Oxford
Churches,
Debt Centre
Trustees,
Annual
Report and
Accounts
Year Ending March 2024

CONTENTS
Contents
Trustees & Supporting Churches
Chairperson's Report
Manager's Report
6-10
Independent Examiner's Report
11
Statement of Financial Activities
12
Balance Sheet
13
Notes to the Accounts
14
Charity Information
15

up
The Trustees who have served during the year have been:
James Bloice-smith (Chairperson)
Claire Bishop
Matt Partridge
John Price
Jenni Williams
The Trustees meet on a quarterly basis.
The churches which in various ways support our work in Oxford are:
Barton Community Church
Cornerstone Church
Emmanuel Church
Headington Baptist Church
Magdalen Road Church
Oxford Friends Artion on Poverty
Rivers of Life Church
St Barnabas, Church
St Clement's Church
St Matthew's Church
Wheatley Community Church
Woodstock Road Baptist Church

CH
PERSON,
EPORT
Tlie past year lias beeii another successlul year. As ever. we wish to thaiik oui" stafrt team.
comprising: Ceiitre Manager Andrew Johnsoii, who al.so a Debt Coach along with lill Ewbank
and Kath Jackson. They have been assisted by Emma Harvey (Adniini%trator). This teain lias
provided high quality woi-k, along with oui- able voliinteers. to allevÈdte poverty in Oxford.
However, tliei-e has beeii the continiied challenge of lower than expected client enquii.ies wliich
we Iiave been working to addres%.
Our CeIitre Managei" will give mol-e detail in his report about the work of the charity. Hoivever, it
lias been a pleasure foi" me to hear first haiid fi-oin grateful Llieiits who have fouiid concrcte help
to get out of debt, or in otlier ways deal with their finaiicial pressures. through the work of our
charity. This is e￿ctlY what we want to heal-.
TlireLJ objects of our charity are, the relieFof poverty. eduLatioii about the managetneiit of
per%unal finances. aiid the advancement ot the CFiristian taith. In ()rder to do tliis. we work iii
toi'nicil partnership with Christian.% Against Poverty (CAP). who ti.ain our staff. provide the expei"t
advice which underpins our work with those in debt. aiid produce htgh quality resoui-Les to help
witli oui- education object (CAP is autliorised and regulated by the FiiiaiiLial Condurt Authority)-
However, of eqlial inipoitaiiLe al-e oui" partiierships with local Lhurches whu enable us to offer
our clients the CAP debt service holistically, with tlie support of ali approi)I"iate befriender,
beliiiid whoni stands the friend.qhip aiid love of local coinmunities of people. We consider this to
be a unique feature of the seivice we provide to those lacing wliat is ofteii one uf Ilfe s Inost
difficult and stresstul circumstances. Clients are free to choose how much Lise tliey make of tliis
wider Loiiiiiiunity suppoi"t. whilst the high-quality CAP debt service we provide is oftered
without condition.
The Inaiii challenge of the post-covid world continues tu be that fewer clients al-e requestijio oiii"
help thati was the case prior to Covid, notwithstanding the 'financial Lrisis,. In liglit of the
reduced number of client enquiries. the trustees decided iii Jiiiie 2023 to i"educe the allocation of
Iiew clients CAP off'ici-411y allow lis to woi-k with from 6 to 4 per iiionth. We have taken this
niedsiire in ordei. to reduce L()sts for the Lliarity. We view this as a short-terni situation aiid, with
the help ot. ()ur staff and suppoi-tiii(s churches. al-e implenienting a number of stK2tegies to
reverse this situation.
lii order to iiicrease tlie nuinber uf client enquiries we continued to exploi-e further avenLie_4 1)y
which to increase oiir profile iii tlie city aiid.surrounding areas. We worked with our wondei.fiilly
coniinitteLI and flexlble statTto reassign some of their time. for a litnited sea.son, so tliat they Luiild
take on various areas of outreach to inake our service niore visible and accessible to tliose most
likely to iieed our help. TIIAS we recognise to be part ofr. our charitable duty beLause, no niattei- how
good the service that we offer, it those iii iieed du not know about us oi- how to find us, we Lannot
help theni. In the last tew moiiths we have seen fruit of tlie promotion initiatives.siiiLe Covid,
evidenced by Client waiting lis1, and in Mai-ch 2024 we inci-eased oiir allocatioii to 5, as a tirst

CHAIRPERSON'S REPORT
step - good newsl Clearly, as client numbers increase. our staff have less available time, and we are
having to find other ways of continuing the outreach work
In conclusion, there are nL3ny we need to thank First, our partner churches, without whom we
would not exist and who accept responsibility for the broader and longer-terni aspects of
support and care for the clients who are open to such help. Second, to the trustees who have
thought carefully about the issues we face and the cause we are trying to carry forward. Third.
many thanks to our volunteers who have worked alongside our staff and wonderfully supported
our clients. Finally, our thanks also to our supporters, supporting churches, and charitable
donors Clisted below) who have provided the financial resources to undertake the work of the
past year.
Doris Field Trust
Mustard Seed Mission Fund
SGN PIC
The lamjar Tn￿t
Millfield Tn
Pye Charitable Settlement
Cash for Kids
Lord Faringdon Charitable Trust
Lady Tangye Trust
Stanton Ballard Trust
The National Lottery
St Aldate's Parochial Charities
Signed:
James Bloice-smith. Chairperson
Date:
. 2024.

-_MANAGER'
EPO
After a challenging few years, it is pleasing to be able to share that many areas of our work
and ministry have grown this year. Along with the change in climate and debt help being
highlighted more in the media, we have also worked hard to publicize our services across
the city.
Our 3 aims remain the same and mirror those of CAP. As in previous years we have used
similar activities to put these aims into practice in conjunction with our strategic objectives
but these have developed and Moved forward in 2023-2024.
CAP Debt Help..
This service continues to be our core activity. We pride ourselves
in offering a professional service where we care for the whole
person. Our distinctives are that we are Christian and are open
and ready to share our faith in Jesus; we accompany our clients
through their entire journey out of debt,. we don't put time limits
on how long we can give to a client, and we seek to connect them with local church
communities.
Since the Oxford Central CAP Centre opened 10 years ago we have served 441 debt clients.
This last year we saw 39 of these as new clients which was a 70 % increase on the year
before. We rejoice that 77 clients have now gone debt free, with 4 of these happening in the
last 12 months.
At the time of writing we have 42 client accounts
on our books.
"CAP llave bee17 ainazi17g - o177uzing
-gupi)ort i-iyht throu.gli CAP Debt
CIiL'lIt
Having reduced our new monthly client allocation
from 6 to 4 back in June, we are excited that over
the last 4 months we have had a 'waiting list, fortn.
We have therefore just increased our monthly number to 5 as we are confident that the
trend of people coming forward for support is upwards.
Clients continue to present with a plethora of complex needs which can be a challenge for us.
However, as they are often linked to the reason for the debt, we need to address them and
offer support for these concerns where possible or refer the client on to others. The CAP
national clÈent survey continues to show the desperation that clients are in particularly since
the energy crisis. Especially concerning is that 500/0 of those surveyed admit to considering
suicide at sotne poinL

ANA
'S REPORT
In our region the survey shows that our clients on average have total debts of £12,000 from
an average of 12 debts.
Money Coaching: This is the revamped and updated CAP Money
course. Being video led tnakes it even more attractive and it
includes the opinions of experts in the field. Now that several of us
have received the new training we have run our first 2 courses with
the new material and have found it good and engaging. We are
wanting to continue this momentum and to see courses run
regularly in the city over the next year.
Don't miss
capuk.orgMrymonÉy£tsaching
We still have in mind to take this course into schools and to offer it
to parents but also to look at the possibility of adapting it to make it accessible to children
and young people in their classes.
CAP Life Skills.. This course aims to help people to live happily, healthily and well on a low
income. Ernmanuel ChuTch, under the leadership of Helen and
Steve Gallagher. ran another course over the last year. However,
one of the main foci for them was the ongoing first course group
members who have stayed friends and have continued to meet
together for coffee and chat along with a brief Bible focus. A new
stage is in the offing as Helen steps down as Life Skills manager
and the Tuesday group is encouraged to become integrated as
part of the community café on Thursday afternoons.
St Ebbe's church is also running Life Skills liaising with Emmanuel Church to ensure that
there are no clashes but that one course follows another.
We are excited that the starting up of a CAP Job Club is back on the agenda with a large
church in Oxford keen to take this on. A final decision and the practicalities for this are being
worked out now. We already have clients keen to be part of the group.
Client Events
We are pleased with the results of decentralizing our client events by joining in with what
our partner churches are already planning and organizing. This has worked well and taken
some pressure off the staff team as well as these events being more in tune with our aim of
connecting our clients directly with a local church.
Last year events included a quiz night in the Autumn,
and a successful Pancake party on Shrove Tuesday at
which 40 people (including 2 5 clients) were present.

ANAGER'S RE
RT
The evening included a quiz and a talk explaining the Christian period and practice of Lent.
Once again (for the third year running) we are planning a free day trip away to the New
Forest. This has always been much appreciated by our clients. It will be another chance to
get clients and their farnilies Out of Oxford, to be in a different
environment for a few hours and to enjoy good company and
food. We connert with Lyndhurst Baptist Church to run this
and they host us generously for the evening BBQ.
We regularly take part and coordinate the community café (an initiative of Ebbe's CAP
Centre) at Grace Church Cowley which runs for 1% hours on Thursday afternoons. It is open
to current CAP clients and group service members as well as those interested in finding out
more about how CAP can support them. The time and space seems to be appreciated by
those who come. Attendance has been low but for the last few months there has been a
regular group who have attended. Several of these now attend Grace Church on a Sunday too
and one has been part of a Christianity Explored course too. In the last few weeks. members
of the Life Skills community group have been encouraged to come and this has swelled the
numbers. Moving forward we will be introducing a short faith focus slot.
We are privileged to have continued natural opportunities to share our faith, and to regularly
pray for and with our clients. It is exciting to often see God at work through this. We know of
several clients who largely through individual relationships and testimonies. have moved
forward in their faith journey over this lastyear. Others have been touched by being prayed
for, maybe for the first time. and still others have experienced God's love in a fresh way.
Referral Agencies and publicizing our services
We are grateful for the referral agencies we collaborate with in Oxford. We continue to
connect with them regularly sharing and updating them on our services. However, this has
been more challenging since staff member. John Livingstone stepped down as Community
Links Coordinator last year. We have not yet replaced him but his role has been divided up
and parts have been taken on by other current staff members and trustees. This has only
been possible while our client numbers have been low and we have had more time.
Digital publicity has been given attention over the last few months including refreshing our
website and keeping it up to date and we recognize that social media needs more of our
attention. We may need to find external expertise for this. We are also keen to update our
video library and to produce fresh videos of local clients, stories and testimonies.

AGER,
As part of the national Challenge Poverty Week, we set up a
stand in the centre of Oxford on 19th October for a day. The
idea was to raise awareness and to engage people in some
of the public issues at that time. We had a petition to the
government to sign and we also introduced passersby to the
new benefits calculator on the CAP website.
We have had the invitations to take part and share about our services in some unexpected
events too. Our chairperson shared at the Renew joint churches event in February, and our
centre manager represented us at an evening session entitled Poverty on the Table, part of
the local Justice in Motion celebratory month.
We continue to publicize our services in the public arena when we can. To get the word out
to as many people as possible. we have delivered around 10.000 CAP publicity postcards
through house letter boxes around various housing estates over the past year. We are
continuing this by connecting with our partner churches. The next area is the Waterways,
Jericho, and Woodstock Road, to be carried out by Woodstock Road Baptist Church.
As a new venture this year we have connected with 3
charities and attended their regular drop-in sessions on a
monthly basis. These include Ark-T, The Porch, and St
Barnabas Church larder. These provide opportunities for
informal chats with attendees allowing us to hear their
stories, to inform them of our services and sometimes to signpost them to other support
services in the city.
Partner Churches.. We are once again extremely grateful for our parnier churches who
continue to show support for this ministry in prayin& givin& supporting clients, and
encouraging volunteers.
Five CAP Sunday events were held last Autumn [some of which included contributions from
staff members) and one other church had a focus on CAP in a Sunday service more recently.
These opportunities allow us to share the CAP vision and to encourage churches and
individuals to stay/get involved. Where we could arrange it, the highlight was to hear the
testimonies of clients whose lives have been changed through the involvement of CAP.
Three of our partner churches lost their leaders this year. Only one of these has been
replaced at the time of writing. We are aware of the need to encourage the churches to stay
connected at these times of transition. The Church Reps help enormously with continuity.

Our new 'wrapping around the clienv strategy whereby 311 dients are deliberately allocated
to one of our partner churches has tsken time to get off the ground, but we are confident this
will bear fruit in the long run.
Centrally we continue to run 2 bike donation scheme whereby bikes. donated by supporters
and others are repaired and serviced and offered free of charge to dients who want them.
Volunteers: We give huge thanks for our arniy of volunteers who get involved in the CAP
work in a variety of ways including: befriendin& facilitating and supporting the group
services, prayin& and giving. We currently have around 50 volunteers actively involved.
As alway5 a key part of our service to our clients is the personal support of our befrienders
who accompany them on their journey out of debL This group of volunteers have faithfully
continued to offer emotional support in a variety of ways including through phone calls,
going for walks, meeting for coffee and assisting practically. Many go way beyond the call of
duty.
As in previous years. one of the
•?.. highlights was the Christinas
-rvEO.: harnper packing evening. This year
we packed and delivered 39 client
hampers. As always they are well
received- many being amazed and grateful for being remembered.
"The CAP Debt Centre isjust
one of the ways we outwork
ourpassion". Church leader
We have run two volunteer induction training courses in the last year
and were particularly encouraged by the second one when 13 people
attend a handful from a church which is currently not a partner church.
The next topical training is being planned for June - the theme this time
being mental health.
We are grateful for our Church Reps championing our cause in our parther churches. We
held one of the regular'get togethers, back in March for updates. training and support.
We are confident that we are in a good place and. with God's help. we are ready to serve all
our clients and group participants over the coming year with energy. enthusiasm and
compassion.
Signed:
Andrew Johnson, Centre Manager
Date:
. 2024.
io

NDEPE
EN
XA
NE
ORT
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the Charity for theyear ended 31st March
2024.
Responsibilities and basis of report
As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with
the requirements olthe Charities Act 2011 {"the Act").
The trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144(2) of the Act and
that an independent examination is required.
I report in respect of my examination of the Trusvs accounts carried out under section 145 of the Act.
In carrying out my examination. it is my responsibility to
examine the accounts under section 145 of the Art-
follow procedures laid down in the General Directions given by the Charity
Commissioners under section 145[5Jtb) of the Act: and
state whether particular matters come to my attention.
My examination was carried out in accordance with the general Directions given by the Charity
Commission under section 145(5)0)) of the Act.
An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of
theaccounts presented with those records. It also includes consideringanyunusual items ordisclosure
in the accounts and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The
procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and
consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a "true and fair" view, and the
report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.
Examiner's statement
I confim that no rnaterial matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination
which gives me cause to believe that in. any material respect:
the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; or
the accounts did not accord with the accounting records: or
the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content
of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports] Regulations 2008 other than any
requirement that the accounts give a'true and fairf view which is not a matter considered as part
of an independent examination.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connectionwith the examination towhich
attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to
be reached.
Signed:
Yvonne Kinyanjui
Date:
. 2024.

FINA
For the year ended 31si March
2024
2023
Sources of Funds
Gifts from churches
Other gifts and grants
Gift Aid tsx recoverable
17,608
64,627
3,769
17,608
53,072
4,683
Total Incotning Resources
86,004
75,363
Expenditure
Salaries
CAP head office
Office rent
Trnvel expenses
Client give-aways
Miscellaneous
60,243
7,995
5,047
558
62,769
10,600
4,873
974
3,145
2,455
4,440
3,222
Total Outgoing Resources
81,505
84,816
Surplus/(Deficit) for the year
4,499
(9,453)
12

BALA
E SHEE
As at 315t March
2024
2023
Assets
Bank accounts
Gift Aid tax recoverable
77,426
1.785
71,607
3,074
Totsl assets
79.211
74,681
Creditors
HMRC
Other creditors
866
835
Total creditors
866
835
Total Net Assets
78,345
73,846
Financing
General Fund brought forward
Restricted Job Clubs Fund
Surplus/(Deficit) this year
72,846
1,000
4.499
82,299
1,000
(9,453)
Total Financing
78.345
73,846
Signed:
John Price. Treasurer
Date:
. 2024.
13

NOTES
HE ACCO
TS
Reserves Policy
The trustees have agreed that it would be prudent to hold at all times cash reserves
sufficient to last for six tnonths. A5 at 31st March 2024 our cash reserves amounted to
approximately ten months of the following year's expenditure.
Other Policies
The charity has various policies including those covering:
Safeguarding Children
Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults
Equal Opportunities
Data Protection
Health & Safety
These are available for inspection and can be provided to anyone who would like to
see them.
Funds
Most of the charity's money flows through its General Fund.. there is also a restricted
Cap Job Clubs Fund which results frotn a donation to set up such a club in the near
future.
Sources of Funds
All income is recognised when it is received, with the exception of Gift Aid tax
recoverable which is recognised at the time the gift to which it relates is received.
Fixed Assets
The charity only capitalizes individual f￿ed assets costing over £1,000. Minor items
are written off in the accounts when they are purchased.
Trustees. Remuneration
All the trustees received no payment or other remuneration for their services during
the year (2023 £0).
14

CHARITY INFO
Charity Information
The charity is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered on 18th February 2014
with the Charity Comtnission, number 1155834
Oxford Churches Debt Centre (OCDC) working title: Oxford CAP Centre
St Clement's Centre
Cross Street
Oxford
OX4 IDA
Tel:
01865 249008
Bank
CAF Bank Ltd.
25 Kings Hill Avenue
Kings Hill
West Malling
ME19 4IQ
Sort code 40-52-40
Account no. 00025483
15