TRUSTEES REPORT

Plans for future periods

For the year ending 30 September 2025

Lessons learned

In considering the Foundation’s new Strategic Plan, trustees identified some key lessons from the first five years of the charity’s work:

• the Foundation has matured from an initial focus on tactical short-term grant-based programme delivery to an increasing investment in strategic funding to deliver ‘system change’;
• beyond its financial support, the Foundation has an increasingly influential role in hosting and incubating initiatives (such as Championing Social Care) and using its convening role (such as with the proposed Social Care Leaders Scheme);
• the expertise provided by CareTech Ltd staff enables the Foundation to deliver significant additional value to its partners;
• that a mix of ‘breadth versus depth’ of initiatives supported is entirely appropriate for the Foundation; and,
• that it would be beneficial to focus on a small number of Flagship Partnerships, with a slightly smaller number of other partnerships.

Plans for the year ahead

With this being the final year of our current three-year strategy, our priorities for the development of our products and services this year are:

• Implementation of our updated Theory of Change and Impact Assessment Framework, in line with the Strategic Plan;
• Implementing strategic aims agreed by trustees at the September 2025 Strategy Away Day;
• To continue transitioning to a portfolio of Partnership Grants that consists of 3-4 Flagship Partnerships and 10-15 other partnerships, by:
  – Identifying/launching another Flagship Partnership by the end of the financial year.
• Ensure that the majority of Partnership Grants Fund supports innovative projects and new ideas in line with its impact areas, creating unique new collaborative partnerships;
• Ensure partnership programmes delivered locally are sharing learnings with a wider network to maximise reach;
• Ensure that partnerships focussing on employability and training have a dedicated focus on addressing the UK social care vacancy challenges, supporting and retaining 25 individuals into social care roles;
• Ensure that the three small grants streams operate at full capacity (i.e. using the full budget allocation) and deliver maximum impact in line with their objectives, with the following target number of supported applications:
  – Staff Hardship Grant Fund – 475 applications (FY24/25 forecast – 450 applications);
  – Community Grant Fund – 100 applications (FY24/25 forecast – 100 applications);
  – Match Fund – 100 applications (FY24/25 forecast – 75 applications), of which at least 10 ‘Match it’ supported applications;
• Ensure all research programmes have a strong basis in practicality and action which is tested regularly by CareTech Ltd and the wider sector for viability;
• Add sustainability tools to SEN-i;
• Seek out co-funding opportunities with other grant-making bodies by which to increase the Foundation’s scale and reach, with the aim of securing at least two such co-funding opportunities; and,
• Ensure rigorous reporting and effective partnerships are in place for all Partnership Grants, with well evidenced impact evaluation plans and reports, in line with updated Impact Assessment Framework.