During the past year, Penderels Trust has navigated a landscape filled with both challenges and opportunities. It is a testament to the dedication and resilience of our entire team that we have emerged from this period in a strong position, poised to develop a strategy that ensures a sustainable future for Penderels Trust and its customers.

As we find ourselves in the early days of a new Government, the future developments and policies within the social care sector remain uncertain. However, we remain committed to our mission. Last year, we were pleased to enhance our engagement with politicians and influencers, continually emphasising the critical importance of independent living support. Moving forward, we will intensify these efforts within the evolving political landscape to advocate for the needs of those we serve.

The period of growth that we have seen within Penderels Trust over the past few years has not happened without an enormous amount of hard work from everyone involved. Specifically, we were pleased to see progress within our digital capability, particularly with the growing uptake of our new payroll system, My View. We will continue to build on our capability in this area and the development of an enhanced integrated digital capability is one of our top internal challenges for the next year.

Penderels Trust is a diverse and multi-functional team and we are constantly welcoming new members and bidding farewell to others. This year, I would like to thank two long standing trustees who will be leaving us shortly - Yvonne Barnes, Vice Chair and Phil Collis. With around 12 years’ service between them, we will miss their wise counsel, expertise and commitment. On the other hand, we are pleased to welcome Tanurag Nayyar who has joined us as a Trustee and brings extensive digital and strategic management experience to the team.

Finally, I would like to thank all members of the Penderels Trust team for the contribution that they make to enable our customers to live independently, safely and with dignity.

Andrew Ford, Chair