Information about SeeAbility for the 12 months to March 2023. 

Introduction  

SeeAbility has to produce an Annual Report and Accounts each year. This shows what we achieved and how the charity 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 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 and bills for heating, lighting, supplies and food.  

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

Our Chairman says  

A lot happened in the world last year but we stuck to our five year plan and we were careful with our money. 

Our social care and eye care teams worked hard. It was great to see the difference our employment programme Ready Willing and Able made to people who found jobs, and to their families.  

We held an event at Buckingham Palace and started to work with some exciting new partners. Our campaigners continued to speak up about issues like social care, eye care and everyone’s right to vote. 

- Gordon Ilett, Chairman     

Our Chief Executive says  

The cost of living crisis affected people’s lives and made our work last year even more important.  

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 was great to work with colleagues who care so much about the people we support. 

Our eye care team delivered thousands of eye tests to children in special schools. It was so good to hear from the NHS and government that these tests will now be offered in all special schools. 

- Lisa Hopkins, CEO  

A look back at last year  

Our colleagues work hard and aim to support people in the best way they can. Last year we found it difficult to find enough people to join our team and work for us. Other organisations had this problem too.  

We supported our colleagues in new and different ways. One idea was to give our teams breakfast to help them start the day in the right way. Another was to help them with advice about money. 

We asked the Government to pay enough money to look after the people we support so we can pay our staff fairly. We speak up on our colleagues’ behalf to make sure they are paid a fair wage for the difficult work they do. 

Last year we opened new places to live in Dorset, Hampshire and Kent. All of our homes were rated ‘good’ by the Care Quality Commission, who inspected them. We were pleased about this but we will keep working to improve our standards. 

Our colleagues got involved when we launched our Quality of Life programme. It is a new way for us to support people, in the ways they want. We are excited about it. We think it will give people more choice in their lives. 

We were pleased to hear that lots of people thought our eye care team did a great job providing sight tests in special schools. Parents told us they would recommend our work to other parents. They also told us they now understood much more about what type of eye care their child needs.  

Some big news came when the NHS and government agreed to extend our Special Schools Eye Care service to all special schools. We had been asking for this for months, after hearing that the service might be cut back. We were very pleased. 

Our employment programme Ready Willing and Able found jobs for 21 people last year. They are now working for organisations including local councils and big shops. We’ve seen how finding work can really change someone’s life for the better. 

We always want to improve how we use technology. We introduced new software called iPlanit that helps us plan our work in a better way. It means our support workers can spend less time on paperwork and more time supporting people. 

Keeping people connected online matters today more than ever. Last year we paid to provide all our locations with high-speed internet connections. This made Wi-Fi available for everyone who lives and works there. 

Our finances  

We made £229,000 more than we spent in the 12 months to March 2023.

We were able to save some of this money for the future. We are expecting things to be difficult as prices and interest rates stay high. Fundraising is not easy as people have less money. Like us, lots of other charities are saying their donations are down.   

It’s difficult to provide social care for people because our funding from the government and local councils is falling behind wage increases and general inflation. There is also a big shortage of people who want to work in social care jobs.  

We keep some money as reserves or savings to help us if things get difficult. This is sensible, as if we spent everything we get then we might not be able to deal with unexpected problems in future. 

We still have to watch out for risks:  

• We need to recruit and keep the best people as they make good support possible. 
• We need to make sure our support is the best it can be. 
• We need to watch what is going on the world around us and make sure we are prepared. 
• We need to make 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 concerned about the future and rising costs. We must continue to be careful in the current year to make sure we can pay for all our costs. We are proud of everything we achieved in the last year and we believe we are well prepared for the challenges we will face this year.