News / Amenity trust reduces end of year loss
SHETLAND Amenity Trust has cut its year-end loss by nearly £120,000 as its management continues to tackle its spending.
Chief executive Mat Roberts told a meeting of trustees on Friday morning that the organisation finished 2018/19 with an unaudited loss of £24,658 before depreciation.
That compares to a loss of £141,539 for the previous year.
Roberts also said that the year-end overdraft position was £630,929 compared to £712,988 for 2017/18.
He told trustees that “we are not out of the woods, but we are making good progress”.
Shetland Amenity Trust embarked on a cost-cutting drive in 2017 after being threatened with losing its vital funding from Shetland Charitable Trust due to its overspending.
A number of jobs were lost as part of a restructuring process.
It was previously said that the financial difficulties stemmed from “the way the trust was run in the past” in addition to new commitments and projects being taken on sometimes “without enough foresight and planning for the running costs”.
Speaking after the meeting, Roberts said the reduction in the end of year loss was thanks to a “lot of hard work”.
“I think we’ve looked at our costs, we’ve looked at our cash flow, we’ve put a greater emphasis on understanding costs, understanding where we have the potential to at least cover our costs, and in some cases make a small profit, and we’ve looked at making sure that we are paid promptly, and that we pay people promptly,” he said.
“We now have a daily focus on managing our cash and managing our costs.”
Roberts added that it could take the trust up to ten years to “turn the organisation around” financially.
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