2023-03-31-accounts - St Neots Foodbank

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ST NEOTS FOODBANK REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 1154018

TRUSTEES’ REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 1ST APRIL 2022 TO 31ST MARCH 2023

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 2023

	Ofce	Church represented
Mrs Carol Way	Chair	St Mary’s Churches, St Neots with Eynesbury Parish
Mrs Jennifer Henderson	Secretary	United Reformed Church
Mr Malcolm Crawford	Treasurer	New Street Baptist Church
Mrs Andrea Lees		Opendoor Church
Mr Simon Leher		River Church
Mr David Gill		St Mary’s Parish Church, Eaton Socon
Dr Barbara Spencer		Berkley Street Methodist Church
Mrs Wendy Hallett		St Neots’ Evangelical 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 2021 TO 31[ST] MARCH 2022

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 at 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. To further identify and minimise risk, a new policy and procedure on risk management was introduced in January 2021 together with a Risk Management Assessment Matrix which is collectively completed and agreed by Trustees. This matrix is updated every six months to identify all potential areas of risk, including governance, finance, operations, compliance with the law and regulations and any other external factors that could affect the foodbank.

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 and health and safety. All volunteers are encouraged to attend.

The Trussell Trust last undertook a comprehensive Quality Assurance Audit of all aspects of the Foodbank’s operations, management and governance 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.

In August 2021 the Foodbank completed the newly introduced Governance Self-Assessment and this resulted in a written summary report from a member of the national Trussell Trust Quality Team. All 12 strands of Governance were assessed as at least meeting Trussell Trust standards and legal requirements (amber) with 7 being assessed as exceeding Trussell Trust standards (green). No strands were assessed as not meeting Trussell Trust standards and legal requirements (red). The recommendations in the report have either been implemented or included in ongoing actions.

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 and signposting help available from other agencies 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 nine years. In practice 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,
maintaining the home delivery model and moving back to a Distribution Centre model when Covid restrictions allowed.
ensuring sufficient food and finances to sustain the operation,
Implementing the Financial Inclusion Grant to provide visitors with advice and support from CA and mast at our Distribution Centres

2.4 Key decisions and events during the year

Home delivery model:
In response to the lockdowns and restrictions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, the foodbank continued with a home delivery model for the first 5 months and then began the reopening of Distribution Centres
Changes to Officers and Trustees:
A replacement trustee was still being sought from St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church.
Update to our Charitable Objective:
In January 2021 Trustees agreed to amend our charitable objective within our CIO document, to include an explicit reference to “signposting” (the amended objective is stated in full in section 2.1 above) and this was uploaded onto the Charity Commission (CC) website in November 2021.
Trussell Trust Franchise Agreement:
In April 2021 trustees agreed to remain part of the Trussell Trust Network and sign the newly introduced Network Franchise Agreement. Signing this agreement further committed St. Neots Foodbank to actively promoting and

working to fulfil the Trussell Trust’s vision of ending the need for foodbanks in the UK. Signing the franchise agreement also allowed St. Neots’ foodbank to apply for new ‘Financial Inclusion’ grant streams. This successful bid has resulted in the provision of advisors from Citizens Advice and ‘MAST’ (Money Advice St Neots) at our Distribution Centres. This has hugely contributed to our aim of enabling visitors to better manage their financial situation and relieve debt.

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;
Those in food crisis are issued with a St Neots Foodbank voucher by

a

recognised Voucher Partner;

Recipients of vouchers after September 2022 could redeem them at one of the Distribution Centres for an emergency food box. The home delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables was replaced at that time by a voucher system in partnership with Waitrose which enables our visitors to have eggs and fresh or frozen fruit and vegetables.
Visitors are also signposted toward other agencies, which may be able to help resolve their crisis; in particular through the work of the advisers recruited through the Financial Inclusion grant.

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 the Covid 19 pandemic continued we kept a delivery model in place for the first part of the year doing our main deliveries on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Office volunteers generally worked from home, going into the office as needed. We also continued to make up our own fruit and vegetable boxes, with the addition of eggs, and delivered these on Wednesdays to people who had received a parcel during the previous

week. The boxes were packed on a rota basis by a new team of volunteers.

In August 2022 we began by opening distribution centres three times a week and held training sessions with volunteers returning to the role as a reminder of how we used to work and provided new information going forward, particularly around the increased introduction of the e-voucher system. Training was held with our distribution leads on how to access the Trussell Trust data system and fulfil electronic vouchers. Having lost a number of volunteers during the pandemic we did a recruitment drive to boost numbers for our distribution centres and provided training for them. The fourth centre at Opendoor was opened in March 2023. We continue to do some deliveries for people unable to attend one of our centres and offer telephone signposting to them.

The number of people attending the foodbank has increased since the pandemic but has been comparable over the past three years.

Year	2017/1 8	2018/ 19	2019/ 20	2020/ 21	2021/ 22	2022/ 23
Food in(kg)	19,737	21,813	25,999	33,879	26,790	32,885
People fed	1,415	1,555	1,781	2,583	2,168	2,546
Christmas parcels	209	242	290	259	367	319

We were able to distribute 319 Christmas hampers in December 2022 having taken referrals from our voucher holding agencies.

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. We had a large amount of stock in excess of our requirements in January 2023 and gave 1,283 kg of food to Euston Foodbank who came with a van to collect and 375 kg for a donation to go to Ukraine. Other groups, such as Paines Mill, have been supported as and when needed.

In the first part of the year, we continued with virtual signposting and referrals to Citizen’s Advice, PECT, Woodgreen and other appropriate agencies. Woodgreen have been providing us with packs of dog and cat food, along with their fliers to give to foodbank visitors. The two-year project where we funded a Citizen’s Advice worker, working with Ely, Ramsey, Godmanchester and St Neots foodbanks, gave visitors £310,000

in financial gains over the two-year period. We received a grant of £45,000 for Financial Inclusion from the Trussell Trust in October 2022 and have joined with Godmanchester Foodbank to employ a full time and part time (18 hours) adviser and buddy from Citizen’s Advice and a fulltime worker from mast (Money Advice St Neots). We have workers in each of our centres to support people who come to the foodbank with issues such as debt, benefits, housing and budgeting.

Further support has been given for other much needed items using Acts 435 and we now have two Advocates. We have also helped people apply for the District Council Household Support Fund.

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. We have continued to move organisations to the e-referral system and are phasing out the use of red vouchers.

The number of Voucher Partners is 91 and 1,136 vouchers have been fulfilled during the year.

3.3 Recipients of Food

During the year food was provided for 2,546 people (1,540 adults and 1,006 children). The following table provides the breakdown of the crisis types prompting use of the Foodbank for the year to the end of March 2023 (cause attributed by the Voucher Partners).

Table: Reason for Issuing Vouchers

Crisis	No. Vouchers	No. Vouchers	Percentag e	Percentag e	Adults	Adults	Children	Children
Year	21/2 2	22/2 3	21/2 2	22/2 3	21/22	22/2 3	21/2 2	22/2 3
Beneft Changes	49	67	5	6	69	91	73	55
Beneft Delays	60	110	6	10	90	128	54	44


Child Holiday Meals	4	10	1	1	7	12	5	21
Debt	68	50	7	4	102	73	72	58
Delayed Wages	15	14	2	1	20	19	14	17
Domestic Violence	24	26	3	2	27	33	32	26
Homeless	19	29	2	3	21	39	14	18
Low Income	555	654	61	58	799	891	511	596
No recourse to public funds	2	5	0	0	3	7	5	6
Other	53	110	6	10	70	154	56	95
Refused STBA	-	2	-	0	-	2	-	1
Sickness	61	59	7	5	86	91	38	69
Totals	910	1,13 6	100	100	1,294	1,54 0	874	1,00 6

3.4 Food Donated

The Foodbank has ‘drop-boxes’ in Tesco, Waitrose and the Co-op Stores which are collected weekly. In addition, we have Gainz Gym, the library and Eynesbury Primary school with collection boxes. This makes up about 70% of the total food collected. There were two three-day collections at Tesco in June/July and December 2022. For the later collection we had a good number of staff from Tesco offices come to volunteer with us, which made a significant difference to the amount of food collected to help with the contents of our Christmas Hampers. 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. Harvest donations are a significant help to food donations, and we received about 1.3 tonnes of food from schools and 1 tonne from churches. The total amount of food collected this year was 32,885 kg and over the year to 31 March 2023 the amount of food distributed was 33,172 kg. At the end of March 2023, the stock level was 3,556 kg. Stock is valued at £2.37 per kilo as advised by the Trussell Trust. Therefore, the value of food held in stock at this time was £8,428.

3.5 Publicity

Publicity has contributed to the success of the Foodbank . A newsletter has been issued during the year, which has gone to all volunteers, voucher holders, churches and those who have asked to be kept informed about our work. As organisations have re-started we have been able to do a small number of talks as requested and occasionally go into local schools. We continue to be well supported by our local paper, the Hunts Post, which has published articles about the foodbank and stories of people who have done fundraising for us. We continue to make posts on social media platforms and update our website.

3.6 Volunteers

The Foodbank is run entirely by volunteers, and we have added a number during the year. There are various roles for warehouse volunteers in weighing, dating and sorting donations as well as separate teams of box packers and fruit and vegetable packers, along with those doing supermarket ‘pick ups’, delivery drivers and office staff. We have a number of WhatsApp groups to get relevant information to selected groups very quickly.

4. FINANCIAL REVIEW

4.1 Principal sources of funds

Donations for general (unrestricted) purposes of £55,506 were received, in addition to a grant of £5,000 from the Trussell Trust as an Emergency Grant, we received £2,495 being top-up payments for food collected at Tescos. 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 £2,305 were received.

There was a surplus of Unrestricted Funds for the year of £42,041.

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, and the gifts of food by the public – e.g. the nominal value for the food gifts of 32,778 kg received in the year was £77,707 which compares to the financial expenditure on other items of £19,150. The largest expenditure item was £8,784 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 £1,073 was needed to supplement donations of food.

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 (£5,596) has been set aside. During the year the total payments from this fund, including topping up Acts435 grants, was £1,361.

In total the Unrestricted and Designated Reserves total £164,000 compared with £122,000 a year ago. This includes £50,000 in the Development Fund and £89,823 in unrestricted Funds. The latter compares with the aim under the Trust’s Reserves Policy to maintain minimum unrestricted reserves of £30,000 being equivalent to about 6 months operating costs and about 3 months food supplies.

ST NEOTS FOODBANK CHARITY NUMBER: 1154018 RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNTS PERIOD ENDED 31st March 2023 Unrestric ted Funds Designa ted Funds Restrict ed Funds Total 2022/23 Income £ £ £ £ Voluntary Income: Donations 55,506 0 55,506 Grants 5,000 2,495 2,305 9,800 Interest 685 0 0 685 Total Income 61,191 2,495 2,305 65,991 Expenditure Warehouse rent 5,000 5,000 Electricity 447 447 Container Hire 475 475 Business Rates 0 0 Warehouse / Distribution eqpt 176 176 Subscriptions 360 360 Telephone 1,932 1,932 Printing, Stationery, Postage 442 442 Insurance 536 536 Ofce and other Expenses 880 880 Provision of vegetables 8,784 8,784 Purchase of groceries 118 956 1,073 Cambs CC Outreach project 0 0 CAB Project 0 0 Acts435 grants 413 2,165 2,578 Hardship Fund - Energy 195 195 Gifts to partner charities . 753 753 Total Expenditure 19,150 2,317 2,165 23,632 Net Movement of Funds 42,041 179 140 42,360 Transfer of Funds 0 Provision for tithe 2022/23 -5,596 5,596 0 0 Transfer to Development Fund 0 Add: Funds brought forward 53,378 68,669 1,764 123,811 Funds carried forward at 31 December 2022 89,823 74,443 1,904 166,171		Total 2021/ 22 £ 41,22 6 11,44 9 26
		*52,70* 1
		5,000 609 301 0 288 0 1,222 280 530 670 10,45 4 0 432 4,965 1,580
		*26,33* 1
		26,37 1 0 0 0 97,44 1
		*123,8* 11

STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES

|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
General Tithe Fund
11,607
Development Fund
50,000
Energy Hardship Fund
2,000
Hardship Fund
1,000
Tescos top up
9,837
Restricted Funds
CAB
Fund
1,224
Acts 435
680
Total Funds
|**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 General Tithe Fund 11,607 Development Fund 50,000 Energy Hardship Fund 2,000 Hardship Fund 1,000 Tescos top up 9,837 Restricted Funds CAB Fund 1,224 Acts 435 680 **Total Funds** |Total
31 Mar
2023
£
28,701
136,023
146
1,300
0
166,171
89,823
74,444
1,904
166,171||Total
March
2022
£
26,971
95,338
0
903
600| |---|---|---|---|---| |||||123,81
1| |||||53,378
7,373
50,000
2,000
999
8,297
1,224
540| ||1,224
680|||| |||||123,81
1|

I confirm that these accounts are in accord with the books of the St Neots Foodbank

th . Date 30 June 2023

Malcolm Crawford

Treasurer, St Neots Foodbank

I certify that I have verified the above accounts and find them to be a true and accurate record of the St Neots Foodbank accounts for the year ended 31[st] March 2023.

th . Date 26 July 2023 .

David Brown A1 Lifestyle Accounts Limited

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This report has described operation of St Neots Foodbank during the year 1[st] April 2022 to 31[st] March 2023. 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 the foodbank to help local people in crisis. Tesco have continued their support of St Neots and other Trussell Trust network foodbanks by means of the twice-yearly food collections and cash top-ups. Waitrose have taken on the voucher system for the provision of fresh eggs, fruit and vegetables and have been hugely supportive to our visitors. 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, Peter Dunn, Rona McCormick, Kerry Walsh and Peter Bradford.