2021-03-31-accounts - St Neots Foodbank

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ST NEOTS FOODBANK

REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 1154018

TRUSTEES’ REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 1ST APRIL 2020 TO 31ST MARCH 2021

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

Charity Name

St Neots Foodbank

Registered Charity Number

1154018 (England and Wales)

Registered Office

Mrs Jennifer Henderson c/o Unit 2B Brittains Warehouse Little End Road Eaton Socon St Neots Cambridgeshire PE19 8JH

Operating address

Unit 2B Brittains Warehouse Little End Road Eaton Socon St Neots Cambridgeshire PE19 8JH

Charity Trustees as of 31[st] March 2021

	Office	Church represented
Dr David Pacini	Chair
Mrs Jennifer Henderson	Secretary	United Reformed Church
Mr Malcolm Crawford	Treasurer	New Street Baptist Church
Mrs Carol Way	Deputy Chair	St Mary’s Churches, St Neots with EynesburyParish
Mrs Andrea Lees		Open Door Church
Dr Roger Peppiatt		St Mary’s Parish Church,Eaton Socon
Dr Barbara Spencer		BerkeleyStreet Methodist Church

Independent Examiner

David Brown FCA Executive Suite, A1 Lifestyle Village Great North Road Little Paxton St Neots Cambridgeshire PE19 6EN

Bank

Lloyds Bank 17-19 Market Square St Neots Cambridgeshire PE19 2BQ

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR PERIOD 1[st] APRIL 2020 TO 31[ST] MARCH 2021

1. STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

1.1 Governing document

St Neots Foodbank is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation whose only voting members are its charity trustees. The trustees adopted a constitution on 6[th] September 2013 following the ‘foundation model’ of the Charity Commission. Registered charitable status was granted on 30[th] September, and the registered charity number is 1154018.

1.2 Trustee selection and management

The charity is managed by a board of trustees, most of whom attend and have been nominated by one of each of the ten founding churches. All trustees strongly endorse the charitable objectives of the organisation and support its Christian ethos.

The trustees are responsible for the development and strategic direction of the foodbank, and for ensuring governance and financial responsibility. They meet quarterly to review performance and monitor the achievement of objectives. The treasurer provides a financial monitoring statement at each meeting, including a forecast of the likely income and expenditure for the whole financial year, based on the results thus far. The trustees agree an annual financial statement which is independently examined before submission to the Charity Commission website. The project manager oversees the day-to-day operation of the foodbank, and reports to the trustees each meeting.

1.3 Related Organisations

The St Neots Foodbank is affiliated to the Trussell Trust, a charity based in Salisbury that assists churches and communities to open and run foodbanks nationwide.

1.4 Management of risk

The trustees have adopted a range of policy documents that are intended to manage and minimise risk. Areas covered include Health and Safety and Safeguarding.

Initial training was provided by staff from the Trussell Trust. The responsibility for training new volunteers has now been taken up by experienced Trustees and volunteers from St Neots Foodbank. In addition, regular training for volunteers is offered, including Safeguarding. All volunteers are encouraged to attend.

The Trussell Trust last undertook a Quality Assurance Audit in October 2018 to monitor the operation of the foodbank against their procedures and policies. The assessors were complimentary about the running of the foodbank and for the first time there were no “requirements”. The recommendations that were highlighted by the audit were incorporated into our annual Action Plan and successfully implemented in 2019.

2. OBJECTIVES, AIMS AND ACTIVITIES

2.1 Charitable Objectives

The St Neots Foodbank has as its objective the prevention and relief of poverty in St Neots and surrounding area, particularly but not exclusively by providing emergency food supplies to individuals and families in need. This objective is undertaken with a Christian ethos; we seek to operate according to Christian principles of compassion, honesty, integrity, openness, kindness and care of all people, regardless of backgrounds or beliefs.

2.2 Aims

Our aims are to alleviate poverty through the provision of food parcels to those in crisis, in partnership with local care agencies who refer clients in crisis to us. The food parcels are intended to meet the immediate need. In parallel, signposting to care agencies, advice services and other support agencies is intended to help clients resolve the crisis causing their need of the foodbank.

2.3 Objectives for the year

The main objective for the year was to consolidate the work of the previous seven years. In practice, during the covid-19 pandemic, this meant:

recruiting and supporting volunteers and training them appropriately,
efficient operation of the warehouse, equipping it and maintaining and
putting in place appropriate systems to enable the warehouse to function,
maintaining an effective administration operation,
recruiting and supporting existing voucher holders,
developing a home delivery service and telephone signposting service
to temporarily replace the four distribution centres,
ensuring sufficient food and finances to sustain the operation

2.4 Key decisions and events during the year

a. In response to the lockdown resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, the foodbank moved to a home delivery model for our 3-day emergency food parcels accompanied by telephone signposting advice if required by clients.
b. Changes to Officers and Trustees:
In November 2020 Roger Sare completed his term of office as the Trustee for River Church and the process to replace him started. A replacement trustee was also being sought from the SNEC congregation and from St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church.

2.5 How the Foodbank works

Food is donated by the public;
Donations of non-perishable food are checked for “use by” dates, weighed
and sorted by food type;
Clients in food crisis are issued with a St Neots Foodbank voucher by a recognised Voucher Partner;
Prior to the covid-19 pandemic, clients brought their voucher to a Foodbank distribution session where it was redeemed for an emergency foodbox. The client is also signposted toward other agencies, which may be able to help resolve the crisis. Since the Covid-19 lockdown on 24th March 2020, a voucher is issued either by the Trussell Trust E-referral system, password protected email or a phone call by our Voucher Partners and the client is contacted by telephone to arrange home delivery of the 3-day food parcel and signposted to other agencies if desired.
- The contents of emergency foodboxes are intended to be nutritionally balanced and to provide sufficient food for 3 days.

2.6 Public Benefit

The trustees confirm that they have referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit when reviewing the charity’s aims and objectives and in planning future activities.

3. ACHIEVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE

3.1 Summary of the year’s activities

As a result of the Covid 19 pandemic, we changed the operation of the foodbank from distribution centres to a complete home delivery model at the end of March 2020, doing our main deliveries on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. This decision was based on Government advice for over 70s and our need to keep volunteers and visitors safe. The warehouse operation was also changed to teams of two people, who could socially distance, with more frequent teams in place. Office volunteers have been working from home and new volunteers found for new roles. This format has continued all year and appropriate protocols, policies and Risk Assessments have been formulated and agreed by Trustees.

In addition, in agreement with Waitrose, we stopped giving fruit and vegetable vouchers and in May 2020 started buying in wholesale fruit and vegetables and making up boxes for delivery once a week to all who have received a food box. These have been hugely well received.

As might be expected there has been a significant rise in the number of people using the foodbank during the year and an increase in food donations, as seen in the table below. We were helped significantly by having donations made to us from Tesco central warehousing and delivered by British Gas over a nine-week period.

Year	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21
Food in(kg)	14,174	19,737	21,813	25,999	33,879
People fed	1,015	1,415	1,555	1,781	2,583
Christmasparcels	183	209	242	290	259
Summerparcels	21(trial)	77	99	82	-

As we had significant excess stock and little room in the warehouse we offered Basic Bags to families during November and asked schools to administer the 313 bags requested. Due to large donations of Easter eggs by Cadbury and other businesses we were able to give them to all family members receiving our parcels.

Short dated stock has mainly gone out with parcels and we have been able to give away dented cans to an organisation happy to take them. A number of other groups have been supported, including Paines Mill and Three Pillars as and when we had stock available.

Closing the distribution centres meant also stopping the project we had started with CA (Citizens Advice) and the ‘drop ins’ with P3 (People Potential Possibilities). We were however able to get one of our CA trained volunteers to become our ‘virtual signposter’. She rings everyone who receives a parcel to check they have been happy with their delivery and where appropriate have a discussion about possible extra help and support available for families. A huge addition to the support we can provide to families has been the appointment of a full time CA worker (two people job share) following the successful ASDA grant bid by Ely, Ramsey, Godmanchester and St Neots foodbanks. This means we can directly refer and our foodbank clients are able to access their support very quickly.

In March 2021 we became a Trusted organisation with Huntingdonshire District Council so that we can apply for the Winter Support Grant for our foodbank users. This means we can give a £50 (£25 singles) supermarket voucher and a £49 (£29 singles) top up energy voucher.

At the end of 2019 we set up the foodbank to become a partner with Acts 435 and we have an Advocate who places requests onto their website to crowdfund items for up to £150 for our foodbank users. For the reported year this meant we were able to complete 64 requests with a total value of £8267 to purchase such things as phones, tablets, white goods, carpets, clothes and debt relief order costs.

3.2 Voucher partners

Voucher partners are professionals from organisations providing welfare and community support in the local area such as doctors, schools, social workers, registered social landlords,

local charities and Citizens Advice staff, amongst others. When these professionals identify people in crisis they are able to issue them with a Foodbank voucher. With the closure of distribution centres we have asked our voucher partners either to do vouchers on the Trussell Trust E-referral system or scan and password protect the voucher to our e mail or telephone us with details.

The number of Voucher Partners has increased to 89 and 1,067 vouchers have been fulfilled during the year. Using the delivery model we have been able to service clients in the various villages around St Neots with greater ease.

3.3 Recipients of food

During the year, food was provided for 2,583 people (1,503 adults and 1,080 children). The following table provides the breakdown of the crisis types prompting use of the Foodbank for the year to the end of March 2021 (cause attributed by the Voucher Partners). As can be seen from the figures we have seen a large rise in the number of families with children accessing the foodbank.

Table: Reason for Issuing Vouchers

Crisis	No. Vouchers	No. Vouchers	Percentage	Percentage	Adults	Adults	Children	Children
Year	19/20	20/21	19/20	20/21	19/20	20/21	19/20	20/21
Benefit Changes	109	40	13	4	158	61	113	39
Benefit Delays	145	119	18	11	207	153	115	99
Child Holiday Meals	5	7	1	1	9	10	7	17
Debt	65	83	8	8	98	127	56	88
Delayed Wages	8	20	1	2	12	31	6	21
Domestic Violence	31	25	4	2	33	28	51	51
Homeless	50	23	6	2	58	26	18	11
Low Income	291	612	35	57	410	857	228	584
No recourse to public funds	1	2	0	0	1	3	3	4
Other	49	86	6	8	61	134	45	124
Refused Short Term Benefit Advance(STBA)	7	4	1	1	7	6	3	1
Sickness	60	46	7	4	76	67	10	41
Totals	821	1,067	100	100	1,130	1,503	655	1,080

3.4 Food donated

The Foodbank has ‘drop-boxes’ in Tesco, Waitrose and the Co-op Stores which are collected weekly. In addition to the supermarkets we have drop off points at Gainz Gym, Argos and Eynesbury primary school. This makes up about 60% of the total food collected. There were 2 three-day unmanned collections at Tesco in August and November 2020. As there were no volunteers present in store, there was a significant drop in the amount of food collected to that which we normally receive. Tesco then give a 20% financial ‘top up’ of the weight of food collected. A number of churches, schools, businesses, groups and individuals also donated food throughout the year. Due to the pandemic we lost a number of organisations who usually help with collections where businesses remained closed. However, other villages and organisations were able to take their place, particularly in the run up to Christmas. The total amount of food collected this year was 33,879 kg and over the year to 31 March 2021 the amount of food distributed was 33,964 kg. At the end of March 2021 the stock level was 4,367 kg. Stock is valued at £1.75 per kilo as advised by the Trussell Trust. Therefore, the value of food held in stock at this time was £7,642.

3.5 Publicity

Publicity has contributed to the success of the Foodbank . Two newsletters have been issued during the year, which have gone to all volunteers, voucher holders, churches and those who have asked to be kept informed about our work. We weren’t able to do our normal talks to organisations or have visitors to our warehouse during the year, however we continue to be well supported by our local paper, the Hunts Post, who have published several articles, including publicity for printer cartridge collections done for us by Eaton Socon bowls club, who then sell these to provide financial funds for us. We continue to make posts on social media platforms.

3.6 Volunteers

The Foodbank is run entirely by volunteers and because of the pandemic a significant number of our volunteers have had to stand down. New volunteers have stepped in to do different roles, such as parcel box packers, fruit and vegetable box packers, delivery drivers and supermarket pick up drivers as well as the normal warehousing. This has involved a team of about 30 people a week.

We have held meetings on Zoom and kept in contact through telephone, WhatsApp groups and e mail.

4. FINANCIAL REVIEW

4.1 Principal sources of funds

Donations for general (unrestricted) purposes of £67,405 were received, in addition to £874 from the Trussell Trust, being from top-up payments based on the value of food donations made at Tesco. The latter is designated by the Trustees for the purchase of food.

During the year the Foodbank submitted to the crowd funding service, Acts435, the needs of clients and grants totalling £8,192 were received.

There was a surplus of Unrestricted Funds for the year of £52,560.

4.2 How expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity

Most of the resources used by the Foodbank to achieve its objectives are donated in the form of the time offered by volunteers as drivers, packers, and in the Warehouse, the buildings and other facilities offered either free-of-charge or at greatly reduced cost by partner organisations (including churches for the use of buildings for Distribution Centres and meetings, and by Tesco), and the gifts of food by the public – e.g. the nominal value for the food gifts in the year was £58,800 which compares to the financial expenditure on other items of £15,021. The largest item was £5,282 to purchase fresh vegetables and fruit to add to client deliveries.

It is necessary to pay for the core running costs of the Foodbank in order to enable its objectives to be achieved. This year £2,919 was needed to supplement donations of food and purchase boxes to enable home deliveries.

The Foodbank’s operations are audited regularly by the Trussell Trust and the accounts are independently examined.

In order to support other complementary charities in the area, 10% of the donations received (£6,753) has been set aside. During the year the total payments from this fund, including topping up Acts435 grants, was £1,535.

In total the Unrestricted and Designated Reserves total over £95,000 compared with about £46,000 a year ago. This is equivalent to over 15 months-worth of expenditure, plus donations of food received.

ST NEOTS FOODBANK YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2021 Unrestricted Funds Designated Funds Income £ £ Voluntary Income: Donations (see note) 67,405 0 Grants 50 874 Interest 126 0 Total Income 67,581 874 Expenditure Warehouse rent 5,000 Electricity 586 Container Hire 702 Business Rates 0 Warehouse / Distribution eqpt 162 Subscriptions 395 Telephone 1,922 Printing, Stationery, Postage 258 Insurance 453 Office and travel Expenses 263 Purchase of vegetables and boxes 5,282 2,919 Cambs CC Outreach project CAB Project Acts435 grants Gifts to partner charities . 1,460 Total Expenditure 15,021 4,379 Net Movement of Funds 52,560 -3,505 Transfer of Funds Provision for tithe 2020/21 -6,753 6,753 Contribution to Acts435 -75 Add: Funds brought forward 33,912 12,793 Funds carried forward at 31 March 2021 79,719 15,966 AT 31 MARCH 2021 Current Assets Bank Current account & in Hand Deposit Accounts Paypal Account Soldo prepayment card Tesco vouchers Total Current Assets Funds of the Charity Unrestricted Funds Designated Funds Provision forTithe 2020/21 Hardship Fund Tescos top up Restricted Funds CAB Fund Acts 435 Total Funds Note : In addition, donations of food weighing 33,649kg, with a value of £58,800, were received STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES CHARITY NUMBER: 1154018 RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNTS	Restricted Funds £ 0 8,192 0 8,192 0 0 8,407 8,407 -215 75 1,896 1,756 6,753 1,448 7,765 1,656 100	Total 2020/21 £ 67,405 9,116 126 76,647 5,000 586 702 0 162 395 1,922 258 453 263 8,201 0 0 8,407 1,460 27,807 48,839 0 0 0 48,601 97,441 Total March 2021 £ 25,829 70,311 0 700 600 97,441 79,719 15,966 1,756 97,441	Total 2019/20 £ 29,657 4,277 173
			*34,107*
			5,000 598 0 0 239 395 733 234 376 1,083 2,824 100 1,776 605 0
			*13,963*
			20,144 0 0 0 28,457
			*48,601*
			Total March 2020 £ 24,627 20,185 3,089 700 0
			*48,601*
			33,912 2,983 0 9,810 1,656 240
			*48,601*

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This report has described operation of St Neots Foodbank during the year 1[st] April 2020 to 31[st] March 2021. The trustees have again been truly grateful to groups and individuals in terms of donations of food and finance, people who hold vouchers, the local churches and to all those who have helped to make this year a success. Tesco have continued their support of St Neots and other network foodbanks by means of the twice-yearly food collections and cash top-ups. Brittains store continues to provide office and storage space in their warehouse, at a reduced rent. St Neots Foodbank is indebted to the many volunteers, without whom the Foodbank would not operate. In particular, it depends heavily on the hardworking and always-cheerful key volunteers who run the Foodbank on a day-to-day basis – Adrienne Dunn, Rona McCormick, Carol Way, Kerry Walsh and Peter Bradford.