The directors present the strategic report for the year ended 31 July 2024.
This year is Connect’s 30th year of business as we continue to deliver award-winning, custom software solutions to a predominantly public sector client base. Connect’s services remain positioned to deliver efficiency savings and channel shift, key drivers for our client base in line with the UK Government’s recommendations.
We continue to maintain placement on a number of key government frameworks, enabling public sector organisations to procure our range of solutions via online catalogues.
We are delighted to have achieved, once again, our quality target of 100% repeat business. We have also won six prestigious industry awards across a range of sectors. Both measures reflect the continuing quality of our customer care and our digital products.
Our portfolio of products and services has remained stable this year and includes public-facing websites, intranet solutions, private cloud hosting, bespoke business software, database-driven solutions, online customer portals, website accessibility audits and support & maintenance; a new management fee has been fully rolled out for the latter to reflect increasing overheads in this area.
Of note is this year’s growth in take-up of our Hivetalk intranet solution, largely resulting from its expedited provisioning and scalability. This product continues to serve the market well, delivering transformative benefits to its target market.
Sustainability remains a focus for Connect. Further, we believe we are well placed to support customers in their own digital sustainability efforts, chiefly through writing software for customers that minimises environmental impact. This year, a number of our customers have launched websites developed using our ‘Coding for a Greener Planet’ initiative; we see this as an area for future investment and growth.
As ever, we continue to invest in Research and Development to ensure our services, underpinned by innovation, are future-friendly and continue to offer best value.
This year, the hosting industry as a whole has been subject to an increase in malicious attacks targeting public sector bodies and their services. This unwelcome development is likely to continue, at least for the short term, and we have increased monitoring to enhance our ability to pre-empt bad actors; an ongoing programme of infrastructure upgrades and reconfiguration has also improved our resilience in this respect. This remains an area for continued vigilance.
The single biggest challenge has been, and remains, recruitment. Both budgets and time commitments have increased, reflecting the lack of skilled individuals applying. Despite streamlining the process recruitment remains time-consuming and expensive.
We again continue our commitment to quality standards, retaining ISO9001, ISO27001 and Cyber Essentials accreditation and developing solutions conformant with GDPR and international standards for accessibility; a new standard has been introduced in relation to the latter, representing an area for growth in the short to medium term via existing and new contracts.
On behalf of the board
Connect Internet Solutions Limited is a private company limited by shares incorporated in England and Wales. The registered office is 47 Suite 4, 3rd Floor, New Barratt House, 47 North John Street, Liverpool, L2 6SG.
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 gain or loss arising on the disposal of an asset is determined as the difference between the sale proceeds and the carrying value of the asset, and is credited or charged to profit or loss.
Basic financial assets, which include debtors and cash and bank balances, are measured at transaction price including transaction costs. 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 recognised at transaction price. Financial liabilities classified as payable within one year are not amortised.
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 at transaction price.
Equity instruments issued by the company are recorded at the proceeds received, net of transaction costs. Dividends payable on equity instruments are recognised as liabilities once they are no longer at the discretion of the company.
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 (including directors) employed by the company during the year was:
As the income statement has been omitted from the filing copy of the financial statements, the following information in relation to the audit report on the statutory financial statements is provided in accordance with s444(5B) of the Companies Act 2006:
At the reporting end date the company had outstanding commitments for future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable operating leases, as follows: