Old Mill
Section 172 Statement
Last updated March 2025
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT AND PROMOTING THE SUCCESS OF OLD MILL
Each of the Directors is mindful of their duties under section 172 (s172) to run the group for the benefit of its shareholders, and in doing so, to take into account the long-term impact of any decisions on stakeholder relationships and the impact of its activities on its reputation for high standards of business conducted. This statement addresses the ways in which we as a Board deliver on this responsibility.
Clients
Old Mill continues to provide a comprehensive range of services, offering our clients a “one stop shop” for their accountancy, audit, outsourcing, pensions, tax and wealth management advice. During the 30 June 2024 year, to enhance this offering, we have continued with the integration of previous acquisitions, notably Brook Financial Management and Quro Financial Solutions. It is also worth noting that within our accountancy business, Old Mill has a client retention rate above 94%.
Investment is a key part of being able to maintain and enhance service levels to our clients. During the 30 June 2024 year, we launched a pilot programme to begin trialling the use of Silverfin. This is a cloud platform which helps automate and improve processes used to prepare and complete working papers, financial statements, corporation tax and management reports. Early signs are extremely encouraging, and it is expected that the software will be rolled out to other areas of our accountancy business.
Our Business Development and Marketing team also have a major role to play when it comes to engagement with our clients. During the year to 30 June 2024, they helped publish a wide range of articles and case studies to help promote to clients (and prospective clients) the high levels of expertise within Old Mill and the wide range of services we offer.
Examples of articles published during the year include:
Employees
The expertise, commitment, loyalty and dedication of our people are the single most important driver of our long term, sustainable success, with the average partner tenure being 19 years. Accordingly, we are firmly committed to ensuring equal opportunities and equal access to career development for everyone who works for Old Mill.
We are proud that life in Old Mill is heavily influenced by our core values of Open-minded, Passionate and Lovely to work with, and indeed, these formed a core part of the way our business restructure was implemented during the year ended 30 June 2024. This included announcing the structure on a firmwide Teams call rather than simply relying on email, and following it up with a series of in-person roadshow / Q&A meetings across all our offices.
We continue to invest in training and development in order to support the career aspirations of our people.
In terms of ongoing engagement, there are regular team social events, ranging from low-key, such as local team lunches and rounders matches, right up to our annual Christmas parties. We have also reintroduced an All Firm away day so that everyone in the business is aware of our plans for the business, ranging from short term operational matters through to longer term strategic initiatives.
Last year’s report talked about the introduction of “Old Mill Xtra”, a new employee platform which helps our people to save money and take care of their wellbeing. It was extremely pleasing to note that over the first year of the platform’s life, over 90% of our people made use of it.
We have also continued to promote the Wellbeing of our people. During the year, activities included:
We continue to hold quarterly presentations for all employees, which is an opportunity to update them on business performance, strategic initiatives and year-to-date financial results. We have also reinvigorated our staff forum meetings, with our CEO, MD and People Director now all attending regular face-to-face meetings in all offices.
Shareholders
Alongside our Employee Engagement, we also have a comprehensive programme for shareholder engagement. During the 30 June 2024 year, this included fortnightly Teams calls to update the senior leaders and employee shareholders on key operational and strategic matters. We have also re-introduced more formal, quarterly face-to-face meetings with the senior leaders and employee shareholders, spread across our offices.
Our internal management accounts and KPIs are also shared with the senior leaders and employee shareholders every month, and we continue to hold ad hoc meetings as needed.
Our senior leaders and employee shareholders also have access to our Non-executive board member as needed.
Suppliers
We are committed to treating our suppliers in the same way that we like our own clients to treat Old Mill. In particular, we operate a system of twice-monthly supplier payment runs to ensure invoices are paid on a timely basis. This is particularly important for all the small, local businesses that supply Old Mill.
Community
As a group firmly rooted in the South West, links with our local community are vitally important to us, and indeed, many of our employees and clients regularly socialise together away from work, for example at charity events.
We frequently undertake events to support local charities (for example, sponsored cake sales), and also provide support and sponsorship to local clubs, charities and events, such as Young Farmers groups.
Local causes supported during the year included:
We have also continued to be active in the wider professional community. Highlights over the year include:
The environment
We are committed to improving our carbon footprint. For example, our Wells Office is fitted with solar panels, and we have now completed the replacement of the lighting in our Yeovil office (our largest premises) with more energy efficient LED units. In addition, every office is fully equipped with a range of recycling bins as well as video conferencing equipment to help to reduce the need for physical travel for meetings where possible.
Our Old Mill Xtra platform (mentioned above) promotes a cycle to work scheme for our employees.
