A COMMENT FROM OUR CHIEF EXECUTIVE...

 When the partnership of the two leading advice provision services in our city was first launched it was greeted with general excitement and not a little apprehension. The excitement came from the prospect of linking our two specialisms of generalist and specialist help to create one seamless service.

The outcome of this would ensure that the client journey would suffer from fewer delays, less referrals and an increase in the quality of social welfare help for our beneficiaries, the people of our city. Our careful monitoring and evaluation, evidenced by sampling from our client satisfaction questionnaires, has shown we have largely achieved this goal.

The apprehension stemmed from ensuring that our staff and volunteers were included, where possible, in the merger process and directly in the future of the Charity. A major contributor to our progress this year has been the behind the scenes work of a special group which has been handed the challenge by the two respective boards to deliver a single merged organisation.

The groups membership which emerged from the separate management teams forged a new governance document, organisational structure and financial package that would become the guiding documentation for the new Charity. The group was led by Joan Dryburgh, Sue Holmes and Tony Wragg who were assisted by Neil Clurow, Roland Fitzgerald Mathew Allbones, Julia Docherty from CAB and Bob Clark facilitating for the group from Access2law.

The signing of the merger agreement signalled the final chapter of the groups work and subsequently their responsibilities passed to our Board of Trustees, both of which deserve an accolade for their tireless work and unflagging enthusiasm with which these volunteers have undertaken the task of maintaining a robust overview of our governance, finance and procedures.
I welcome the opportunity to publicly thank them all.

This care and diligence has ensured the minimum of disruption of the essential services we provide and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our staff as I marvel at their meticulousness with which they go about their tasks that changes peoples lives for the better

The national landscape has changed in the way free to access social welfare help is being delivered. We should all congratulate ourselves that, during this year of transformation, we have embraced those changes and positioned both ourselves as individuals and our Charity for continued success.
 

BUILDING A NEW IDENTITY...
 

 Arising out of the work undertaken by the merger Steering Group was the realization that the new Charity would need to create its own identity. This tricky task also needed to retain the value of recognition by clients. A competition which encouraged staff to submit ideas to achieve this received over forty suggestions.
 

The winning entry chosen by the Steering Group was from Zoe Fearn who is the Generalist Advice Services Manager. On the basis that it does what it says on the tin and retains the brand names that are recognized when questioned by over 80% of people . During the period of this report the colours and emphasis on the ampersand were added to ensure a greater impact of the unification of the two leading social welfare help advice providers working in partnership.