Annual Report
Selby & District Foodbank for the year ending 31[st ] March 2024
Registered Charity no. 1169033
November 2024
Chair of Trustees: Nigel Currey Treasurer: David Busfield Co-Ordinator: Cheryl Whitton (to Jan 2024) Faith Emmanuel (from Jan 2024)
Selby & District Foodbank
Annual report 1[st] April 2023 – 31[st] March 2024 Created by Faith
Emmanuel & Nigel Currey
Aim : To provide food parcels for people in short-term food crisis. To end hunger and poverty in our community.
Our mission : By working and liaising with other Voluntary Services and Agencies to provide practical help with dignity whilst challenging injustice.
We have continued to be exceptionally busy; 2058 emergency food parcels were provided to local people from 1 April 2023 to March 2024. These parcels provided food for 3248 adults and 1704 children making 4952 people receiving food for a minimum of three days or at least 44,568 individual meals. This is a large increase on last year.
Donations have remained steady, but we have not been able to fulfil demand on donated food alone and spent more than £2,000 per month on food purchases, rising to £2,500 in Q4. We assume that people are no longer able to give as much food due to their financial pressures, however, it seems that some have chosen to support financially rather than with food, and that does at least enable us to buy what we need at any time.
Although the special 3-day Tesco summer collections are no longer available to us, the pre-Christmas was successful adding over a tonne of food to our stock. Morrisons again held a food drive during summer. Such Supermarket events not only increase our stock, but also provide Foodbank with invaluable publicity and the opportunity to speak to the shoppers. We continued our higher spend on food until September/October, when harvest donations and then Christmas donations
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bolstered stocks once again.
We procured the service of an in-house Citizens Advice worker for 18 hours per week. The project began at the beginning of January 2023 and in the first quarter alone had a predicted financial gain of £250,000 for clients using the service. We are delighted that the project has made such a significant impact on the lives of people using our service. A significant amount of
debt has been written off for clients and many people have made financial gains. Trussell Trust confirmed in the spring that funding is guaranteed for the full three years of the project, which is wonderful news. In the April to June quarter 115 clients were seen, with 237 different financial issues. Ultimately many of these should no longer need to access our support.
We had volunteer signposting training from Trussell Trust and training from Citizen’s Advice on what services they offer. Cheryl has also attended modern day slavery training and am signed up to renew both my lead safeguarding training and food hygiene certificate in early September.
Notes from the CA training are currently being made into a leaflet to give to clients. This will also give volunteers greater confidence in signposting to the CA project. All staff are currently completing online safeguarding training, and this will be backed up by a Safeguarding element in all future volunteer team meetings.
A toy basket was provided for children to play with whilst in the foodbank and magazines in the waiting area, for people to read whilst waiting. Display boards were purchased to promote local agencies and support systems.
In the spring a local dietician was in Foodbank, chatting to clients about the impacts of food poverty and health. We also received a positive report from a nutritional audit of our food parcels.
Thanks to generous donations we were able to purchase flasks, hot water bottles and blankets during the winter months. We were also able once again to provide meat and fresh veg vouchers.
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We continue to forge good relationships with the major supermarkets within the town, with a monthly Rota ensuring prompt collection from the numerous donation points. There are also excellent partnerships with local businesses, all of whom have continued to provide us with regular donations of food and some financial contributions.
A welcoming space for clients to discuss their needs and possible further support requirements has been developed to meet the needs of users.
We continue to have a well-run warehouse and received a 5* hygiene rating during the year for our premises and practice.
We have made good use of a self-storage unit for later dated goods and have a wellmanaged system of goods in and out of stores.
In addition to pre-packed parcels, clients continued to be able to select additional items, toiletries, pet food, cleaning and hygiene products, fresh bread and fruit and vegetables. Allowing people to make choices enhances their self- esteem. Over the Christmas period, we were able to supplement food parcels with meat and grocer vouchers. This was
very well received and made a real difference to those who received them. We had wonderful feedback from service users who said that it had made their Christmas.
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In addition to providing food and household essentials to those in food crisis we continued to provide education and information to groups and schools. Visiting schools to talk about foodbanks, why people need them and how, is an essential part of what we do. We were grateful for the opportunities at School Harvest Festivals to speak to children and receive many generous donations.
Reasons for Referral
An overwhelming proportion of clients accessing foodbank support this year identify as having experienced financial difficulties due to debts, living costs and unmanageable expenses. Of these clients, over 50% of those who accessed the foodbank due to ‘debt, costs and expenses’ identified the ‘rising cost of essentials’ as being a factor in their hardship: this impacted 890 households which accommodated 1428 adults, and 742 children.
Poor health (both mental and physical) is also a key factor identified in client’s hardship: 739 households identified this as a core factor in their hardship, affecting 1123 adults and 490 children. Reason for referral* Vouchers Adults Children Total (4[th ] April 2023 – 31[st] March 2024) Financial difficulties (earnings related) 391 639 390 1029 Financial difficulties (benefits related 374 593 267 860 Financial difficulties (debt, costs and expenses) 1721 2780 1750 4530 Insecurely housed 121 167 46 213 No recourse to public funds (immigration status) 42 73 39 112 ~~=~~ 5
| Domestic abuse | 39 | 53 | 33 | 86 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal circumstances (misc) | 145 | 200 | 153 | 353 |
| (Physical or mental) health conditions | 739 | 1123 | 490 | 1613 |
| Not specified | 41 | 77 | 28 | 105 |
* Note: as many people may be facing multiple challenges when accessing support from the foodbank, here may be multiple ‘reasons for referral’ identified on any voucher raised – as a result, voucher counts below will exceed the total number of vouchers issued over this period.
Household Structure
From the data given below, vouchers over this reporting period were more frequently issued to households without children (1144 vouchers). 741 vouchers were issued to households with children (0-16yrs). Similarly, in households with children, single parents are more likely to access the foodbank for support in comparison to households where children live with two or more adults.
| Household Structure | Vouchers |
|---|---|
| Single (no children) | 760 |
| Single with children (0-16yrs) | 339 |
| Couple (no children) | 200 |
| Couple with children (0-16yrs) | 224 |
| Couple with additional adult(s), but no children | 55 |
| Couple with additional adult(s), and children (0-16yrs) |
48 |
| Multi-adult household with no children | 129 |
| Multi-adult household with children (0-16yrs) | 130 |
| Unable to ask/ relationships not given/ data not available |
173 |
| Total | 2058 |
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Age demographics
The age demographics of our clients continue to show that adults aged between 25-64 years is the age group requiring most food support, with 2613 clients in this age group accessing our service. Closer age analysis (not shown below) identifies that those aged 35-44 years are the adults most frequently receiving support, closely followed by adults aged 25-34 years. Children are also central to support sought by clients, with 1704 children living in a household receiving a voucher over the reporting period.
| Occupants listed as part of a household |
|
|---|---|
| Adult (17-24 yrs) | 496 |
| Adult (25-64 yrs | 2613 |
| Adult (65+) | 137 |
| Adult (Age unknown) | 2 |
| Adult Subtotal | 3248 |
| Children (0-4yrs) | 438 |
| Children (5-11yrs) | 777 |
| Children (12-16yrs) | 477 |
| Children (Age unknown) | 12 |
| Child Subtotal | 1704 |
| Total | 4952 |
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Trustees – Nigel Currey
During the year we expanded our Trustees to 9, gaining further useful experience and we now also have 3 Trustees actively involved in volunteering at Foodbank.
The hard work Cheryl put in to bring about the joint project with Citizens Advice for one of their Workers to be in Foodbank, started in January 2023 is producing some wonderful results, and it enables us to develop into a more fulfilling organization. After all, many clients who come through our door are not simply short of food, they are in a Financial Crisis and if other advice and assistance can enable them to bring an end to that, or at least ease the pressures they are under, that makes us much more that “Just about Food”.
A separate quarterly report is produced on the work and outcomes of our partnership with Citizens Advice. The impact of the venture continued throughout the year. Learning that significant numbers should be able to be not Foodbank dependent is wonderful news to Trustees, our Project Coordinator and Volunteers.
As Chair of Trustees, I would like to express my appreciation for the support given by so many individuals, businesses, schools, churches, and other organizations. In particularly to those volunteers who give their time each week, as members of our small Management Team, or in sorting, packing, meeting, and greeting clients, collecting, and moving food. Well done volunteers, we could not serve our purpose without you.
Not least I greatly valued the enthusiasm and leadership of Cheryl, our Coordinator, who sadly left us in January 2024. However, our new CoOrdinator Faith took up the reins in the latter part of January and very quickly came to terms with what is a demanding role, and one which is changing as we develop new initiatives, change our practices to meet demand or in line with Trussell policies or advice.
Comments are still regularly being made about how welcoming the 1811 building and volunteers are. We are fortunate not to have to vacate our building each day, as many Foodbanks must, which enables us to adapt the area for our needs. We try and put ourselves into the position of a new client, whose last wish would be to have to use our resources.
Financially, we are seeing a substantial increase in purchase of stock. Fortunately, our plan to build up our reserves with the possibility of a
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significant increase in demand (as mentioned in last year’s report) has enabled us to meet this challenge. Financial donations continue at a good level, as can be seen from the Financial Statement below. My thanks to David for his work as Treasurer and to our Auditor.
It always feels strange to say that I am proud of what Foodbank has achieved, bearing in mind that none of us would wish it to operate at the scale we are now experiencing.
Nigel Currey
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SELBY FOODBANK Balance Statement 01.04.2023 - 31.03.2024 OPENING BALANCE 01.04.2023 149810.84 INCOME Donations - general Reseprfed Donats'ons incl. Citizens Advice contract Grants Standing Order Donations Trussell Trust Refunds 57033.00 24044.25 2000.00 9224.00 6566.52 42.59 98910.36 248721.20 COMMirrED EXPENDrruRE Printing & Stationery Supemiad(et Supplies Mobile Top-up Store Rental & Services BT LandlinelBroadband ACTS 435 expenses Staff wages, pension & Nl The Storage Team CitiTrns Advice Contract Miscellaneous 250.59 25525.82 1800.00 999.71 620.00 15504.25 3122.56 149TT.50 6533.36 TOTAL COMMITfED EXPENDrruRE £ 69369.79 TOTAL £ 179351.41 CLOSING BANK BALANCE £ 179351.41 There were no other assets or liabilities as at E 31 st March, 2023 or 31st Marth. 2024 statement prepared by: David Busfield ffreasurer) date. 01 4,1
Independert examlnerfs report to the trustees of Selby Foodbank I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the Selby Foodbank for the year ended 31 March 2024. Responslbllltles aftd basls of report A5 the charity trustees you are responsible for the pParatIon of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the CharFties Art 2011 ('the ACY). I report in respect of my examination of the Trusys accounts carried out under seCtn 145 of the 2011 Act and in carying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Dirertions given by the Charity Commission under sertion 145{51{bl of the Art. Independent examlnerfs statement I have completed my examination. I confimi that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respert: l. accounting records We not kept in respert of the Trust as required by sectlon 130 of the Art: or 2. the accounts th) not accord with those records. 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.. PAUL HAMPSON Relevant professional qualffjication or membership of professional bodies lif any): FCA Addre55.' 26 Holly Grove, Thorpe Willoughby, Selby Y08 9LY Date.. 21January 2025