2021-03-31-accounts

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Annual Report of the Trustees From 1[st] April 2020 to 31st March 2021

Registered Charity No. 1156672

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Background and Details ....................................................................................................................... 3 2. Structure, Governance and Management ........................................................................................... 4 3. Objectives and Activities for the Public Benefit .................................................................................. 5 4. Activities and Performance ................................................................................................................. 6 5. Financial Review .................................................................................................................................. 7 6. Other Information ............................................................................................................................... 8 7. Financial Accounts ............................................................................................................................... 9 8. Declaration ........................................................................................................................................ 11

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1. Background and Details

Charity Name: Careers Springboard West Berkshire

Charity Number: 1156672

Careers Springboard West Berkshire (CSWB) is a volunteer-led support organisation that offers help and advice to out-of-work managers and professionals, especially older and more experienced workers. It started operating in September 2006, taking over the work of the Newbury Executive Job Club. CSWB became a registered charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) on 14[th] April 2014.

CSWB is a founder member of The Foundation for Job Seekers (Charity No. 1136534), a network of four job clubs in the Thames Valley.

Trustees and Officers

Under the terms of our Constitution Trustees retire in rotation but are eligible for re-election. At our AGM on 22-Jul-2020 John Newell retired but remains a volunteer. He had served as a Trustee from 14-Apr-2014. Also retiring by rotation was Charles Fowler but he indicated his willingness to continue. He was re-elected as was a new Trustee Jan Dixon. The trustees of the Charity at the end of the year were therefore:

Name of Trustee	Rôle	Date of Appointment
Adrian Foster-Fletcher	Chairman	14-Apr-2014
David Skyrme	Treasurer	14-Apr-2014
Jan Dixon	Trustee	22-Jul-2020
Charles Fowler	Trustee	8-Aug-2017
Ian Vickerage	Trustee	25-Jul-2018

Address

With COVID-19 restrictions during the financial year, all Trustee activities have taken place via email or virtually on Zoom, and there is therefore no regular postal address. However, correspondence to the Charity can be made to the following address:

c/o Broadway House 4-8 The Broadway Northbrook Street NEWBURY RG14 1BA

Email: enquiries@careerswestberks.org.uk

Website: www.careerswestberks.org.uk

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2. Structure, Governance and Management

CSWB started as an unincorporated association in September 2006. It was registered as a CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation) on 14[th] April 2014. The governing document is its Constitution based on the CIO model constitution for a membership organisation. The date of the Constitution is 7[th] April 2014.

Trustees are elected by its members (our volunteers). One third retire in rotation at the AGM, though are eligible for re-election. Our Trustees themselves are all volunteers, most of them involved on our our weekly job seeker meetings.

The trustees and volunteer members receive no remuneration, advances, credit or guarantees. Up until summer 2018 the Charity had a part-time administrator (~2 hours a week) paid on a freelance basis. Now administration is decentralised and uses a cloud-based platform (membermojo.co.uk) through which our volunteers can update records. This resulted in a significant reduction in administration costs from its previous level. The Charity employs no staff and does not own real estate.

Day-to-day oversight of the operations of the Charity takes place through regular communication via email or phone.

The Charity’s trustees have a risk management policy, which is reviewed annually. The ongoing risks identified and discussed at the AGM were:

Lack of volunteers – medium risk, medium impact
Lack of job seekers – previously medium risk, medium impact was changed to..
Surge in job seekers - high risk, high impact (due to COVID-19 impact)
Lack of funds – low risk, low impact.

In fact the surge in job seekers has not occurred. The local job market remains buoyant despite the pandemic. This may change somewhat as employees come off the national furlough scheme.

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3. Objectives and Activities for the Public Benefit

From Clause 3 of our Constitution:

"The primary objective of CSWB is to the relief of unemployment for the public benefit in such ways as may be thought fit, including the provision of support, advice and assistance on job-seeking and career-change skills, primarily for managers and professionals in West Berkshire."

The main activities that CSWB undertake in pursuit of its public benefit are:

running of weekly meetings that include workshops to help job seekers acquire and improve their job-seeking skills
provision of help and support on a 1-to-1 basis to help job seekers succeed in their next career move
provision of guidance material on specific job-seeking topics, including CV writing, career choices, networking, using LinkedIn to get a job, and making direct approaches to potential employers.

In delivering these services the Trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit. The benefit to those out of work is that our services help them reenter the workplace, start earning and contribute to the economy sooner than they might otherwise have done without the support and the improvement in skills received through their participation in CSWB activities.

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4. Activities and Performance

The main impact during the year has been the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result our face-to-face meetings stopped in March 2020 and were replaced by virtual meetings using Zoom. We have followed the normal programme of topics. However, instead of taking a summer break, job seekers preferred to have informal regular meetings with volunteers throughout August. Some of the year’s highlights:

Overall 38 regular workshops were run as well as 6 informal meetings.
The interactions on Zoom worked well with more time being spent on 1-on-1 help than previously took place in a face-to-face setting.
Anticipating larger numbers we had planned to use break-out ‘rooms’ on Zoom as happens at other job clubs in the Foundation for Job Seekers network; even though on occasion the number of attendees reached 9 or 10, this back-up option was never used.
A lower than normal number of new job seekers joined throughout the year.
A steady number of job seekers got jobs; most achieved this through virtual interviews and in most cases their new jobs started with home working. This is currently “the new normal”.
Since our inception in 2006 as a volunteer-led support group we have helped 959 job seekers.
During the year we gained one new volunteer, a former job seeker who now runs his own business. Since we have operated virtually it did not matter that for part of the year he worked from Sussex and that at the end of the year he moved to Exeter. Each volunteer typically leads two workshops a term and supports two more.
As well as supporting our weekly meetings, the volunteers provide 1-on-1 support to job seekers and carry out necessary ‘back office’ functions.

The table below summarises the number of job seekers who joined during the year and to whom we provided help in getting back into work:

	Apr-Jul 2020	Sep-Dec 2020	Jan-Mar 2021
Jobseekers at start	13	7	7
New registrations	1	12	5
Leavers into Jobs	1	8	3
Leavers (not specified)	6	4	5
Active jobseekers at end	7	7	4

Average jobseekers/meeting	3.2	4.7	4.9
Average age new joiners	54	48	52

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5. Financial Review

The accounts for the financial year 2020-21 are shown in section 7 below.

Our primary source of funding remains The Foundation for Job Seekers, which this year provided a single grant of £2,000.

Without the cost of room rental for our weekly meetings, we have seen a significant reduction in meeting costs. The monthly cost of running meetings on Zoom is over 80% less than holding face-toface meetings. Our single largest item of expenditure is currently that for liability insurance.

Our reserves policy is to have reserves that will cover at least two years running costs. At the current rate of expenditure our grant more than covers our outgoings. However, we do expect room hire costs to kick in again once we restart face-to-face meetings. With uncertainty as to future job seeker numbers we believe that the current level of reserves will be able to cope with increasing demand.

The Trustees believe that the financial statement gives a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Charity and that appropriate accounting policies have been applied.

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6. Other Information

In normal times CSWB uses facilities provided by The Greenham Trust, a West Berkshire based charity that uses funds generated by rents at Greenham Business Park to support local charitable and community causes. They offer such organisations facilities at their building Broadway House in central Newbury at a favourable rate. As a result of moving our meetings to Broadway House in September 2014, CSWB has reduced it expenditure for meeting room hire from over £4,500 to around £1,500 in a normal year.

We send out a leaver’s survey to job seekers who leave us, whether that is for a new job or for other reasons. Data from these surveys provide useful feedback on the usefulness and quality of our services. This feedback is used to adjust content and format of meetings.

During the year, we were well supported by our volunteers. We are grateful for their hard work and dedication to helping our job seekers. We continue to receive thanks and appreciation from job seekers who we have helped back into work.

We believe that the current programme provides our older job seekers with the skills and resources they need to successfully re-enter the workplace and contribute their extensive experience to the vibrancy of the local and regional economy.

Further information on the activities of Careers Springboard West Berkshire can be found on our website at:

www.careerswestberks.org.uk

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Financial Accounts Careers Springboard West Berkshire Balance Sheet- 31 March 2021 31 Mar 2021 31 Mar2020 ASSETS 8ank Account- wrrent BankAccoUnl-sn9S Cash Account TOT ASSETS 2.153 92 9.527.61 350 51 10.02304 11.68153 10.373 55 UABILrnES Accrued Expenthre CrÈdrtors- amounts falllno thjè vAlhin one yèar TOT*L LILrEs 68.80 57.51 16041 217.92 68.80 MET ASSETS 11.612 73 10.155 63 CSWBFUIIDS Unreslricled Funds - p)or ye SurF4us - cuNent year TOTAL FUNDS 10,155.63 1.457 10 11.61273 9.241.09 914 54 10.155 63 Income and Ex nditure- 1 ri12020 to 31st March 2021 2020-21 2019-20 IIKOME Grants Rèe•d Oonab'ons Bank Inlefesl other Income TOThL INCOME 2,000.1)O 2.000.1)O 4.57 18.37 2.004 57 2.018.37 EXPENt¥TURE Meetsng Room Rental other meets.ng Expenses Administrathon & Office SeThlces Stab"onery and Supplies Websrte and Publioty Tiavel Insurance 590.00 108.40 40.00 107.94 40.00 3.65 4934 29.25 324 20 1.103 83 346 54 547 47 SURPLUS {DEF 1,457.10 914.54 2-7-Zl 71.1¥

Notes to the Accounts 2020-21

Volunteer expenses for Zoom payments Nov 2020-Mar 2021; also Membermojo subscription
Grant from The Foundation for Job Seekers.
Cost of Zoom Meetings
Web hosting and domain renewals
For public liability, trustees liability and professional indemnity.

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8. Declaration

The trustees declare that they have approved the Trustee's report and accounts above.

Adrian Foster-Fletcher

Chairman

On behalf of the trustees

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