2020-09-30-accounts - St Albans And District Foodbank

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St Albans & District Foodbank

Trustees' Annual Report for the year ended 30 September 2020

Reference and administrative details

Charity name:

St Albans & District Foodbank CIO

Registered charity number: 1158917

Charity’s principal address:

c / o 5 Browning Road Harpenden Herts AL5 4TS

Trustees

During the period the following people were trustees:

Name	Elected	Resigned
John Mulholland	15/09/2020
Robert Smalley	15/09/2020
Janet Lailey	17/11/2020
Spike Charlwood	22/01/2019
Beverley Warmington	19/09/2018	26/05/2020
Beth Williams	19/09/2018
Mark Pontin	17/03/2020
Stuart Miller	15/09/2020
Farrukh Shaikh	17/11/2020

Professional advisors

*Independent Examiner*	*Bankers*
Elizabeth Needham Needham Accountancy Ltd Berkeley House, Barnet Road London Colney, Herts AL2 1BG	Barclays Bank Plc PO Box 104 St Albans Herts. AL1 3AN	CAF Bank Ltd 25 Kings Hill Avenue Kings Hill West Malling Kent, ME19 4JQ

St Albans & District Foodbank

1. Structure, Governance and Management

1.1 Governing document

St Albans District Foodbank is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. The only voting members are its charity trustees. The trustees adopted a constitution on 9th September 2014 in accordance with the “foundation model” published by the Charity Commission. The St Albans District Foodbank achieved registered charitable status on 20th October 2014 and its’ registered charity number is 1158917.

1.2 Trustee selection and management

The charity is governed by a board of trustees selected because they strongly endorse the charitable objectives of the organisation. When selecting trustees, the charity aims to ensure there is a broad range of relevant skills and knowledge, while also aiming to reflect a more diverse spread of backgrounds across the St Albans District to help with informed decision making. To support this a review of trustee skills was undertaken and specific skill shortages identified which indicated that there was a need for additional trustees. Trustees are appointed after interviews with existing trustees, and under normal circumstances, visits to the organisation, to ensure they understand its vision and values .

The Trustees meet approximately every 2 months to review performance and monitor the achievement of objectives. The Treasurer presents a financial monitoring statement to each meeting so that Trustees can review income and expenditure.

1.3 Related Organisations

The St Albans District Foodbank is affiliated to the Trussell Trust, a charity based in Salisbury, that assists churches and communities to open new foodbanks nationwide.

1.4 Management of risk

The Trustees have adopted a range of policies in order to manage and minimise risk. These include policies covering inter alia, Health & Safety, Safeguarding and Lone Workers and a risk register is maintained to monitor compliance with these policies.

The risk register is regularly reviewed by a sub-group of the trustees and confirmed annually by all the trustees.

The Trustees also have in place systems of internal control that are designed to provide reasonable assurance against material mismanagement or loss, these include 2 signatories for all payments and a comprehensive insurance policy to ensure that insurable risks are covered.

2. Objectives, Aims and activities

2.1 Charitable Objectives

The St Albans District Foodbank has as its objective the prevention or relief of poverty in St Albans District and surrounding areas. This is achieved in particular, but not exclusively, by providing emergency food supplies to individuals in need and/or charities or other organisations working to prevent or relieve poverty.

St Albans & District Foodbank

2.2 Aims

Our primary aim is to alleviate poverty through the provision of food parcels and, when available, limited quantities of personal care (e.g. toiletries and toothpaste) and household items (toilet rolls, cleaning and laundry materials) to those in crisis. We do this in partnership with local agencies who refer clients in crisis to us. By signposting people to care agencies, advice services and other support agencies we aim to seek resolutions to their immediate crises, which are resulting in a need to use the Foodbank. Anyone in need can be referred to the Foodbank, regardless of their race or creed.

2.3 Objectives for the period

The main objective was to continue operating the Foodbank in the St Albans District area, to maintain a number of distribution points throughout the district and to build links with a broad range of local care agencies, such as Citizens Advice. These agencies are known as Voucher Partners who can refer people in need of assistance to the foodbank.

2.4 Strategies for achieving the objectives.

Recruiting a pool of volunteers.
Utilising premises at 28-30 Coldharbour Lane, Harpenden to accommodate the administrative and distribution operations of the Foodbank.
Maintaining a number of distribution centres which clients can visit to discuss their problems and exchange their vouchers for food parcels.
Recruiting a sizeable number of Voucher Partners.
Building up sufficient funds to sustain the operation for at least the next twelve months.
Maintaining a working arrangement with the Open Door and other charities who are also involved in the alleviation of poverty in St Albans so that we can support them with any excess food stocks that we accumulate.

2.5 How the foodbank works

Donations of food are received from a number of sources:
individuals
corporate organisations
schools and churches (particularly at Harvest Festival time
permanent collection points in local supermarkets
Donations of non-perishable food are checked for “use by” dates, weighed, sorted and stored by food type;
Food parcels are prepared at the warehouse and taken by van to the distribution centres before distribution sessions.
Clients in food crisis are issued with a St Albans District Foodbank voucher by a recognised Voucher Partner;
Clients bring their voucher to a foodbank distribution session where it is redeemed for an emergency parcel;

The contents of emergency parcels are selected using Trussell Trust guidelines that aim to give clients a nutritionally balanced diet, providing sufficient food for 3 days.

St Albans & District Foodbank

2.6 Public Benefit

The primary public benefit of the foodbank is the immediate relief of a financial crisis being experienced by an individual or family. This is mainly achieved by providing parcels of non-perishable food, which can be used to create nutritionally-balanced meals for three days.

St Albans & District Foodbank relieves poverty, in particular hunger, but it also helps address the underlying causes by listening to clients’ needs and signposting them to additional support services that help address these issues. This assists in mitigating the difficulties arising from housing loss, mental health problems, family breakdown and other issues related to poverty. During the Covid-19 crisis the charity’s ability to offer additional support, as outlined above, has been significantly restricted due to the need to interact with all clients in a socially distanced manner.

St Albans & District Foodbank

3. ACHIEVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE

3.1 Summary of the period’s activities

The St Albans & District Foodbank continued operation throughout the year from premises generously provided to us on a temporary rent-free basis by Jarvis Group Ltd at 28-30 Coldharbour Lane, Harpenden

We operated 5 distribution centres until the end of May 2020 when we added a sixth as shown below:

Tuesdays 1:00 - 3:00pm Christ Church, High Oaks, St Albans
Tuesdays 3:30 - 5:30pm Cunningham Hub Community Centre, Cell Barnes Lane, St Albans
Wednesdays 12:30 - 2-30pm Christadelphian Church Hall, Abbots Avenue, St Albans
Thursdays 12:30 - 2:30pm Hilldyke Community Centre, Hilldyke Road, Wheathampstead
Fridays 10:00 - 12:00pm Caledon Community Centre, Caledon Rod, London Colney
Fridays 1:00 - 3:00pm Crabtree Church, Crabtree Lane, Harpenden

In addition to the above, from the end of June 2020, we began providing food parcels members of the Islamic community in the St Albans area in conjunction with the Sopwell Community Trust.

Undoubtedly and unsurprisingly, the COVID19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown had a major impact on our operations.

General impact

At the beginning of lockdown the first problem we encountered was a significant drop in our volunteer numbers as those with health issues and the over 70s had to step back. This was compounded by the fact that the same time our project manager was forced to self-isolate for two weeks.

Fortunately a substantial number of new ‘emergency’ volunteers offered their services and with their help and the sterling efforts of a number of trustees we managed to avoid the temporary closure of distribution centres.

The trustees discussed the option of closing all the distribution centres and switching to a deliveryonly model. They concluded that it was possible to continue with our existing model whilst adapting the sessions to use a socially distanced “quick in and out” approach. This worked well though it did present other issues to be managed.

Under normal circumstances our approach had been to estimate the likely quantities of food we would need at each centre and send that plus a small contingency. If it was not all used it would be stored there until the following week.

Due to the high demand and the resulting strain on warehouse packing capacity we decided to bring back everything that was unused at the end of each session and recycle it to the next one. This, combined with the larger quantities we sent out to each centre, meant that our relatively small van could not cope. We were therefore enormously grateful when local charity Emmaus offered to help by dedicating a large van and two companions to help with transport. They continued to do this until the end of July. They are continuing to help us on Tuesdays - one of our busiest days - when we have two distribution centre sessions operating back-to-back.

St Albans & District Foodbank

Home deliveries

We introduced a home delivery service to help those who could not attend a centre, initially using drivers from British Gas, and later from Communities 1st.

Warehouse operations

At the beginning of lockdown social distancing requirements meant that we had to revamp our warehouse operations so that we could limit the number of people working there at any one time. We managed this by increasing the number and duration of the warehouse sessions and rapidly training a pool of additional volunteers which enabled us to increase capacity and so pack the necessary boxes each week.

As the demand for our help soared so we started to see a significant drop in food donations primarily because of the initial panic buying and subsequent supermarket restrictions. As a result, we started to become uncomfortably short of items such as pasta that supermarkets were rationing. We were however blessed with substantial cash donations so we were able to open accounts with several food wholesalers and managed to purchase enough supplies through them to enable us to continue to meet demand.

As lockdown progressed so a number of organisations began to donate food items and this steadily improved our food stocks. These were further significantly boosted by Round Table street collections in Harpenden and St Albans. As a result we entered the Harvest Festival season with somewhat larger stocks than usual so we are well positioned to cope with any increase in demand in the next few months..

St Albans & District Foodbank

During the 12 months of operation to 30th September 2020 we distributed parcels directly 7,801 times including 3,796 to help children. There was a wide range of reasons causing these people to seek help, the largest being low income. The full break down of reasons are illustrated by the following chart::

----- Start of picture text -----
1%
2%
5%
1%
2%
7%
5%
7%
56%
8%
7%
Low Income Benefit Changes Benefit Delays
Sickness Debt Other
Homeless Child Holiday Meals No recourse to public funds
Domestic Violence Delayed Wages Refused STBA
----- End of picture text -----

St Albans & District Foodbank

During 2019-20 we provided help 7,801 times compared to 3,433 times in 2018-19. The chart below provides a breakdown into adults and children in each of the last four years.

This substantial increase was largely driven by the increase in demand that began at the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown and has been further increased by the assistance we have been giving to the Sopwell Community Trust in the last three months of the year.

----- Start of picture text -----
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Adults Children
2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20
----- End of picture text -----

3.2 Voucher Partners

The St Albans District Foodbank provides food to people who come to us with a voucher issued by one of our Voucher Partners. These Partners are professionals from organisations providing welfare and community support in the local area such as doctors, health visitors, social workers, Citizens Advice Bureau staff, schools, registered social landlords, local charities, the police and pro-

When these professionals identify someone in crisis, they provide him/her with a foodbank voucher. The individual can obtain immediate assistance by bringing the voucher to one of our distribution centres and redeeming it for food. In some cases, individuals approach the foodbank directly. In such cases we normally seek to understand the individual’s circumstances and signpost opportunities for them to find support and then issue a voucher ourselves but suggest that in future the individual obtains a voucher from one of our Partners. We do this so that we know the source of the individual’s crisis has been discussed with an appropriate organisation. Due to the need to maintain social distancing since the outbreak of the pandemic we have not been able to discuss the clients’ situation directly with them but we intend to return to this model when the current crisis has passed.

In the year to 30 September 2020, 2,564 vouchers were issued and exchanged for food at the foodbank compared with 1,302 in the previous year.

St Albans & District Foodbank

3.3 Distribution of food

The table below summarises the sources and weight of food and other items provided to clients during the year.

Stock movements during year

Source/Destination	Incoming	Outgoing	Net
	kg	kg	kg
Donations received	84,830.8		84,830.8
Purchases	4,747.6		4,747.6
Distribution centres		-44,456.5	-44,456.5
Home deliveries		-4,819.7	-4,819.7
Emergency food boxes		-616.7	-616.7
Sopwell Community trust		-3,403.8	-3,403.8
Other charities		-7,344.9	-7,344.9
Other Trussell trust Foodbank’s		-2,525.1	-2,525.1
Disposals out of date/damaged		-455.6	-455.6
Other		-47.0	-47.0
Total	89,578.4	-63,669.3	25,909.1

The provision of food to other charities is key to our charitable objective - the relief of poverty. There is also an important practical benefit in so doing; it enables the foodbank to make use of excess food before it goes out of date thereby minimising waste and adverse environmental impact.

St Albans & District Foodbank

3.4 Sources of food and other items

The food and other household items that the Foodbank distributed came from a variety of sources such as regular collections from permanent collection points in various supermarkets around the area, donations by schools, churches and individuals, one-off corporate donations. In addition during and following the lockdown there were substantial donations from range of corporate donors as well as two large street collections organised by the Harpenden and St Albans Round Tables.

The sources of the incoming stock noted in 3.3 are analysed in the following graphic:

----- Start of picture text -----
26%
29%
6%
5%
17%
10% [6%]
Supermarket collections Churches Purchases
Residents' associations Schools Street Collections
Other
----- End of picture text -----

3.5 Volunteers

This report refers to the important contribution made by funders, donors and supporters across the community. However, the key people who have turned the St Albans District Foodbank into a working organisation delivering a service to the local community are our 100+ volunteers. They have organised the warehouse, packed food parcels, transported food, staffed the office and dealt with clients. We have been extremely fortunate that so many new volunteers stepped forward when the lockdown commenced. Without their additional help we would have found it impossible to continue running an uninterrupted service.

The Trustees are extremely grateful for the commitment of the volunteers and the expertise and help that they have brought to the organisation.

3.6 Staff & Trustees

Throughout the year Emma Dalton was employed as a part-time manager.

During the year Mark Pontin and Stuart Miller joined the board of trustees. Geraldine Warren, due to moving away from the district and Beverley Warmington, due to pressure of work, both stepped down as Trustees. The Trustee would like to thank them for the valuable help they provided to the foodbank during their terms of office.

St Albans & District Foodbank

4. FINANCIAL REVIEW

4.1 Principal funding sources

In common with many other foodbanks, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic saw an unprecedented wave of donations from individuals, churches, corporates and other organisations. As a result our unrestricted income for the year amounted to £174,143. The sources of this income are shown below:

Individuals	£	97,423
Corporates	£	52,480
Churches and other religious organisations	£	7,699
Charitable Organisations	£	9,579
Crowdfunding	£	2,355
Schools	£	1,474
Gift Aid Claim	£	1,233
Tesco topup	£	851
Other	£	507
Advent Calendars	£	445
Interest Received	£	97
	£174,143

In addition to the above we received a number of restricted income grants and donations. The two most significant elements of this were:

£6,000 from St Albans District Council for project support
£1,500 from Hertfordshire Community Fund to be spent on helping clients with winter fuel costs

We continued to act as an “Advocate” for the Acts 435 charity. When we encounter a client with specific needs that we cannot fund ourselves we are able to post an online request for help on the Acts 435 website and if this is funded by a donor the funds are transferred to us by Acts 435 for disbursement. This facility operated throughout the year to 30 September 2020.

4.2 Reserves policy

As discussed in section 5 the trustees have been grappling with the problem of securing a longterm warehouse. The major difficulty had been the very significant annual cost (probably about £45-50,000) of commercially renting a similar sized property to the existing warehouse.

The large increase in our reserves would enable us to rent a property on commercial terms once the current arrangement ends but it would demand a very significant, and hard to achieve, annual fundraising target within a few years as the reserves were steadily eroded.

St Albans & District Foodbank

The trustees became aware of an opportunity to enter into an arrangement with another Charitable organisation in St Albans whereby we would make a significant capital contribution from our reserves and undertake joint fundraising to build inter-alia, a 250m[2] warehouse which we would be able to use at a peppercorn rent for 25 years. It was agreed that this was a much more effective use of the foodbank reserves and it would eliminate a very significant risk to the ongoing existence of the foodbank.

Accordingly, the trustees are currently agreeing a Memorandum of Understanding with the other organisation. Upon successful completion of this we would expect to contribute £100,000 towards the capital costs and enter into a joint fundraising initiative. It is however unlikely that the proposed build would be ready until mid-2022. For this reason another £50,000 will be held to cover a shortterm rent of a suitable property if required and to help with equipping the new building with suitable equipment.

4.3 Investment policy and objectives

The St Albans & District Foodbank does not have sufficient funds to invest in longer term investments. The Foodbank has therefore adopted a risk averse strategy to the investment of its funds. All funds are held in cash using only mainstream banks.

5. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

5.1 At present the foodbank warehouse operates from temporary rent-free premises in Coldharbour Lane Harpenden provided by Jarvis Group Ltd. We have been advised that they may require that we vacate these premises towards the middle to end of 2021 and that we will be given at least 3 months’ notice.

5.2 In view of the central role that the warehouse plays in the operation of the foodbank, the trustees have investigated various options to provide ongoing warehouse facilities for the longer term. It has continued to be difficult to find suitable affordable long-term warehouse premises and the trustees decided that in view of the current favourable terms and suitability of the current premises it is most sensible to commence a search for another relatively short-term location once we have received notice to vacate Coldharbour Lane.

Signed on behalf of the Trustees

26th January 2021

	Charity Name	Charity Name	Charity Name	No (if any)	No (if any)
	St Albans and District Foodbank			1158917
Date of document (if not year end) 19-Jul-20	Receipts andpayments accounts					CC16a
	For the period	Period start date		Period end date
	from	01/10/2019	To		30/09/2020
Section A Receipts and payments
	Unrestricted funds	Restricted funds	Endowment funds		Total funds	Last year
	to the nearest £	to the nearest £	to the nearest £		to the nearest £	to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
Donations and Other income	174,143	240	-		174,383	24,754
SADCgrant	-	6,000	-		6,000	6,000
Acts 435 Receipts	-	120	-		120	440
HCF Receipts	-	1,500	-		1,500	1,000
School uniform donations	-	-	-		0	0
ASDAgrant	-	-	-		0	851
HCF BuildingPotential Grant	-	-	-		0	3,964
Communities 1st	-	-	-		0	10,000


*Total receipts*	174,143	7,860	0		182,003	47,009
A2 Asset and investment sales- nil
A3 Payments
Stationery	1,128	0			1,128	308
General	3,023	0			3,023	1,119
Advertising and misc	200	0			200	0
Phone	487	0			487	277
Items for distribution to clients	9,886	469			10,355	1,004
Acts 435 Disbursements	0	0			0	440
HCF Disbursements	0	2,398			2,398	1,885
Warehouse	167	0			167	112
Rent	0	0			0	2,196
Insurance	2,508	0			2,508	1,761
Travel and transport	7,022	0			7,022	1,086
Franchise fee	360				360	385
Employment Costs	14,889	4,737			19,626	18,419
Bank charges	120	0			120	120
*Sub total*	39,790	7,604	0		47,394	29,111
A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table)
Equipment	1,124	5,318			6,442	1,473
Van contribution					0
*Sub total*	1,124	5,318	0		6,442	1,473

*Totalpayments*	40,915	12,922	0		53,836	30,584

*Net of receipts/(payments)*	133,229	(5,062)	0		128,167	16,425
A5 Transfers between funds	0	0	0		0	0
A6 Cash funds last year end	43,074	10,390	0		53,463	37,038
*Cash funds thisyear end*	176,302	5,328	0		181,630	53,463

CCXX R1 accounts (SS) 1 24/04/2017

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period	Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period	Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period	Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
Categories	Details	Unrestricted funds	Restricted funds	Endowment funds
		to nearest £	to nearest £	to nearest £
B1 Cash funds	CAF Bank Ltd	176,302	5,328	0
	*Total cash funds*	176,302	5,328	0
	(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))	OK	OK	OK
		Unrestricted funds	Restricted funds	Endowment funds
	Details	to nearest £	to nearest £	to nearest £
B2 Other monetary assets






	Details	Fund to which asset belongs	Cost (optional)	Current value (optional)
B3 Investment assets





	Details	Fund to which asset belongs	Cost (optional)	Current value (optional)
B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use	Phone	restricted	0
	Van	restricted / ~~eneral~~	0
	Warehouse equipment	~~g~~ restricted	0
	Foodbank branch equipment	restricted	0
	IT and computing equipment	restricted	0

	Details	Fund to which liability relates	Amount due (optional)	When due (optional)
B5 Liabilities





Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees	Signature	Print Name		Date of approval
		John Mulholland		26/01/2021

CCXX R2 accounts (SS) 2 24/04/2017

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ members of

Charity Name St Albans and District Foodbank CIO

members of	St Albans and District Foodbank CIO
On accounts for the year ended Set out on pages	30thSeptember 2020	Charity no (if any)	1158917

	13 - 14 (remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 30[th] September 2020.

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 [The charity’s gross income exceeded £250,000 and I am qualified to examiner's statement undertake the examination by being a qualified member of [insert name of applicable listed body]]. Delete [ ] if not applicable.

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination (other than that disclosed below *) 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.

* Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply.

Signed:

Date: 22/07/2021

Name: Elizabeth Needham

Oct 2018

IER

Relevant professional FFA (Institute of Financial Accountants) qualification(s) or body (if any):

Address:

Needham Accountancy Ltd Berkeley House, Barnet Road London Colney, Herts AL2 1BG

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 None any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

Oct 2018

IER