Strategic Plan

Strategic Plan 2018 – 2021

STRATEGY INDEX

Page 2. INDEX SHEET Page 3. INTRODUCTION

Page 4. MISSION STATEMENT Page 5/6. AIMS

Page 7. PURPOSE Page 8/9. LEARNING FROM THE PAST

Page 10/11. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE Page 12. OUR FUTURE OBJECTIVES

Page 13. RISK MANAGEMENT Page 14/15/16 FACTORS

Page 17. FINANCIAL INFORMATION Page 18. Monitoring and Review

Page 19. BLANK Page 20. CONTACT DETAILS

INTRODUCTION

Age UK North East Lincolnshire has been operating for many years and is one of the leading voluntary sector provider of services with, and for, older people living in the North East Lincolnshire Area. We feel we celebrate ageing. We create opportunities for people to love later life and deal with any disadvantages or discrimination encountered.

We have faced a phase of rapid change due to the cessation of our trading business arm which created a substantial income in commission sales from insurance sales. This change was implemented against our will and instigated by AGE UK Nationally. We have however, had to move forward from this and look to the future of the organisation with different eyes and views.

Our Board realised that we needed to develop a strategy for the next 3 years showing our way forward and vision for the future. This includes working closely with our ageing population to make sure our vision and future meets the growing needs of an ageing population, who still today are dealing with social isolation, poverty, declining health and at times poor access to services.

We would like to thank all our members who have supported us and made Age UK North East Lincolnshire the leading organisation it is today. In this plan, we have set out some key priorities moving forward and will re-visit the plan each year reviewing our progress and evaluating any impact.

Signed: Signed:

Name: Name: HELEN GOODMAN

MISSION STATEMENT

Age UK North East Lincolnshire aims to promote the well-being of all people over the age of 50 and to help make later life a fulfilling and enjoyable experience enabling you to Love Later Life.

AGE UK NORTH EAST LINCOLNSHIRE – AIMS

To be recognised by the general public and policy makers as one of the leading charitable organisation’s in North East Lincolnshire concerned with the welfare of older people.

To offer choice and opportunity and enable older people to fulfil their potential, encouraging them to play a greater role in society to influence the received services and products.

To influence local and national policies that affect older people. To assist them to define the key themes upon wish to seek to develop public awareness and to influence and change the policy and practice of those who make the decisions affecting older people.

To provide innovation and effective services for older people. To assist in the development and provision of innovation and effective services for older, carers and professionals.

To ensure the highest standards for our work. Age UK North East Lincolnshire will continue to define the highest quality standards for our work with older people. Where appropriate Age UK North East Lincolnshire will seek accreditation from national bodies for quality standards.

To increase self-income generation. The charity will continue to develop local opportunities to maintain and increase its own income generation in order to extend the services offered locally.

To be a good employer. To strive to maximise the motivation, contribution and fulfilment of staff and volunteers to the achievement of the organisation’s aims and objectives.o practice and promote the principle of equality of opportunity in all our activities and employment practice.

Contd......

Aims contd........

User involvement to establish appropriate mechanisms to ensure that service users and potential service users can influence the development of the charity and its activities.

To meet and work co-operatively with other organisation’s helping older people both in and outside our area of benefit.

2. Purpose

Overview: -

Age UK North East Lincolnshire is a registered charity set up in 2011 by the merging of Age Concern Grimsby and Help the Aged in Grimsby. It exists for the benefit and wellbeing of older people living within North East Lincolnshire. We currently have a membership in excess of 400 members, however many more non-members access our services as membership is voluntary.

We believe all older people should Love Later Life.

Value: -

We are a local partner to Age UK and a member to the Age England Association where we work together at local, regional and national levels to influence and respond to the changing needs of older people living within the NE Lincs community. We believe we are respectful, positive, realistic, inclusive and definitely here to make a difference to older people’s lives.

Ambition: -

To help gain a better quality of life for older people, where everyone in later life –

Has the Information & Advice to receive a decent income
Can feel well and enjoy life as much as possible
Feels comfortable, safe and secure at home
Feels valued by their local community with opportunities to join in, volunteer, learn and work.

3. Learning from the Past

Learning About Ourselves:

We have identified that our previous strategic plan was not going to remain current until 2020 as originally thought due to the big changes we have found ourselves in during 2018, therefore the need to implement a changed copy going forward. We want this to become a working document. As an organisation we have not always been good at maximising the value of every contact with older people we make and that has been shown by the increase in footfall to the centre within the last 3 years. This increase is due to a more stringent recording system, new dedicated trained staff and a general increase in service needs. Our footfall for the 1^st quarter of 2018 was 3500, compared to 763, 5 years ago.

Learning about stakeholders:

We need to continually look at the impact of social care decisions, and welfare and support services that have an adverse effect on our client base. We need to be working closely with partner organisations and Adult Social Care provision to make sure all areas of services are covered.

Learning about Need:

We have to learn to move with the demands of need. Our Information and Advice Service has been a much needed service gaining over £1.8 million pounds worth of benefits and £3.7 million pounds in arrears in the year ending 31^st March 2017. We have a population in NE Lincs of 159,616, 38% are aged 50-85. We are 3% above the national average of older people living within our community.

We need to be listening to our older population and responding to their continuing and growing needs by providing new services/provision and coming up with new innovative ideas to fill any gaps in services.

Contd.......

Change:

The monetary figure mentioned earlier shows the need for the introduction of the Information and Advice Service in 2013 was a correct decision; the rewards to older people speak for themselves. We need to constantly be sourcing out ways of generating unrestricted funding. This enables us to provide more core services.

The Charity shop has moved in 2018 to bigger and better premises and continues to grow with the sales of furniture, clothing and bric-a-brac.

We need to be communicating effectively to service users, board members, staff and volunteers, the value of any donation, whether time, money or goods, and how these such donations make an impact on the quality and quantity of services provided. We have introduced social media, on line donation facilities and gift aid within the retail shop so all this is creating unrestricted income.

4. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

The demographics of Age UK North East Lincolnshire previously showed we were only covering a small area of North East Lincolnshire. This led us to look at expansion into Cleethorpes. We managed to secure the old premises of Age Concern which had become very dilapidated. We appreciated all the hard work they had done in the Cleethorpes area over a number of years and wanted to continue this work and build on that strength so the new Cleethorpes centre was opened in December 2016.

Areas highlighted in recent various older people’s consultations around a Good Neighbours Project showed a high percentage of older residents in the Cleethorpes area & also the outlying area of Immingham.

Cleethorpes has a population of 32,500, 16.6% aged 50-64 and 28.7% over 65+. This is the highest percentage of older people, than the majority of other wards in North East Lincolnshire, Immingham has a population of 11,400, 16.8% aged 50-64 and 21.5%, 65+.

Both of these high figures lead us to believe there is a great need for varied Older People Services and support in both of these areas. Hence the need, we felt, for expansion. With regards to Immingham, we are part of a day centre provision at the newly renovated Immingham library with 2 other organisations locally – called Culture Club. It meets every Monday and residents of Immingham can meet for coffee, cake and information. This is proving to be popular and can be built on going forward if the funds become available.

To enable us to expand our services and take on new services we need to continue building our income generation. We have already strengthened our Pop in Café to provide an outside catering and takeaway service within the last few months and this has more than doubled our takings over the last 2 years. We also have a Pop in cafe in Cleethorpes, which is also creating unrestricted income.

Contd.......

Partnership working is pivotal to our future plans. We can longer be reliant on the income created by our insurance sales, this alone makes the sustainability and viability of the organisation going forward very untenable if plans are not put into place to try to recover some of those losses. This has initially been started with the reduction in staff hours & changes in some of the service provision . Our HandyMan service was running at a loss to us financially and can no longer be supported by our trading income so changes were needed and we are very pleased to say that a local building company Reads Home Improvements of Grimsby are taking on this service to make sure it stays local and manageable. By helping to support or be supported by other organisations to deliver great joint services for older people, we can achieve more choice and value for money.

We need to develop new innovative ideas for services that fill gaps in provision and source funding to enable us to provide these new services whether independent or in partnership working. These services need to be looking at combating isolation, building friendships, opening access to services and reducing poor health.

We need to keep older people at the heart of what we do and how we do it by fully involving older people in everything we do from evaluating and planning events/activities and new services to achieving results and outcomes to help our members Love Later Life.

Our Future Objectives:

Our Vision is to continue to be able to provide services to residents of North East Lincolnshire during a period of vast change and financial uncertainty.

We aim to be the leading charitable organisation offering services, Information & Advice and defending older people’s decisions within the area.

Continually look at new innovative ideas to provide new services and look into different avenues of income generation and funding sources, unlike before, enabling us to provide these new services.

To continue to provide and expand our current services in line with the response of the constantly changing and growing older population.

To develop projects, core services and capacity whilst remaining a sustainable organisation.

To continue to strive to reduce isolation and loneliness, enabling people to build friendships by joining new ventures and opening access to services to help to reduce poor health.

Risk Management

Our organisation has developed steadily at a rate that has enabled us to provide a useful and valued amenity for the 50+ community of North East Lincolnshire and also to contribute to the wider aims and objectives of the national body to which we are affiliated. Whilst recognising the need to consolidate its position, we at Age UK North East Lincolnshire acknowledge that it is essential that our organisation continues to grow and develop services and activities. In order to maximise the potential of our organisation, increase capacity and ensure that we are able to fully meet the needs of the 50+ age group within the community, Age UK North East Lincolnshire recognises the need to look for additional income sources from funds we have never applied to before e.g. the national lottery.By doing this we hope it will enable us to provide enhanced facilities, thereby enabling us to retain current and encourage new associate members and service users and to secure a sustainable future. In order to fulfil the strategic aims contained within this plan, Age UK North East Lincolnshire has recognised the need to consider and plan for potential risks.
In developing the strategic goals, Age UK North East Lincolnshire’s trustees, management, staff and volunteers have carefully considered the external and internal issues and potential risk factors that may affect the planned growth of the organisation.
Implementation of the strategic goals will enable Age UK North East Lincolnshire to capitalise on strengths and opportunities whilst providing a robust platform for mitigating weaknesses and threats:

Factors

POTENTIAL RISK	CONTINGENCY PLAN
Refocusing of Local Authority priorities due to economic climate and loss of revenue	Age UK North East Lincolnshire will continue to work towards sustainability following the opening of the Cleethorpes office as a plus point and the sudden loss of income due to our Trading finishing as the negative point. Any planned growth including the development of new services and activities, more appropriate premises, working in partnership with a range of direct delivery agencies and pursuing further opportunities for grant and funding applications will be paramount to ensure financial stability and sustainability. We will continuously strive to increase our profile by effectively contributing to local partnerships, working proactively with Age UK organisations in other regions and the national body.
Central Government Agenda – changes in policy and approach to provision of and funding for services for older people	Age UK North East Lincolnshire is not reliant on government funding. However we acknowledge that times are changing with regards to our viability so any improvement and development of our existing services is an essential ingredient for our future sustainability. We also recognise the need to review our marketing strategies in order to encourage new associate members and maximise usage of our facilities.

Contd….

Age UK North East Lincolnshire will also strive for engagement in any local initiatives. We need to explore other partnership opportunities on a local, regional and national basis whether this by collaboratively working with other Age UK ’s or a merger into the future to retain our status and extend and underpin engagement with all people aged over 50 living within North East Lincolnshire.

Hardening markets leading to reduction in income

Age UK North East Lincolnshire understood that in previous years, much of its stability financially was dependent upon the success of its trading company, this has drastically changed from April 2018 and this income can no longer be relied on. We will work proactively to ensure now, that our business activities are well organised and managed efficiently to create alternative income streams as without this the longevity of the organisation is in doubt. Age UK North East Lincolnshire will investigate ways to diversify services in order to generate income, explore premises options and market our entrepreneurial activities with a view to maximising potential. We will minimise risks by remaining competitive within the market, providing value for money underpinned by the ethos of continuous improvement in both our products and customer service.

Loss of support from people aged over 50 within the community

Age UK North East Lincolnshire recognises that people aged over 50 increasingly lead more active lifestyles; retirement age has become more flexible and that older people’s needs and expectations are changing. We will continue to provide essential and innovative services and activities and actively seek to expand our range of opportunities to suit the needs of all people aged over 50 living within the community. We will continue to consult with and consider the views of older people living within the community, access information from our national body relating to all developments in order to provide the highest quality and more appropriate amenities.

Competition from other organisations

Age UK North East Lincolnshire is committed to reviewing its marketing strategy to ensure the organisation is high profile and remains at the forefront of providing services for all people aged over 50 living with North East Lincolnshire. The management will research and be involved in networking activities to identify gaps in provision and ascertain the needs of the 50+ community. Age UK North East Lincolnshire endorses a commitment to continuous improvement and will proactively seek more involvement in partnership opportunities.

Financial Information

Previously Age UK North East Lincolnshire drew the majority of its income from commission earnt via Insurance Services, however income must now come from the following sources:

Grants and Funding
Income generation via charity shop
Associate membership fees
Income from delivery of services/activities, e.g. lunches, pop in café’s etc.
Fundraising
Donations

Additionally, the organisation receive grant funding from the national body in an EON project relating to the I+A Service. Age UK North East Lincolnshire recognises that, whilst previous methods of income generation may have sustained current levels of services and activities, the loss of insurance earnt commission, the increase in competition together with hardening markets, inhibits expansion of services and ultimately may leave the organisation more vulnerable. Age UK North East Lincolnshire has therefore incorporated measures to consolidate the current position, review, monitor and develop planned growth approach to improve sustainability through implementation of our objectives.
In development of this strategic plan, Age UK North East Lincolnshire has also recognised that, to date, with the exception of the EON programme, it has not relied on funding other than self generated income. However, it acknowledges that, in order to expand its range of services and activities to develop lifestyle enhancement services and activities for all people over 50 years of age, there is a need to promote an holistic approach and Age UK North East Lincolnshire may therefore need to apply for more grant funding and also look towards joint working and partnership ventures that respond to the needs of the 50+ community. Age UK North East Lincolnshire will also strive to look into the future with the ideas of collaborative working or even mergers.

Monitoring and Review

The six key goals outlined in this plan will be implemented and monitored through the supporting development plan. Additionally, the following guidelines will ensure that there is continuous monitoring of the relevance of the plan and a review of its progress:

Issue	Monitor
Our Mission Statement	Reviewed in conjunction with Age UK
Are the assumptions in the strategic plan still valid?	Annually
Are the strategic goals still appropriate?	Annually
Progress/outcome of each goal	Review of development plan, written report produced for trustee meeting
Progress report on each objective	Monitored monthly through development plan activity – reviewed bi-monthly at trustee meetings
Performance Management	Team meetings –monthly
Quality standards	Ensure compliance in line with Age UK’s directive
Financial Performance	Cash flow review and forecast produced quarterly Audit and balance sheet produced annually Income future forecast produced bi-annually