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Shetland Home Company


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I've just downloaded the Financial Accounts and you're right Meggie, it does indeed make interesting reading.

 

'Cope currently employs 45 people (30 full-time equivalent), 8 of whom have disabilities. In addition we provide participant skill development placements for up to 31 people who assist with the enterprise activities as well as gaining important work skills for themselves'

 

'This in turn has resulted in a reduction of the number of participant placements on offer resulting in a reduction to 126 placements per week from our previous level of 150+'

 

In the Financial Accounts they have 31 people doing 126 placements/sessions

 

Let me get this right - 30 full-time equivalent staff of which 8 have disabilities (at least these guys are getting paid properly for all the hard work they do), this leaves 22 fte staff to provide the skill development placements for up to 31 people. So does COPE class a session as 1 day and the people only attend 4 days a week - 4 sessions/(days) a week x 31 people = 124 sessions. The participant wages bill is only £8468 equating to £162 per week for 31 people this means they only get about £5 a week for all the work they provide COPE.

 

Coincidently, the Enterprise Ready Fund statement said they provided 163 sessions, when and where were these additional 37 sessions conjured up. Looks suspiciously like COPE Catering is not the only ones doing the cooking.

 

I'm beginning to feel these vulnerable people are being exploited by COPE rather than being trained or getting the skilled development to 'move onto secure employment within the other local businesses within the islands' which COPE says it does. Although when you visit the Shetland Home Company some of the placements are just wandering around looking lost and needing something to do, so perhaps COPE are selective with the people that actually get the training.

 

COPE received nearly half a million from Shetland Development Trust (£200,000), Shetland Charitable Trust (£154967) and Shetland Islands Council (£142600) in their accounts to March 2014 to provide these sessions. These placements are helping to run their many businesses and are surely contributing to the turnover received by the company.

 

COPE needs to become more transparent so we see we are getting value for the £500,000.

 

I also note that COPE receive no funding from Orkney Islands Council, is Shetland subsidising the Orkney Soap Shop placements too?

I assume Orkney have placements as they are part of COPE Ltd and their business should function in same way as all the Shetland ones.

 

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"COPE needs to become more transparent so we see we are getting value for the £500,000."

 

Er,...  how about 45 jobs for a start?  Earning wages that are, presumably, spent in the community..

 

Then, compare it with the cost of the EGC to get a more 'realistic' picture of "value for money".

 

As for the clients/participant wages(?) for "all the work they do" (that's a joke, yes?).  It's mostly, imho, respite that is provided to parents/family rather than 'work assesments' for the clients who are, in the main, unemployable... 

 

It's OK taking a pop at Cope and, I'm sure that they can stand it but, what plans do you have for a replacement and, at what cost would it be?  Would you ship the clients over to the EGC (if they had room to take them)?

 

Despite the disquiet over various issues raised here (some of which I agree with) I believe that Cope provide a "value for money" service even though they have obviously failed in their main objective of getting handicapped people into 'proper' employment.

 

Nitpicking your way through the various grants and disbursements in Cope's published accounts might be a useful exercise but, don't you think that the people who make the grants and disbursements haven't already done that and that they are, probably, quite satisfied with them?

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Nitpicking your way through the various grants and disbursements in Cope's published accounts might be a useful exercise but, don't you think that the people who make the grants and disbursements haven't already done that and that they are, probably, quite satisfied with them?

 

Given that their £500,000 all came from what is effectively the SIC (albeit with much hat swopping), then guite frankly, any nitpicking and pronouncements of being "satisfied" which may have been done are much less use than a chocolate fireguard.

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"Given that their £500,000 all came from what is effectively the SIC (albeit with much hat swopping), then guite frankly, any nitpicking and pronouncements of being "satisfied" which may have been done are much less use than a chocolate fireguard."

 

I would argue that £154,000 from the SCT is NOT SIC cash at all, it's OURS.

 

The SDT is now wholly owned/run by SIC (since late 2014) and has made loans/grants to a large number of other local businesses (that's what it's there for) and, the SIC's total direct commitment is £350,00 or therabouts.  A lot of cash but, not £500,000.

 

Now that it is under new stewardship(?), I wonder if the SCT will provide the same level of 'commitment' or, will the SIC have to find more, or, will Cope have to "downsize".?

 

Can I assume that you thought that the rest of my post was OK?  :twisted:

 

Anyway, what I find 'interesting'(?) is that there appears to be an overall 1 to 1 ratio between employees/clients (using "full time equivalent". 3 to 2 otherwise).  Sounds pretty good until (from personal experience) you see 2/3 clients being driven around Lerwick by 1 employee.  That ratio suggests, to me anyway, that quite a number of employees have very little direct involvement with handicapped clients..

 

Questions I would like to see put forward are;

 

Who 'assesses' clients for inclusion with Cope and, what is the 'application' process?

 

Do Cope employ anyone with the correct(?) professional qualifications to help with training etc.?

 

How long is the training/assesment period supposed to be. 6 months, a year, forever?

 

Given the 'token' wage paid to clients and the large number of staff, why are there not more clients?

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Thanks for that Ghostie.....

 

I was only querying the substantial funding to participant/people numbers, not what they do with their own business income.

I assume that much of their own income covers quite a large chunk of their wages bill.

And I was pointing out (in my own laborious way) that, despite misgivings about the way Cope may (or may not) be run,  the SIC/SCT/Cope was putting money back into the wider community.

 

It's not just Cope who get a grant.  The bulk of the SIC's cash is a government grant and, I suspect that a portion of that is intended to assist organisations such as Cope.  The SIC (by and large) isn't making a donation, it is passing on cash to it's intended recipients and, in the past, has used the SCT portion as a "top up"..

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I would argue that £154,000 from the SCT is NOT SIC cash at all, it's OURS.

 

The SDT is now wholly owned/run by SIC (since late 2014) and has made loans/grants to a large number of other local businesses (that's what it's there for) and, the SIC's total direct commitment is £350,00 or therabouts.  A lot of cash but, not £500,000.

 

Now that it is under new stewardship(?), I wonder if the SCT will provide the same level of 'commitment' or, will the SIC have to find more, or, will Cope have to "downsize".?

 

I would argue that in fact the SIC has NO cash, and that in fact its all ours.

 

Lets face it, the SDT has always been controlled by the SIC in everything but name, it was simply another vehicle created for tax breaks etc which allowed them (as I understand it) to hold on to and pay less tax on Reserve Fund monies. The SCT's near £155k donation brings the total to roughly £500k - the SCT up until its recent "makeover" was SIC controlled and run, and is still operating under far too much influence from the SIC in its present form. As has already been pointed out, the excluding of SIC members from SCT decisions on "conflict of interest" grounds cause power to be put in the hands of too few people, so the opposite must be true for SCT matters which allow SIC members to participate - seven from fifteen only need nobble one of that other eight trustees for the vote, and their will will bulldoze through regardless.

 

They may have been "cut off at the pass" by the "conflict of interest" ruling concerning funding going directly in to SIC provided services, but if the SIC wishes to see COPE continue (and why wouldn't they, given that were it to fold their own budgets would come under immense to fill the gap with the EGC etc) and they're allowed to participate in the funding decision, they just need to go in there and scratch one back, job done.

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It costs over a million pounds a year to run COPE according to the last 5 years worth of accounts submitted to OCSR. Just where does it all go?

 

https://www.oscr.org.uk//charities/search-scottish-charity-register/charity-details?charitynumber=sc028022

 

Income this year:             £1,051,07.00 

Fund raising                                                        £2,358.00

Interest and investment income                          £228.00

Government funding                                           £504,036.00

Income from Charitable activities                        £533,772.00

Other income resources                                      £10,681.00

 

Expenditure this year     £1,042,130.00

Cost of charitable activities                                  £1,024,530.00

Governance costs                                                £17,600.00

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"Cost of charitable activities" ?  Hard to tell from what is, effectively, a 'precis'

 

No mention of the SCT cash, unless it is included (incorrectly(?)) as "Government funding"

 

Don't know what "Governance costs" are either.  Could be hellishly high audit fees but, who knows...

 

Anyway, looks like they manage to raise just about half the cash they need themselves and, there is a small 'residue' of £9,000 left over.  Enough, perhaps, for some extra 'clients' at £5 pw...

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The problem with trying to read anything significant(?) into a balance sheet is that the balance sheet, by it's nature, is woefully short of any real detail.

 

What you would need to find out "just where does the money go" would be a Trial Balance...  This should(?) contain a complete breakdown of all income/expenditure for the year in question.

 

Such documents, however, tend to be kept "in house" and would not normally be available to the general public

 

Good luck(?)

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The question though is not how much it costs to run COPE, it is how they spend the amount of Government Funding - I'll reiterate - on the mere 126 placements/sessions they provide. These sessions give COPE their funding and a contribution to the their turnover. If the people/participants were not there, the staff would have to do the menial work themselves or then they would need to employ more staff.

 

If all the funding and people/participants were removed from COPE, would they have a viable business?

 

I find it quite alarming that without funding, their own income is £547,039.00, and as previously quoted the wages is £594,088,00. The percentage of wages to turnover doesn't make pleasant reading - for a normal business I think the recommended ratio is between 30% - 38%.

 

Even allowing for additional staff to work with their people/participants, I just can't see how COPE has a ratio of 108%.

 

Using their total income (funding and turnover) to wages the ratio still comes in high at 56%.

 

They maybe had a marginal profit in 2014 but if they were not getting all the kindly donated items to sell in the Shetland Home Co, they would certainly be in the red.

 

Coincidently, according to the OSCR link from before, in the previous three years they were running at a loss.

 

 

 

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If all the funding and people/participants were removed from COPE, would they have a viable business?

 

I don't think that question is entirely relevant.

 

As stated on their web page, "COPE Ltd is a charity and social enterprise which provides employment and employment skill development for adults with disabilities".

 

The "people/participants" you refer to are the whole point of COPE's existence. 

 

I would not be surprised in the slightest if COPE's businesses cost more to run - and make less profit - than similar ventures run on purely commercial terms. The reason? It's because they are NOT operating on purely commercial terms. Their remit is greater than that. That's why they are a charity. That's why they operate as a social enterprise. That's why they need public funding to make it all work.

 

You can't just subtract items from their existing costs to produce figures showing what things would be like without the participants. If the participants were not involved, everything would be different, and all costs would change. But the bigger point is that, without the participants, the businesses would almost certainly not exist at all. 

 

In the grand scheme of things, COPE doesn't get very much public funding at all. And, from what I can see, they make excellent use of what they do get.

 

Might there be room for further improvement? Of course. But there is room for improvement in every single organisation, everywhere. The key is to continually strive for better. It looks to me like COPE is making excellent progress on various fronts, and good on them.

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My point is that they have an extremely high ratio of staff, I thought the whole ethos of COPE was to provide work placements for adults with learning difficulties.

 

I would dearly love to see COPE employing more people within this spectrum instead of numerous 'normal staff', then I may feel we are getting value for our money.................

 

 

 

 

.

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I really don't know the specifics, but I assume that an organisation such as COPE simply couldn't operate without a high staff to participants ratio, just by the very nature of the work they do.

 

It is possible, I imagine, that some of the participants may need more than one member of staff to supervise and assist. Others may need less supervision, but overall I am not surprised that COPE needs what may seem to some like a high number of staff.

 

I would expect COPE management to be well aware of the level of staffing they need to run the service effectively, particularly in the light of recent funding cuts and general 'belt tightening'.

Edited by wally jumblat
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