Ed’s Workshop

Fees for Makers

Starting on Monday 31st March 2025 our fees for makers will increase from £40.00 per session to £41.50 per session. This is our first ever annual adjustment for inflation, and we let our community of makers know that it was going to happen back in April 2024 with the detail following in May 2024.

The cost of Ed’s Workshop is similar to the cost of other daytime provision for people with similar needs. Most of our makers pay for sessions at Ed’s Workshop using Adult Social Care funding, and if you don’t already have this in place we can point you in the right direction.

How we adjust for inflation

Each year, Ed’s Workshop will need to adjust its fees to compensate for inflation. We know that Adult Social Care budgets are usually reviewed annually, and so up to a year’s advance warning of our fee adjustment might therefore be very helpful.

Our policy is to use the rate of inflation indicated by the CPIH index for the 12 months to the end of March each year and then to apply that increase the following year, so that there is an approximately 12-month delay between us advising of the increase and actually applying it.

The increase on 31 March 2025 will be 3.8%, which is the rate of inflation indicated by the CPIH index for the 12 months to March 2024. This inflation figure became available on 17th April 2024 and was advised to our makers on 6th May 2024.

The CPIH, published by the Office of National Statistics, is regarded as the most accurate measure of inflation.

How we charge our fees

Fees are charged per session. Sessions are morning or afternoon each weekday, and we normally have up to four makers in each session. Typically our makers come to us for between one and four sessions per week, but there is no limit. Generally our makers are with us for the long-term and attend the same sessions every week, and we plan our makers’ project work and staffing around a regular timetable.

Ed’s Workshop sends out invoices every four weeks for the following four weeks. Note that we do still charge for sessions that a maker is away, for example holiday or sickness, because we have tailored our timetable for each maker at the workshop. Of course there are no fees for the days that the workshop is closed (so far we have closed for a week each Christmas).

We do recognise that makers often have complicated dependencies and their regular pattern of sessions at Ed’s Workshop may need to be revised from time-to-time. We will always do our very best to accommodate this.

How we are funded

The Directors of Ed’s Workshop have many years of experience as trustees and chairs of charities and social enterprises. When we set up Ed’s Workshop we were concerned that the provision should be there for our makers for the very long term.

For this reason we have made the strategic decision not to rely on grant funding. Making sure that the workshop covers its costs from fees is a harder road, but ultimately the only financially sustainable one. Also, not being beholden to grant makers’ agendas, which change emphasis from year-to-year, also allows us to singularly focus on the best interests of our makers.

As we are not planning to apply for grants, for the foreseeable future there is no advantage in taking on the additional governance and reporting overhead involved with setting up as a charity, Community Benefit Society or a Community Interest Company. Ed’s Workshop is therefore a family business incorporated as a Limited Company.