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← Willow Green

2024-04-03-accounts

Willow Green Trustees Annual Report Year Ending 3[rd] April 2024

Our aims, which are unchanged from the previous year

Willow Green is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) registered with the Charities Commission, with Registered Charity Number 1173796. The purpose of the CIO is to “to empower young people with special educational needs and disabilities, through the delivery of practical and skill based programmes, that will enable them to participate fully in society as independent, mature and responsible individuals.”

Currently, in order to achieve and develop socially, emotionally and economically after age 18, the young people of Warrington with special educational needs and disabilities have to move or travel out of the area. This means being away from their surroundings, families and support networks. It can lead to great distress as a result of the upset to the routine of the young person and those around them as well as often being at great expense to both the local authority and local families.

Willow Green aims to create a familiar, supportive and local environment which will further the lives of young people with SEND through high quality, bespoke development programmes based on their individual needs. The programmes will provide a foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing. They will focus on essential and transferrable work, economic, social and life skills which will enable increased independence and self-determination.

Willow Green puts the individual and their specific requirements at the heart of our provision. We develop our learners by supporting their participation, volunteering and employment possibilities and liaising with partner agencies to offer our learners a place within their organisation. We want to enable our learners to reach their maximum potential.

We provide a nurturing environment where learners feel cared for and respected. Our team encourage our learners to be kind and caring towards each other and role-model this behaviour themselves.

Our staff team inspire our learners to be stronger and more confident young adults. We share our determination to succeed and encourage our learners to be ambitious in their choices. We empower our learners by providing them with the tools needed to pursue these choices and control their own future.

Willow Green is a supportive, encouraging and inclusive college environment where we all share and celebrate in one another's success.

Our ambition

Is for all our learners at Willow Green to develop the skills and knowledge needed to progress towards employment and reach their maximum potential.

Impact

When learners leave Willow Green they will have gained experience, knowledge and skills needed to achieve their goals and succeed in the working world. They will know more, remember more, and be able to apply more, meaning that they can do and achieve more. We will enable our learners to learn, think and act more independently.

Our Achievements during Academic Year 2023/24

For the academic year 2023/24 we provided 38 places in total, with:

For the academic year 2023/24 we had 19 leavers who achieved the following qualifications:

Of the 6 Supported Interns who left Willow Green:

Those leaving the work skills programme (education funded) have transitioned onto supported internship programmes (2 learners) and the other 5 have moved onto adult social care day services.

Feedback from our learners continues to be very positive and their attitudes have been fantastic throughout the year; our learners have met the high expectations that both they and the teaching staff have set. We have had no exclusions or incidents of bullying.

We are continuing to implement our Improvement Plan which focusses on the quality of our provision We have made significant progress over this academic year which has been recognised by our external quality assurance partners.

Staffing

We made a number of changes to staffing structure for the 2023/24 academic year to support the continued improvement of both our Education and Adult Social Care programmes. We recruited a Head of Learning who is responsible for the quality of the delivery of all of our programmes, as well as an experienced qualified teacher to deliver our Education-funded programmes. We have continued to bolster our team by directly employing our Learning Support Assistants to reduce our reliance on Agency staff.

Staff follow a robust Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme enabling them to meet the developing needs of our learners and to improve their own pedagogical practice. A detailed monitoring and quality assurance cycle ensures that high-standard, quality-first teaching is maintained with further development and training being provided for teachers/ tutors where identified.

Trustees

We plan to recruit additional Trustees in the coming year to provide more direct support for promotion and marketing, and for developing relationships and placement opportunities with employers.

Our Finances for Period Ending 3[rd] April 2024

Revenues for the year total £938,107.

£623,471 was earned through the Education programmes (Supported Internship and Work Skills programmes) funded via contracts with local authoriites and the Education Skills Funding Agency (through Post-19 High Needs Funding).

£313,166 was earned through the Adult Social Care programmes. Many of the clients supported through this funding also receive 1:1 additional funding support which is why the revenue is so high for such a small cohort.

The total cost of the provision for the financial year (i.e. both the education and social care programmes) was £822,002 and the net operating surplus for Willow Green was £116,105. This surplus will be used to fund future accommodation and to invest in equipment and resources for our learners.

Future Plans

Following the success of our programmes we are looking to continue to grow to meet the needs of the cohort of students into academic year 2025/26 and beyond. There is a national push to increase the number of Supported Interns enrolled on programmes and as such we have amended our provision offer to take account of the increasing support needs of this cohort.

In the longer term we are still in need of larger premises with a number of options open to us which are being assessed. Plans currently involve the investigation of moving all Willow Green programmes to a newly refurbished site within the town which would become a shared site with the local special 6[th] form college but this will not be ready until January 2026 at the earliest.

We are also exploring running the provision over 2 separate sites to create greater separation between the Education and Adult Social Care programmes as well as address the issues with lack of space at St Werburghs Development Centre.

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Balance Sheet - As at 03 April 2024
Assets
Fixed Assets 0
Total Fixed Assets 0
Cash in Bank 333,808
Total Current Assets 333,808
Total Assets 333,808
Liabilities
Total Current Liabilities 255,525
Future Liabilities 0
Total Future Liabilities 0
Total Liabilities 255,525
Total Net Assets 78,282
Equity
Net Profit / Loss (prior year(s)) 258,634
Net Profit / Loss (current year) 116,105
TOTAL EQUITY £374,739
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Profit and Loss – As at 03 April 2024 Profit and Loss – As at 03 April 2024 Profit and Loss – As at 03 April 2024
Income £
Sales - Services 936,423
Donations 55
Learner Lunches 1,629
Total Income 938,107
Gross Profit /(Loss) 938,107
Operating Expenses
Payroll - Salary & Wages 604,017
Rent 156,282
Office Stationery 3,250
Computer & Software 9,785
Consultancy & Professional Fees 1,882
Professional Fees 12,313
Curriculum & Subscriptions 31,978
Equipment 2,080
Training Costs 356
Bank Charges 60
Total Operating Expenses 822,002
Net Profit /(Loss) 116,105

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ Willow Green members of CIO On accounts for the year 3[rd] April 2024 Charity no 1173796 ended (if any) Set out on pages ~~Cs~~ N/A I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 03/04/2024

Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of basis of report the 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 the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention ~~(other than that disclosed below *)~~ in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

27/01/2025 Signed: Date: ~~a~~ Name: Debbie Monk, Norbreck Ltd ~~pC~~

Relevant professional MAAT qualification(s) or body (if any):

Address: 107 Norbreck Close, Great Sankey, Warrington, Cheshire, WA5 2SJ

IER

1 October 2018

Section B Disclosure Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners). Give here brief details of N/A any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

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IER 2 October 2018
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