2024-02-28-annual-report - Accept Care Limited

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REGISTERED COMPANY NUMBER: NI047633 (Northern Ireland) REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 100855

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES AND

AUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 29 FEBRUARY 2024

FOR

ACCEPT CARE LTD

Sumer Auditco Limited The Beehive Building Beehive Ring Road Crawley Gatwick RH6 0PA

ACCEPT CARE LTD

CONTENTS OF THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 29 FEBRUARY 2024

		Page
Report of the Trustees	1	to	5
Report of the Independent Auditors	6	to	9
Statement of Financial Activities		10
Balance Sheet		11
Cash Flow Statement		12
Notes to the Cash Flow Statement		13
Notes to the Financial Statements	14	to	23

ACCEPT CARE LTD (REGISTERED NUMBER: NI047633)

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 29 FEBRUARY 2024

The trustees who are also directors of the charity for the purposes of the Companies Act 2006, present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 29 February 2024. The trustees have adopted the provisions of Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019).

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

Objectives and aims

Accept Care Ltd offers bespoke supported living care packages to people with learning disabilities, mental health issues and other diverse and complex needs. A unique plan is created for each service user that aims to meet their needs, wishes, preferences, ambitions and aspirations. This allows, where possible, for the individual to retain as much control as possible around their care. Accept Care Ltd also provides an individualised approach to support planning and positive risk management. Each individual is supported by a team of well-trained staff to ensure that the support provided is consistent in areas of social, emotional, physical, medical, educational, vocational, financial, leisure activities, along with recreational needs and wishes. Service users are actively involved in the recruitment of their staff wherever possible.

Significant activities

The supported living services are provided in properties rented directly by the individuals from a social care landlord. Accept Care Ltd operates within two blocks of eight flats, one seven-bedroom house, one nine-bedroom house, and a further two bedroom house. Supporting thirty-four service users in Ash Grove, Consett, Co Durham. There is a further four bedded house at Bearpark for people with complex autism and twenty flats at Esh Winning, Co Durham for clients with a mild to moderate learning disability.

Accept Care Ltd supports approximately fifty-seven people in their own homes and in the three main locations in Consett, Bearpark and Esh Winning. It also supports an additional six people within the inspiring Lives day service.

The services are funded by Durham County Council, Tees Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust and the County Durham Clinical Commissioning groups. The service has 0 vacancies as of 7th October 2024 The service continues to work closely with commissioners and provides best value services that look hopeful for the future with high demand for the skills and expertise offered by the Charity.

The main aim of the Charity for the coming year is to continue to develop the inspiring lives day services so as to increase capacity and to move to paperless ways of working. We were inspected in February 2024 and have maintained our current grading with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and that is rated "Good" in four areas. Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive. Our rating for Well led was uprated to outstanding.

Public benefit

Accept Care Ltd aims to improve the lives and well-being of individuals with learning disabilities, mental health issues and other complex needs enabling them to live in and be part of the community. Accept Care Ltd strive to improve the self-esteem and confidence of the individual enabling them to take part in day care activities, which will enhance their ability to make choices and live a more independent life.

Accept Care Ltd, is registered with the Care Quality Commission for England and Wales and registered as a charity in Northern Ireland on 19 November 2014.

Success for Accept Care is measured over a longer period of time than it is for most organisations. We have twice yearly surveys which are sent to service users, professionals, families and staff. This measures our success in the five areas identified by The Care Quality Commission. We are also responsive to comments, compliments and complaints which come into the organisation from time to time. The Care Quality Commission undertakes contactless monitoring of the organisation through third party stakeholders on a regular basis. We get reports of this once undertaken.

ACHIEVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE

We have managed our reserve well in the face of significant pressures to support staff with the cost of living increases. We have plans to fill all vacancies. We have improved on staff satisfaction, staff turnover and reduced the number of complaints we have received. We continue to reduce the number of behavioural incidents we deal with which demonstrate that staff are reducing conflict and maintaining positive interactions with clients. We are embracing the principles of Positive Behavioural Support and are benefitting from a more person centred way of working.

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ACCEPT CARE LTD (REGISTERED NUMBER: NI047633)

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 29 FEBRUARY 2024

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Reserves policy

The Trustees have reviewed the charity's needs for reserves and have agreed that financial reserves (the "Emergency Operating Reserve" - EOR) should be held.

It has no endowment funding and is entirely dependent for income on funding from year to year which is inevitably subject to fluctuation.

The target level for the EOR has been set at 60 days operating costs, excluding wages costs, a sum of approximately £60,000.

Designated Funds Reserves

In addition to the EOR it was agreed that a designated funds reserve must be held to cover project costs outside the current operating budget and/or outside the current financial year. The level of this reserve will be the accumulated sum of all such funds in the accounts of the charity at each year end.

Items covered this year:

We have increased the designated funds for the cost of replacing the minibuses to £100,000. The sustainability fund which is to help reduce the cost of overheads and to help improve our environmental footprint remains at £127,600. Due to the current economic climate, we don't feel that the time is right to invest in new technology. We will of course continue to monitor the situation in the coming year.

£150,000 remains in the Emergency Support Fund to support the organisation if another pandemic happens has also remained the same.

A further £20,000 has been added to the Development Refurbishment fund, the Activity equipment fund remains at £36,743.

We have no restricted funds on 29 February 2024.

When taking the commitments into account, the charity is left with £342,626 of unrestricted and undesignated reserves.

Tracking and managing shared payments between the Clinical Commissioning Groups and Durham County Council has been successful enabling us to recover a large amount of debt owed. We are now more accurately checking and tracking payments We remain challenged by poor communications between both parties and failures in notifying us in changes of funding split changes, hourly rates and agreed dates for the start of funding splits. These have all been contributory to the issues we have faced in getting clarity over funding. Moving to scheduled payments has though improved matters though some individual amounts remain incorrect.

The hourly rate offered by Durham County Council for 23/24 was £17.64 per hour. The new hourly rate for 24/25 has increased to £19.20, an increase of just under 9%. This rate comes into effect in April 24.

Our main risk is the unknown and the impact of further pandemics and changes in the economy and how that affects us to recruit, train and retain staff. To that end we are actively recruiting, and our retention is carefully monitored. Over the past year we have seen the effects of the cost of inflation. This has had a direct impact on us with staffing having the biggest impact. To ensure we stayed competitive and to support our employees through this period we increased the Personal Support Worker basic hourly rate has increased over the year by 10% to £12.64 to ensure we remain competitive and attract good quality staff. As a result, it has had reduced our reserves. For the current year we will monitor the economic climate and staffing levels closely. We still have sufficient levels of reserves to temporarily increase salaries or provide hardship bonuses to staff in the event of further inflation.

Our focus for the coming year is to increase and retain staffing levels, reduce the use of agency staff and to develop Inspiring Lives. The Development Centre is in the final stages of completion. Once the building is complete, we will be advertising to try and increase the number of clients who attend. We will continue to deliver a good quality service which is respected by all. We are still moving to more paper free ways of working and are currently moving to a new electronic recording system for all staff and client information.

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ACCEPT CARE LTD (REGISTERED NUMBER: NI047633)

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 29 FEBRUARY 2024

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Governing document

The charity is controlled by its governing document, a deed of trust, and constitutes a limited company, limited by guarantee, as defined by the Companies Act 2006.

Accept Care Ltd is a company limited by guarantee, having no share capital and governed by a Memorandum and Articles of Association.

Organisational structure

The current Management team is currently D M Nixon as Registered Manager and Managing Director. Mrs T D Nixon is Head of Quality and Compliance. Ms T Daley as Head of Operations. Ms J Peacock is HR and Finance Manager. Mrs J Malpass is Training and Development Manager ( now part time) Mrs Jan Lawrence is the Quality Manager.

Risk management

The trustees have a duty to identity and review the risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error.

The biggest threat to services and disruption to services remains covid-19 and any other future pandemics. We continue to manage any outbreaks well and all have been contained relatively quickly and no one has been affected in the long term, with no deaths or additional disability as a result. We continue to be vigilant and have acquired significant stocks of PPE in the event of future shortages.

The Charity has been made aware of funding errors from its main funders at Durham County Council and the NHS Clinical commissioning groups. The charity continues to track and recover any under payments. We have improved our financial tracking processes to give greater evidence in the event of disputes.

Recruitment in an almost saturated environment continues to be challenging and as a result we have increased pay scales in an attempt to ensure we recruit the best staff possible. We have also upgraded our website which has been an excellent recruitment tool. We also use web promotion tools with Indeed to increase our rankings and viewability on line. Our recruitment continues to be strong coupled with improved rates of pay for staff with retention rates improving as well.

The development of day services will create more opportunities for the Charity and prevent other organisations from offering superior services to people, we support. It allows for a new range of opportunities for service users and better range of opportunities for income generation lessening dependence on the current main funders. We are now supporting some complex individuals within the service that have been unable to sustain similar placements in the past. This includes a number of external attendees that live at home with families. The day service is also now making a contribution to the overall service and hopes to eventually generate a small profit whilst adding value to the reputation of the Charity.

We have had no tribunal cases this year and HR processes have been further refined and enforced to help ensure full compliance with employment law.

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ACCEPT CARE LTD (REGISTERED NUMBER: NI047633)

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 29 FEBRUARY 2024

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Directors/Trustees

The board that was formed in 2015 continues to perform well with improved communications and performance being noted as the service transforms itself into a very credible and professional service. We have retired two trustees to ensure that only one trustee now remains who is indirectly funded by the charity. No trustees are now employees.

We aim to add further volunteer trustees with the aim of adding bid writing and fundraising experience in the near future. We are advertising with the VONNE network and want to attract people with previous experience of the care industry, we are mindful not to appoint people who do not share the aims and values of the charity, which has made recruitment of new trustees more difficult.

On appointment of a trustee they would have an opportunity to meet the rest of the board. The Managing Director would develop an induction plan for the trustee dependent on their area of expertise and interest. The Training and Development Manager would identify any training needs in accordance with the Trustee.

The board delegates much of its functions to the managing director who in turn consults the board on areas such as high-cost purchases (over £2k), salary changes and legal issues. It would also consult on things like legal issues and where the Charity is affected by changes in legislation.

All managers pay are discussed and approved by the board of trustees, In the event of the Managing Director and Head of Quality and Compliance these are discussed in private by the other trustees without the Managing Director and Head of Quality and Compliance being present. All Managers have an appraisal and the increase in salary is determined by performance and after an annual appraisal.

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS Registered Company number

NI047633 (Northern Ireland)

Registered Charity number

100855

Registered office

Glendinning House 6 Murray Street Belfast BT1 6DN

Trustees

D M Nixon - Managing Director P Smith F B Grand G M Mcardle

Senior Statutory Auditor

David Holloway BA (Hons) FCA DChA

Auditors

Sumer Auditco Limited The Beehive Building Beehive Ring Road Crawley Gatwick RH6 0PA

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ACCEPT CARE LTD (REGISTERED NUMBER: NI047633)

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 29 FEBRUARY 2024

STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES' RESPONSIBILITIES

The trustees (who are also the directors of Accept Care Ltd for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the Report of the Trustees and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice) including Financial Reporting Standard 102 "The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland".

Company law requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for that period. In preparing those financial statements, the trustees are required to

select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
observe the methods and principles in the Charity SORP;
make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charitable company will continue in business.

The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

In so far as the trustees are aware:

there is no relevant audit information of which the charitable company's auditors are unaware; and
the trustees have taken all steps that they ought to have taken to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the auditors are aware of that information.

AUDITORS

The auditors, Sumer Auditco Limited, will be proposed for re-appointment at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting.

This report has been prepared in accordance with the special provisions of Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

18th November 2024

Approved by order of the board of trustees on ............................................. and signed on its behalf by:

........................................................................ P Smith - Trustee

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REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF ACCEPT CARE LTD

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Accept Care Ltd (the 'charitable company') for the year ended 29 February 2024 which comprise the Statement of Financial Activities, the Balance Sheet, the Cash Flow Statement and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice), including Financial Reporting Standard 102 'The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland'.

In our opinion the financial statements:
give a true and fair view of the state of the charitable company's affairs as at 29 February 2024 and of its incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure, for the year then ended;
have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 'The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland'; and
have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditors' responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charitable company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC's Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees' use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charitable company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The trustees are responsible for the other information. The other information comprises the information included in the Annual Report, other than the financial statements and our Report of the Independent Auditors thereon.

Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact. We have nothing to report in this regard.

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:

the information given in the Report of the Trustees for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and
the Report of the Trustees has been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

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REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF ACCEPT CARE LTD

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the charitable company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the Report of the Trustees.

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters where the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

adequate accounting records have not been kept or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or
the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or
certain disclosures of trustees' remuneration specified by law are not made; or
we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit; or
the trustees were not entitled to take advantage of the small companies exemption from the requirement to prepare a Strategic Report or in preparing the Report of the Trustees.

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the Statement of Trustees' Responsibilities, the trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the charitable company's ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

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REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF ACCEPT CARE LTD

Our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue a Report of the Independent Auditors that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below:

Our audit must be alert to the risk of manipulation of the financial statements and seek to understand the incentives and opportunities for management to achieve this.

We undertake the following procedures to identify and respond to these risks of non-compliance:

the engagement partner ensured that the engagement team collectively had the appropriate competence, capabilities and skills to identify or recognise non-compliance with applicable laws and regulations;
we identified the laws and regulations applicable to the charitable company through discussions with Trustees and other management and from our knowledge and experience of this sector;
we focussed on specific laws and regulations which we considered may have a direct material effect on the financial statements or the operations of the charitable company, including the Companies Acts, Charities Acts, tax legislation, employment, environmental and health and safety legislation;
we assessed the extent of compliance with the laws and regulations identified above through making enquiries of management and inspecting legal correspondence; and
identified laws and regulations were communicated within the audit team regularly and the team remained alert to instances of non-compliance throughout the audit.

We assessed the susceptibility of the charitable company's financial statements to material misstatement, including obtaining an understanding of how fraud might occur, by:

making enquiries of management as to where they considered there was a susceptibility to fraud, their knowledge of actual, suspected and alleged fraud;
considering the internal controls in place to mitigate risks of fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations.

To address the risk of fraud through management bias and override of controls, we:

performed analytical procedures to identify any unusual or unexpected relationships;
tested journal entries to identify unusual transactions;
assessed whether judgements and assumptions made in determining any accounting estimates were indicative of potential bias;
investigated the rationale behind significant or unusual transactions.

In response to the risk of irregularities and non-compliance with laws and regulations, we designed procedures which included, but were not limited to:

agreeing financial statement disclosures to underlying supporting documentation;
reading minutes of meetings of those charged with governance;
enquiring of management as to actual and potential litigation claims;
reviewing correspondence with HMRC and the company's legal advisers.

Through these procedures, we did not become aware of actual or suspected non-compliance.

We planned and performed our audit in accordance with auditing standards but owing to the inherent limitations of procedures required in these areas, there is an unavoidable risk that we may not have detected a material misstatement in the accounts. The further removed non-compliance with laws and regulations is from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, the less likely we would become aware of it. The risk of not detecting a material misstatement due to fraud is higher than the risk of not detecting one resulting from error, as fraud may involve concealment, collusion, forgery, misrepresentations, or override of internal controls. We are not responsible for preventing non-compliance and cannot be expected to detect non-compliance with all laws and regulations.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council's website at www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our Report of the Independent Auditors.

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REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF ACCEPT CARE LTD

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the charitable company's members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charitable company's members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditors' report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charitable company and the charitable company's members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

David Holloway BA (Hons) FCA DChA (Senior Statutory Auditor) for and on behalf of Sumer Auditco Limited The Beehive Building Beehive Ring Road Crawley Gatwick RH6 0PA 18th November 2024 Date: .............................................

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