2025-03-31-accounts - St Neots Foodbank

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator.

ST NEOTS FOODBANK REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 1154018

TRUSTEES’ REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 1[ST] APRIL 2024 TO 31[ST] MARCH 2025

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

Charity Name St Neots Foodbank

Registered Charity Number

1154018 (England and Wales)

Registered Office

St Neots Foodbank Unit 3 Little End Road Eaton Socon St Neots Cambridgeshire PE19 8JH

Operating address Unit 3 Little End Road Eaton Socon St Neots Cambridgeshire PE19 8JH

Charity Trustees as of 31[st] March 2024

Charity Trusteesas of 31stM	arch 2024
	Ofce	Church represented
Mrs Carol Way	Chair	St Mary’s Churches, St Neots with Eynesbury Parish
Mr Malcolm Crawford	Treasurer	New Street Baptst Church
Mr Kevin Rowland		Opendoor Church
Mr Simon Leher		River Church
Mr David Gill		St Mary’s Parish Church, Eaton Socon
Mrs Judith Johnson		Berkley Street Methodist Church
Mrs Wendy Hallet		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 99 High Street Huntingdon Cambridgeshire PE29 3DU

TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR PERIOD 1[ST] APRIL 2024 TO 31[ST] MARCH 2025

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 2013, 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, compared with the approved Budget. The Trustees agree an annual financial statement which is independently examined before submission to the Charity Commission website. The Project Manager oversees the day-today 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. Following a successful grant application for Financial Inclusion the Foodbank has employed two part time staff from Citizen’s Advice and an adviser from “Mast”, a local debt advice service to attend Distribution Centres and support our visitors.

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.

The responsibility for training new volunteers is now provided 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 is this the most recent? 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.

Done in 2023

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. Have we had another since?

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. In addition, the Financial Inclusion project has enabled this work to be enhanced by helping visitors manage their income and benefits with the aim of reducing their need to rely on the Foodbank.

2.3 Objectives for the year

The main objectives for the year were to consolidate the work of the previous ten years, to seek to recruit a new Project Manager, and to ensure maintaining appropriate accommodation

In practice this meant:

Taking advice on and implementing the recruitment process for the appointment of a new Project Manager.
Involvement in the changes in ownership of our premises
Recruiting new 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,
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

Changes to Officers and Trustees:
- No new Trustees were identified although we regularly reminded the churches of our vacancies.
- Following the end of our Secretary’s term of office we were still not been able to find a replacement. We do however have an excellent volunteer minute taker
- Recruiting a new Project Manager and ensuring appropriate training and induction
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 which resulted in the provision of advisors from Citizens Advice and ‘Mast’ (Money Advice St Neots) at our Distribution Centres 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;
and
Donations of non-perishable food are checked for “use by” dates, weighed sorted by food type;
Those in food crisis are issued with a St Neots Foodbank voucher by a recognised Voucher Partner;
Recipients of vouchers can redeem them at one of the Distribution Centres for an emergency food box.
Through a partnership with Waitrose, visitors who come to Distribution Centres with a voucher are given an additional voucher which they can exchange for fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, and eggs at our local Waitrose store.
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

4. FINANCIAL REVIEW

4.1 Principal sources of funds

Donations for general (unrestricted) purposes of £37,614 were received. We received £3,062 being top-up payments for food collected at Tesco. The latter is designated by the Trustees for the purchase of food.

During the year the Foodbank submitted to the crowdfunding service, Acts435, the needs of clients, and grants totalling £2,138 were received.

There was a surplus of Unrestricted Funds for the year of £13,974.

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 28,339 kg received in the year was £78,500 which compares to the financial expenditure on other items of £27,782. The largest expenditure item was £9,600 to purchase fresh vegetables and fruit to add to client deliveries. A part time Project manager was appointed at the end of September 2024

It is necessary to pay for the core running costs of the Foodbank in order to enable its objectives to be achieved. This year £3,120 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 (£3,761) has been set aside. During the year the total payments from this fund, including topping up Acts435 grants, was £293.

In total the Unrestricted and Designated Reserves total over £210,000 compared with £186,000 a year ago. This includes £50,000 in the Development Fund and £117,013 in unrestricted Funds. The latter compares with the aim under the Trust’s Reserves Policy to maintain minimum unrestricted reserves of £45,000 being equivalent to about 6 months operating costs and about 3 months food supplies.

0Th5 J?.1 VA4 •7 y.ns LISJ V75 S74 Ath43Sw•Th srAI 117 U14 1224 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This report has described operation of St Neots Foodbank during the year 1[st] April 2024 to 31[st] March 2025. 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 continued to run the voucher system for the provision of fresh eggs, fruit and vegetables and have been hugely supportive to our visitors. Waitrose have also given us two collection days which have been very worthwhile. Brittains’ store continued to provide office and storage space in their warehouse until the property was sold, and the buyers, Open Door Church, have been hugely supportive of our maintaining use of the building. 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.

Trustees are incredibly grateful for the seven years of great work from Adrienne our outgoing Project Manager, and the enthusiasm and fantastic start from Helen Spencer, our new manager.