THE THAMES VALLEY PARTNERSHIP
(A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)
ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2008

COMPANY REGISTRATION NO: 2881664

CHARITY NO: 1031545

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Table of Contents

1.Trustees’Annual Report...... 2

2.INDEPENDENT Auditors’ Report to the Members

3.Statement of Financial Activities

4.Balance Sheet......

5.Notes to the Financial Statements......

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The ThamesValley Partnership

Trustees’ Annual Report

1. Trustees’ Annual Report

Chairman’s Report:

The past year has been one of distinctive change for the Partnership. It is a measure of its understated strength that it has managed these with the grace of a swan – matching serenity on the surface with vigorous activity beneath.

The central feature was the retirement of our Chief Executive of twelve years, Sue Raikes OBE. Her style and dedication were central to moulding the work of the Partnership, and the impact it made. The quality and originality of her thinking were widely recognised, as was her ability to engage the passionate attention of anyone and everyone. At her departure, we hosted a reception for more than 80 people drawn from the four corners of England – proof of her great pulling power. All paid warm wishes to her, which should rightly be echoed in this report.

We also bade farewell to John Hedge, whose incisive grasp of the key issues and dedicated hard work made such a contribution to the Partnership. The celebration of Sue’s and John’s service sits in contrast to the real sadness caused by the death of Elizabeth Wincott on 1 April this year, a Trustee of some eight years’ standing.

As our new Chief Executive we welcome Lindsey Poole who joins us from a previous role at the Home Office. With a background in research she will bring a different approach to the Partnership, and as we navigate the waters ahead we look forward greatly to working with her.

Our work continues to produce results out of any reasonable proportion to our size. Worthy of particular mention are: -

  • Family Matters, which goes from strength to strength (attracting interest across our area, and extending its appeal even more broadly);
  • The Arts based work, which is also broadening its reach – a particular highlight was the Life Crafts conference which drew a wide circle of attendants; and
  • The “No Joke!” programme has been rolled out across the area and has engaged with many young people on the issues related to domestic violence and positive relationships.

Finally I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our many supporters, foremost amongst whom rank the Thames Valley Police and the Thames Valley Probation. Without them, our impact would be immeasurably diminished.

Michael May,

Chairman

ThamesValley Partnership Board of Trustees

Reference and Administrative:

Details of the ThamesValley Partnership, its Trustees, Staff and Advisors

The Thames Valley Partnership (hereinafter called “the Partnership”) was established on 17th December 1993 and registered as a Charity on 14th January 1994. The registered office address is Townhill Barn, Dorton Road, Chilton, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire HP18 9NA.

Trustees

The Trustees who served the charity during the year were as follows:

Michael J May (Chairman)

David E R Faulkner, CB

Yvette Gayford

David M McGahey

Gerald B Marshall

Nicholas Q Relph(Treasurer - appointed 19 September 2007)

Geoffrey D Sherley, MBE (Treasurer – resigned 19 September 2007)

Sara J Thornton, QPM

Elizabeth A Wincott(Deceased 01 April 2008)

The current Board of Trustees appoints recommended new Trustees at a full General Meeting, appointed by simple majority and the decision is duly minuted. One third of the Trustees are obliged to retire by rotation at each Annual General Meeting and offer themselves for re-election should that be their wish. There are no “corporate trustees”

Staff

Sue Raikes, OBEChief Executive – resigned 31 March 2008

LindseyPoole Chief Executive – appointed 10 March 2008

Patsy TownsendDirector of Youth Programmes

Judy MundayCommunity Safety Director (Arts Development Officer)

John HedgeCommunity Safety Director - left 30 October 2007

Julia WormsClose to Home Project Manager

James CampbellProject Development Officer

Bron JonesEvents and Networks Manager

Alex McGaheyPartnership Administrator, seconded from Thames Valley Police

Debbie ColesSecretary

Jane BellarsSecretary

Appointment of new Chief Executive

Following the resignation of Sue Raikes, the Chief Executive, the Board of Trustees utilised the services of ProspectUs Limited, a London recruitment agency, to find her successor. ProspectUs were charged with the advertising of the position, the sifting of the applications and the final interviews were carried out by the Board of Trustees of the Partnership who were the final arbiters of Ms Raikes’ successor.

Professional Advisors

Company SecretaryMs Susan Raikes, OBE – left 31 March 2008

Ms Lindsey Poole– from 1 April 2008

BankersBarclays Bank plc

102 High Street

Thame

Oxfordshire OX9 3DU

CAF Bank Ltd

King’s Hill

West Malling

Kent ME19 4TA

AuditorsWilkins Kennedy

Risborough House

38/40 Sycamore Road

Amersham

Buckinghamshire HP6 5DZ

Structure, Governance and Management:

The Charity’s governing instrument is the Memorandum and Articles of Association incorporated 17th December 1993, as amended 3rd September 1997 and 11th March 2002; and it is constituted as a company limited by guarantee with charitable status.

Vacancies for new Trustees may be advertised and new Trustees invited to join the Board in order to bring a specific area of expertise that complements the current work of the Charity. The current Board of Trustees has a balance of Local Authority, Criminal Justice, Community Safety, Voluntary, Public and Private Sector members. In light of their expertise, it is not considered necessary for any Trustee to receive specific training in our work, but they do receive a “Trustee Information Pack” with information regarding their responsibilities as a Trustee. They also receive all Charity Commission updates and publications via e-mail.

The Board of Trustees exercises the legal responsibilities and requirements of a Charitable Trust and meets quarterly to receive a report from the Chief Executive on the current work and financial position of the Charity.

Statement of Trustees' responsibilities

The Trustees are responsible for preparing the Annual Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations,

Law applicable to charities in EnglandWales requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the charity's financial activities during the year and of its financial position at the end of the year. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

  • select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
  • make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
  • preparethe financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in operation.

The Trustees are responsible for keeping accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy the financial position of the charity at any time to enable them and to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 1985. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the charity and financial information included on the charity’s website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Executive and Sub-Committees

The Chief Executive leads the day-to-day operation of the Partnership and heads a Senior Management Team that takes a leading role in service delivery, marketing and administration of the Charity. The Chief Executive is accountable to the Board of Trustees for all aspects of the Partnership’s work.

There are also a number of Advisory Groups which include committed individuals and representatives of a wide variety of public and private sector organisations. They provide a focus for the exchange and development of new ideas on crime prevention and community safety, guide our work on the key programme areas and provide a link with over 30 different sectors and organisations.

“The Friends of the Thames Valley Partnership” is an informal network of individuals who support our objectives from a very wide range of organisations and backgrounds.

The Finance/Risk/Personnel sub committee, meets regularly to discuss financial, risk and personnel matters and reports back to the main Board of Trustees.

Members of this Sub committee are:

Michael J MayChairman of Trustees

Nicholas RelphTreasurer and Trustee

Elizabeth A WincottTrustee – Deceased 1 April 2008

Sue Raikes, OBEChief Executive – left 31 March 2008

LindseyPooleChief Executive – from 1 April 2008

Alex McGaheyPartnership Administrator

Other Personnel

The Partnership also benefits from an informal group of “Associates” with additional expertise who are freelance consultants to assist with research and evaluation of projects.

There are also “volunteers” who work alongside the Team to assist with various aspects of our work. These volunteers are subject to a recruitment procedure and receive support and supervision to ensure their suitability for the work.

Risk Assessment

The Trustees have reviewed the financial and other major risks to which the Partnership is exposed and have established procedures to manage those risks.

Objectives and Activities of the ThamesValley Partnership:

The Charity’s objects are “to promote good citizenship and greater public participation in the prevention and solution of crime in the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, in particular by promoting the effective partnership of all relevant organisations in these areas on all aspects of community safety”.

The Charity brings people and organisations together to create safer and stronger communities. We are seeking longer term and sustainable solutions to the problem of crime and social exclusion. We work with criminal justice partners, local authorities, voluntary and community organisations and the private sector. Crime and social exclusion are complex problems and in order to tackle these you have to look at the bigger picture and bring in a wide range of people and skills.

There are three ways in which we work: -

  • Bringing people and organisations together to create new ways of doing things, engender better understanding and the opportunity for joint work and to create and strengthen partnerships
  • Supporting innovation – piloting and testing out new ideas working in close collaboration with other partners and other agencies with the aim of increasing our understanding of effective ways of working so that these can be built upon and developed by others
  • Dissemination – we are firmly committed to sharing our lessons and ideas as widely as possible through our website, networking events and conferences and reports

There are four broad themes that contribute to our overall aim: -

  • Never Too Early – which promotes earlier preventive intervention with families, communities and children at risk and encourages citizenship and responsibility in young people.
  • Never Too Late – which focuses on work with offenders to support resettlement, rehabilitation and reintegration into local communities.
  • Close To Home – this focuses on violence and abuse within families and promotes and develops good practice with victims of crime. It seeks to promote and develop greater understanding and healthy debate about child sexual abuse and domestic violence and the far-reaching implications such abuse has for society. It encourages the wider community to take responsibility to reduce the risks to both children and adult victims.
  • Art at the Heart – this uses a range of artistic methods to engage hard to reach groups, motivate and inspire young people, and help those working with us to communicate and explore ideas.

Achievements and Performance:

Never Too Early

We reviewed the Schools in Action project in 2006/07 and, in discussions with the Vodafone UK Foundation have changed the emphasis of the Young Citizens programme. The new Young Citizens Award was launched in 2007 and the aim is to give support and recognition to projects led by young people (aged 14 – 25 yrs) which demonstrate their commitment to be active citizens making a difference in their communities. The awards were given under five themes and the Young Citizens Award is actively supporting the work of six projects across the ThamesValley this year with a focus on encouraging and supporting the young people to chair and disseminate their learning and experiences for the benefit of others.

Family Matters has continued to develop its work within the Thames Valley creating networks in Banbury and Bicester, Slough, Wycombe and Oxford, bringing agencies and individuals together to identify and provide support and target interventions to the families and children of offenders. Early results with individual families point to positive outcomes for both children and offenders including reduced reoffending.

A successful conference in November 2007 promoted the Family Matters model to colleagues from across the South East. The conference was addressed by Hilary Armstrong MP and Fiona MacTaggart MP. Workshops were led by local practitioners.

Ongoing community and prison training has been delivered this year across the region and including Surrey:

  • 3 workshops delivered in HMP Coldingley, HMP Send and HMP Downview.
  • 1 workshop delivered in HMYOI Huntercombe

Family Matters information and resource packs have been distributed alongside the training, and more widely across the South East region:

  • Over 270 packs were distributed during this year across all agencies – probation, health, children’s centre, social care, prisons, youth offending teams

Family Matters was supported by Vodafone UK Foundation, The Henry Smith Charity, the PF Charitable Trust, the Social Care Institute for Excellence and the Prison and Probation Services in the region.

Never Too Late

During 2007/2008 Making Good moved from the pilot stage into mainstreaming the work across the ThamesValley. The interim report published in January 2008 identified key indicators for success and this work will be built upon in the remaining ten months of the project.

The pilot schemes have identified successful routes to community engagement through tenants and residents groups and federations, neighbourhood action groups (and town and parish councils) as the main successful methods of engaging local people. It has also continued with the Oxfordshire Youth Offending Service to involve youth referral panel members in work with young adults and to undertake joint operation projects with the YOS.

Building Community Confidence in Community Sentences project came to a conclusion during the year and the results of both the magistrates’ visits and the judges’ visits have been written up and circulated. Rethinking Crime & Punishment has built on the ThamesValley findings to develop similar initiatives elsewhere in the country.

This work has been supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s Rethinking Crime and Punishment Programme to which The Wates Foundation have also contributed.

Close to Home

The Close To Home project has this year focused on several specific strands of work across the spectrum of multi-agency working within the field of domestic abuse across the region.

Thames Valley Domestic Violence Strategy Group – our role in informing strategic thinking has been on-going and through chairing this group has resulted in the mapping of resources and referral pathways and providing the basis for the development of a regional strategy document. This document will inform progress both locally and regionally and marks the handing over of this agenda to the Chief Executives forum at the end of 2007. Our involvement with this group will be renegotiated in 2008, but we will still continue to influence development work in the future.

Behind Closed Doors Network - we have had on-going involvement with all the still existing domestic violence fora, the Oxfordshire and Bucks champion’s networks, the GOSE domestic abuse forum and local strategic groups e.g. Oxfordshire Domestic Violence and Children’s Strategy Group. Beyond our independent consultancy and supportive role we have continued to promote the sharing of best practice, develop collaborative working and encouraged networking opportunities. Our networking events have continued to be popular and at the forefront of new thinking in the field. Our two events this year looked at aspects of sexual violence including child trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced marriages and on alcohol and substance misuse in relation to emerging best practice and new joint working. This forum in essence supports multi-agency initiatives and we have been pleased to assist with the development of Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs) across the region and facilitated an information sharing event in the autumn on behalf of Thames Valley Police.