Age UK

Age UK are a national charity, who formed after Help the Aged and Age Concern merged in April 2009. 

Their aim is to stand up and speak for all those who have reached later life, as well as provide services and support at both a national and local level to inspire, enable and support older people. They work through a network of local, smaller charities, as well as on a national level.

Our relationship with Age UK began on a national level in 2017 when we were asked to support a programme of financial governance training that the governance team were rolling out to their local partners with support from the Charity Finance Group. We were asked to step in to run a session in Merseyside and following a successful session were asked to present another session in Oxfordshire which was met with equally positive comments.

Subsequently, the governance team started to recommend us to their local partners as a consultant to support on financial management and governance issues. We’ve supported a number of local partners with projects including:

  • In June 2017 we were asked to support one local partner that was facing a possible closure to understand what had gone wrong, and then put together a turnaround plan, which led to a full restructure of the organisation. Over five years later on the organisation has not just survived but gone on to thrive and support the beneficiaries it was set up to work alongside. We also subsequently provided support on a full reboot of their financial management systems.
  • We provided an initial financial due diligence on a group of four local partners who were starting to consider possible joint working solutions, and led a subsequent away day with the Chief Executives and representatives of the board of the four entities to explore possible options moving forward and discuss the results of the due diligence.
  • We provided an options appraisal for another local partner who had faced a number of years of financial uncertainty.

“We were asked to support one local partner that was facing a possible closure to understand what had gone wrong, and then put together a turnaround plan, which led to a full restructure of the organisation.”