2021-03-31-accounts - Hampshire And Berkshire 4x4 Response

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

Organisation objectives

To preserve and protect human life and property, in particular but not exclusively, by providing equipment, vehicles and other resources to offer support in adverse conditions.

For further information on our aims and scope, please refer to our Constitution and Registration documents.

Management Summary

This is our seventh year of existence as a CIO, so comparing this year with our previous year, our structure and operations are similar. We are still applying lessons learnt from our previous embodiment as part of the National 4x4 Response network, in addition to those from last year. Overall, we have had a very successful year.

We have continued building a Management Team, with the intention of adding Deputy Controller, Fundraising, Client Liaison, and other roles as we find suitable candidates.

Due to the COVID pandemic, most of 2020 and into 2021 we had to close down most of our usual activities, luckily the weather remained good, so there weren’t many calls for assistance in that area. Unfortunately, our training program was also curtailed by the shielding required by the Government. We will restart this as soon as we are allowed.

Continuing from the end of 2020, we were put on standby by Hampshire County Council and Isle of Wight LRF (HCCIOWLRF) for food and PPE distribution around the county, in 2021, we also started transporting vaccination supplies for the NHS. These stayed as our principal tasking for the rest of the year. In total for the reporting period, we carried out 651 deliveries, these were made by 62 of our responders, who covered 50841 miles completing them. We successfully completed 100% of the requests that were made of us.

In late 2020 and early 2021, several of our Responders were also deployed at the Portsmouth International Port, carrying out Lateral Flow Tests for the international drivers trying to return to mainland Europe for Christmas, completing 890 tests for them and later more than 2,500 tests for staff at Hampshire Constabulary both on the Isle of Wight and on the mainland.

As Chairman I am very proud of our responders, controllers, and other members for the successful and exemplary efforts that they have made during this very testing time for all.

All this work has contributed to further raising our profile and could lead to other requests for assistance in the future.

Activities like this provide valuable training and experience for our responders as well as a source of income for the group and we plan to provide more support where this furthers the objects of our charity.

Our membership at the end of the reporting period was 131, The pandemic seems to have resulted in a considerable increase in our membership, because of isolation, we have had to revise our assessment process temporarily to stay within Government Guidelines, using video conferencing and phone calls to complete most of the operation

We continue with the use and development of our Responder Manager system for our activities, combining dispatching, assistance requests from our clients with locating and selecting suitable Responders and dispatching them, tracking the response and subsequent closure and billing of our clients. This year has enabled us to make several enhancements to

its functionality and ease of use. When complete we intend to make it available for other 4x4 Response groups if they wish to use it.

Hampshire and Berkshire 4x4 Response

Balance Sheet for 2020-21 company year ending 31[st] March 2021

	All Income funds (current year)	All Income funds (current year)
	Income	Expenditure
Barclays Account	£ 18,622.20
PayPal Balance	£ 1,455.23
Fixed Assets	£ 3,000
Accounts Receivable	£ (1007.20)
Total Current Assets	£ 19,070.23
Accounts Payable		£1,396.58
Net Current Assets	£ 17,673.65
Unrestricted Net Assets from 2018	£ 8,947.14
Profit (Loss) for Year	£ 11,726.51
Total Funds	£ 20,673.65

Profit and Loss Statement for same Period

	Note	Income	Expenditure
Income
Donations		£ 915.45
CommunityGrants		£3,000.00
MembershipFees		£ 2,507.45
Merchandise Sales		£ 1,013.33
Response Services		£ 28,357.44
Training Course Fees		£ 199.60
Total Income		£ 35,993.27
Cost of Sales
Costs of Response Services			£16,685.35
Cost of Merchandising			£ 1,429.49
Cost of Training			£ 212.50
Comms and Alerting			£10.00
Subtotal			£17,655.93

Overhead Costs
Administration Expenses			£ 948.10
Marketingand Promotion			£ 417.63
PPE Costs			£ 143.29
Vehicle Stickers			£ 293.46
ISV Maintenance			£ 252.98
Comms and RM Costs	9 b		£ 3,646.00
DBS Check Fees			£ 227.96
Subtotal Overhead Costs			£ 5,929.42
Total Expense			£ 23,585.35
Proft(Loss)for theyear		£ 11,726.51

Notes to financial Statement for the year ended 31 March 2021

General Accounting Policies.
a. Accounts are prepared in a simplified format, in accordance with the FRS 102 SORP.
b. Individual Items valued at over £1,000 are recorded as assets.
Fund Accounting
a. All funds held by the charity at the end of the financial year are unrestricted funds for use at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the general objectives of the charity.
b. The Trustees have not designated any funds for particular purposes.
c. £2,500 of income during the year was restricted to being spent on communications and management costs. This was used to purchase 4G radio hardware and to fund development of our IT systems for responder management.
d. Since the funds were spent in the year granted, they have not been accounted separately.

3. Accounting standards

a. The reporting Period is from 1/4/2020 to 31/3/2021.
b. The accounts are prepared on an accruals basis in line with the SORP. The trustees are not aware of any material departure from the recommendations of this SORP.
Statement of Financial Activities
a. Incoming Resources: The incoming funds to the charity are in the following forms.
- Membership fees paid by responders.
- Profits on response operations.
- Donations from various sources.
- A very small profit on the sale of branded clothing to responders[1] .
b. Incoming from response operations is accounted on an accrual basis from the time the response is occurred.
Recognition of Income
a. Under the terms of the SORP, the majority of our income is from exchange transactions (membership, response services, and sale of branded goods) as defined in section 5.5
b. We receive additional income from non-exchange transactions as defined in section 5.6 of the SORP.
c. Income is only recognised if it is either

1 The trustees feel that subsidizing the purchase of branded clothing is not an appropriate use of charity funds. However, since our responders pay a membership fee, we do not wish to make a profit from these activities. This is separate from the provision of ‘hi-vis’ clothing/jackets and other PPE as opportunities arise.

i. Received during the financial year.
ii. Accrued income from generated invoices during the financial year.
d. The trustees are not aware of any restrictions such as performance related conditions, donor imposed conditions, or time related conditions, to any funding not spent during the year.
e. No incoming during this period is from legacies, donated goods, facilities or services.
f. We classify income from our response activities as incoming from contracts for the supply of goods and services in the SORP.
g. Membership subscriptions (and any associated Gift Aid or other tax refund) is recognised as income from charitable activities, since we provide insurance cover and other benefits to members.
h. Investment income is identified as such in the accounts.
i. There are no insurance claims or other disclosures to be reported.

6. Donated goods, facilities and services.

a. Where a member donates their reimbursement for expenses back to the charity, this is accounted as a reimbursement and separate donation.
b. There were no donations other than unrestricted cash during the accounting period.
c. We do not account for time donated my members or trustees in support of the charity as the fair value would be unrealistic. This is in accordance with the SORP. We rely on these activities to deliver our objectives.
d. No other goods, facilities or services were donated to the charity.

7. Recognition of expenditure

a. In general, our expenditure is in two areas. The first we classify as operational expenditure, which covers the expenses of operating the charity if no calls are made on our services. The second, which we classify as response expenditure, is expenditure made to respond to an incident. In general, we aim to recover response expenditure plus a profit from the user service, but at the trustee’s discretion we may find this from charity funds if it is within line with our objectives.
b. Other than identified accounts payable, the trustees are not aware of any liabilities to the charity.

8. Allocation of costs by activity.

a. The SoFA clearly defines the distinction between response operations and other costs.

9. Trustee and Staff Remuneration

a. We do not employ any full time staff.
b. No remuneration was paid to trustees or members acting on their behalf during 2019-20. A payment of £2,100 was made to Ocuair, a company run by Mr Axel Seedig, one of the Trustees. This was a contribution to the costs of running the servers used for our business, which are donated by Mr Seedig. The remaining trustees agree that

amount paid was significantly less than the actual costs being incurred by Mr Seedig.

c. No transactions require disclosure under SORP rules.
d. No audit or independent examination or other financial service fees were incurred, other than payment processing charges via PayPal or our bank. We are registered with PayPal as a charity and pay lower fees as a result. Independent examination costs will be accounted for next year.
e. There are no staff costs, emoluments, or ex-gratia payments made during the reporting period.

10. Assets and Liabilities

a. Historically we have shied away from larger asset purchases. However, during 2020-21 we have used some of the profit generated during this year to purchase and refurbish an ambulance to use as an Incident Support Vehicle (ISV). This is the only material asset we have.
b. We expect to calculate the depreciation on this asset on a basis of 10% per annum in future years.
c. Due to the relatively small sums held, our cash balance is held in a single account. We have reviewed this decision since our cash balance held exceeded £10,000, but feel that maintaining a separate account would generate little additional income given current interest rates.

11. Resources Expended

a. Our membership income, unsolicited donations, and profit on response operations means that we have not spent any money on generating additional income during the financial year.
b. Our charitable expenditure has been more than offset by compensation from the organizations supported.
c. Governance costs are minimal. We will require an independent examination of our accounts for this year, but the costs for this are expected to be minimal.

12. Ongoing financial concerns

a. Since our founding as a CIO in 2014, we have been able to keep ongoing costs at a minimum, and membership numbers have remained relatively constant, though individual members come and go from time to time.
b. Our annual turnover is fairly unpredictable due to the vagaries of the British Weather. We supplement our service charges by charging a fee to our members. The membership fees work out to around £2,000 which is sufficient to cover our fixed operating costs. We believe our reserves policy is sufficiently conservative to cover a period where we experience both a drop in membership and a lack of income from response activities.
c. The sharp spike in income and activity due to Covid in the 2020-21 financial year is expected to tail off in 2021-22 and we expect turnover to return to pre-Covid levels by 2023-24.

Statement of Public Benefit

The activities of the charity are to provide logistical and transport support to several categories of organisations. Our primary mission is to provide support to Category 1 Responders such as the Emergency Services and Local Resilience Forums where their own vehicles or capabilities are unsuitable for the weather or terrain. This typically includes getting essential staff to/from work, and working with home medical services such as hospice and home and meals on wheels. While we make a charge for this service, for our users it is cheaper and more flexible than maintaining their own capability.

Related to this, we also provide logistical and transport support to other charities and events. If this is for a commercial event we charge for our services and the profit goes towards the running costs of the charity. This helps us by giving our volunteers the opportunity to work together at events and builds camaraderie within the membership.

The public benefit we provide is in these roles ensures essential services can be more resilient at lower cost to the public purse, and improved public safety at events.

The Trustees have read the commission’s guidance believe they have complied with their duty to have due regard to the charity commission’s public benefit guidance when exercising any powers or duties to which the guidance is relevant.

Signed by:

Andrew Cunningham, Trustee for the financial year being reported.

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Graham Middleton, Chairman of the Trustees.

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Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Charity Name Hampshire and Berkshire 4x4 Response	Charity Name Hampshire and Berkshire 4x4 Response	Charity Name Hampshire and Berkshire 4x4 Response

31stMarch 2021	Charity no (if any)	1157191


I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended31/03/2021.

Responsibilities and As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the basis of report accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner's statement I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material 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 fair’ 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 connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed: Name: Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any): Address:		E Carter	17/01/2022

	Elizabeth Carter	Elizabeth Carter (Jan 17, 2022, 5:41pm)

	Institute of Certified Bookkeepers

	3 Christine Close,

Oct 2018

IER

Scunthorpe

DN17 2AT

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight material matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

Oct 2018

IER