Vranch House

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT to the 2018 AGM

This is my sixth report to an Annual General Meeting and I am delighted to say I am reporting on a sixth year of unblemished success.

The financial year under audit ran from the 1^st of April 2017 to the 31^st of March this year.  Graeme Wheeler will explain the detail but the charity made a cash surplus of nearly £200,000.  I should explain that the charity has always been run in such a way that its planned expenditure is less than its projected income.  The positive difference between the two provides us with the means to continue training our staff to the highest level, to pay them at highly competitive rates for their excellent work and to develop the buildings housing our work and to purchase the equipment we need.

In the year since my last report the charity has;

1. Continued to operate the Secondary Education unit housed in the new Honeylands building which Vranch House owns and operates. Ian Norton will report on this initiative but I can announce with some pride that it is a great success.
2. The summer building program provided new facilities for the new pre-school class room and Class 1.  We also re-built the orthotics workshop and the clinical staff facilities in the therapy department.
3. Ofsted inspected the school at the end of June.  We should recall that this was the first inspection of our expanded education service which now operates as a pre-school, a primary and a secondary school.  The judgement was not just Outstanding but, and this is very rare indeed, all three educational services were judged outstanding in every area.
4. Our Therapy department continues to provide services to the same number and cohort of children.  Despite the fact that some posts have been gapped because our income has not increased at all since 2008, Kate Moss has developed new ways of working which have produced the same outstanding performance as hitherto.  Waiting times average 6.8 weeks across the year (the NHS target is 18 weeks).  There have been no complaints at all and the Friends & Family continuous survey places Vranch House firmly in the top of five separate quality judgements.

As you might expect results like this are attracting attention.  There are some exciting opportunities opening up which could see an expansion of the school and new contract arrangements with Devon County Council.  At the same time we anticipate new arrangements with the NHS now its two-year re-procurement of Children's services is nearly complete.

Finally, I would like on your behalf to express the warmest thanks to our employees.  The dedication, hard work, and professionalism of our staff form the bed rock of this charity's many successes. We remain deeply impressed by their service and grateful for all that they do.

Julia Tolman-May

Chairman