Report of the Trustees 3-12

Auditors Report 13

Statement of Financial Activities 14

Balance Sheet 15

Notes to the Accounts 16-23

The Trustees have pleasure in presenting their annual report and the audited financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2007. The provisions of the Statement of Recommended Practice "Accounting and Reporting by Charities" (SORP) issued in March 2005 have been adopted in preparing the annual report and financial statements of the charity.

Charity Registration: 261398

Registered Office: 3/4 River Walk

Tonbridge

Kent

TN13 3XR

Chairman: Cllr Jill Anderson

Bank: CAF BANK Limited

25 Kings Hill Avenue

Kings Hill

West Malling

Kent

ME19 4JQ

Auditor: Jeremy Hills FCA

26 Dry Hill Road

Tonbridge

Kent

TN9 1LX

The following people were trustees of the charity on 31 March 2007:

On 1 April 2007 Tonbridge & District Citizens Advice Bureau (Charity Number 261398) was dissolved and all its assets and liabilities were transferred to the incorporated charity Tonbridge & District Citizens Advice Bureau (Charity Number 1117352) as of the close of business on Friday 31 March 2007. The above trustees all became directors/ trustees of the incorporated charity. In addition the following directors/trustees were elected/ nominated since that date and were trustees at the time of the approval of the report.

Tonbridge & District Citizens Advice Bureau aims to provide free, confidential, impartial and independent advice and information for the benefit of the local community, to exercise a responsible influence on the development of social policies and services and to ensure individuals do not suffer through a lack of knowledge or an inability to express their needs effectively.

In addition to the continuing provision of high quality advisory services to the local community, the primary objectives for the year were to reduce the time clients waited for advice through a triage system, extend the debt advice available and to increase benefit checks.

The principal activity of Tonbridge & District Citizens Advice Bureau remained the provision of free, confidential, independent and impartial advice, information and counsel for members of the public. In addition to generalist advice in the Bureau, the following advisory services were provided:

1. Debt advice for Russet Homes’ tenants
2. Form filling service for Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance
3. Debt Management
4. Snodland Outreach

In September 2006, Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council informed us that they would make new premises available to us in River Walk. The space in River Walk was ideal for our needs; twice the floor area and providing the potential for five interview rooms and a large reception area. Extensive changes were required in the River Walk premises. We vacated Castle Lodge in December 2006, and were able to offer a limited service after only one week; a full service was provided from March 2007.

The charity receives help and support in the form of voluntary assistance in advising the public and administering the charity - 35 volunteers have contributed approximately 11,000 hours of work to the Bureau during the year.

A

A separate report has been prepared on the achievements and performance of the bureau and is available on request. A brief summary of the achievements of the bureau are set out below.

Tonbridge & District Citizens Advice Bureau have seen or spoken to on the telephone approximately 3000 clients during the year. There have been 4702 (2005/6:4740) direct contacts with these clients and we have advised on a total of 7135 new issues during the year (2005/6: 6558).

Debt has continued to be a major issue for our clients and has represented 35% of our work during the year (20% 2005/6). A combination of rising interest rates and relatively easy access to credit has led to many Clients finding themselves in financial difficulty. The demand for debt advice has become so great that we realised that we would no longer be able to meet the demand without affecting the service to other clients.

During the year we introduced a new debt process. The process is designed to empower our clients to manage, as far as is possible, their own debts. Where Clients are able to do so, experience has shown that they have a greater chance of continuing to manage their debts in the future.

In their first interview, the process is explained to the Client; a debt pack is provided consisting of guidance notes, a budget sheet and examples of letters which clients may use to send to creditors at different stages of the process. Clients are asked to return once they have completed their budget sheet so we can draw up a financial statement and work out suitable offers for the Clients to make to their creditors.

We initially found that the interview at this stage was long, often as much as two hours, disrupting the service for other clients. The Bureau has now introduced booked appointments at 1pm for Clients who have completed their budget sheets. This has allowed us to plan for these long interviews and to allocate our staff so that we can maintain an advice service to our other Clients.

We were aware that the improved Reception area was not sufficient to compensate for long waits for our clients. Why did clients need to wait when we knew that we did not have an available adviser for another hour?

We have therefore, since reopening in March, recruited volunteer receptionists to ‘meet and greet’ clients on their arrival. Clients may either come to the Bureau in person any time after 9.45am or telephone after 10am. A supervisor will carry out a short interview either in person or over the telephone to establish whether we can help and whether the client has the information required to advise. The client is then given a booked time to return later that day. We aim that on average a client should be seen by a Supervisor within fifteen minutes of arrival. Booked appointments are based on the complexity of the case and the experience of the Adviser. We aim to fully utilise the time of each of our advisers and to minimise time spent waiting by the clients.

The response from our Clients to this new system has been very positive and they can now plan their day accordingly.

Difficulties facing our clients are often exacerbated because they are not receiving the income they are due. This may be for a number of reasons, but commonly it is because Clients are not claiming all the benefits to which they are entitled or that they are not being paid the correct amount.

We have introduced during the year, a ‘Benefit Check’ service to our clients to give them the opportunity to confirm that they are receiving the correct level of benefits. Clients are provided with a checklist of benefits available and asked to fill in the rate of benefits they are receiving. The adviser is then is a position to run a benefit calculator to confirm the level of benefit the Client should be receiving.

Due to the limited space available in our old premises, we were only able to recruit a few trainees at any one time. It was therefore difficult to increase the number of trained generalist advisers because as soon as one trainee completed their training a trained adviser would retire. Our numbers of trained advisers had remained static at about 18 for some time. This has often left us short-staffed, particularly during holiday periods.

The benefit of the new premises is that we are able to take on many more trainees. Since reopening in March 2007, we have recruited eight volunteer advisers as well as two receptionists. We now have 14 trainees compared with six at the same time last year and

a further three awaiting interview. Without doubt, the more professional environment has made us more attractive to potential volunteers. Over the next year, these trainees will qualify and help to expand our bank of Advisers. This bodes well for our Clients.

The debt advice post funded by Russet Homes (and initially by Citizens Advice) began in April 2004 for a three year period. In April 2007 Russet Homes renewed the project for a further three years. From inception to 31 March 2007, Russet Homes have referred 181 tenants. In addition 76 tenants have self-referred or were referred by other agencies. This represents a total of over £1.5 million in debts.

We often find Clients experience difficulty in claiming Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance. DLA and AA forms are complex and very often clients fail or are too embarrassed to describe the full details of their condition on the form. They often do not realise that it is essential to state in detail the impact of their condition on daily life; can they

make a drink without assistance; can they prepare a meal; how many times do they need to go to the toilet at night and do they need assistance. Our specialist adviser, Alex, often finds that by exploring the difficulties the client faces with each activity, the client’s condition is often far worse than he/she had initially described. Over the last year she has achieved awards of £106,000 per annum for our clients.

The Snodland Outreach Service began on 16 June 2006 for an initial period of a year. The service has been funded by a donation from The Snodland Partnership. The Outreach Service is held once a week, on a Friday, at Snodland Town Council offices. The service is run by John, an experienced Adviser. In the last year we have held 47 sessions between 16 June 2006 and 8 June 2007 and assisted 131 clients. The service has been well attended and has had a very positive response from our clients. They are grateful to have access to Citizens Advice Bureau locally. As a result, The Snodland Partnership has recently provided funding to continue the service for the next twelve months.

2006-7 was a unique year in fundraising terms. The total income of £118,941 attributable to the year included £16,550 of special fundraising towards financing the relocation of the Bureau to larger premises. It was also the first year of the outreach service in Snodland, the Snodland Partnership contributing £3,958 to the service in the financial year.

After allowing for these changes the underlying increase in income from all sources on a like for like basis was £5,250. This was attributable to an increase of 2.5% in the Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council Grant to £72,365 and inflation increases in the grants supporting the Russet Homes service. The Bureau also benefited from local fundraising and higher interest income.

No expenditure was incurred in any of the fundraising activities.

A surplus of £6,466 was made in the year partially because of the change to accrual accounting and the consequent growth in fixed assets (formerly all assets were written down fully on acquisition).

The Bureau has adopted a policy of maintaining an absolute minimum of three months operating expenditure plus the projected one-off costs of closing down the Bureau including statutory redundancy costs. At year end 2006-7 close down costs were expected to be £32,500. The underlying assumption is that close down will only be triggered by interruption in the main funding stream and under these circumstances we would not be expected to meet the outstanding portion of the lease with the Borough Council.

In effect, the cash assets of the Bureau at the year end form the underlying reserves. At year end the cash assets after debtors and creditors were £38,327

Interest income on these reserves is an increasingly important item in bridging the gap between annual expenditure and the grant to support the core service. The five year forecasts of income and expenditure show a widening funding need from our own resources and the policy of the Trustees is to expand the reserves continuously in line with the five year projection of income and expenditure

Once again, Trustees extend their gratitude to Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council who continue to support the core operating capacity of the charity. It is this core funding which

allows the Bureau to expand its services to the wider community, particularly the money advice service to Russet Homes tenants and the outreach service to Snodland.

We also extend our thanks to Citizens Advice in providing half the funds over three years to allow us to develop the money advice service. This service is now fully funded by Russet Homes and has been expanded to cover on-going administration of existing clients.

The Trustees and Directors also wish to express their gratitude to The Fidelity UK Foundation, Tonbridge School, The Chapman Trust and the Raymond and Blanche Lawson Trust for their generous support in relocating the Bureau to new premises as well as to the County Councillors, local firms (who provided additional funds as well as support through the year) and, last and by no means least, Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council.

The charity did not have any borrowings from either providers of funding or other sources at the balance sheet date.

The Charity does not currently invest in other than recognised deposit accounts with its bankers (CAF BANK Ltd.) and the Charities Official Investment Fund deposit account facility.

Tonbridge & District Citizens Advice Bureau was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee on 24 July 2006. The charity commenced operations on 1 April 2007 at which date the assets and liabilities of the unincorporated Tonbridge & District Citizens Advice Bureau were acquired

I have audited the financial statements on pages 11 to 25 of Tonbridge & District Citizens Advice Bureau for the year ended 31 March 2007. These financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention and the accounting policies set out therein.

The trustees are responsible for the preparation of the Trustees’ annual report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards.

My responsibility is to audit the financial statements in accordance with relevant legal and regulatory requirements and United Kingdom Auditing Standards.

I report to you my opinion as to whether the financial statements give a true and fair view. I also report to you if, in my opinion, the directors’ report is not consistent with the financial statements, if the charity has not kept proper accounting records or if I have not received all the information and explanations I require for my audit.

I read the information contained in the director’s annual report and consider whether it is consistent with the audited financial statements. I consider the implications for my report if I become aware of any apparent misstatements or material inconsistencies with the financial statements. My responsibilities do not extend to any other information.

I have conducted our audit in accordance with United Kingdom Auditing Standards issued by the Auditing Practices Board. An audit includes examination, on a test basis, of evidence relevant to the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. It also includes an assessment of the judgements made by the directors in the preparation of the financial statements, and of whether the accounting policies are appropriate to the charity’s circumstances, consistently applied and adequately disclosed.

I planned and performed my audit so as to obtain all information and explanations which I considered necessary in order to provide me with sufficient evidence to give reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement, whether caused by fraud or other irregularity or error. In forming my opinion I also evaluated the overall adequacy of the presentation of information in the financial statements.

In my opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view of the charity’s state of affairs as at 31^st March 2007, and of its incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure, for the year then ended.

Jeremy Hills FCA

There are no recognised gains or losses in the year, other than those included in the statement of financial activities.

All activities derive from continuing operations.

The financial statements were approved by the Board on 20^th September 2007 and signed on their behalf by:

1. Accounting policies

1. Accounting basis

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention, applicable accounting standards and the Statement of Recommended Practice on Accounting by Charities published in March 2005.

2. Incoming resources

1. Grants receivable

Grants made to finance the activities of the bureau are credited to the income and expenditure account in the period to which they relate.

2. Bank interest

Bank interest is included in the income and expenditure account on receipt.

3. Other income

Sales of services are included in the income and expenditure account in the period to which they relate. Other income, including donations, gifts and covenants are included as they were received.

4. Gifts and Intangible income

1. Resources expended

All expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis. All expenditure directly related to the provision of advice services, including management and administration is included within charitable expenditure. The only other costs have been allocated to governance and project related costs as appropriate.

2. Fixed assets and depreciation

1. Accounting policies (continued)

1. Restricted funds

Currently no funds are restricted.

 

2. Designated funds

Currently no funds are designated.

3. Pension

h) Leases

No expenses travel or otherwise were reimbursed to members of the Trustee Board in 2005-6 or 2006-7.

The bureau paid £1007 in the year ended 31 March 2007 for various insurance services.