St Elizabeths Centre Annual Report End Dec 2022 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 7
We were also able to transfer and develop the majority of our Adult
Home staff to work in our remaining services and we are glad to
con昀椀rm that, at the time of writing, we are fully recruited. Our main
overriding concern was to ensure that we closed the Adult Home in
a compassionate and ef昀椀cient manner and we were able to secure
safe and suitable alternative accommodation for all 83 of our Adult
Home residents by the end of November. This was made possible due
to the outstanding dedication and commitment of our management
and staff. Indeed, our main commissioner has asked if our plan and its
execution could be used by them as a case study on how to undertake
such an exercise. We are also grateful for the understanding and
involvement of our residents and their families with whom we held a
series of brie昀椀ng meetings throughout the year.
Financial Impact
The 昀椀nancial impact on the charity’s 昀椀nances has been severe. For
the year ended 31 December 2022, we made a loss of £6.2million
on income of £25 million. This was due mainly to signi昀椀cant staff
shortages, the high cost of agency to compensate for staff shortfalls
and the inevitable distraction of management from the remaining
services, particularly in terms of occupancy and fee rates.
The outlook for the current year is likely to be a further signi昀椀cant loss
caused by the restructuring costs to reposition the business and the
need to employ an excess number of staff while we retrained them and
to provide a suf昀椀cient margin for the future. We have also embarked
on a signi昀椀cant cost-cutting exercise to re昀氀ect our smaller size, which
will reduce our overhead by an estimated £2 million p.a.
We were delighted to receive an unrestricted grant after the end of the
year of £2 million from the Daughters of the Cross.
Our reserves at the end of 2022 were £4.5m, which was approximately
2 months of that 昀椀nancial year’s overheads (excluding extraordinary
items and impairment).
The Future
We are now focused on providing educational services for children
and young people alongside high quality care, growth and skill
development for adults. We have a clear plan to increase occupancy
and our fee rates, the latter to re昀氀ect much increased wages (we pay
more than the Living Wage Foundation) and in昀氀ationary costs in areas
such as food and energy. Our admissions into the School and College
are growing, and plans to refurbish and revitalise our Specialist School
are underway. Our target is in the medium term to achieve a sustainable
annual surplus all of which will be reinvested in our services.
We have recruited extensively from outside the charity and now
have an experienced management team with nearly all key positions
occupied. We have worked extensively with both our commissioners
and our regulators on improvement plans and are pleased to report
that all our services are now rated Good, with one exception where
we are awaiting a CQC re-inspection and are con昀椀dent of receiving an
upgrade to Good by the end of this year.
We continue to grow and improve our Day Opportunities Service,
offering a range of activities for disabled people. Additionally, the
service includes social enterprise learning and development in the arts,
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