Candlelight Home Care Services has been part of the family for nearly four decades.

Founded 38 years ago by a family friend who was a nurse, the business was taken on by Managing Director James Catley-Day’s parents and has grown steadily ever since.

What began as a small local home care provider now supports around 400 people a week to live independently in their own homes across Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire and East Sussex, employing 174 staff. 

Services range from everyday support with shopping, cooking and cleaning through to complex and end-of-life care, alongside dedicated 24-hour live-in care for clients whose needs go beyond daily visits.

James joined the business after university, originally just to help his mother out over the summer.

The challenge

For a business with the operational and clinical complexity of Candlelight, having the right professional advisers in place is not optional. As James puts it: “We’re experts in care. We’re not experts in finance or IT or tech, so we rely on those relationships to be able to pick up the phone and have those conversations.”

Five or so years ago, Candlelight’s long-standing relationship with their previous accountancy firm had begun to change.

Their main contact was retiring, the working relationship wasn’t the same and fees were rising.

“We thought, well, actually, this is a good time to explore other providers,” James recalls.

Candlelight needed an adviser who would understand not just the numbers, but the realities of running a regulated care business operating across multiple local authorities.

They also needed someone who could speak plainly about complex financial matters and be genuinely accessible when questions came up.

How Milsted Langdon helped

The first thing James highlights about working with our team, led by Ian Lloyd and Matt Turner, is the way technical advice is communicated.

“What I really appreciate about Ian in particular, but also his team as well, is their ability to communicate what can be quite complex calculations and theories into something that operationally for us can be completely understood,” he says.

“Their ability to understand the broader strategic direction of the business and help us put commercial day-to-day decision making in line with that as well – that’s what we find most helpful about them.”

James also valued the open-door policy: “We can pick up the phone, ask a straightforward question without feeling awkward and get what may be a complex answer explained clearly and simply. That has been invaluable.”

Supporting an international workforce

Like many care providers, Candlelight has used the Skilled Worker visa route to address ongoing recruitment challenges.

The business has held a sponsor licence for four years and has developed an unusually supportive package for staff joining from overseas, providing a house, a car and the job itself.

That commitment to looking after people brought with it a layer of financial and tax complexity that our team helped Candlelight work through.

“It was the question around the cars, because we suddenly created a fleet of vehicles,” James explains. “For some of the staff it starts off as a pool car and then we were doing lease hires and then it was the whole taxable aspect with regard to that.

“And then how do we account for that income that we then generate because we’re leasing the vehicles? It was complicated, and potentially not that tax efficient either.”

Working alongside the Candlelight team, we helped untangle the fleet, payroll, benefits and tax position. “It was tough whilst we were finding our feet, but now it’s second nature to us,” James explains.

Bringing VAT expertise to a brand-new venture

Care services are VAT-exempt, which means most providers, Candlelight included, have limited day-to-day exposure to VAT despite carrying it on much of what they buy.

That changed when James launched a separate business, Marsh Court Holdings, to develop a former derelict dairy farm into a future respite centre for Candlelight’s clients.

To fund the redevelopment without taking on expensive borrowing, James is using the land to generate biodiversity net gain credits, sold to property developers required to offset environmental impact under the new statutory framework.

The model is innovative, but it brought VAT firmly onto the agenda for the first time. Helen Pulman, our VAT Manager, stepped in to help with registration and to demystify the process.

“Care is VAT exempt, which drives us bananas because we pay VAT on absolutely everything,” James says. “So, I have absolutely no experience in VAT.

“To have someone like Helen help us register and then talk us through it – someone who I could pick up the phone to, send a quick email to and she was able to answer the questions really quickly – is certainly reassuring.”

A joined-up view across both businesses

With Ian and Matt holding oversight across Candlelight and Marsh Court Holdings and Helen leading on VAT, decisions in one business can be made with a clear understanding of their implications for the other.

“It’s brilliant having it all in-house,” James says. “Because they’ve been able to have that oversight of absolutely everything and they can see how everything links in with everything else. The advice they’re able to give, because they’ve got that holistic vision, is strategically meaningful.”

That joined-up view has also prompted James to look again at advisers in other areas. “Pensions are with someone else, but I’m genuinely considering bringing them over because Milsted Langdon understand the connection between a business and the family behind it.”

The result

What started as a search for a more responsive accountancy firm has grown, over five years, into a wide-ranging professional relationship spanning audit and accounts, corporation tax, payroll, international recruitment, fleet and benefits, VAT for a new venture and ongoing strategic input.

The day-to-day benefit, in James’s words, comes down to one thing. “For me, it’s peace of mind. I know I don’t need to worry about financial nuances or having a technical understanding of national policy changesbecause Milsted Langdon have it covered and if I need to know about something, they’ll let us know. Similarly, if I’ve got a question, I can just pick up the phone.”

He also credits the human side of the relationship for making the professional side work as well as it does.

“We’ve got a brilliant relationship with Ian and Matt as well. Doing the out-of-office time together is valuable because it means you can forge those relationships and continue to build that trust,” he added.

Why Milsted Langdon?

Asked to describe the relationship in his own words, James settles on a phrase that captures it neatly.

“It’s that sense of collaboration of joint ownership. What they allow us to do is focus on what we’re good at, which is delivering the best care possible to our clients.”

If you would like to find out how Milsted Langdon could support your business in the same joined-up, accessible way, please contact our team for a confidential conversation.