Information about SeeAbility for the 12 months to the end of March 2024. 

Introduction 

SeeAbility has to produce an Annual Report each year. This shows what we achieved and how the organisation is doing financially. We have to have our accounts checked externally each year – This is called auditing. 

In the report we show how we use money we receive from local authorities, donors and the NHS to support people with learning disabilities, autism and sight loss. We pay most of the money as wages to colleagues who deliver care and support. Some goes on maintaining homes where we support people, and bills for heating, lighting, supplies and food. 

It is important that we make a surplus, as this means we get in more income than our costs. This allows us to have spare money if we need it, to deal with things that can come up unexpectedly, like the cost of living crisis. 

Our Chair Jack Stacy says 

It was exciting to see the work SeeAbility achieved in my first year as Chair. Our teams around SeeAbility all worked hard to make a difference. Our special schools eye care team won a commitment from the government to roll out the eye testing service to all special schools in England. They also won Team of the Year at the RNIB See Differently Awards 2024. 

Our support teams continued their high-quality support, encouraging people to make their own choices. Our campaigners continued to speak up about issues like social care, eye care and everyone’s right to vote. People helped by our Ready, Willing and Able supported employment team worked thousands of hours between them, earning their own money. 

I’m looking forward to seeing more fantastic work in the coming year. 

Our Chief Executive Lisa Hopkins says 

The cost of living crisis continued to add pressure to our finances. It also meant our work was even more important, to support people with disabilities who are more affected by the cost of living going up. 

We are proud that thousands of children who may not have had an eye test before, will now get one in their school. Some people’s sight will be saved and lives will be changed. 

Our social care supported people in new ways and transformed lives. We looked after our colleagues and tried to make sure they had the right support to do their jobs and keep well and happy. It is great to work with colleagues who care so much about the people we support. 

We’re excited to celebrate our 225th anniversary this year! 

A look back at last year 

Our eye care team worked hard to influence the government to agree that NHS sight tests will be in all special schools from early 2025. They tested thousands of children’s eyes and over 1,000 needed glasses. Our Eye Care Champions with lived experience also reached thousands of people working in health and social care, and people with learning disabilities and autism. 

We now work closely with people we support to make plans for improving their quality of life in all ways. This means people have more choices and control over their lives. We were pleased that 96% of people said our support to develop skills and be independent is good or very good. 

Our Ready, Willing and Able supported employment team helped 61 people along their work journey. 15 people found great new careers, earning their own money that they can spend on whatever they want. 

We made new easy read guides that can be used with a screen reader. We also made new video easy read guides to make sure everyone can read the information. Our website was in the top 10% around the world for accessibility. 

We make sure we celebrate and reward our colleagues’ hard work. We support people with training to develop their skills and confidence. Our team of wellbeing coaches got bigger this year. Now we have 30 coaches with different things they are experts in, all supporting colleagues around SeeAbility. We also increased support worker salaries by 10%. 

Everything we have done to increase pay and wellbeing has meant more colleagues choosing to stay working at SeeAbility. 

We always try to grow each year so we can support more people to live, love, thrive and belong. This year we opened new homes in Kent and Dorset and expanded our support in Redhill. All of our homes are rated ‘good’ by the Care Quality Commission. We are pleased about this, but we will always keep working to improve our quality of support. 

It was a difficult year for our fundraising team. The cost of living crisis meant some of our donations were less than expected. However, we still raised almost £1.5 million towards our work. 

Our Listen Up! Team have lived experience and managed to influence almost 1,400 people this year. They share their experiences of healthcare and social care and how important it is in their lives. 

We met with 11 MPs to show them how important our work is, and why people with disabilities should be included more in decisions. 

We set up new inclusion groups for disability, racial awareness and LGBTQIA+ Pride. We know that it’s important that everyone at SeeAbility feels valued and respected. 

Our finances 

After we take out some items that were exceptional in the year, we made a surplus of almost £173,000 in the 12 months to March 2024. That is a very small proportion of our overall income and less than we had planned for. 

We were able to save some of this money for the future. We are expecting things to be difficult as the cost of living stays high. Our funding from the government doesn’t always keep up with the amount we have to pay for our support teams’ salaries, and other things like electricity, gas and repairs. 

Fundraising is also not easy as people have less money. Like us, lots of other charities are saying they are getting fewer donations. 

The extra money we have saved will help us if things get difficult. This is sensible, because if we spent everything, we might not be able to deal with problems in the future. 

We still have to watch out for things that might catch us out. We can try and prevent this by: 

• Recruiting and keep the best people, as they make good support possible. 
• Making sure our support is the best it can be. 
• Watching what is happening in the world around us and making sure we are prepared. 
• Making sure our technology and the ways we work are up to date. 

Summary 

Overall, our work is going well and our finances are in a good position. Like everyone else, we are worried about the future and rising costs. We must continue to be careful in the current year to make sure we get enough money in so we can pay for all our costs. We are proud of everything we achieved in the last year and we are well prepared for the challenges we will face in the next year.