WORCESTER_BID_COMPANY_LIM - Accounts

The directors present their annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2023.

The new financial year saw new major impacts on trade for businesses as we faced the cost-of-living crisis impacting business overheads. Worcester BID worked with energy experts to support businesses to look at reducing outgoing costs following high utility raises. Worcester BID also supported businesses by offering payment plans to support with paying levy to relieve pressure from businesses.

Worcester BID launched a business training programme to support the businesses with compliance training contributing and investing back into the businesses to ensure the business and staff team meet standards. Training ranged from First Aid, AED, Fire Marshal training to Food Hygiene. First Aid is the most popular course offered free to levy paying businesses. This course alone would normally cost the business £250 per person. Allowing the BID to give real value and a service that saves the business money in staff investment while their overheads are so high. 2022 hosted 570 delegates from 320 businesses.

Principal activities

The principal activity of the Company in the period under review is to operate within the regulations set by the Government on Business Improvement Districts and ensure that the Company's strategy creates long term value for businesses within the Worcester Business Improvement District. The Company has three strategic objectives highlighted in the five-year business plan:

•     Promote Worcester

•     Support Worcester

•     Enhance Worcester

Our aims in 2022/23 have been as follows:

Promote

•     To ensure that Worcester is on the map and tell people what we have to offer

•     Increase investment in promoting the city and its businesses

•     To build on and promote message to support and shop local

•     To promote the city's business offering to residents, tourists, visitors and students

•     To facilitate opportunity and business collaboration

Enhance

•     To improve reporting and data gathering on important crime-related statistics

•     To provide more support and training for businesses to combat instances of theft and other anti-social behaviour

•     To help reduce crime and increase membership of CityNet

•     To engage with out Safer City partners to support the recovery of the city centre

Support

•     T

•     To provide life saving equipment in to the NTE making support accessible 24/7

•     To deliver Best Bar None accreditation to licensed venues

•     To coordinate and secure Purple Flag for Worcester City Centre

•     To provide footfall and other trend data to businesses to help assess performance

•     To work with and for businesses by lobbying to improve adverse trading conditions

•     To deliver more cost saving projects to help reduce business overheads

Review of Business

Income:

The detailed income and expenditure account on the final page of these statements highlights areas where a more detailed explanation is required.

Under the BIDs legislation, responsibility for levy collection legally is with Worcester City Council, who have contracted out this service via The Local Authorities (Contracting out of BID levy billing, collection, and enforcement functions) Order 2005. Contracting out the service to Worcester BID Company. In year three of the third BID term, the BID levy has remained static at 1.5% of the rateable value.

Worcester BID were successful in their bid for a community grant of £5,000 to support engaging the residents surrounding the city in our wayfinding street art project by working with the six community hubs, putting on workshops to generate ideas and learn different art styles to influence the electric box designs outside their community hubs.

Project Expenditure:

During the financial year 2022/23, Worcester BID coordinated and led a successful partnership to achieve Purple Flag status for Worcester City Centre. To further support venues and the Purple Flag application, Worcester BID assessed and awarded 35 venues Best Bar None accreditation. Worcester BID have supported the safety within the night time economy through installing five AED kits within late night venues. Next steps for 2023 are to fix external public access life saving equipment to businesses within the city.

2022 saw delivering of a highly successful training programme supplying BID levy payers’ access to free compliance training, awareness training and qualification in food hygiene and personal licenses. We delivered training to 570 delegates across 320 businesses.

Worcester BID have invested into the city wayfinding by enhancing and upcycling existing infrastructure that has rusted or been tagged and commissioned local artists to redesign and paint them. Giving the directional signs a new lease of life supporting creating a vibrant and attractive place. As part of this project, we also commissioned the artists to upcycle tagged and uninviting electric boxes around the city centre. The street art has created a trial around the city and has also discouraged any ASB. No artwork has been vandalised.

Worcester BID have also invested in becoming the Education and Community Partner with the Waddle of Worcester, with the trail hosted in Summer 2024 with 20 baby sculptures to be located inside businesses.

Visit Worcester Legacy money:

In 2012, Visit Worcester gifted Worcester BID with £95,000 to invest in a project or projects which benefit the management of Worcester’s city centre and/or the city’s work to attract more visitors. The project/s should represent a legacy for the work done by Visit Worcester between 2007 and 2013 and its predecessor Worcester City Centre Forum. Two projects were identified for investment in 2019/20 however further progress has halted due to the emergence of COVID-19. In May 2021 a subgroup formed by the directors has been set up to discuss and plan suitable projects to spend some of the Visit Worcester monies to support the recovery of the businesses and city centre post the Covid crisis. Plans have been made for 2023 to spend £30,000 from the fund investing the money in two key community projects:

• £10,000 will be allocated towards community AED life saving equipment with the city.

• £20,000 will be allocated to a trial Safe Space supporting the night time economy and reducing pressure on the blue light services by providing a safe space for vulnerable people at night and providing first aiders.

Following a successful trial, the remaining funds of £59,565 will be invested in setting up a permanent Safe Space with the support of additional funding via the Police Crime Commissioner and the NHS.

Projects and Personnel:

Worcester is the first BID in the country to collect its own levy and the service launched in April 2022. In collaboration with Worcester City Council, the new approach enables the BID to directly operate its levy collection instead of via the incumbent Council or outsourced third-party provider.

The legal basis for this change of service provision is derived from the Contracting Out Order originally created for the purpose of the Council outsourcing to their chosen (business rates administration) provider. However, in the case of Worcester, the City Council has entrusted that contract directly to the BID company detailed within a tailored legal agreement.

This ground-breaking collaboration in Worcester puts the responsibility right at the heart of the BID enabling the already strong relationships and engagement with levy payers to be further enhanced through direct billing from ‘service provider to customer’.

Worcester BID has achieved The BID Foundation accreditation, an independently assessed industry recognised standard, which has been an important objective for us to demonstrate to our levy payers and partners that the company is being managed to a high-quality standard. It enabled us to review and improve our processes and procedures and provide stakeholders with the confidence that Worcester BID has a robust and transparent governance system.

The BID Board Directors continue to give their time voluntarily and the BID Directors are also involved in the popular City Sessions meetings.

The Directors shown below have held office during the whole of the period from 1st April 2022 to the date of this report.

Directors who were appointed to the Board during 2022/2023 were:

No appointments made.

Other changes in Directors holding office are as follows:

Mr M C Hughes – resigned 1 February 2023 (previous Chair appointed September 2021)

Mrs L C Hodgson – resigned 31 May 2023

The company is a not for profit business. Directors give their services voluntarily and without any remuneration.

The directors are responsible for preparing the annual report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

Company law requires the directors to prepare financial statements for each financial year. Under that law the directors have elected to prepare the financial statements in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards and applicable law). Under company law the directors must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the company and of the surplus or deficit of the company for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the directors are required to:

•     select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;

•     make judgements and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent;

•     prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the company will continue in business.

The directors are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the company’s transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

So far as each person who was a director at the date of approving this report is aware, there is no relevant audit information of which the company’s auditor is unaware. Additionally, the directors individually have taken all the necessary steps that they ought to have taken as directors in order to make themselves aware of all relevant audit information and to establish that the company’s auditor is aware of that information.

This report has been prepared in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies entitled to the small companies exemption.

We have audited the financial statements of Worcester BID Company Limited (the 'company') for the year ended 31 March 2023 which comprise the income and expenditure account, the balance sheet, the statement of changes in equity and notes to the financial statements, including significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion the financial statements:

•     give a true and fair view of the state of the company's affairs as at 31 March 2023 and of its deficit for the year then ended;

•     have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and

•     have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor's responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the directors' use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the directors with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The other information comprises the information included in the annual report other than the financial statements and our auditor's report thereon. The directors are responsible for the other information contained within the annual report. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon. Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit, or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of our audit:

• the information given in the directors' report for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and

• the directors' report has been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the directors' report. We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

•     adequate accounting records have not been kept, or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or

•     the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or

•     certain disclosures of remuneration specified by law are not made; or

•     we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit; or

•     the directors were not entitled to prepare the financial statements in accordance with the small companies regime and take advantage of the small companies' exemption in preparing the directors' report and from the requirement to prepare a strategic report.

As explained more fully in the directors' responsibilities statement, the directors are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the directors determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error. In preparing the financial statements, the directors are responsible for assessing the company's ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the directors either intend to liquidate the company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor's report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud, is detailed below.

Based on our understanding of the company and the industry in which it operates, we identified the principal risks of non-compliance with laws and regulations including those that have a direct impact on the preparation of the financial statements such as the Companies Act 2006, and the extent to which non-compliance might have a material effect on the financial statements. We evaluated management’s incentives and opportunities for fraudulent manipulation of the financial statements (including the risk of override of controls), and determined that the principal risks were related to posting inappropriate journal entries to revenue and management bias in accounting estimates and judgemental areas of the financial statements. Audit procedures performed included:

• Discussions with management, including consideration of known or suspected instances of non compliance with laws and regulation and fraud;

• Reviewing relevant Board meeting minutes;

• Identifying and testing journal entries, in particular any journal entries posted with unusual account combinations; entries posted containing unusual account descriptions, and entries posted with unusual amounts;

• Designing audit procedures to incorporate unpredictability around the nature, timing or extent of our testing; and

• Challenging assumptions and judgements made by management in their significant accounting estimates.

A further description of our responsibilities is available on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at: https://www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor's report.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the company's members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the company's members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor's report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the company and the company's members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime.

Worcester BID Company Limited is a private company limited by guarantee incorporated in England and Wales. The registered office is South Wing Guildhall, Guildhall, Worcester, England, WR1 2EY. The company registration number is 07188738.

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with FRS 102 “The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland” (“FRS 102”) and the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 as applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime. The disclosure requirements of section 1A of FRS 102 have been applied other than where additional disclosure is required to show a true and fair view.

The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the company. Monetary amounts in these financial statements are rounded to the nearest £.

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention. The principal accounting policies adopted are set out below.

Income and expenses are included in the financial statements as they become receivable or due.

Tangible fixed assets are initially measured at cost and subsequently measured at cost or valuation, net of depreciation and any impairment losses.

Depreciation is recognised so as to write off the cost or valuation of assets less their residual values over their useful lives on the following bases:

Depreciation is charged in the year of acquisition but no depreciation is charged in the year of disposal.

The company has elected to apply the provisions of Section 11 ‘Basic Financial Instruments’ and Section 12 ‘Other Financial Instruments Issues’ of FRS 102 to all of its financial instruments.

Financial instruments are recognised in the company's balance sheet when the company becomes party to the contractual provisions of the instrument.

Financial assets and liabilities are offset, with the net amounts presented in the financial statements, when there is a legally enforceable right to set off the recognised amounts and there is an intention to settle on a net basis or to realise the asset and settle the liability simultaneously.

Basic financial assets, which include debtors and cash and bank balances, are initially measured at transaction price including transaction costs and are subsequently carried at amortised cost using the effective interest method unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the transaction is measured at the present value of the future receipts discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial assets classified as receivable within one year are not amortised.

Financial liabilities and equity instruments are classified according to the substance of the contractual arrangements entered into. An equity instrument is any contract that evidences a residual interest in the assets of the company after deducting all of its liabilities.

Basic financial liabilities, including creditors, bank loans, loans from fellow group companies and preference shares that are classified as debt, are initially recognised at transaction price unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the debt instrument is measured at the present value of the future payments discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial liabilities classified as payable within one year are not amortised.

Debt instruments are subsequently carried at amortised cost, using the effective interest rate method.

Trade creditors are obligations to pay for goods or services that have been acquired in the ordinary course of business from suppliers. Amounts payable are classified as current liabilities if payment is due within one year or less. If not, they are presented as non-current liabilities. Trade creditors are recognised initially at transaction price and subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method.

Changes in the fair value of derivatives that are designated and qualify as fair value hedges are recognised in profit or loss immediately, together with any changes in the fair value of the hedged asset or liability that are attributable to the hedged risk.

Provisions are recognised when the company has a legal or constructive present obligation as a result of a past event, it is probable that the company will be required to settle that obligation and a reliable estimate can be made of the amount of the obligation.

The amount recognised as a provision is the best estimate of the consideration required to settle the present obligation at the reporting end date, taking into account the risks and uncertainties surrounding the obligation. Where the effect of the time value of money is material, the amount expected to be required to settle the obligation is recognised at present value. When a provision is measured at present value, the unwinding of the discount is recognised as a finance cost in surplus or deficit in the period in which it arises.

The costs of short-term employee benefits are recognised as a liability and an expense, unless those costs are required to be recognised as part of the cost of stock or fixed assets.

The cost of any unused holiday entitlement is recognised in the period in which the employee’s services are received.

Rental income from operating leases is recognised on a straight line basis over the term of the relevant lease. Initial direct costs incurred in negotiating and arranging an operating lease are added to the carrying amount of the leased asset and recognised on a straight line basis over the lease term.

Rentals payable under operating leases, including any lease incentives received, are charged to profit or loss on a straight line basis over the term of the relevant lease except where another more systematic basis is more representative of the time pattern in which economic benefits from the leases asset are consumed.

In the application of the company’s accounting policies, the directors are required to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying amount of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and associated assumptions are based on historical experience and other factors that are considered to be relevant. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised where the revision affects only that period, or in the period of the revision and future periods where the revision affects both current and future periods.

The average monthly number of persons employed by the company during the year was 4 (2022 - 4).

The company is limited by guarantee, not having a share capital and consequently the liability of members is limited, subject to an undertaking by each member to contribute to the net assets or liabilities of the company on winding up such amounts as may be required not exceeding £1.

The ballot reserve represents funds set aside to cover costs relating to the process which takes place every 5 years.

At the reporting end date the company had outstanding commitments for future minimum lease payments under operating leases, as follows: