Share
including changes to our Terms, and a comment on investment markets
 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌


Chairman’s Report


A post-lockdown update on what’s been happening at Chesterton House


Dear 

I know that many of our clients take a keen interest in the progress of our business, and I thought you would appreciate an update from me telling you about how we've coped with the last extraordinary couple of years, the affect it's had, and what you can expect from us in the future.

Before I get into that, though, I'd like to say a few words about the current financial environment.

Over the last year investment markets have been affected by the potential and actual threats from Russian aggression, a spike in inflation and other factors which have caused a general fall in portfolio values. We're in regular contact with all of our clients so we know that many of you are continuing to follow our advice, keep a cool head and accept that short-term uncertainty is the pill that you have to swallow to be able to achieve superior long-term returns, but we also know that it can be a bitter pill to take and we fully understand the concerns that you might have.

Our Investment Team, headed up by Richard Urwin and very ably supported by John Genovese and Jean-Paul Stone, are deeply engaged in their work to ensure that we deliver the results that you expect over time, and I'll be talking to Richard in depth at one of our regular investment briefings in a couple of weeks time. Look out for the recording of our chat in a future newsletter.

In the meantime John has put together a brief commentary on current events exclusively for our clients, and you can find a copy of it here. I hope you find it helpful. 

Consistent Message

In the meantime, you might not be surprised to learn that our message remains the same as ever. Plan for the long term, ensure that you have sufficient resources to meet any short term needs, and ignore the 'noise' generated by people who make their living on the back of seemingly dramatic news. Indeed, if there is one single piece of advice that I can offer at such times, it is to turn off the news altogether and focus on things that are within your control. Bernard Baruch was a legendary investor from the 1920's, and he said, "Whatever men attempt they seem to overdo. When hopes are soaring, I always repeat to myself 'two plus two still equals four and no-one ever invented a way of getting something for nothing.' When the outlook is steeped in pessimism I always remind myself 'two plus two equals four and you cannot keep mankind down for long.'" History is full of dramatic predictions of disaster, most of which didn't happen as human ingenuity found solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems. The probability is extremely high that they will do so again.

If you have a specific question about your financial plan, business strategy or estate plans, please speak to your usual adviser or contact our helpful Reception Team for individual guidance. 

Is it really two and a half years.....?

So, on to more domestic matters. February 2020 seems a long time ago now, but in that month my wife Sue and I enjoyed a short break in Tenerife. We were intrigued to learn that the hotel next to ours had been quarantined a week later due to a new virus that had emerged in China. Little did we know what effect that virus was to have on all of our lives over the next two years.


The truth is that, from a business perspective, the epidemic was good for us. Our Financial Planning business, after the initial shock of disrupted investment markets, saw lots of new enquiries from people who had enjoyed the peace and quiet of lockdown and wanted more of it. The enforced quiet period encouraged people to look at their retirement plans with renewed interest, and many realised that they would benefit from professional help to achieve their goals.


Our Accounting Services team, headed up by Paul McGrath, worked countless hours in the early days of the pandemic to stay abreast of the continually moving picture and keep our clients informed about the furlough schemes, government grants and other assistance available. As a result they acquired a number of new clients whose previous accountants had closed their doors and weren’t even picking up the phone, including some well known names in the accountancy world as well as smaller one man practices.


Our legal team at Woolley Beardsleys & Bosworth were kept busy with enquiries too as people lined up to get their affairs in order by completing Powers of Attorney and writing or updating their Wills in case the worst happened and the virus claimed their health, or worse. And whilst the housing market appeared to have been put temporarily on hold during lockdown, the number of transactions that we handled remained stable after a minor blip, not least because of additional activity caused by changes to the stamp duty thresholds.


Digital Advantage


One of the significant unseen factors in our continuing success was our earlier decision to move our phone systems to a digital platform. This meant that when our staff were forced to leave their offices they could still plug into our office network and make and receive calls as normal. We heard of many professional offices who were well behind the curve in this area, and for some of them business literally stopped overnight as a result of having no communication systems. During this period we also moved a lot of our internal communications onto Microsoft Teams software, and this meant that staff could easily arrange video calls, transfer files and set up meetings online.


To be able to take full advantage of these digital tools meant supplying all of our team members with suitable equipment, and Anja Turvey, our IT manager, moved heaven and earth to be able to make sure that everyone was properly equipped and that our systems were completely secure. It wasn’t easy to find all of the laptops that we needed at a time when every business in the land was having to change their systems, and Anja’s diligence and hard work made a massive difference to our ability to continue to operate as normal.


Every member of our team made a huge effort to adjust to the new circumstances and continue to deliver a seamless service to our clients, despite the quite substantial issues that we had to address in moving the vast majority of them out of our offices. I would like to pay tribute to everyone’s hard work and dedication through the last couple of years, which in many cases has gone well beyond the normal call of duty. Thanks Team, you've been amazing!


Staff Changes


One of the downsides of the pandemic was that we were affected by several team members who moved on for a variety of reasons, leaving us short-staffed in several areas. Combined with the continuing growth that we were experiencing, this led to 2021 being one of our best ever years for business performance based on accounting measures, but that’s not a statistic of which we are proud. There are two parts to our mission statement, and whilst we were delighted to have continued to deliver on the first part which describes our service to our clients, we failed in the second part, ‘To be a brilliant place to work and grow.’


The quality of our service to our clients has always been paramount to us, and the extreme pressures that our staff were having to deal with was unacceptable and unsustainable. Consequently, we went on a recruitment drive in 2021 to be able to build our capacity and restore our ability to deliver great service without putting our team members through the wringer. During the year we took on 12 new staff across all of our departments.


However employing lots of new people brings its own difficulties, because they have to be inducted and trained into our processes and culture. That takes away resources from existing staff, putting even more pressure on experienced team members. All of our senior management team have made exceptional efforts to reach out to their colleagues to understand issues, smooth out problems and organise their teams in the most efficient way possible.


Satisfaction remains high


The consequence of these changes for our clients has been some disruption in the relationships that they have built up with their servicing team, with more frequent changes than we would like to the people who look after them. We’ve also seen a higher incidence of errors than we consider acceptable, and we have worked hard to resolve these quickly.


We are in regular touch with our clients, and I’m pleased to say that, notwithstanding the issues I mentioned, our client satisfaction levels remain very high and the vast majority of our clients have continued to receive the great service that we strive for.


We are continuing to recruit in some areas, but our teams are now largely back up to full strength and many of the people who joined us last year have become familiar with their new roles and settled into their positions. We’ve invested heavily in a whole range of initiatives designed to improve the experience of our team members, from specific training delivery, to leadership development, to employee benefits and perks, and social activities and events. Our team spirit and culture is very positive, and we take pride in our desire to be a centre of excellence and a brilliant place to work, and we hope that you find that attitude displayed whenever you come into contact with one of our team members.


Catching up


There are some areas in which we are still catching up. In December 2020 we changed the back office computer system that supports our financial planning business to Intelligent Office, a proprietary system designed specifically for financial advisers. It’s a very capable system with the ability to automate many of our routines, and also to be able to share data with our clients which will speed up our interactions and make it easier to obtain valuations and tell us about any changes. To be able to make the system work effectively we needed to do two things. The first was to spend time integrating our existing processes into it, and the second was to ensure that the data within the system was up-to-date, much of it having to be entered and verified manually. A lot of that work got put on the backburner as the demands of the lockdown took precedence, but in recent months we have been working on this project and we are already starting to see some of the benefits.


Updated Terms of Business and Privacy Notice


The entry of data onto the system is a big piece of work, and we took on three new administrators earlier this year whose initial task was to complete some of this, but there remains much work to do. We became aware of other firms who had experienced similar problems, and resolved them by outsourcing work to an independent contractor based in the UK, but using staff members based in other countries, and we are in the process of setting up a short-term agreement with them to handle some of this work. We are very careful with our client’s data and naturally we have carried out detailed research to ensure that the appropriate security procedures, GDPR protections and quality controls are in place, and we will carefully monitor results as the project progresses. However making progress with data input should rapidly accelerate our ability to move forward with other projects and continue to improve our customer experience.


As part of our research we’ve reviewed our existing Terms of Business and Privacy Notices, and we’ve made some changes to clarify the position regarding the use of outside contractors. You can view the latest copy of our Terms of Business and our Privacy Notice by clicking here. You don’t need to do anything further as the new versions don’t change anything in the agreement between us, but we’ll ask you to sign a copy at our next meeting.


Team of 80


All of these changes have resulted in our staff numbers increasing significantly, and we now stand at 80 team members spread across our businesses, with a couple of new starters in the pipeline. We have made a long-term commitment to continue to build those businesses over the years to come, in order to meet our objectives of becoming a leading regional provider of fully integrated financial, accounting and legal advice.

We’ve put a lot of thought into our management structure, and how we best deliver on our promises. As Chairman my primary concern has been to ensure that we can continue to grow whilst still offering the high quality personal service that our clients expect from us. That’s not an easy challenge, but it’s one that our whole team have embraced with enthusiasm.


Senior appointments


We’ve made some key appointments over the last couple of years, including our Compliance Manager Jon Potter, Head of Proposition Rachel Kitching, and Managing Partner at WBB Jen Couchman. Along with Paul McGrath who heads up our Accounting services team, and our Group Managing Director Richard Urwin who has been the inspiration behind many of these changes, we have built a highly capable and very committed team who are passionate about delivering on our promise to our clients, namely to help them to create and implement a plan that will give them the highest probability of achieving their goals, get their entire financial house in perfect order, and to have a great life! We’ll be interviewing some of these people in future newsletters to introduce them to you (if we can catch them first!).


Future Plans

One of our more experienced Team Members mentioned to me recently that nothing stands still in our business for long, and there's plenty bubbling away on the back burner to keep us occupied. Whilst our core service remains unchanged, the way in which we deliver it is constantly evolving. I've mentioned some of our projects earlier, including improving our use of data and being able to leverage the great systems we've invested in. In addition to that we've been continuing to build the working links between our different professionals to strengthen our ability to provide 'joined up' advice, and we'll be launching a new website soon, designed to make it easier to get access to our services and showcase our successes.

I'm also very pleased to tell you that we've been working on the creation of our very own Charity. We are great believers in supporting our communities, and this will help us to do so in a structured way. Look out for more news soon.

Hugely Rewarding

It’s hugely rewarding for every member of our team to be involved in delivering these outcomes for the people that we serve, and we hope that you continue to enjoy your relationship with our Group, whatever form that takes.


I hope that you have found this update helpful, and if you have any thoughts or questions about anything I’ve mentioned, I would be delighted to hear from you.


Yours,

Andy Jervis
Group Chairman




Email Marketing by ActiveCampaign