporate objectives we set out in our 2021-2024 strategy. This ensures we use our resources and assets in the most efficient way to deliver the best possible service for our customers.

Our headline corporate objectives are:

Our Customers - Provide the best possible service to the people in our communities.

Our Partnerships - Work with others to grow the services we offer and improve the lives of those living in our homes and the communities in which we work

Our efficiency - Deliver an efficient and customerfocused service that drives value for money through the way we work.

Our Growth - Grow our organisation, creating financial efficiency and strength to support more customers.

Benchmarking

We set ourselves challenging targets across all our business activities and benchmark these against our peers. This helps us understand our costs and performance as we strive to improve. It also means that we are held to account to deliver VFM by our Board and our customers.

We recognise there will undoubtedly be variations across the peer group based on size, location and the services delivered. Even taking these factors into account, no two providers are the same. We believe that benchmarking across the whole sector is the most transparent approach which provides the largest possible data set.

In this report, we compare our 2022 / 23 cost per unit data and regulator metrics to the 2021 / 22 sector results from the Regulator of Social Housing global accounts – which includes data from 204 providers. Because of the high inflation operating environment, these benchmarks are likely to have increased when the 2022 / 23 data becomes available. All of our benchmarking sources are identified in the individual tables throughout this report.

Our social housing costs

We’ve always been a lean organisation compared to our peers. This is evidenced by our cost per unit metrics, which we use to benchmark our cost base against the rest of the sector. Despite this solid starting position, we continue to challenge ourselves to ensure that we provide the best possible quality for our customers and that we do this as efficiently as possible.

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Housing CPU
Headline Social		 CPU
Management		 CPU
Service Charge		 Maintenance
CPU		 Major Repairs
CPU		 Housing CPU
Other Social
Acis Group Result 2022/23 £3,647 £675 £183 £1,055 £1,579 £154
Acis Group Result 2021/22 £3,143 £647 £148 £931 £1,215 £202
Acis Group Result 2020/21 £2,557 £584 £148 £937 £720 £168
Acis Group Result 2019/20 £2,935 £593 £135 £907 £1,183 £117
Acis Group Result 2018/19 £2,841 £538 £137 £921 £1,097 £148
Acis Group Result 2017/18 £2,657 £538 £128 £907 £964 £120
Sector - Top 25% £5,179 £1,453 £828 £1,483 £1,183 £584
Sector - Median £4,133 £1,130 £468 £1,229 £924 £232
Sector - Bottom 25% £3,693 £881 £279 £1,026 £714 £127

CPU = Cost per unit; top 25% equals least efficient; bottom 25% equals most efficient

Sector benchmarks are taken from the 2021/22 global accounts published by the regulator of social housing

= most efficient = relatively efficient

= relatively inefficient = least efficient

This benchmarking demonstrates that we have consistently performed among the most efficient organisations for our costs. We rank in the top 10 per cent of housing providers for total cost, management cost and service cost. Our maintenance costs and other costs are also favourable against our peers, and the 2022 / 23 results are also close to the top 25 per cent of organisations.

Our major repairs spend has always been an outlier, but this is a conscious decision by our Board to invest more heavily to directly benefit our customers and their homes. This is in line with our ethos to provide better homes for our customers. We see this as a positive decision which will deliver benefits in the longer term for both our organisation and our customers.

Our performance and areas for improvement

Our Board sets and approves operational targets at the start of the financial year. Our leadership team, committees, and Board monitor these closely throughout the year. We take corrective action where performance doesn’t align with targets. A selection of these operational indicators which demonstrate our performance against these targets and against our peers is set out on the following page:

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

KPI Priorities 21/22
Performance		 Benchmark 22/23 - Current
Performance		 22/23 - Current
Target		 23/24
Target		 24/25
Target		 25/26
Target
Overall % Satisfaction Our Customers 81% 77.5% 76% 85% 83% 85% 87%
% Tenancies Lasting
More Than 12 Months		 Our Customers 95.7% N/A 95.4% 95% 95% 95% 95%
Gas Safety Compliance Our Customers 100% 99.9% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
% Satisfaction with
Repairs in last 12
months		 Our Customers N/A N/A 81% N/A 80% 82% 84%
% Satisfaction with
overall repairs and
maintenance services		 Our Customers 71% 86.4% 75% 78% N/A N/A N/A
% Stakeholders Engaged Our partnerships N/A N/A 75.6% 50% 60% 70% 70%
% Satisfaction that rent
offers Value for Money		 Our efficiency 88% N/A 86% 88% 90% 90% 90%
Rent Arrears Our efficiency 3.4% 2.8% 2.7% 4.5% 3.50% 3.30% 3.1%
Void Loss % Our efficiency 0.66% 1.08% 0.75% 0.80% 0.78% 0.77% 0.76%
Void Turnaround Times
(days)		 Our efficiency 41 N/A 28.6 28 26 25 24
% Days Lost to Sickness
Absence		 Our efficiency N/A
4.27% 3.87% 3.90% N/A N/A N/A
% Voluntary Staff
Turnover		 Our efficiency N/A
31% 13.2% 23.8% N/A N/A N/A
Student Occupancy Our efficiency 81% N/A 81% 80% 88% 94% 96%
Homes Handed Over Our Growth 139 N/A 100 200 150 150 150
Loan Covenant
Compliance		 Our Growth Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Benchmarks are taken from the Housemark pulse report which includes data from 171 providers.

Our customer satisfaction has always been lower than we’d like, despite benchmarking similar, or higher than our peers. Addressing this is one of our corporate priorities and continues to be a focus for us in our planning. We know our repairs service is key for our customers, and is the top influencer for their overall satisfaction with us. We have worked hard in the year to make improvements in this area by extending our operating hours, implementing more efficient systems, and rolling out repairs on demand.

All these improvements are aimed at improving our service for customers and realising efficiencies. We're pleased customers are recognising this, as we’ve seen a 4% increase in overall satisfaction scores for repairs. There are more details on these improvements in the next section of this report.

While this has not yet translated into overall satisfaction, we’re sure it’s only a matter of time. We have reprofiled our overall satisfaction targets over the coming years to recognise this.

We have also changed our repairs satisfaction metric to give us a more realistic picture of our performance in this area over the last 12 months. We now ask customers ‘how satisfied are you with the repair you have had in the last 12 months?’ instead of ‘how satisfied are you with overall repairs and maintenance services?’, this shows even higher satisfaction as does our transactional data.

Our lettings and arrears performance has been extremely strong, outperforming our targets in all areas, throughout what has been a challenging year. We’re also pleased to see our people sickness and turnover starting to reduce from the high levels we experienced in 2021 / 22.

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Achievements and challenges in 2022 / 23

And we’re receiving around 600 text messages per month too – which provides another digital route for customers to engage with us, at a time and in a way that’s convenient for them.

Our Customers

Customer Service Centre

We’ve made changes to our Customer Service Centre opening hours to help us be there for customers when they need us. We have also added a number of routes for customers to interact with us digitally to make this even easier. These new digital channels have reduced email and call volumes, but, we are now having more interactions with customers within the same cost base.

Digital customer interaction

We now have over 2,900 customers signed up for the MyAcis Portal, enabling them to interact with us digitally when it suits them and manage their tenancy online. This also provides us with another platform to directly engage with customers which has proved successful in generating responses to research requests. We’re seeing around 470 contacts per month through this channel, including from shared owners which is helping us to connect better with this customer group.

Our Live Chat function is also seeing increased usage with around 200 customer interactions per month. This channel provides support for customers between 5pm and 9pm, when our customer contact centre phone lines are closed.

Your Voice

We have continued our programme of Your Voice activities to ensure we hear our customers’ voice, which enables us to use this feedback to tailor our services. This included a “Love Your Street Day”, helping residents to take pride in their neighbourhoods. This activity also resulted in two further customers joining our Customer Voice Panel to help shape our customer offer.

Externally funded support

A key driver for us is to ensure that we deliver the wider services that our customers need. We do this through generating additional external income to offer those services and drive even further value for money. This year we received almost £1.5m income to deliver across many contracts and have secured even more income to deliver new services next year.

This has enabled us to work with over 4,000 people and support 1485 people within our communities, by providing a range of interventions including training, wellness activities, support groups, 1-2-1 support and employment support. Some of the outcomes from this support are listed below:

Our Efficiency

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

Building expertise

We’ve built our expertise across the organisation to improve efficiency. This is particularly true in our corporate functions, adding in-house conveyancing and recruitment business partner roles to reduce third-party costs and improve quality.

Within our property services directorate, we created a new Commercial team to help drive a commercial ethos and achieve greater value for money. As well as helping us transition through changes with our material supply contractors, the Commercial team has procured a number of regional sub-contractors at reduced rates, as well as direct supply of major components. We’ve managed our suppliers and contractors hard, ensuring value for money in the longer term.

We’re committed to recruiting for cultural alignment – ensuring our new starters fit well with the organisation and align with our values, principles and behaviours.

Our benefits

We continued to review our benefits package – and at the same time introduced a further salary sacrifice scheme for pensions. This has generated savings for the organisation and our people. Offering enhanced benefits like this ultimately helps us attract and retain the right talent. This should help us to reduce turnover among our colleagues beyond the reduction of 7% we’ve already seen this year .

Accuserv

We’ve mobilised Accuserv (our end-to-end repairs system) to ensure repairs and contractor costs are visible and more easily controlled. The system allows us to measure engineer productivity, assess projects in real-time to prevent rebooking appointments and reduces administration associated with contractor invoices and payments.

Repairs

We have increased customer satisfaction with our repairs service to 75.3%, following the roll out of our Repairs on Demand service. This allows our operatives to control their own diary and for customers to book repairs directly, we have also

implemented text messaging to deliver notifications and reminders about appointments. The new model reduces time spent attending appointments that we can’t access, as customers are well-informed about our planned attendance.

Customer support & rent arrears

By supporting our customers, we have outperformed our targets for tenancy sustainment and void rent loss, outturning at 95.4% and 0.75% respectively. We have also reduced rent arrears from 3.4% last year to 2.7% and reduced our time to turnaround empty properties from 41 days last year to less than 29 days. In a particularly challenging external environment, this performance is extremely positive.

Acis Students

The 10-year joint venture arrangements for managing our student accommodation ended in the year, this gave us an opportunity to review how we deliver services to customers at Raleigh Park, Nottingham and The Trigon, Sheffield. We brought the joint venture to an end and transferred the management of this accommodation back into the Group. This gives us much more control over the service our customers receive, reduces cost and allows us to review processes to unlock further efficiencies.

Our Growth

CLIP

We transferred CLIP into the group, which saw us bring around 600 learners and 30 additional colleagues on board. Not only does CLIP enable us to offer more support to customers we already work with in Gainsborough and Market Rasen, it also widens our reach to the coastal community in Mablethorpe. CLIP also allows us to deliver other interventions for customers in-house.

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

One Team

After a period of consolidating and bedding in, we have started to roll out our Ways of Working across CLIP, Riverside and Acis Students. Embedding our principles in all areas of the organisation allows us to streamline some processes, and ultimately deliver a more consistent customer experience, regardless of where a person accesses our services.

Acis Homeplus

During the year, the Board took the difficult decision to close Acis HomePlus. This was done with a heavy heart, as it was clear that its valuable services were still needed by parts of the community to enable vulnerable customers to stay in their homes. However, after a difficult few years, it was not possible for Acis to continue to support the entity, so we ended the HomePlus activities on 31 March 2023.

New Build and Sales

We’ve completed several shared ownership and the first outright property sales at Bowling Green Road, Gainsborough; a desirable property location where we’re working to build a strong community in our heartland. Our purpose-built community centre is also underway to enable the residents in this area to access the services and support they need. We also completed our redevelopment of North Parade, Gainsborough.

Overall sales performance continues to be strong, and we are holding very few properties which are available for sale at the end of this financial year.

Our Partnerships

Stakeholder management

We’ve grown the numbers of stakeholders that we are engaging with by 300 to 1,200, utilising the same team to increase the reach of our messages and grow our opportunities. We have actively engaged with over 75% of these stakeholders in the year and have implemented a new reporting system to reduce duplication and increase efficiency. This amounts to more than 2,200 engagements in the year.

We have also embedded key account management arrangements to manage relationships with 400 key stakeholders across funders and influencers.

Investment

We secured £110,000 in investment from West Lindsey District Council for young people’s education support via their UK Shared Prosperity Fund. This funding has helped us to continue a pilot successor programme to our hugely successful CareerNet programme which has run over the last five years.

Value for Money Metrics

We report and monitor our performance against the Regulator of Social Housing’s Value for Money Metrics. These metrics increase transparency and help to compare our performance with other housing associations. Our relative performance against these metrics can be seen on the next page.

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Acis Group Limited Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

2020/21 Actual 2021/22 Actual 2022/23 Actual 2022/23 Budget 2023/24 Forecast 2024/25 Forecast 2025/26 Forecast Top 25% Median Bottom 25%
Metric
1) Reinvestment % 5.9% 6.6% 7.9% 10.2% 11.3% 7.9% 6.6% 8.6% 6.5% 4.7%
- Efficiency
2a) New supply 2.2% 1.7% 1.3% 2.9% 2.3% 1.9% 2.1% 2.1% 1.4% 0.7%
delivered (social)
% - Effectiveness
2b) New supply 0.09% 0.00% 0.00%
delivered
0.55% 0.39% 0.14% 0.19% 0.33% 0.06% 0.06%
(non-social) % -
Effectiveness
3) Gearing % - 32.1% 44.1% 53.1%
65.8% 62.0% 63.6% 62.8% 63.3% 64.1% 62.8%
Efficiency
4) EBITDA MRI 214.1% 180.9% 134.0% 129.5% 134.2% 127.2% 126.1% 198% 146% 107%
interest cover % -
Efficiency
5) Headline social £2,557 £3,143 £3,647 £3,731 £3,654 £3,820 £3,883 £3,700 £4,150 £5,180
housing cost per
unit – Economy
6a) Operating 24.4% 26.9% 26.7% 25.6% 23.7% 28.2% 28.9% 25.4% 20.5% 14.3%
margin % -
Efficiency
6b) Operating 28.5% 23.3% 17.6%
margin (social
25.4% 27.4% 25.2% 24.6% 26.3% 27.5% 27.9%
housing lettings)
% - Efficiency
6c)
Operating		 22.6% 9.4% -6.8%
margin
(other

social
housing		 25.4% 19.4% 24.4% 20.5% 26.0% 11.2% 11.2%
activity) % -
Efficiency
6d) Operatingmargin 46.0% 21.3% 4.1%
(non-social housing
24.7% 28.4% 29.7% 30.3% 15.5% 33.4% 36.7%
activities
% - Efficiency
7) ROCE % -Efficiency 4.1% 4.9% 4.0% 3.9% 4.0% 4.1% 5.6% 4.2% 3.3% 2.7%

Benchmarks are taken from the 2021/22 global accounts published by the regulator of social housing which includes data from 204 organisations

= most efficient = relatively efficient = relatively inefficient = least efficient

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Acis Group Limited

Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report (continued)

How we performed

Reinvestment and new supply

In the year we invested £14 million to provide new affordable homes through our development programme. We took handover of 56 homes for rent and 33 for shared ownership. And we started building many more new homes. We also invested over £8 million in our existing housing stock.

Our VFM metric for reinvestment in the year was 7.9%. This was an increase on previous years, due to increased levels of investment in our existing housing stock. Our reinvestment and new supply metrics did fall short of our targets. This was due to delays in new build delivery and handovers, with much of this moving back into following years.

During the year, because of the difficult economic conditions and primarily increasing interest costs, the Board revisited the business plan and were forced to scale back some of our development ambitions. In the new business plan, we have reduced the investment in new supply but maintained our investment in existing housing stock. This is a recognition of how important this is for our customers and in meeting energy efficiency targets.

Debt

Our year end gearing is slightly higher than target. This is primarily due to changes in our development programme which resulted in handovers, and therefore receipts, from homes developed for sale being delayed into the new financial year, while most of the build costs were still incurred.

While we were reasonably well protected against increasing interest costs with relatively high levels of fixed rate debt, these did have an impact this year. These increased interest costs were offset by slightly lower capital spend, resulting in our interest cover metric being slightly better than the target we set at the beginning of the year.

Our desire to develop and invest in existing assets means we have higher levels of debt when compared to our peers. This results in higher gearing and lower interest cover, although this is a conscious decision of our Board.

Efficiency

The majority of our VFM metrics for the cost and operating margin metrics performed better than target, and we continue to benchmark favourably when compared to our peers. We’re exceptionally pleased with this performance in a challenging economic environment.

We fell slightly short of our target for the margin generated from our non-social housing activities. This was primarily caused by increasing utility costs which impacted on the cost base of our student accommodation. We have included a prudent forecast for utility costs in the next financial year which will further reduce margins before they are forecast to return to more normal levels.

Our non-social housing surpluses remain strong, and we are reinvesting them into our social housing portfolio to further improve our customers’ homes.

Looking ahead

For us, delivering value for money doesn’t stand alone. It’s our business as usual. As we move into the new financial year, we are already consulting with staff about some important changes to our education and skills activities as well as looking to explore the outsourcing of some capital investment works to gain greater cost efficiency in the year ahead.

We are constantly looking for ways to get the most benefit for our customers in everything we do, whether that’s how we buy our materials, or turning the lights off when we leave a meeting room.

This mindset will set us up for success leading into the next stage of our journey, we are already deep into the planning for our new corporate strategy and VFM will continue to play a huge part in this, ensuring we continually strive for the most efficient, best quality outcomes for our customers.

We are excited to launch our new corporate strategy soon.

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Aci5 Group Limited Report of the Directors

Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors

Board members and executive directors

The Board members and executive directors of the group are set out on page 3.

This year there have been changes to the Board, as follows:

With our Chair-Mike Kay and Vice Chair-Graham Ward both approaching the end of their respective tenures in September 2023, they stepped down from their roles at the September 2022 annual general meeting but remain on the board for a final year to support the transition. Existing board members Kathryn Smart was appointed to the role of Chair and Carole Hodson to the role of Vice Chair.

In September 2022 we said goodbye to Suzanne Bolton following the final staircasing of her shared ownership property, Suzanne had served on the board since January 2020. Following a rigorous recruitment exercise, we were pleased to welcome Paul Wilkin and Julie Haywood to the board, bringing with them extensive experience.

The Board is continuing its journey to embrace diversity and inclusion and has worked with Housing Diversity Network to offer Trainee Board member positions, which is currently supporting one aspirant Board member.

The executive directors are the Chief Executive, the Finance Director, the Director of Property Services and the Director for Customer Excellence. There have been no changes to the executive Directors in the year.

Group insurance policies indemnify Board members and officers against liability when acting for the Group.

Service contracts

The Chief Executive and the other executive directors are employed on the same terms as other employees with their notice periods ranging from three to six months.

Employees

We recognise that the success of our business depends on the quality of our managers and our people. It is the policy of the group that training, career development and promotion opportunities should be available to all employees.

We are committed to equal opportunities and, in particular, we support the employment of disabled people, both in recruitment and in retention of employees who become disabled whilst employed by the Group. The association retains ‘positive about disabled people’ and Investors In People accreditation, in recognition of its commitment in these areas.

The Board is aware of its responsibilities on all matters relating to health and safety. The Group has prepared detailed health and safety policies and provides staff training and education on health and safety matters. We also have a Health and Safety Steering Group to engage with staff across the organisation and enable positive change to be brought forward.

Donations

The Group made no charitable or political donations during the course of the year.

Financial risk management objectives and policies

The Group uses various financial instruments, including loans and cash, and other items such as rent arrears and trade creditors that arise directly from its operations. The main purpose of these financial instruments is to raise finance for the Group’s operations.

The existence of these financial instruments exposes the Group to a number of financial risks. The main risks arising from the Group’s financial instruments are considered by the directors to be interest rate risk, liquidity risk and credit risk. The Board reviews and agrees policies for managing each of these risks and they are summarised below.

Interest rate risk

The Group finances its operations through a mixture of retained surpluses and bank borrowings. The Group’s exposure to interest rate fluctuations on its borrowings is managed by the use of both fixed and variable rate facilities.

Liquidity risk

The Group seeks to manage financial risk by ensuring sufficient liquidity is available to meet foreseeable needs and investing cash assets safely and profitably.

Credit risk

The Group’s principal credit risk relates to tenant arrears. This risk is managed by providing support to eligible tenants with their applications for benefits and closely monitoring the arrears of self-funding tenants. Welfare reform, the resulting changes to the benefits system and the current cost of living crisis have been identified as a key risks to the Group. The challenges faced by these are continually being assessed in light of new best practice and local benchmarking.

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Emissions and Energy Consumption

In line with the Companies (Directors’ Report) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Energy and Carbon Report) Regulations 2018 our energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are set out below.

Acis Group Ltd Energy Use and Associated Greenhouse Gas Emissions

----- Start of picture text -----
Year end Mar-23 Year end Mar-22
Total Energy consumption (kWh) 4,780,743 3,150,194
Emissions from combustion of gas (Scope 1) (tCO2e) 72 82
Emissions from transport (Scope 1) (tCO2e) 418 404
Emissions from purchased electricity (Scope 2) (tCO2e) 471 180
Emissions from business travel in employee-owned
vehicles where the company is responsible for 60 55
purchasing the fuel or electricity (Scope 3) (tCO2e)
Total gross emissions (tCO2e) 1,021 721
tCO2e per staff number 3.5 2.7
Renewable Energy generated and then exported (kWh) 278,998 15,550
Renewable Energy Generated and then
54 3
exported (tCO2e)
Emissions avoided by purchasing renewable electricity
0 180
(tCO2e)
Total annual net emissions (tCO2e) 967 538
----- End of picture text -----

Acis Group Ltd Energy Use and Associated Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Company Breakdown

----- Start of picture text -----
Electricity Renewables Gas Company Fleet Grey Fleet
kWh tco2e kWh kWh tco2e kWh tco2e kWh tco2e Total kWh Total tco2e
Acis 2,407,593 466 278,998 390,724 71 1,674,419 418 218,025 52 4,969,758 1,007
Riverside 10,470 2 0 0 21,471 5 31,941 7
Clip 17,671 3 4,899 1 10,648 3 33,218 7
Totals 2,435,733.86 471.02 278,998.23 395,622.66 72.22 1,674,418.66 418.02 250,143.61 59.79 5,034,917.02 1,021.05
----- End of picture text -----

Group structure changes

Total gross emissions for the Group have significantly increased in the year due to a large increase in electricity consumption. This is consistent with the number of MPANs in the Group this year as a result of changes in the group structure which includes new companies and the transfer of our student activities into the Group which has 74 associated MPAN’s.

Quantification and Reporting Methodology

The boundaries of this report are based on operational control. We report our emissions with reference to the latest Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (GHG Protocol). In accordance with the 2018 Regulations, the energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions are for those within the UK only that come under the operational control boundary. The 2022 UK

Government GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting published by the UK Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) are used to convert energy use in our operations to emissions of CO2e.

Carbon emission factors for purchased electricity calculated according to the ‘location-based grid average’ method. This reflects the average emission of the grid where the energy consumption occurs.

Data sources include billing, invoices and the Group’s internal systems. At the time of reporting, there were multiple sites with several months of missing energy data, the approach to estimate this data was to either use average monthly figures, or assume zero consumption dependent on the site. For transport data where actual usage data (e.g. litres) was unavailable conversions were made using average fuel consumption factors to estimate the usage.

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Intensity Ratio

We have chosen to report our gross emissions against staff number. The value for the intensity ratio was 3.5 tCO2e per staff member.

Energy Efficiency Actions

The Group has implemented the following energy efficiency actions during the reporting period:

The Group held £60,315k (2022: £55,855k) in the Income and Expenditure reserve as at 31 March 2023. Free reserves, i.e. unrestricted funds excluding tangible fixed assets net of grant, were -£188,335k (2022: -£177,855k) at 31 March 2023, as -£292,561k (2022: -£276,844k) is represented by fixed assets and can only be realised by their disposal. The funding facility is secured against the housing property fixed assets.

Post balance sheet events

There were no post balance sheet events.

Going concern

The Group’s activities, its current financial position and factors likely to affect its future development are set out within the Operating and Financial Review. The Group has in place long-term debt facilities, a revolving credit facility, cash reserves, and generates positive cash from core operations.

These elements combine to provide sufficient resources to finance committed reinvestment and development programmes, along with the Group’s day to day operations.

The Group has a long-term business plan which shows that it is able to service its debt facilities whilst continuing to comply with lenders’ covenants. The business plan also includes multi variance stress testing scenarios and trigger points which are monitored and reported on regularly to the Board and Finance and Development Committee.

On this basis, the Board has a reasonable expectation that the Group has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future, being a period of at least twelve months after the date on which the report and financial statements are signed. For this reason, it continues to adopt the going concern basis in the financial statements.

Reserves are retained at levels that allow the group to continue to provide the services that the reserves are intended to support while managing the risks associated with long term expenditure plans. The budget and business plans are approved each year and are set to achieve this.

Other Group companies

Acis Development Services Limited

Acis Development Services Limited was established in October 2010 to provide design and construction services to the Association and undertakes the construction and sale of properties on the open market.

Acis Management Limited

Acis Management Limited is the majority partner in Eione LLP and provides management services.

Eione LLP

Eione LLP was established in January 2013 as a joint venture to provide facilities management services to the student accommodation properties owned by the Association. In August 2022 the contracts came to an end and these services were transferred back into Acis Group Limited. Eione LLP is going through the process of voluntary strike off.

Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited

Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited became responsible for the delivery of all repairs and maintenance activities for the Group in September 2016. From 31st March 2022 all activities undertaken by Prime have been transferred back into Acis Group Limited. Prime is being wound-up.

Acis HomePlus Limited

Acis HomePlus Limited provided home independence services including adaptations to the Group and the private sector. Acis HomePlus Limited commenced trading in November 2019 after changing its name from Acis Housing Limited. As from 31[st] March 2023 Acis HomePlus has ceased to trade and is currently being wound-up.

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Riverside Access and Training Centre CIC

Riverside Training was acquired by the Group in September 2020. Riverside Training delivers training and welfare/social support services alongside employability programmes.

Community Learning in Partnership CIC

Community Learning (CLIP) was acquired by the Group in August 2022. CLIP works with young people and adults who are looking to refresh their skills – for personal development, higher education or work.

Acis Properties Limited

Acis Properties Limited has been dormant throughout the period.

Internal controls assurance

The Board has overall responsibility for establishing and maintaining the whole system of internal control and for reviewing its effectiveness.

This responsibility applies to all organisations within the Group, including those not registered with the Regulator of Social Housing.

The system of internal control is designed to manage, rather than eliminate, the risk of failure to achieve business objectives, and to provide reasonable, and not absolute, assurance against material misstatement or loss.

The process for identifying, evaluating and managing the significant risks faced by the Group is ongoing. The Board receives and considers reports from management on these risk management and control arrangements throughout the year.

Key elements of the control framework include:

A fraud register is maintained and available for review at every meeting of the Audit and Risk Committee.

No fraud has been reported in the year.

The Board cannot delegate ultimate responsibility for the system of internal control, but it can, and has, delegated authority to the Audit and Risk Committee to regularly review the effectiveness of the system of internal control. The Board receives minutes and an update from the committee chair for all Audit and Risk Committee meetings.

Throughout the year, the Audit and Risk Committee have reviewed the effectiveness of the systems of internal controls, including the sources of assurance agreed by the Board as being appropriate for that purpose. The Committee is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to confirm that adequate systems of internal control existed and operated throughout the year.

Governance

Governance and Financial Viability Standard

Acis has designed and implemented a comprehensive approach to the management of regulatory compliance including:

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Assessment of Acis Group Limited’s compliance with the Governance and Viability standard has been made by the Board and there are no areas of noncompliance.

Code of Governance

In accordance with the Governance and Financial Viability Standard as set by the Regulator of Social Housing. Acis Group, in 2022 adopted a bespoke Code of Governance which is heavily based on the National Housing Federation Code of Governance 2020. These requirements do not apply to the non-registered

subsidiary entities of the Group although they do operate within the spirit of the Code. Compliance with the adopted Code of Governance has been upheld by Acis Group Limited throughout the year.

The board has given robust consideration to the effectiveness and conduct of business for all Boards and Committees and is committed to formally reviewing its effectiveness at least every three years. The latest review was undertaken in January 2021.

In December 2015 the NHF published its voluntary code in relation to Mergers, Group Structures and Partnerships. Acknowledging the strategic aim to grow our organisation, and to create financial efficiency and strength through actively seeking collaborative working arrangements, the Board formally adopted the code at its meeting held in April 2016. Within the year, the Group made no formal merger proposals to any other party.

Board composition

The Board is made up of ten non- executive members. The Board structure includes the following committees and groups:

Committee /
Group		 Membership Meeting
frequency
2022/23		 Role
Audit and Risk
Committee		 Bruce Kerr (Chair)
Paul Satchwell
Kathryn Smart (until
26/9/22 after being
appointed Board Chair)
Paul Wilkin (Joined 26/9/22)
Russell Stone (Independent
member)		 4 Provides independent scrutiny and
challenge to provide the Board with
assurance.
Ensure that appropriate external audit
arrangements are in place and regularly
evaluated and monitored.
Consideration of audit reports and detailed
review of financial statements.
Seek assurance that appropriate risk
management and assessment techniques are
operated within the Group and performs
detailed scrutiny and evaluation of risk.
Ensures satisfactory internal audit
arrangements operate within the Group and
seek assurance that appropriate systems of
internal control are established and
maintained.
Ensure an adequate system of internal control
is in place.

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Committee /
Group		 Membership Meeting
frequency
2022/23		 Role
Remuneration
and Review
Committee		 Kathryn Smart (Chair Apr-
Sept)
Mike Kay (Chair from Sept)
Graham Ward (Until Feb)
Carole Hodson (From Feb)		 2 Review and recommend
remuneration package of the Chief
Executive and executive directors to
the Board.
Oversight of appraisal of the Chief Executive
and executive directors.
Finance and
Development
Committee		 Paul Satchwell (Chair)
Graham Ward
Ronan O’Hara (Until
26/9/22)
Nigel Whitaker
Paul Wilkin (Joined
26/9/22)		 6 Maintain an overview of the Group’s financial
performance including reviewing and
commenting upon the Group’s management
accounts and financial forecasts.
Consider financial implications of proposals for
areas of major new strategic business
development on behalf of AGL and make
recommendations to the board.
Assist in the development of the Group’s
Treasury Management Strategy and consider
the impact of changes in interest rates on the
same.
Monitor the Group’s existing loan portfolio and
determination of the adopted approach in
relation to the drawdown of new funds, and
the maturity of existing loans.
Consider and approve within delegated
authorities new development proposals or
recommend to Board.
Ensure compliance with the Group’s Financial
regulations in relation to procurement.
Review the Group’s Business Plan and act as an
early warning system to the Board in cases of
concern.
Operations
Committee		 Nigel Whitaker (Chair)
Bruce Kerr
Ronan O’Hara
Carole Hodson
Jamil Tuki (Trainee)
(Resigned 24/3/22)		 5 Ensure the maintenance of adequate and
effective arrangements for internal monitoring
of operational action plans and performance
management processes.
Receive reports and other performance
information in relation to the Group’s
performance on all operational services.
Receive reports in relation to the Group’s
customer communications and feedback.
Report any serious delivery or compliance
failures or concerns to the Group Board.

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Enterprise Committee

Mike Kay (Chair) 3 Carole Hodson Julie Haywood Ronan O’Hara Chris Duncan (Trainee)

Review, monitor and assess the operational and financial performance of the Group’s enterprise activities.

Report any serious delivery or compliance failures or concerns to the Group Board.

Act as a sounding board to the Executive on any areas of potential new business or growth for the Group.

Skills and recruitment

All appointments are approved by the Board with due consideration of skills and supported by an objective and rigorous selection and assessment process. All appointments are made in accordance with the Board’s skills matrix and the recruitment processes focused on securing members with the following appropriate skills:

Housing Sector: in-depth, up-to-date knowledge including the housing needs Acis Group aims to meet, and the opportunities and threats posed by the organisation’s external framework

Resident / Customer: experience of the needs, concerns and aspirations of Acis’ customers/ tenants, community development. Community relations and needs including equal opportunity, disability and managing diversity

Strategic leadership and management: vision, intellectual flexibility, political astuteness and drive for results. Experience of working at a strategic management level in the commercial, public sector, local/central government policy or charitable sector

Analytical: ability to digest large amounts of information, picking out the relevant points and using the information to support strategic decision making

Business Management : successful senior level business, financial and management experience including the ability to monitor performance and hold to account, change management, basic HR/employee engagement, IT and PR and Marketing.

The Board is made up of a range of skilled business people, with both private and public sector backgrounds, ensuring a broad range of skills, competencies, experience and knowledge. Members of the Executive Leadership Team attend the Board and Committees but are not Board members.

Evaluation

All Board members are subject to an individual appraisal conducted by the Chair. The appraisal process assesses contributions made, reviews and identifies training and development needs of the individual, and formalises individual and wider Board goals for the forthcoming year.

The adopted code of governance sets a requirement for appraisal of individual members to be carried out at least every two years. All Board members had an appraisal in the year.

The Board also completed a collective annual review of effectiveness for the year ended 31 March 2023. Committees and the Boards of subsidiary companies also undertook an annual review of effectiveness. An action plan will be drawn up and adopted by the Board to address any elements identified as areas where performance could be enhanced.

Attendance

The attendance at meetings by Board members throughout the year was as follows:

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Acis Group Board

Acis Group Board
Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
Kathryn Smart 7 7
Carole Hodson 7 6
Mike Kay 7 7
Graham Ward 7 7
Nigel Whitaker 7 7
Paul Satchwell 7 7
Ronan O’Hara 7 6
Bruce Kerr 7 7
Suzanne Bolton 3 2 Resigned 26/9/22
Paul Wilkin 3 3 Appointed 26/9/22
Julie Haywood 3 3 Appointed 26/9/22
Chris Duncan(Trainee) 3 1 Appointed 26/9/22
Jamil Tuki(Trainee) 3 2 Appointed 26/9/22 Resigned 24/3/23

Audit and Risk Committee

Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
Bruce Kerr 4 4
Paul Satchwell 4 3
Kathryn Smart 1 1 Stood down after beingappointed board chair 26/9/22
Paul Wilkin 3 3 Appointed 26/9/22
Russell Stone 4 3

Remuneration and Review Committee

Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
Michael Kay 2 2
Graham Ward 1 1 Stood down from committee 9/2/23
Kathryn Smart 2 2
Carole Hodson 1 1 Appointed to committee 9/2/23
Michael Kay
Graham Ward
Kathryn Smart
Carole Hodson		 Possible
2
1
2
1		 Attendance
2
1
2
1		 Stood down from committee 9/2/23
Appointed to committee 9/2/23
Operations Committee
Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
Nigel Whitaker 5 5
Bruce Kerr 5 5
Ronan O’Hara 5 4
Carole Hodson 5 5
Jamil Tuki(Trainee) 3 1 Resigned 24/3/2023

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Finance and Development Committee

Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
Paul Satchwell 6 5
Graham Ward 6 6
Nigel Whitaker 6 6
Ronan O’Hara 2 0 Stood down from committee 26/9/22
Paul Wilkin 4 4 Appointed 26/9/22

Enterprise Committee (New Committee)

Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
Mike Kay 3 3
Carole Hodson 3 3
Ronan O’Hara 3 1
Julie Haywood 3 3
Chris Duncan(Trainee) 3 1

Eione LLP

Eione LLP
Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
Graham Ward 4 4
GregBacon 4 3
Adrian Chamberlain 4 4
Janice Boucher 4 3 Resigned 28/4/23
David Swift 4 4

Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited

Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
GregBacon 1 1
Paul Woollam 1 1
Adrian Chamberlain 1 1
Mark Jones 1 0

Acis Development Services Limited

Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
GregBacon 2 2
Paul Woollam 2 2
Adrian Chamberlain 2 2
Mark Jones 2 1

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Acis Management Limited

Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
GregBacon 1 1
Paul Woollam 1 1
Adrian Chamberlain 1 1
Mark Jones 1 0

Acis HomePlus Limited

Acis HomePlus Limited
Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
GregBacon 2 2
Paul Woollam 2 2
Adrian Chamberlain 2 2
Mark Jones 2 1

Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough CIC

Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
GregBacon 2 2
Paul Woollam 2 2
Adrian Chamberlain 2 2
Mark Jones 2 1

Community Learning in Partnership CIC

Member Maximum
Possible		 Actual
Attendance		 Comment
GregBacon 1 1
Paul Woollam 1 1
Adrian Chamberlain 1 1
Mark Jones 1 1

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Acis Group Limited

Report of the Directors (continued)

Statement of the responsibilities of the Board for the financial statements.

The Board is responsible for preparing the report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

Company law requires the Board to prepare financial statements for each financial year. Under that law the directors have elected to prepare the financial statements in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (UK GAAP) including Financial Reporting Standard 102 (FRS 102) and the Housing SORP 2018 (Statement of Recommended Practice for Registered Social Housing Providers). Under Company law the directors must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs and surplus or deficit of the Association and Group for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the directors are required to:

The Directors are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the Association’s transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the Association and Group and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006 (Part 10, chapter 2, paragraphs 170-180), the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 and the Accounting Direction for Private Registered Providers of Social Housing 2022.

They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Association and the Group and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Directors confirm that:

The Board is responsible for ensuring that the report of the Board is prepared in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting by Registered Social Housing Providers (2018) (SORP). The Board is responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information on the Group’s website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Public Benefit

Acis has considered the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit when reviewing its aims and objectives and planning future activities. All of the Association’s charitable activities, details of which appear in the Operating and Financial Review, are undertaken for the benefit of local communities.

The charitable objectives of the Association are “to carry on the business of providing social housing, other housing, accommodation and assistance to help house people and associated facilities, services and amenities for poor people and for the relief of elderly, disabled (whether physically or mentally) or chronically sick people”.

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Report of the Directors (continued)

Approval

Our vision is to create opportunities for people to have better lives through the provision of better homes and better services. The Association has the following streams in relation to its charitable objects:

The Report of the Board, including the strategic report, was approved by the Board on 31 July 2023 and signed on its behalf by:

Kathryn Smart

Chair

To deliver these objects the Association engages in a comprehensive range of activities including those referred to in the Operating and Financial Review and Strategic Report and also in the annual report to tenants. These activities are underpinned by a comprehensive framework of strategies and policies to maximise the involvement of our tenants and ensure a robust governance structure.

Over 34 per cent of our tenants are aged 60 or over and nearly 34 per cent of our tenants are on full or partial Housing Benefit and over 36 per cent are on Universal Credit. Our tenancies are open to all, subject to Local Authority and local lettings policies which are legitimate, proportionate, rational and justifiable.

Annual general meeting

The Annual General Meeting will be held on 25 September 2023 at Acis House, Bridge Street, Gainsborough.

External auditors

Beevers and Struthers were appointed to audit the Group and Association financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2023.

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Acis Group Limited

Acis Group Limited

Independent Auditor’s Report to the Members of Acis Group Limited

Independent Auditor’s Report to the Members of Acis Group Limited

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Acis Group Limited (the ‘parent Association’) and its subsidiaries (the ‘Group’) for the year ended 31 March 2023 which comprise the Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income, the Association Statement of Comprehensive Income, the Consolidated and Association Statements of Financial Position, the Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity (Reserves), the Association Statement of Changes in Equity (Reserves), the Consolidated Statement of Cash Flow and the notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies in note 2. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including FRS 102 “The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland” (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion, the financial statements:

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the Group and parent Association in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the Board’s use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the Group’s or the parent Association’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the Board with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The other information comprises the information included in the annual report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. The Board is responsible for the other information contained within the annual report. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit, or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

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Acis Group Limited

Independent Auditor’s Report to the Members of Acis Group Limited (continued)

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the Group and the parent Association and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the strategic report or the directors’ report.

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

In addition, we have nothing to report in respect of the following matter where the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

Responsibilities of directors

As explained more fully in the Statement of the responsibilities of the Board for the financial statements set out on page 40, the Board is responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the Board determines is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the Board is responsible for assessing the Group’s and the parent Association’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the Board either intends to liquidate the Group or the parent Association or to cease operations, or has no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s web-site at www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

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Acis Group Limited Independent Auditor’s Report to the Members of Acis Group Limited (continued)

Extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud

We identify and assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to fraud or error, and then design and perform audit procedures responsive to those risks, including obtaining audit evidence that is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

In identifying and addressing risks of material misstatement in respect of irregularities, including fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations, our procedures included the following:

We obtained an understanding of laws, regulations and guidance that affect the Group and parent Association, focusing on those that had a direct effect on the financial statements or that had a fundamental effect on its operations. Key laws, regulations and guidance that we identified included the Companies Act 2006, the Statement of Recommended Practice for registered housing providers: Housing SORP 2018, the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, the Accounting Direction for Private Registered Providers of Social Housing 2022, tax legislation, health and safety legislation, and employment legislation.

identify any unusual or unexpected relationships that might indicate risks of material misstatement due to fraud.

Due to the inherent limitations of an audit, there is an unavoidable risk that we may not have detected some material misstatements in the financial statements, even though we have properly planned and performed our audit in accordance with auditing standards. For example, as with any audit, there remained a higher risk of non-detection of irregularities, as these may involve collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations, or the override of internal controls. We are not responsible for preventing fraud or non-compliance with laws and regulations and cannot be expected to detect all fraud and noncompliance with laws and regulations.

Use of our Report

This report is made solely to the Association’s members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the Association’s members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the Association and the Association’s members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Helen Knowles LLB FCA (Senior Statutory Auditor) For and on behalf of Beever and Struthers Statutory Auditor One Express 1 George Leigh Street Manchester M4 5DL

Date: 19 September 2023

Page 45 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income For the year ended 31 March 2023

----- Start of picture text -----
Note 2023 2022
£'000 £'000
Turnover: continuing activities 3 40,068 44,626
Operating expenditure 3 (29,645) (32,610)
Gain on disposal property, plant, equipment 5 885 560
Gain on acquisition 5 271 -
Operating surplus 4 11,579 12,576
Interest receivable 6 16 -
Interest payable and financing costs 7 (6,650) (6,169)
Surplus before taxation 4,945 6,407
Taxation 12 57 (47)
Surplus for the year after taxation 5,002 6,360
Other comprehensive income
Actuarial gain/ (loss) in the year 9 (457) 1,856
Total comprehensive income for the year 4,545 8,216
Total comprehensive income for the year attributable to:
Non-controlling interests 29 112
Owners of the parent company 4,516 8,104
----- End of picture text -----

The consolidated results relate to continuing activities with the exception of Acis Homeplus Limited which ceased trading on 31 March 2023. These discontinued activities accounted for turnover of £467,120 (2022: £401,639) and profit of £332,198 (2022: loss of £146,411).

The notes on pages 53 to 97 form an integral part of these financial statements.

The financial statements on pages 46 to 97 were approved and authorised for issue by the Board on 31 July 2023.

Kathryn Smart Chair / Trustee

Carole Hodson Vice Chair / Trustee

Catherine Kelly Secretary

Acis Group Limited, Company Number 03593345

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 46 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Association Statement of Comprehensive Income For the year ended 31 March 2023

----- Start of picture text -----
Note 2023 2022
£'000 £'000
Turnover: continuing activities 3 38,848 39,355
Operating expenditure 3 (28,229) (28,355)
Gain on disposal property, plant, equipment 5 885 560
Operating surplus 11,504 11,560
Interest receivable 6 49 60
Interest payable and financing costs 7 (7,202) (6,169)
Gift aid 11 147 1,093
Surplus before taxation 4,498 6,544
Taxation 12 40 (40)
Surplus for the year after taxation 4,538 6,504
Other comprehensive income
Actuarial gain/ (loss) in the year 9 (457) 1,856
Total comprehensive income for the year 4,081 8,360
----- End of picture text -----

The results of the association relate wholly to continuing activities and the notes on pages 53 to 97 form an integral part of these financial statements.

The financial statements on pages 46 to 97 were approved and authorised for issue by the Board on 31 July 2023 and were signed on its behalf by:

Kathryn Smart Chair / Trustee

Carole Hodson Vice Chair / Trustee

Catherine Kelly Secretary

Acis Group Limited, Company Number 03593345

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 47 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Consolidated and Association Statement of Financial Position As at 31 March 2023

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
Note 2023 2022 2023 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Fixed Assets
Housing 13 289,496 274,479 291,455 276,311
Non-housing 14 3,065 2,365 2,404 2,242
Tangible Fixed Assets 292,561 276,844 293,859 278,553
Current Assets
Stock 16 4,475 2,345 4,471 2,345
Trade and Other Debtors 17 1,822 1,652 1,871 3,601
Cash and Cash Equivalents 18 2,321 3,401 1,749 1,507
8,618 7,398 8,091 7,453
Less: Creditors: amounts falling due
within one year 19 (10,793) (27,502) (10,376) (27,250)
Net Current Liabilities (2,175) (20,104) (2,285) (19,797)
Total Assets Less Current Liabilities 290,386 256,740 291,574 258,756
Creditors: amounts falling due after more
than one year 20 (228,668) (199,560) (228,220) (199,560)
Provisions for liabilities
Pension - defined benefit liability 9 (1,402) (1,325) (1,402) (1,325)
Total Net Assets 60,316 55,855 61,952 57,871
Reserves
Income and Expenditure Reserve 60,316 55,855 61,952 57,871
----- End of picture text -----

The notes on pages 53 to 97 form an integral part of these financial statements.

The financial statements on pages 46 to 97 were approved and authorised for issue by the Board on 31 July 2023 and were signed on its behalf by:

Kathryn Smart Chair / Trustee

Carole Hodson Vice Chair / Trustee

Catherine Kelly Secretary

Acis Group Limited, Company Number 03593345

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 48 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity (reserves)

Balance as at 31 March 2021
Surplus for the year after tax
Other comprehensive income for the year after tax
Total Comprehensive income for the year
Distribution in year
Balance as at 31 March 2022
Surplus for the year after tax
Other comprehensive income for the year after tax
Total Comprehensive income for the year
Distribution in year
Balance as at 31 March 2023		 Income and
Expenditure
Reserve
£'000
47,696
6,248
1,856
8,104
-
55,800
4,973
(457)
4,516
-
60,316		 Total
Excluding
Non-
controlling
Interest
£'000
47,696
6,248
1,856
8,104
-
55,800
4,973
(457)
4,516
-
60,316		 Non-
Controlling
Interest
Total
£'000
£'000
40
47,736
112
6,360
-
1,856
112
8,216
(97)
(97)
55
55,855
29
5,002
-
(457)
29
4,545
(84)
(84)
-
60,316

The notes on pages 53 to 97 form an integral part of these financial statements.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 49 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Association Statement of Changes in Equity (reserves)

----- Start of picture text -----
Income and
Expenditure
Reserve Total
£'000 £'000
Balance as at 31 March 2021 49,511 49,511
Surplus for the year after tax 6,504 6,504
Other comprehensive income for the year after tax 1,856 1,856
Total Comprehensive income for the year 8,360 8,360
Balance as at 31 March 2022 57,871 57,871
Surplus for the year after tax 4,538 4,538
Other comprehensive income for the year after tax (457) (457)
Total Comprehensive income for the year 4,081 4,081
Balance as at 31 March 2023 61,952 61,952
----- End of picture text -----

The notes on pages 53 to 97 form an integral part of these financial statements.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 50 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Consolidated Statement of Cash Flow

----- Start of picture text -----
2023 2022
£'000 £'000
Net cash generated from operating activities 13,943 23,024
Cash flow from investing activities
Purchase of tangible fixed assets (22,924) (18,667)
Proceeds from sale of tangible fixed assets 1,754 1,422
Grants received 1,531 5,207
Interest received 16 -
(19,623) (12,038)
Cash flow from financing activities
Interest paid (8,233) (7,105)
New secured loans (revolver utilisation) 4,500 6,500
-
New secured loan (£35m facility) 25,000
Repayments of borrowings (16,667) (9,817)
-
Loan arrangement fee (433)
4,600 (10,855)
Net change in cash and cash equivalents (1,080) 131
Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of year 3,401 3,270
Cash and cash equivalents at end of the year 2,321 3,401
----- End of picture text -----

The notes on pages 53 to 97 form an integral part of these financial statements.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 51 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Reconciliation of Group Operating Surplus to Net Cash Inflow from Operating Activities

----- Start of picture text -----
2023 2022
£'000 £'000
Cash generated from operating activities
Surplus for the year 4,516 8,104
Adjustment for non-cash items
Depreciation of tangible fixed assets 7,798 7,249
(Increase) / decrease in stock (2,130) 4,681
(Increase) / decrease in trade and other debtors (94) (571)
Increase / (decrease) in trade and other creditors (584) 1,409
Pension costs less contributions payable (411) (262)
Carrying amount of tangible fixed asset disposals (288) (264)
Share of operating surplus in Eione LLP (77) (249)
-
Gain on acquisition (271)
Deferred Government grants utilised in the year (722) (826)
Actuarial loss / (gain) 457 (1,856)
Adjustments for investing or financing activities
(Gain)/loss on disposal of tangible fixed assets (885) (560)
Interest and financing costs 6,650 6,169
Interest receivable (16) -
Net cash generated from operating activities 13,943 23,024
----- End of picture text -----

The notes on pages 53 to 97 form an integral part of these financial statements.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 52 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

1. Legal Status

Acis Group Limited (The Association) is incorporated in England under the Companies Act 2006. The Association is limited by guarantee, is a registered charity and classed as a Public Benefit Entity. The principle activity undertaken is the provision of social housing.

The Association is registered with the Regulator of Social Housing (RoSH) as a Private Registered Provider of Social Housing. The registered office is Acis House, Bridge Street, Gainsborough DN21 1GG.

The group comprises the following entities:

Name

Incorporation

Registered/ Non-Registered

Acis Group Limited Companies Act 2006 Registered Acis Management Limited Companies Act 2006 Non-Registered Acis Development Services Limited Companies Act 2006 Non-Registered Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited Companies Act 2006 Non-Registered Acis HomePlus Limited Companies Act 2006 Non-Registered Acis Properties Limited (Dormant) Companies Act 2006 Non-Registered Riverside Access and Training Centre Companies Act 2006 Non-Registered Gainsborough Community Interest Company Community Learning in Partnership Companies Act 2006 Non-Registered Community Interest Company Eione LLP Limited Liability Partnerships Non-Registered Act 2000

2. Principal Accounting Policies

Basis of accounting

The financial statements of the Group and Association have been prepared in accordance with applicable United Kingdom Accounting Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (UK GAAP) and the Statement of Recommended Practice for Registered Social Housing Providers: Housing SORP 2018 update. The accounts comply with the Accounting Direction for Private Registered Providers of Social Housing 2022. The Group is required under the Companies Act 2006 to prepare consolidated Group Accounts.

The accounts have been prepared on the historical cost basis of accounting and are presented in sterling £’000 for the year ended 31st March 2023.

The Group’s Financial Statements have been prepared in accordance with FRS 102. The Group meets the definition of a Public Benefit Entity (PBE).

Parent company disclosure exemptions

In preparing the separate financial statements of the parent company, advantage has been taken of the following disclosure exemptions available in FRS102:

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023 Principle accounting policies (continued)

Basis of consolidation

The consolidated Financial Statements incorporate the results of all of its subsidiary undertakings as at 31 March 2023 using the acquisition method of accounting as required. Where the acquisition method is used the results of the subsidiary undertakings are included from the date of acquisition, being the date the Group obtains control.

Going Concern

The Group’s Financial Statements have been prepared on a going concern basis which assumes an ability to continue operating for the foreseeable future.

The Group’s activities, its current financial position and factors likely to affect its future development are set out within the Operating and Financial Review. The Group has in place long-term debt facilities, a revolving credit facility, cash reserves, and generates positive cash from core operations.

These elements combine to provide sufficient resources to finance committed reinvestment and development programmes, along with the Group’s day to day operations.

The Group has a long-term business plan which shows that it is able to service its debt facilities whilst continuing to comply with lenders’ covenants. The business plan also includes multi variance stress testing scenarios and trigger points which are monitored and reported on regularly to the Board and Finance and Development Committee.

On this basis, the Board has a reasonable expectation that the Group has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future, being a period of at least twelve months after the date on which the report and financial statements are signed. For this reason, it continues to adopt the going concern basis in the financial statements.

Critical accounting judgements and key sources of estimation uncertainty

The preparation of the financial statements requires management to make judgements, estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported for assets and liabilities as at the Balance Sheet date and the amounts reported for revenues and expenses during the year. However, the nature of estimates means that actual outcomes could differ from those estimates. The following judgements (apart from those involving estimates) have had the most significant effect on amounts recognised in the financial statements.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 54 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023 Principle accounting policies (continued)

Other key sources of estimation and assumptions:

Tangible fixed assets – Tangible fixed assets are depreciated over their useful lives taking into account residual values, where appropriate. The actual lives of the assets and residual values are assessed annually and may vary depending on a number of factors. In re-assessing asset lives, factors such as technological innovation, product life cycles and maintenance programmes are taken into account. Residual value assessments consider issues such as future market conditions, the remaining life of the asset and projected disposal values.

Stock and Work in progress – The Group carries stock and work in progress of properties that it intends to sell. The stock is held at cost and this is regularly compared to the recoverable amount to ensure no impairment is required. The recoverable amounts are derived from local market data and sales experience.

Pension and other post-employment benefits – The cost of defined benefit pension plans and other post-employment benefits are determined using actuarial valuations. The actuarial valuation involves making assumptions about discount rates, future salary increases, mortality rates, inflation and future pension increases.

Due to the complexity of the valuation, the underlying assumptions and the long-term nature of these plans, such estimates are subject to significant uncertainty. In determining the appropriate discount rate, management considers the interest rates of corporate bonds in the respective currency with at least AA rating, with extrapolated maturities corresponding to the expected duration of the defined benefit obligation. The underlying bonds are further reviewed for quality, and those having excessive credit spreads are removed from the population bonds on which the discount rate is based, on the basis that they do not represent high quality bonds. The mortality rate is based on publicly available mortality tables for the specific sector. Future salary increases and pension increases are based on expected future inflation rates for the respective sector. The table below sets out the impact on the organisations liability for the changes in these key assumptions:

Analysis Of The Sensitivity To The Principal Assumptions

Change in assumption Change in liabilities £'000
Discount rate Increase of 0.1% p.a. Decrease by 1.9% 158
Rate of inflation Increase of 0.1% p.a. Increase by 1.9% 158
Rate of salary growth Increase of 0.1% p.a. Increase by 0.1% 8
Probability of surviving
Rate of mortality each year increased by Increase by 1.6% 133
10%

Further details are given in note 9.

Impairment of non-financial assets – Reviews for impairment of housing properties are carried out when a trigger has occurred and any impairment loss in a cash generating unit is recognised by a charge to the Statement of Comprehensive Income. Impairment is recognised where the carrying value of a cash generating unit exceeds the higher of its net realisable value or its value in use. A cash generating unit is normally a group of properties at scheme or property type level whose cash income can be separately identified.

An impairment review carried out for the year concluded that no assets were to be impaired resulting in no charge in 2022/23 financial statements.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 55 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023 Principle accounting policies (continued)

Acquisition accounting

Acis Management Limited; Acis Development Services Limited; Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited, Acis HomePlus Limited, Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough Community Interest Company and Community Learning in Partnership Community Interest Company have been included in the group financial statements using the purchase method of accounting. Eione LLP is 60% controlled by the Group and is consolidated as a subsidiary.

Accordingly, the group statement of comprehensive income and statement of cash flows include the results and cash flows of the above Companies for the current accounting period.

Turnover and revenue recognition

Turnover represents rental income and service charges receivable, amortised capital grant, revenue grants from local authorities and Homes England, income from the sale of shared ownership, and other properties developed for outright sale, and other income and is recognised in relation to the period when the goods or services have been supplied. Rental income is recognised when the property is available for let, net of voids. Income from property sales is recognised on legal completion. Sales of properties developed for outright sale are included in Turnover and Cost of Sales.

Service charges

Service charge income and costs are recognised on an accruals basis. The Group in the main operates variable service charges on a scheme by scheme basis in full consultation with residents. Where variable service charges are used the charges are based on the last full financial year costs. Where periodic expenditure is required a provision may be built up over the years, in consultation with the residents; until these costs are incurred this liability is held in the Statement of Financial Position within creditors.

Loan interest costs

Loan interest costs are calculated using the effective interest method of the difference between the loan amount at initial recognition and amount of maturity of the related loan.

Loan finance issue costs

These are amortised over the life of the related loan. Loans are stated in the Statement of Financial Position at the amount of the net proceeds after issue, plus increases to account for any subsequent amounts amortised. Where loans are redeemed during the year, any redemption penalty and any connected loan finance issue costs are recognised in the Statement of Comprehensive Income in the year in which the redemption took place.

Taxation

The parent Association became a registered charity on 1 April 2011 and from this date any surpluses or deficits arising from its charitable activities have been exempt from Corporation tax.

The tax expense for the period comprises current and deferred tax. Tax is recognised in profit and loss, except that a change attributable to an item of income or expense recognised as other comprehensive income or to an item recognised directly in equity is also recognised in other comprehensive income or directly in equity respectively. The current income tax charge is calculated on the basis of tax rates and laws that have been enacted or substantively enacted by the reporting date. Deferred balances are recognised in respect of all timing differences that have originated but not reversed by the balance sheet date, except:

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 56 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023 Principle accounting policies (continued)

Deferred tax balances are not recognised in respect of permanent differences except in respect of business combinations, when deferred tax is recognised on the differences between the fair values of assets acquired and the future tax deductions available for them and the differences between the fair value of liabilities acquired and the amount that will be assessed for tax.

Deferred income tax is determined using tax rates and laws that have been enacted or substantively enacted by the reporting date.

In accordance with FRS 102, deferred tax is not provided for gains on the sale of non-monetary assets, if the taxable gain will probably be rolled over.

Value Added Tax

The Group charges VAT on some of its income and is able to recover part of the VAT it incurs on expenditure. All amounts disclosed in the accounts are inclusive of VAT to the extent that it is suffered by the Group and not recoverable from HM Revenue and Customs.

Tangible Fixed Assets and Depreciation

Housing properties and Student Accommodation

Housing properties are principally properties available for rent and are stated at cost less accumulated depreciation. Cost includes the cost of acquiring land and buildings, development costs and expenditure incurred in respect of improvements.

Housing properties under construction are stated at cost and are not depreciated. These are re-classified as housing properties on practical completion of construction. Freehold land is not depreciated.

The costs of Low Cost Home Ownership Properties (Shared Ownership) are split proportionally between current and fixed assets based on the element relating to expected first tranche portion (initial staircasing). The first tranche proportion is classed as a current asset and related sales proceeds included in turnover. The remaining element of the shared ownership property is accounted for as a fixed asset and included in housing properties at cost, less any provisions needed for depreciation or impairment. Subsequent sales are treated as sales of fixed assets / property sales in operating profit.

Student Accommodation properties are principally properties available for rent and are stated at cost less depreciation. Cost includes the cost of acquiring land and buildings and expenditure incurred in respect of improvements.

Depreciation is charged so as to write down the net book value of properties to their estimated residual value, on a straight-line basis, over their estimated useful economic lives in the business. For social housing properties, a full year’s depreciation is charged in year of acquisition. For student accommodation, depreciation is charged from the month of acquisition. The depreciable amount is arrived at on the basis of original cost, less residual value. The Group’s housing properties are depreciated at the following annual rates:

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 57 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023 Principle accounting policies (continued)

Houses and flats 0.75% to 4.2%
Student accommodation buildings 0.85%
Garages 1.2%
Commercial Properties 2.0%

Where a housing property comprises two or more major components with substantially different useful economic lives (UELs), each component is accounted for separately and depreciated over its individual UEL. Expenditure relating to subsequent replacement or renewal of components is capitalised as incurred.

The association depreciates freehold housing properties by component on a straight-line basis over the estimated UELs of the component categories.

UELs for identified components are as follows:

Bathrooms 3.3% to 10.0% Roofs 1.3% to 2.5%
Central Heating and Boilers 4.0% to 10.0% External Cladding and
Structural Works		 1.7% to 2.5%
Doors 5.0% to 6.7% Windows 2.5% to
20.0%
Electrical Works 2.5% to 5.0% Fixtures and Fittings 33.3%
Kitchens 5.0% to 14.3% Environmental
Improvements		 3.3%
Photo Voltaic Panels 4.0%

The association depreciates housing properties held on long term leases in the same manner as freehold properties, except where the unexpired lease term is shorter than the longest component life envisaged, in which case the unexpired term of the lease is adopted as the useful economic life of the relevant component category.

Capitalisation of interest and administration costs

Interest on loans financing development is capitalised up to the date of the completion of the scheme and only when development activity is in progress.

Administration costs relating to development activities are capitalised only to the extent that they are incremental to the development process and directly attributable to bringing the properties into their intended use.

Other tangible fixed assets

Depreciation is provided evenly on the cost of other tangible fixed assets to write them down to their estimated residual values over their expected useful lives. No depreciation is provided on freehold land. The principal annual rates used for other assets are:

Freehold Offices 2.0% Motor Vehicles 20.0%
Building Fitting and
Equipment		 10.0% to 20.0% Depot Fitting and
Equipment		 20.0%
Computer Equipment and
Software		 25.0% Furnished
Accommodation		 25.0%

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 58 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023 Principle accounting policies (continued)

Valuation of Investments

Investments in subsidiaries are measured at cost less accumulated impairment.

Stock and properties held for sale

Stock of materials are stated at the lower of cost and net realisable value being the estimated selling price less costs to complete and sell. Cost is based on the cost of purchase on a first in, first out basis. Work in progress and finished goods include labour and attributable overheads.

Properties developed for outright sale are included in current assets as they are intended to be sold, at the lower of cost or estimated selling price less costs to complete and sell.

At each reporting date, stock and properties held for sale are assessed for impairment. If there is evidence of impairment, the carrying amount is reduced to its selling price less costs to complete and sell. The impairment loss is recognised immediately in Statement of Comprehensive Income.

Stock swaps

Where an agreement is entered into with another PRP to swap housing stock, the outgoing stock is treated as a disposal with a gain/loss recorded in profit or loss. The incoming stock is measured at fair value.

Short-term debtors and creditors

Debtors and creditors with no stated interest rate and receivable or payable within one year are recorded at transaction price. Any losses arising from impairment are recognised in the Statement of Comprehensive Income in other operating expenses.

Non-government grants

Grants received from non-government sources are recognised under the performance model. If there are no specific performance requirements the grants are recognised when received or receivable. Where grant is received with specific performance requirements it is recognised as a liability until the conditions are met and then it is recognised as Turnover.

Social Housing and other government grants

Where developments have been financed wholly or partly by social housing and other grants, the amount of the grant received has been included as deferred income and recognised in Turnover over the estimated useful life of the associated asset structure (not land), under the accruals model.

SHG received for items of cost written off in the Statement of Comprehensive Income is included as part of Turnover.

When Social Housing Grant (SHG) in respect of housing properties in the course of construction exceeds the total cost to date of those housing properties, the excess is shown as a current liability.

SHG must be recycled by the Group under certain conditions, if a property is sold, or if another relevant event takes place. In these cases, the SHG can be used for projects approved by Homes England. However, SHG may have to be repaid if certain conditions are not met. If grant is not required to be recycled or repaid, any unamortised grant is recognised as Turnover. In certain circumstances, SHG may be repayable, and, in that event, is a subordinated unsecured repayable debt.

Non-monetary government grant

On disposal of assets for which non-monetary government grants are held as liabilities in the Statement of Financial Position, the unamortised amount in creditors is derecognised and recognised as income in the Statement of Comprehensive Income.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 59 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023 Principle accounting policies (continued)

Recycling of Capital Grant

Where Social Housing Grant is recycled, as described above, the SHG is credited to a fund which appears as a creditor until used to fund the acquisition of new properties, where recycled grant is known to be repayable it is shown as a creditor within one year.

The voluntary right to buy Midlands Pilot scheme ended during 2019/20, the net receipt from the sales were recycled into a recycled grant fund within creditors. This fund is to be used for a one for one replacement.

Holiday pay accrual

A liability is recognised to the extent of any unused holiday pay entitlement which has accrued at the balance sheet date and carried forward to future periods. This is measured at the undiscounted salary cost of the future holiday entitlement so accrued at the balance sheet date.

Retirement benefits

The cost of providing retirement pensions and related benefits is charged to management expenses over the periods benefiting from the employees’ services.

The disclosures in the accounts follow the requirements of Section 28 of FRS 102 in relation to multiemployer funded schemes in which the Group has a participating interest.

The Group operates two types of pension scheme; a defined contribution scheme for new members and a legacy defined benefit scheme. The cost of providing retirement pensions and related benefits for both schemes are charged to management expenses over the periods benefiting from the employee’s services.

The Group participates in the Social Housing Pension Scheme (‘SHPS’), a defined benefit multi-employer pension scheme administered by TPT Retirement Solutions (‘TPT’).

Income and Expenditure Reserve

The Group generates reserves:

Due to the decline in social housing grant (SHG) and other capital grants available to the sector over recent years, the Group continues to commit more of its reserves to financing investment in new homes and larger maintenance programmes. This approach not only enables greater investment, but it also reduces interest costs as additional loan finance can be kept to a minimum.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 60 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023 Principle accounting policies (continued)

Financial Instruments

Financial assets and financial liabilities are measured at transaction price initially, plus, in the case of a financial asset or financial liability not at fair value through profit or loss, transaction costs that are directly attributable to the acquisition or issue of the financial asset or financial liability. At the end of each reporting period, financial instruments are measured as follows, without any deduction for transaction costs the entity may incur on sale or other disposal:

Debt instruments that meet the conditions in paragraph 11.8(b) of FRS 102 are measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method, except where the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction. In this case the debt instrument is measured at the present value of the future payments discounted at a market rate of interest for a similar debt.

Commitments to receive or make a loan to another entity which meet the conditions in para 11.8(c) of FRS 102 are measured at cost less impairment.

Loans

All loans held by the group are classified as basic financial instruments in accordance with FRS 102.

They are measured at transaction price plus transaction costs initially, and subsequently at amortised cost using the effective interest rate method. Loans repayable within one year are not discounted.

Financial instruments held by the Group are classified as follows:

Impairment of Financial Assets

Financial Assets are assessed at each reporting date to determine whether there is any objective evidence that a financial asset or group of assets is impaired. If there is objective evidence of impairment, an impairment loss is recognised in profit or loss immediately.

The following financial instruments are assessed individually for impairment:

Other financial instruments are assessed for impairment either individually or grouped on the basis of similar credit risk characteristics. An impairment loss is measured as follows on the following instruments measured at cost or amortised cost:

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 61 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023 Principle accounting policies (continued)

If, in a subsequent period, the amount of an impairment loss decreases and the decrease can be related objectively to an event occurring after the impairment was recognised, the previously recognised impairment loss is reversed either directly or by adjusting an allowance account. The reversal cannot result in a carrying amount (net of any allowance account) which exceeds what the carrying amount would have been had the impairment not previously been recognised. The amount of the reversal is recognised in profit or loss immediately.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 62 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

3. Particulars of Turnover, Cost of Sales, Operating Expenditure and Operating Surplus

----- Start of picture text -----
Group 2023
Operating Operating
Turnover Cost of Sales expenditure Surplus
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
-
Social Housing Lettings 30,472 (22,790) 7,682
Other social housing activities
First tranche low cost home ownership sales 2,004 (1,516) - 488
2,004 (1,516) - 488
Non-social housing activities
Other lettings 243 - (96) 147
-
Student accommodation lettings 4,870 (3,220) 1,650
Properties for outright sale 173 (137) - 36
Eione - non group sourced turnover 117 - - 117
Externally funded support initiatives 358 - (358) -
Other 1,831 - (1,528) 303
7,592 (137) (5,202) 2,253
40,068 (1,653) (27,992) 10,423
Group 2022
Cost of Operating Operating
Turnover Sales expenditure Surplus
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
-
Social Housing Lettings 28,770 (20,900) 7,870
Other social housing activities
First tranche low cost home ownership sales 3,957 (3,191) - 766
3,957 (3,191) - 766
Non-social housing activities
Other lettings 313 - (111) 202
-
Student accommodation lettings 4,521 (2,901) 1,620
Properties for outright sale 5,083 (4,315) - 768
Eione - non group sourced turnover 340 - - 340
Externally funded support initiatives 493 - (493) -
Other 1,149 - (699) 450
11,899 (4,315) (4,204) 3,380
44,626 (7,506) (25,104) 12,016
----- End of picture text -----

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 63 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

3. Particulars of Turnover, Cost of Sales, Operating Expenditure and Operating Surplus

Association
Social Housing Lettings
Other social housing activities
First tranche low cost home ownership sales
Non-social housing activities
Other lettings
Student accommodation lettings
Properties for outright sale
Intra-group service level agreements
Externally funded support initiatives
Other		 Turnover
£'000
30,472
2,004
2,004
243
4,870
173
226
358
502
6,372
38,848		 Cost of Sales
Operating
expenditure
Operating
Surplus
£'000
£'000
£'000
-
(22,855)
7,617
(1,516)
-
488
(1,516)
-
488
-
(96)
147
-
(3,214)
1,656
(137)
-
36
-
-
226
-
(358)
-
-
(53)
449
(137)
(3,721)
2,514
(1,653)
(26,576)
10,619
2023
Association
Social Housing Lettings
Other social housing activities
First tranche low cost home ownership sales
Non-social housing activities
Other lettings
Student accommodation lettings
Intra-group service level agreements
Externally funded support initiatives
Other		 Turnover
£'000
28,770
3,957
3,957
313
4,521
702
493
599
6,628
39,355		 Cost of
Sales
Operating
expenditure
Operating
Surplus
£'000
£'000
£'000
-
(21,413)
7,357
(3,191)
-
766
(3,191)
-
766
-
(111)
202
-
(2,992)
1,529
-
-
702
-
(493)
-
-
(155)
444
-
(3,751)
2,877
(3,191)
(25,164)
11,000
2022

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 64 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

Particulars of Income and Expenditure from Social Housing Lettings

----- Start of picture text -----
Supported
Housing and
General housing for Shared
Group Housing older people Ownership 2023 Total 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Turnover from social housing lettings
Rent receivable net of service charges and voids 26,323 1,133 1,528 28,984 27,401
Service charges receivable 306 352 114 772 653
Amortised Government Grants 693 - 23 716 716
Turnover from Social Housing lettings 27,322 1,485 1,665 30,472 28,770
Expenditure on social housing lettings
Management (3,911) (174) (379) (4,464) (4,235)
Service charge costs (481) (552) (179) (1,212) (966)
Routine maintenance (5,168) (230) - (5,398) (5,043)
Planned maintenance (1,507) (67) - (1,574) (1,048)
-
Major Repairs (2,090) (93) (2,183) (1,990)
Bad Debts (226) - - (226) (32)
Depreciation of housing properties (6,189) (279) (248) (6,716) (6,264)
Other Costs (975) (42) - (1,017) (1,322)
Operating expenditure on social housing lettings (20,547) (1,437) (806) (22,790) (20,900)
Operating surplus on social housing 6,775 48 859 7,682 7,870
Void losses (being rental income lost as a result of property
not being let, although it is available for lettings) (273) (11) (21) (305) (344)
----- End of picture text -----

Expenditure on social housing lettings in the year included £262k relating to operating leases (2022: £237k).

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 65 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

Particulars of Income and Expenditure from Social Housing Lettings

----- Start of picture text -----
Supported
Housing and
General housing for Shared
Association Housing older people Ownership 2023 Total 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Turnover from social housing lettings
Rent receivable net of service charges and voids 26,323 1,133 1,528 28,984 27,401
Service charges receivable 306 352 114 772 653
Amortised Government Grants 693 - 23 716 716
Turnover from Social Housing lettings 27,322 1,485 1,665 30,472 28,770
Expenditure on social housing lettings
Management (3,911) (174) (379) (4,464) (4,235)
Service charge costs (481) (552) (179) (1,212) (966)
Routine maintenance (5,168) (230) - (5,398) (5,323)
Planned maintenance (1,507) (67) - (1,574) (1,106)
-
Major Repairs (2,090) (93) (2,183) (2,100)
Bad Debts (226) - - (226) (32)
Depreciation of housing properties (6,248) (279) (248) (6,775) (6,329)
Other Costs (981) (42) - (1,023) (1,322)
Operating expenditure on social housing lettings (20,612) (1,437) (806) (22,855) (21,413)
Operating surplus on social housing 6,710 48 859 7,617 7,357
Void losses (being rental income lost as a result of property
not being let, although it is available for lettings) (273) (11) (21) (305) (344)
----- End of picture text -----

Expenditure on social housing lettings in the year included £262k relating to operating leases (2022: £237k).

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 66 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

Particulars of Turnover from Non-Social Housing Activities

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Market rented properties 171 236 171 236
Commercial properties 13 16 13 16
Private garages 53 55 53 55
Release of Capital Grants 6 6 6 6
Student accommodation lettings 4,870 4,521 4,870 4,521
Properties for outright sale 173 5,083 173 -
Intra-group service level agreements - - 226 702
Eione - non group sourced turnover 117 340 - -
Externally funded support initiatives 358 493 358 493
Other 1,831 1,149 502 599
7,592 11,899 6,372 6,628
----- End of picture text -----

Other turnover from non-social housing activities primarily relates to £1,330k from subsidiary undertakings, £247k Photovoltaic income and £96k air source heat pump income.

4. Operating Surplus

This is arrived at after charging / (crediting) :
Depreciation of housing properties
Depreciation on other owned fixed assets
Depreciation of other tangible fixed assets
Amortised government grants
Auditors remuneration (Excluding VAT)
-Fees payable for the audit of the financial statements
-Audit of the Financial Statements of the company's
subsidiaries pursuant to legislations
Total audit services
-Tax compliance services
-All other services
Total non-audit services		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
6,716
6,271
625
655
457
323
(722)
(722)
21
18
27
20
48
38
8
7
3
3
11
10
Group		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
6,775
6,329
631
661
314
228
(722)
(722)
21
18
27
20
48
38
8
7
3
3
11
10
Association

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 67 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

5. Gain on disposal / acquisition

Surplus on Sale of Fixed Assets – Housing Properties

Group
Proceeds of sales
Less: Costs of sales
Surplus
Group
Proceeds of sales
Less: Costs of sales
Surplus		 Shared
Ownership
Fully
Staircased
sales
£'000
519
(305)
214
Shared
Ownership
Fully
Staircased
sales
£'000
499
(312)
187		 Right to
acquire and
Right to buy
sales
Other
Property,
Plant and
Equipment
sales
£'000
£'000
1,060
175
(503)
(61)
557
114
Right to
acquire and
Right to buy
sales
Other
Property,
Plant and
Equipment
sales
£'000
£'000
910
13
(550)
-
360
13
2023
2022		 Total
£'000
1,754
(869)
885
Total
£'000
1,422
(862)
560
Association
Proceeds of sales
Less: Costs of sales
Surplus
Association
Proceeds of sales
Less: Costs of sales
Surplus		 Shared
Ownership
Fully
Staircased
sales
£'000
519
(305)
214
Shared
Ownership
Fully
Staircased
sales
£'000
499
(312)
187		 Right to
acquire and
Right to buy
sales
Other
Property,
Plant and
Equipment
sales
£'000
£'000
1,060
175
(503)
(61)
557
114
Right to
acquire and
Right to buy
sales
Other
Property,
Plant and
Equipment
sales
£'000
£'000
910
13
(550)
-
360
13
2023
2022		 Total
£'000
1,754
(869)
885
Total
£'000
1,422
(862)
560

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 68 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023 5. Gain on disposal / acquisition (continued)

Gain on acquisition

The group acquired Community Learning in Partnership Community Interest Company on 1 August 2022 which resulted in a gain on acquisition being the entity’s reserves at the acquisition date.

There was no consideration, the assets and liabilities of Community Learning in Partnership CIC on the date of transfer have been brought into Acis Group Limited at the net book value of £270,617. The net book value was judged to equal fair value.

6. Interest Receivable and Other Income

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
On financial assets measured at amortised cost:
Interest Receivable:
Interest receivable on bank deposits 16 - 16 -
Loan interest from subsidiary company - - 33 60
16 - 49 60
----- End of picture text -----

7. Interest Payable and Financing Costs

Note
2023
2022
£'000
£'000
On financial liabilities measured at amortised cost:
On loans repayable
7,397
6,909
Amortised breakage costs release
10
(351)
(350)
Exceptional item - AHP loan write off
10
-
-
Other Interest
0
0
Loan Amortisation Fee
34
125
On defined benefit pension schemes
Expected return on plan assets
9
(329)
(224)
Interest on scheme liabilities
9
360
295
7,111
6,755
Less: Interest capitalised
(461)
(586)
6,650
6,169
Capitalisation rate used to determine finance
costs capitalised during the period
4.0%
4.0%
Group		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
7,384
6,909
(351)
(350)
565
-
0
0
34
125
(329)
(224)
360
295
7,663
6,755
(461)
(586)
7,202
6,169
4.0%
4.0%
Association

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 69 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

8. Key Management Personnel Remuneration

The non-executive and executive directors listed on page 3, are considered to be key management personnel.

The aggregate emoluments paid to or receivable by Executive and Non-Executive Directors and Former Executive and Non-Executive Directors was:

----- Start of picture text -----
Pension Social Security 2023 2022
Basic Salary Car Allowance
Contributions Costs Total Total
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Executive Directors 435 45 61 64 605 554
Board Members
Michael Kay 10 - - - 10 11
Julie Haywood 2 - 2 -
Graham Ward 6 - - - 6 8
Bruce Kerr 7 - - - 7 7
Carole Hodson 7 - - - 7 5
Nigel Whitaker 8 - - - 8 5
Kathryn Smart 9 - - - 9 7
Suzanne Bolton 4 - - - 4 5
Ronan O'Hara 5 - - - 5 5
Paul Satchwell 8 - - - 8 5
Paul Wilkin 2 - - - 2 -
503 45 61 64 673 612
----- End of picture text -----

Expenses paid during the year to Board members amounted to £446 (2022: £395). The emoluments of the highest paid director, the Chief Executive, excluding pension contributions and social security costs, were £145,645 (2022: £138,685).

The current Chief Executive, Greg Bacon, was appointed in May 2016. Greg Bacon is an ordinary member of the Social Housing Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and no enhanced or special terms apply. The employer contributions for the Chief Executive were £18,180 (2022: £10,074). Acis Group Limited does not make any further contribution to an individual pension arrangement for the Chief Executive.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 70 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

9. Employee Information

----- Start of picture text -----
Average monthly number of employees
Group Association
expressed in full time equivalents:
2023 2022 2023 2022
Administration 67 63 63 55
Development 8 9 8 9
Operational 219 215 213 196
294 287 284 260
----- End of picture text -----

The monthly average number of full-time equivalent employees is based on contracted hours of 40 hours per week for operatives or 37 hours per week for all other employees

Employee Costs

Wages and salaries
Social security costs
Other pension costs		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
9,122
8,576
878
802
627
418
10,627
9,796
Group		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
8,862
7,944
860
753
623
408
10,345
9,105
Association

Aggregate number of full-time equivalent staff whose remuneration exceeded £60,000

----- Start of picture text -----
2023 2022
Number Number
£60,001 - £70,000 6 9
£70,001 - £80,000 7 1
- -
£80,001 - £90,000
- -
£90,001 - £100,000
£100,001 - £110,000 - 1
£110,001 - £120,000 1 1
£120,001 - £130,000 1 1
£130,001 - £140,000 1 -
£140,001 - £150,000 - 1
- -
£150,001 - £160,000
£160,001 - £170,000 1 -
----- End of picture text -----

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 71 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

Pension Obligations

During the year ended 31 March 2023 the employees of the Group participated in one of two pension schemes. These were the Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS) for employees of the Association, and a separate stakeholder scheme for Eione LLP employees.

Contributions are made to SHPS for both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes. The Eione scheme is a defined contribution money purchase scheme.

The SHPS scheme is open to all executive officers and employees of the Association.

The stakeholder scheme operated by Eione LLP is open to all employees of Eione LLP.

The Pensions Trust - Social Housing Pension Defined Benefits Scheme (SHPS)

The association participates in the Social Housing Pension Scheme (the Scheme), a multi-employer scheme which provides benefits to some 500 non-associated employers. The Scheme is a defined benefit scheme in the UK. The Scheme is subject to the funding legislation outlined in the Pensions Act 2004 which came into force on 30 December 2005. This, together with documents issued by the Pensions Regulator and Technical Actuarial Standards issued by the Financial Reporting Council, set out the framework for funding defined benefit occupational pension schemes in the UK.

The last triennial valuation of the scheme for funding purposes was carried out as at 30 September 2020. This valuation revealed a deficit of £1,560m. A Recovery Plan has been put in place with the aim of removing this deficit by 31 March 2028.

The Scheme is classified as a 'last-man standing arrangement'. Therefore, the association is potentially liable for other participating employers' obligations if those employers are unable to meet their share of the scheme deficit following withdrawal from the Scheme.

Participating employers are legally required to meet their share of the Scheme deficit on an annuity purchase basis on withdrawal from the Scheme.

The liabilities are compared, at the relevant accounting date, with the association’s fair share of the Scheme’s total assets to calculate the association’s net deficit or surplus.

We have been notified by the Trustee of the Scheme that it has performed a review of the changes made to the Scheme’s benefits over the years and the result is that there is uncertainty surrounding some of these changes. The Trustee has been advised to seek clarification from the Court on these items. This process is ongoing and the matter is unlikely to be resolved before the end of 2024 at the earliest. It is recognised that this could potentially impact the value of Scheme liabilities, but until Court directions are received, it is not possible to calculate the impact of this issue, particularly on an individual employer basis, with any accuracy at this time. No adjustment has been made in these financial statements in respect of this potential issue.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 72 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

Principal Actuarial Assumptions

----- Start of picture text -----
At 31 March 2023 At 31 March 2022
Inflation assumption (RPI) 3.16% 3.44%
Discount rate for scheme liabilities 4.83% 2.78%
Inflation assumption (CPI) 2.81% 3.13%
Salary growth 3.81% 4.13%
Commutation of pensions to lump sums 75% of maximum 75% of maximum
allowance allowance
The mortality assumptions adopted at 31 March 2023 imply the following life expectancies:
Life expectancy at age 65 At 31 At 31
March 2023 March 2022
Years Years
Retiring today
Males 21.0 21.1
Females 23.4 23.7
Retiring in 20 years
Males 22.2 22.4
Females 24.9 25.2
Analysis of the amount recognised in the statement of
comprehensive Income
At 31 At 31
March 2023 March 2022
£'000 £'000
Employer service cost (current) 79 157
Expenses 10 11
Interest on pension Liabilities 31 71
Amount recognised in the statement of comprehensive income 120 239
----- End of picture text -----

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 73 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

Analysis of the amount recognised In Other Comprehensive Income

Analysis of the amount recognised In Other
Comprehensive Income
Experience on plan assets (excluding amounts included in net
interest cost) - (loss) / gain
Experience gains and losses arising on the plan liabilities -
gain / (loss)
Effects of changes in the demographic assumptions
underlying the present value of the defined benefit obligation -
gain / (loss)
Effects of changes in the financial assumptions underlying
the present value of the defined benefit obligation - gain /
(loss)
Total amount recognised in other comprehensive income
- (loss) / gain
Reconciliation of opening and closing balances
of the fair value of plan assets
Fair value of plan assets at start of period
Interest income
Experience on plan assets (excluding amounts included in
interest income) - (loss) / gain
Contributions by the employer
Contributions by plan participants
Benefits paid and expenses
Fair value of plan assets at end of period		 At 31
March 2023
£'000
(5,397)
307
17
4,616
(457)
At 31
March 2023
£'000
11,672
329
(5,397)
500
17
(185)
6,936		 At 31
March 2022
£'000
1,218
(793)
189
1,242
1,856
At 31
March 2022
£'000
9,939
224
1,218
383
27
(119)
11,672

The actual return on plan assets (including any changes in share of assets) over the period from 31 March 2022 to 31 March 2023 was -£5,068k (2022: £1,442k).

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 74 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

----- Start of picture text -----
Reconciliation of opening and closing balances of the
defined benefit obligation
At 31 At 31
March 2023 March 2022
£'000 £'000
Defined benefit obligation at start of period 12,997 13,264
Current service cost 79 157
Expenses 10 11
Interest expense 360 295
Contributions by plan participants 17 27
Actuarial (gains) / losses due to scheme experience (307) 793
Actuarial (gains) / losses due to changes in demographic
assumptions (17) (189)
Actuarial (gains) / losses due to changes in financial
assumptions (4,616) (1,242)
Benefits paid and expenses (185) (119)
Defined benefit obligation at end of period 8,338 12,997
----- End of picture text -----

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 75 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

----- Start of picture text -----
Fair value of plan assets, present value of defined
benefit obligation, and defined benefit liability At 31 At 31
March 2023 March 2022
£'000 £'000
Fair value of plan assets 6,936 11,672
Present value of defined benefit obligation (8,338) (12,997)
(Deficit) in plan (1,402) (1,325)
- -
Unrecognised surplus
Defined benefit (liability) to be recognised (1,402) (1,325)
Assets At 31 At 31
March 2023 March 2022
£'000 £'000
Global Equity 129 2,240
Absolute Return 75 468
Distressed Opportunities 210 418
Credit Relative Value 262 388
Alternative Risk Premia 13 385
- -
Fund of Hedge Funds
Emerging Markets Debt 37 340
Risk Sharing 511 384
Insurance-Linked Securities 175 272
Property 299 315
Infrastructure 792 831
Private Debt 309 299
Opportunistic Illiquid Credit 297 392
High Yield 24 101
Opportunistic Credit - 42
Cash 50 40
Corporate Bond Fund - 779
Long Lease Property 209 300
Secured Income 318 435
Liability Driven Investment 3,195 3,257
Currency Hedging 13 (46)
Net Current Assets 18 32
Total assets 6,936 11,672
----- End of picture text -----

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 76 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

10. Exceptional Item

Amortised Breakage costs

The Association incurred an Exceptional Item charge of £3.5 million relating to the refinancing of the Association’s loan facility on 31 January 2013. The loan portfolio contained a number of fixed loans whose maturity expired after the refinancing date and which led to ‘breakage costs’ of £3.5 million being levied by the bank as the old facility was terminated. The breakage costs have been rolled up into a new finance facility and will be paid over the ten-year life of the new loan, thus releasing the liability over the term of the new loan. Accounting convention requires these costs to be accrued and charged to the Statement of Consolidated Income in the year, with the creditor to be amortised over the period the cash is paid. This amortisation results in an exceptional credit of £350,525 included in interest payable (2022: £350,000).

AHP loan write off

The exceptional item in the year relates to the writing off of intercompany debts from Acis HomePlus Limited following the cessation of its trade on 31[st] March 2023.

11. Gift Aid

During the year, the Association was gifted £147,224 (2022: £1,093,367) from group companies. The receipt of gift aid by the Association from its subsidiaries is based on the subsidiary’s taxable surpluses. During the year to 31 March 2019 Acis Group Limited entered into a gift aid deed of covenant with Acis Management Limited and Acis Development Services Limited. During the year to 31 March 2021 Acis Group Limited entered into a gift aid deed of covenant with Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough Community Interest Company. See note 30 for a breakdown of the receipts.

12. Tax on Surplus on Ordinary Activities

The group corporation tax recovery for the year is a recovery of £57,335 (2022: Charge of £46,686).

The tax assessed is lower than the standard rate of corporation tax in the UK. The differences are explained below:

Surplus on ordinary activities before tax
Surplus on ordinary activities multiplied by the
standard rate of corporation tax in the uk of
19%
Effects of:
Adjustments in respect to previous periods
- Expenses not deductible for tax
- Tax exempt charitable income
- Minority interests
- Gift aid (utilised) / not utilised
- Taxation on group activities		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
4,945
6,407
940
1,217
(57)
-
-
7
(940)
(1,177)
-
-
-
-
-
-
Group		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
4,945
6,407
940
1,217
(57)
-
-
7
(940)
(1,177)
-
-
-
-
-
-
Group		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
4,498
6,544
855
1,243
(40)
-
-
-
(855)
(1,203)
-
-
-
-
-
-
Association		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
4,498
6,544
855
1,243
(40)
-
-
-
(855)
(1,203)
-
-
-
-
-
-
Association
1,243
-
-
(1,203)
-
-
-
(57) 47 (40) 40

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 77 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

13. Tangible Fixed Assets – Properties

GROUP
Fixed Assets - Properties
COST
At 31st March 2022
Additions to properties acquired
Works to existing properties
Interest capitalised
Schemes completed in year
Disposals
At 31st March 2023
DEPRECIATION AND IMPAIRMENT
At 31st March 2022
Depreciation Charged in year
Eliminated on disposals
At 31st March 2023
NET BOOK VALUE
At 31st March 2023
At 31st March 2022		 Social
Housing
properties
held for letting
Non-Social
Housing
properties
held for letting
Total Housing
properties
held for letting
Social
Housing
properties
under
construction
Non-Social
Housing
properties
under
construction
Total Housing
properties
under
construction
Completed
Shared
Ownership
housing
properties
Shared
Ownership
properties
under
construction
Total
£'000
£'000
£'000
£'000
£'000
£'000
£'000
£'000
£'000
242,617
47,645
290,262
9,632
-
9,632
36,453
4,347
340,694
-
-
-
9,425
-
9,425
-
4,796
14,221
7,886
371
8,257
-
-
-
-
-
8,257
-
-
-
225
-
225
-
236
461
6,601
-
6,601
(6,601)
-
(6,601)
3,232
(3,232)
-
(2,503)
(54)
(2,557)
-
-
-
(337)
-
(2,894)
254,601
47,962
302,563
12,681
-
12,681
39,348
6,147
360,739
58,427
5,735
64,162
285
-
285
1,768
-
66,215
6,468
625
7,093
-
-
-
248
-
7,341
(2,243)
(48)
(2,291)
-
-
-
(22)
-
(2,313)
62,652
6,312
68,964
285
-
285
1,994
-
71,243
191,949
41,650
233,599
12,396
-
12,396
37,354
6,147
289,496
184,190
41,910
226,100
9,347
-
9,347
34,685
4,347
274,479

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 78 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

13. Tangible Fixed Assets – Properties

----- Start of picture text -----
Social Non-Social Completed Shared
Social Non-Social Total Housing
Total Housing Housing Housing Shared Ownership
Housing Housing properties
ASSOCIATION properties properties properties Ownership properties Total
properties properties under
held for letting under under housing under
held for letting held for letting construction
construction construction properties construction
Fixed Assets - Properties £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
COST
At 31st March 2022 244,287 47,660 291,947 10,287 - 10,287 36,482 4,371 343,087
- - - - -
Additions to properties acquired 9,585 9,585 4,795 14,380
Works to existing properties 7,886 404 8,290 - - - - - 8,290
Interest capitalised - - - 225 - 225 - 236 461
- - -
Schemes completed in year 6,601 6,601 (6,601) (6,601) 3,232 (3,232)
- - - -
Disposals (2,503) (54) (2,557) (337) (2,894)
At 31st March 2023 256,271 48,010 304,281 13,496 - 13,496 39,377 6,170 363,324
DEPRECIATION AND IMPAIRMENT
At 31st March 2022 58,921 5,802 64,723 285 - 285 1,768 - 66,776
Depreciation Charged in year 6,527 631 7,158 - - - 248 - 7,406
- - - -
Eliminated on disposals (2,243) (48) (2,291) (22) (2,313)
At 31st March 2023 63,205 6,385 69,590 285 - 285 1,994 - 71,869
NET BOOK VALUE
At 31st March 2023 193,066 41,625 234,691 13,211 - 13,211 37,383 6,170 291,455
At 31st March 2022 185,366 41,858 227,224 10,002 - 10,002 34,714 4,371 276,311
----- End of picture text -----

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 79 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

13. Tangible Fixed Assets – Properties (continued)

Expenditure to works on existing properties:

Improvement works capitalised
Major Repairs charged to income
and expenditure account		 2023
2022
8,257
5,964
2,183

1,990
10,440

7,954
Group		 2023
2022
8,290
5,983
2,183

2,100
10,473
8,083

Association

The aggregate amount of interest and finance costs included in the property additions, the capitalisation rate used was £461k at 4.0% (2022: £586k at 4.0%).

Property additions and works to existing properties include £508k (2022: £328k) for direct administrative costs capitalised during the year.

Housing property fixed assets are secured against loans by specific charges on 6,177 (2022: 5,300) of the Group’s housing units.

The net book value of assets pledged as security is £163,864k (2022: £150,814k).

Properties book value, net of depreciation, and offices net book value (Note 14) comprises:

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Freehold land and buildings 291,681 276,014 292,999 277,887
----- End of picture text -----

Impairment

An impairment review carried out for the year concluded that following a management review there was no impairment provision required in the 2022/23 financial statements. In arriving at this conclusion, the Group used numerous indicators including external sources of information such as market value, market interest rates and returns on investment, actual or proposed changes to the technological, economic or legal environment, obsolescence or damage to the asset, operational changes or internal reporting which indicates that the asset is performing worse than expected.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 80 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

14. Tangible Fixed Assets – Other

Group
COST
At 31 March 2022
Additions
Disposals
At 31 March 2023
DEPRECIATION
At 31 March 2022
Charged in year
Eliminated on disposals
At 31 March 2023
NET BOOK VALUE
At 31 March 2023
At 31 March 2022		 Freehold
Offices
£'000
2,468
737
-
3,205
933
88
-
1,021
2,184
1,535		 Office
Furniture,
Fixtures and
Fittings
£'000
487
82
-
569
272
119
-
391
178
215		 Computers
and Office
Equipment
£'000
1,943
339
-
2,282
1,472
231
-
1,703
579
471		 Motor Vehicles
£'000
407
-
(16)
391
268
17
(16)
269
122
139		 Depot Tools &
Equipment
Total
£'000
£'000
113
5,418
-
1,158
(5)
(21)
108
6,555
108
3,053
2
457
(4)
(20)
106
3,490
2
3,065
5
2,365
Association
COST
At 31 March 2022
Additions
Disposals
At 31 March 2023
DEPRECIATION
At 31 March 2022
Charged in year
Eliminated on disposals
At 31 March 2023
NET BOOK VALUE
At 31 March 2023
At 31 March 2022		 Freehold
Offices
£'000
1,714
-
-
1,714
138
33
-
171
1,543
1,576		 Office
Furniture,
Fixtures and
Fittings
£'000
449
-
-
449
246
40
-
286
163
203		 Computers
and Office
Equipment
£'000
1,910
339
-
2,249
1,449
228
-
1,677
572
461		 Motor Vehicles
£'000
63
137
-
200
63
13
-
76
124
-		 Depot Tools &
Equipment
Total
£'000
£'000
102
4,238
-
476
-
-
102
4,714
100
1,996
-
314
-
-
100
2,310
2
2,404
2
2,242

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 81 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

15. Investment in Subsidiaries

The Group comprises the following entities all registered in England:

Incorporation Regulated / Nature of
Name and Ownership Non-Regulated Business
Acis Group Limited Company – 100% Regulated RHP
Acis Management Limited Company – 100% Non-Regulated Management services
Acis Development Services Limited Company – 100% Non-Regulated Developer of Social and
Non-social Housing
Prime Repairs and Maintenance Company – 100% Non-Regulated Housing Repairs and
Limited Maintenance
Acis HomePlus Limited Company – 100% Non-Regulated Disabled Adaptations
Riverside Access and Training Centre
Gainsborough Community Interest Company – 100% Non-Regulated Training services
Company
Community Learning in Partnership Company – 100% Non-Regulated Training services
Community Interest Company
Acis Properties Limited Company – 100% Non-Regulated Dormant
Eione LLP LLP – 60% Non-Regulated Management of student
properties

Acis Group Limited has the right to appoint members to the boards of the eight subsidiaries and thereby exercises control over them. Acis Management Limited, Acis Development Services Limited, Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited, Acis Properties Limited and Acis HomePlus Limited all hold £1 ordinary share capital and are wholly owned by Acis Group Limited and Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough Community Interest Company and Community Learning in Partnership Community Interest Company are private companies limited by guarantee without share capital. Acis Management Limited is the 60% majority partner in Eione LLP.

From the 1 April 2022 the activities of Prime Repairs and Maintenance and from 1 September 2022 the activities of Eione LLP both transferred back into Acis Group Limited and these entities will subsequently be wound up. Acis Management Limited will be made dormant following the winding up of Eione LLP.

Acis Group Limited is the ultimate parent undertaking and is regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing (RoSH). All these subsidiary companies are registered in England and Wales.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 82 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

16. Stock

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Stock of vouchers 1 4 1 4
Properties held for sale
Shared Ownership properties:
Completed 444 641 444 641
Work in progress 2,057 1,700 2,057 1,700
Outright Sale Properties:
- -
Completed 1,310 1,310
Work in progress 663 - 659 -
4,475 2,345 4,471 2,345
----- End of picture text -----

None of the above stock is pledged as security for liabilities.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 83 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

17. Trade and Other Debtors

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Due Within One Year
Social: Rent and Service Charges Receivable 786 944 786 944
Less: Social Provision for Bad and Doubtful Debts (700) (654) (700) (654)
Student: Rent and Service Charges Receivable 416 102 416 102
Less: Student Provision for Bad and Doubtful Debts (137) (57) (137) (57)
365 335 365 335
Amounts due from Group Undertakings - - 400 1,959
Other Debtors 834 767 413 407
Prepayments and Accrued Income 623 550 623 550
1,822 1,652 1,801 3,251
Due After More Than One Year
Amounts due from Group Undertakings - - 70 350
1,822 1,652 1,871 3,601
18. Cash and Cash Equivalents
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Short Term Investments 1,245 1,189 1,245 1,189
Cash at bank 1,075 2,212 504 318
Cash in hand 1 - - -
2,321 3,401 1,749 1,507
----- End of picture text -----

In the above are balances totaling £114,061 (2022: £113,557) which are held in trust for leaseholders

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 84 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

19. Creditors: Amounts Falling Due Within One Year

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Loans (Note 21) 1,633 16,633 1,633 16,633
Trade Creditors 2,547 4,514 698 2,334
Other grants received in advance 49 85 49 85
- -
Amounts owed to group undertakings 1,666 2,329
Rent and service charges paid in advance 941 843 941 843
Corporation tax - 47 - 40
Other taxation and social security payable 247 229 247 229
Accruals and deferred income 3,462 2,990 3,462 2,990
Deferred capital grant (Note 22) 720 720 720 720
Recycled capital grant fund (Note 23) 109 114 109 114
Other Creditors 1,085 1,327 851 933
10,793 27,502 10,376 27,250
----- End of picture text -----

Housing property fixed assets are secured against loans by specific charges on 6,177 (2022: 5,300) of the Group’s housing units and are repayable in instalments as detailed in note 21 below.

The net book value of assets pledged as security is £163,864k (2022: £150,814k).

20. Creditors: Amounts Falling Due After More Than One Year

Note
Debt
21		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
184,385
156,517
Group		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
184,385
156,517
Group		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
184,385
156,517
Association
Deferred Capital Grant
22		 43,191 42,414 43,191
42,414
Recycled Capital Grant Fund
23
Other		 592
500
228,668		 555
74
199,560		 592
555
52
74
228,220
199,560

Housing property fixed assets are secured against loans by specific charges on 6,177 (2022: 5,300) of the Group’s housing units and are repayable in instalments as detailed in note 21 below.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 85 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

21. Debt Analysis

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000
Loans repayable by instalments
Within one year 1,667 16,667 1,667 16,667
In one year or more but less than two
years 15,000 1,667 15,000 1,667
In two years or more and less than five
years 12,200 21,133 12,200 21,133
In five years or more 42,149 48,216 42,149 48,216
Loans not repayable by instalments
In two years or more and less than five - -
60,400 60,400
years
In five years or more 55,000 85,900 55,000 85,900
186,416 173,583 186,416 173,583
Less: Loan arrangement fees (398) (433) (398) (433)
186,018 173,150 186,018 173,150
----- End of picture text -----

Financial Instruments

Loans are measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method. Interest expense is recognised on the basis of the effective interest method and is included in finance costs.

Housing loans bear fixed rates of interest ranging from 2.25% to 7.48% or variable rates based on a margin above the Sterling Overnight Index Average (SONIA). The final instalments fall to be repaid in the period 2028 to 2044. No standalone derivative transactions have been entered into by the Group.

Bullet Loans

The Group’s financing facility includes four bullet loans, two of which are with M&G Investment Management Limited totaling £30,000,000. The bullet loans accrue interest six monthly at a rate of 4.19% and 4.22%. The bullet loans are due for repayment in 2045. The remaining two are with RBS / Natwest totalling £77,500,000. The bullet loans accrue interest quarterly at a rate of between 3.45% and 6.55%. The bullet loans are due for repayment in 2027 and 2047 respectively. These loans are all secured by a charge over the Group’s housing properties.

Revolver Loan

The Group has a £29,500,000 Revolver Loan Facility with RBS / Natwest which is drawn to a value of £17,900,000 and forms part of the £107,000,000 Secured Facility Agreement. Non utilisation interest payable is charged at 0.40%.

Other Loans

The Group’s financing facility includes 10 (2022: 12) other loans totaling £71,016,666 (2022: £87,683,334) from three lenders, Dexia Bank, Danske Bank and M&G. This portfolio includes both fixed and variable rate loans which accrue interest on a quarterly basis. The variable rate loans bear interest of SONIA + 1.70%. The fixed rate loans bear interest ranging from 2.25% to 5.26% (2022: 2.25% to 6.43%).

All loans are secured by a charge over the Group’s housing properties.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 86 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

The interest rate profile of the Group at 31st March 2023 was:

----- Start of picture text -----
Weighted Weighted
Variable Fixed Average Average
Total Rate Rate Rate Term
£’000 £’000 £’000 % Years
Instalment loans 71,016 9,145 61,871 3.69% 8
Non-instalment loans 115,400 26,750 88,650 4.67% 12
186,416 35,895 150,521 4.30% 21
----- End of picture text -----

The interest rate profile of the Group at 31st March 2022 was:

----- Start of picture text -----
Weighted Weighted
Variable Fixed Average Average
Total Rate Rate Rate Term
£’000 £’000 £’000 % Years
Instalment loans 87,683 9,519 78,164 3.70% 8
Non-instalment loans 85,900 15,900 70,000 4.34% 11
173,583 25,419 148,164 4.02% 19
----- End of picture text -----

At 31st March 2023 the Group has the following borrowing facilities:

2023

2023
Undrawn / unsecured committed facilities
Undrawn facilities
Total		 £'000
10,000
11,600
21,600

At 31st March 2022 the Group has the following borrowing facilities:

----- Start of picture text -----
2022
£'000
Undrawn / unsecured committed facilities 35,000
Undrawn facilities 16,100
Total 51,100
----- End of picture text -----

Housing property fixed assets are secured against loans by specific charges on 6,177 (2022: 5,300) of the Group’s housing units.

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 87 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

22. Deferred Capital Grant

For the year ended 31 March 2023
22. Deferred Capital Grant
23. Recycled Capital Grant Fund
At start of year
Grant received in the year
Utilisation of Recycled Capital Grants (note 23)
Released to income in the year
Recycled in the year (note 23)
At the end of the year
Analysis
Amounts to be released within one year
Amounts to be released in more than one year		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
43,134
38,753
1,531
5,207
115
-
(722)
(722)
(147)
(104)
43,911
43,134
720
720
43,191
42,414
43,911
43,134
Group		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
43,134
38,753
1,531
5,207
115
-
(722)
(722)
(147)
(104)
43,911
43,134
720
720
43,191
42,414
43,911
43,134
Association
43,134
720
42,414
43,134
At the start of the year
Inputs to Fund:
Grants recycled from deferred capital grants fund
Use of Fund:
Repayment of grant to Homes England
At the end of the year
Amount three years or older where repayment may be required
Due within one year
Due in more than one year		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
669
565
147
104
(115)
-
701
669
-
-
701
669
-
60
109
54
592
555
Group		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
669
565
147
104
(115)
-
701
669
-
-
701
669
-
60
109
54
592
555
Association

Acis Group currently holds RCGF grant that it wishes to utilise on an identified development scheme. Discussions are currently being progressed with Homes England to agree proposals.

£141k relates to amounts arisen in the year and are due in more than one year.

Acis Group Limited acquired properties with associated government grant during 2019. In the event of these properties being disposed, Acis Group Limited is liable for the recycling of the associated government grant. At 31 March 2023 the value of this liability is £8,637k (2022 £8,637k).

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 88 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

24. Share Capital

The Association is limited by Guarantee and does not issue shares.

25. Minority Interests

----- Start of picture text -----
Eione LLP Total
£'000 £'000
At the start of the year 55 55
Proportion of profit after taxation for the year 29 29
Distributions in year (84) (84)
- -
At the end of the year
----- End of picture text -----

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 89 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

26. Accommodation in Management and Ownership

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
No of No of No of No of
Properties Properties Properties Properties
Social housing
Social rent 5,051 5,059 5,051 5,059
Affordable rent 739 691 739 691
Supported housing and housing for older people 258 258 258 258
Low cost home ownership 562 536 562 536
Total owned and managed 6,610 6,544 6,610 6,544
Total managed 6,606 6,540 6,606 6,540
Non-social housing
Student accommodation 1,131 1,131 1,131 1,131
Market rent 19 19 19 19
Total owned and managed 7,760 7,694 7,760 7,694
Total managed 7,751 7,684 7,751 6,553
Accommodation in development at the year end
Rented units 223 136 223 136
Low cost home ownership 108 49 108 49
Outright sale 25 26 - -
Total 356 211 331 185
----- End of picture text -----

Residential accommodation owned

At the end of the year accommodation owned for each class of accommodation was as follows:

Social housing
Social rent
Affordable rent
Supported housing and housing for older people
Low cost home ownership
Total owned
Non-social housing
Student accommodation
Market rent
Total owned
GROUP		 2022
No of
Properties
5,059
691
258
536
6,544
1,131
19
1,150		 Additions
No of
Properties
8
48
0
33
89
0
0
0		 Disposals
No of
Properties
(16)
0
0
(7)
(23)
0
0
0		 Movements
2023
No of
Properties
No of
Properties
0
5,051
0
739
0
258
0
562
0
6,610
0
1,131
0
19
0
1,150

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 90 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

----- Start of picture text -----
2022 Additions Disposals Movements 2023
ASSOCIATION No of No of No of No of No of
Properties Properties Properties Properties Properties
Social housing
Social rent 5,059 8 (16) 0 5,051
Affordable rent 691 48 0 0 739
Supported housing and housing for older people 258 0 0 0 258
Low cost home ownership 536 33 (7) 0 562
Total owned 6,544 89 (23) 0 6,610
Non-social housing
Student accommodation 1,131 0 0 0 1,131
Market rent 19 0 0 0 19
Total owned 1,150 0 0 0 1,150
Accommodation managed by others
The Group owns property managed by other bodies:
----- End of picture text -----

Supported housing and housing for older people
Market rent
Total managed
Supported housing and housing for older people
Student accommodation
Market rent
Total managed
GROUP
ASSOCIATION		 2023
No of
Properties
3
6
9
2023
No of
Properties
3
0
6
9		 2022
No of
Properties
4
6
10
2022
No of
Properties
4
1,131
6
1,141

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 91 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

27. Capital Commitments

Tangible Fixed Asset Expenditure Commitments were as follows:

----- Start of picture text -----
Group Association
2023 2022 2023 2022
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
Capital expenditure that has been contracted
for but has not been provided for in the 41,831 17,152 39,933 14,769
financial statements
Capital expenditure that has been authorised
9,620 2,717 9,620 2,717
by the Board but has not yet been contracted for
51,451 19,869 49,553 17,486
The Group expects these commitments to be
contracted within the next year and financed with:
Social Housing Grant 8,696 3,822 8,696 3,822
Cash Reserves 2,428 3,401 1,856 1,507
Proceeds from the sales of properties 10,664 6,709 8,614 2,754
Revolving Credit Facility 11,600 5,937 11,600 9,403
- -
Secured Facility 10,000 10,000
- -
New Facility 8,063 8,787
51,451 19,869 49,553 17,486
----- End of picture text -----

There are no performance conditions attached to the above commitments

Operating leases

At the reporting date the Group and Association have financial commitments for the lease of a fleet of vehicles, which have an annual lease cost of £303,384 over a 60-month term (2022: £303,384).

At the reporting date the Group and Association have financial commitments for the lease of office premises in Sheffield and Gainsborough, which have an annual rental cost of £42,399 (2022: £42,399) both with a lease length of five years.

The total future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable operating leases are as follows:

Operating Leases 2023
Not later than one year
Later than one year and not later than five years
Later than five years
Operating Leases 2022
Not later than one year
Later than one year and not later than five years
Later than five years		 Vehicles
Offices
£'000
£'000
303
42
38
41
-
-
341
83
Vehicles
Offices
£'000
£'000
303
42
303
84
-
-
606
126
Group
Group		 Vehicles
Offices
£'000
£'000
303
42
38
41
-
-
341
83
Vehicles
Offices
£'000
£'000
303
42
303
84
-
-
606
126
Group
Group		 Vehicles
Offices
£'000
£'000
303
42
38
41
-
-
341
83
Vehicles
Offices
£'000
£'000
-
42
-
84
-
-
-
126
Association
Association
606 126

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

Page 92 of 97

Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

28. Other Commitments

The Group and Association had no other commitments at 31 March 2023 (2022: £Nil).

29. Contingent Liabilities

The Group and Association had no contingent liabilities at 31 March 2023 (2022: £Nil).

30. Related Parties

The following are related parties:

Related party balances are not secured.

Transactions with Non-Registered Elements of the Business

The Association provides management services, other services and loans to subsidiaries and Joint Venture partners. The Association also receives charges from its subsidiaries. The basis of those charges is set out below.

Intra Group Management Fees

Intra Group Management Fees are receivable by the Association from subsidiaries to cover the running costs the Association incurs on behalf of managing its subsidiaries and providing services. The Management Fee is calculated on a service by service basis using varying methods of allocation. The costs are allocated as follows:-

Service Provided

Service Provided Basis of allocation Human resources, payroll and training Staff numbers Information and communication technology ICT users Management accounting Weighted average units and staff numbers Treasury services Net debt Purchase ledger, procurement Operating costs Communications and marketing Weighted average units and staff numbers Executive Weighted average units and staff numbers

During the year the association had the following intra-group transactions with subsidiary companies:

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

Income
Provision of Management Services
Acis Development Services Limited
Acis Management Limited
Acis HomePlus Limited
Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited
Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough
Community Interest Company
Community Learning in Partnership Community Interest
Company
Recharge of salaries and overheads
Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited
Acis HomePlus Limited
Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough
Community Interest Company
Community Learning in Partnership Community Interest
Company
Expenditure
Property Development (Capital)
Acis Development Services Limited
Property Improvements & Maintenance
Eione LLP
Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited
Management and Support Services
Eione LLP
Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough
Community Interest Company
Community Learning in Partnership Community Interest
Company		 2023
2022
£'000
£'000
68
67
34
84
58
47
-
447
37
57
29
-
-
3,801
296
249
354
336
399
-
1,275
5,088
2023
2022
£'000
£'000
7,127
8,406
391
476
9
9,893
780
1,860
250
322
-
-
8,557
20,957

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements For the year ended 31 March 2023

At the year end the association had the following intra-group balances with subsidiary companies

----- Start of picture text -----
2023 2022
Amounts Owed from Group Companies £'000 £'000
Acis Development Services Limited 73 823
Acis Management Limited - 291
Eione LLP - 15
Acis HomePlus Limited 165 406
Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited - 678
Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough
Community Interest Company 112 96
Community Learning in Partnership Community Interest
Company 120 -
470 2,309
2023 2022
Amounts Owed to Group Companies £'000 £'000
Acis Development Services Limited 1,510 1,292
Eione LLP - 179
Acis HomePlus Limited 140 5
Prime Repairs and Maintenance Limited - 820
Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough
Community Interest Company 16 33
1,666 2,329
----- End of picture text -----

Other Intra Group Charges

Other intra group charges are payable to the Association from subsidiaries and relate to staff recharges

Intra Group Interest Charges

Intra group interest is charged by the Association to its subsidiaries at an agreed commercial rate

Gift Aid

During the year to 31 March 2019 Acis Group Limited entered into a gift aid deed with Acis Management Limited and Acis Development Services Limited.

In March 2023 Acis Development Services Limited declared a gift aid payment to the Association of £66,631 (2022: £823,383).

In March 2023 Acis Management Limited declared a gift aid payment to the Association of £80,593 (2022: £254,960).

In March 2023 Riverside Access and Training Centre Gainsborough Community Interest Company did not declare a gift aid payment to the Association (2022: £15,024).

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

31. Analysis of Changes in Net Debt

The Group (and Association) had the following net debt movements:

----- Start of picture text -----
Group
At Beginning Non-cash
of the year Cash Flows Movements At End of Year
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
-
Cash and cash equivalents 3,401 (1,080) 2,321
Loans Due in One Year (16,633) 15,000 - (1,633)
Loans Due After One Year (156,517) (27,834) (34) (184,385)
(169,749) (13,914) (34) (183,697)
----- End of picture text -----

Cash and cash equivalents
Loans Due in One Year
Loans Due After One Year		 At Beginning
of the year
Cash Flows
Non-cash
Movements At End of Year
£'000
£'000
£'000
£'000
1,507
242
-
1,749
(16,633)
15,000
-
(1,633)
(156,517)
(27,834)
(34)
(184,385)
Association
(171,643)
(12,592)
(34)
(184,269)

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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Acis Group Limited

Notes to the Financial Statements

For the year ended 31 March 2023

32. Grant and financial assistance

----- Start of picture text -----
Social
GAP
Housing 2023 2022
Funding
Grant
£'000 £'000 £'000 £'000
The total accumulated government grant and
financial assistance received or receivable at 31
March 2023:
Total gross grant at end of period 41,742 12,208 53,950 52,304
Total cumulative amortisation at start of period 3,315 5,855 9,170 8,344
Recognised as income in statement of
Comprehensive Income in the period 240 482 722 722
Recycled in the year 147 - 147 104
Held as deferred capital grant 38,040 5,871 43,911 43,134
----- End of picture text -----

Annual Report and Financial Statement 2023

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