CareTech Foundation Trustees’ Report

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• CareTech Foundation Trustees’ Report – For the year ended 30 September 2019 (PDF – 20MB)

Accessible HTML report

• Legal and Administrative Information
• Chairman’s Statement
• Objectives and Activities
• Main Achievements
• Governance
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Financial Review
• Structure, Governance and Management
• Annex: The Foundation’s Charitable Objects
• Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of CareTech Charitable Foundation
• Statement of Financial Activities
• Balance Sheet as at 30 September 2019
• Notes to the Financial Statements for the Period Ended 30 September 2019

Legal and Administrative Information

Chairman’s Statement

Delivering impact through our Partnership Grants

This report sets out the impact of our highly effective first wave of Partnership Grants. Over the course of this year, with increasing demand for the Foundation’s support, we have added new partnerships by which we expect to deliver even greater impact. These include:

• a powerful programme of employability support with the EY Foundation for young people, with a particular emphasis on care-experienced young people;
• support for young homeless people in the North East; and,
• support for the astonishing new Toddler Lab research facility at Birkbeck University of London investigating the early signs of autism and related conditions.

I am specially pleased at how much support in kind staff from CareTech plc has been able to contribute to our partnership programmes, with the company’s additional support in kind for this year alone valued at over £15,000.

Big changes through our small grants

As important as these major grants are, our small grants funds remain powerful vehicles, delivering real impact to individuals and local communities. The community projects we have supported are doing amazing work and the feedback provided by grant recipients is testimony to the importance attached to these grants. Equally pleasing is the increasing number of staff of CareTech plc whose charitable fundraising activities we have been able to support through the Match-funding Grants.

We were pleased to establish a new Staff Hardship Fund this year with a restricted donation from CareTech plc and advice from our lawyers to ensure the Fund is properly structured. To ensure proper governance, the independent trustees are solely responsible for decision-making in respect of these grants. I am very grateful for the thoughtful way
in which they and the staff team have undertaken their roles in respect of the management of this important, and often emotionally difficult, grant fund. This new fund now enables us to provide support to staff members of CareTech plc in significant financial hardship at times of often heart-wrenching life challenges.

“This year has been an exciting one with significant developments, with the original intentions behind the Foundation’s establishment now starting to be realised.”

Operating at the highest standards of governance

As a Board, we continue to place great store in ensuring the Foundation is based on the highest standards of governance and probity. Over the course of this year, we have:

• successfully secured registration with the Charity Commission for the new incorporated structure of the Foundation;
• undertaken a formal review of the Foundation’s compliance with the Charity Commission’s new Guidance for charities with a connection to a non-charity and are confident that the Foundation complies with this important new guidance;
• completed an assessment of the Foundation’s governance against the standards suggested in the Charity Governance Code; whilst we have agreed a number of ways by which we might make further improvements, we were reassured that the Foundation is substantially compliant with the high standards of the Code.
• published our new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Statement, setting out the comprehensive approach by which we seek to ensure that our services are fully accessible to all; and,
• agreed an increase in the number of independent trustees, welcoming the appointments of Nash Jaffer and Jessica Taplin to the Board.

Measuring our impact

To ensure our work is focussed on areas of most need, we have this year put in place our new Theory of Change which now makes clear that the Foundation’s principal role must be to support and champion the social care sector, care workers and those living in care. This powerful Theory of Change is complemented by our new Impact Assessment Framework, ensuring that we can properly assess the full impact of our work, and this report accompanies an initial impact report on which we will build in future years.

Just the start

All of this work perhaps underlines why the Foundation is increasingly recognised as the leading corporate foundation in the social care sector. Wider recognition, such as through the Charity Times Awards 2019, gives us confidence that we are on the right tracks. I very much hope that where we lead others will follow.

I am hugely grateful to the contributions and commitment of my colleague trustees and our dedicated staff team. Unfortunately for them, I consider that we are only at the very beginning of a much longer journey and, whatever successes we have had to date, there is much to do to realise our long-term ambitions for the Foundation!

Haroon Sheikh
Chairman