Hesley looks healthy despite profit drop

Specialist care and education provider The Hesley Group saw revenues drop slightly from £35.8m to £34.1m for the year ended 31 December 2012. This could be attributed to a fall in the company’s average occupancy rates (including day and respite places) which fell from 152 to 145. Operating profit stood at £4.1m (2011: £5.9m) but the gap between the previous year’s results was widened further, however, thanks to unexplained leap in interest charges of £1.1m. This led to the operator of two residential schools and villages for children and adults with severe challenging behaviour to post a pre-tax profit of £3.0m (2011: £6m). Despite the drop in profits, overall the results reveal a healthy performance underpinned with prudent borrowing levels. The directors said: We have maintained stable occupancy levels across our services and are benefiting from having developed new community-based facilities in recent years. Our strategy of offering step-down services to our customers where appropriate is working well, thus offering ongoing high quality care within our organisation but continually ensuring that we can offer and demonstrate value for money.