The NSPCC has spent £5.8m on restructuring costs after launching a new strategy which it says has allowed it to reach 80 per cent more children.
Figures, reported in annual accounts filed recently, show that staff numbers at the charity fell by 88 during the year to 1,732 – a drop of 5 per cent. Redundancy costs were £1.8m.
The charity made the decision to close a number of locations where it directly delivered services, allowing it to shift to more work with partners and online.
“We have learnt that benefit for children and families from our service centre work is more likely where these are resourced sufficiently to develop strong relationships with local partners,” the charity said. “So in August 2016, we took the difficult decision to reduce the number of locations delivering direct services, concentrating our efforts to greater effect both locally and beyond.”
The charity’s income remained flat despite a drop in its spending on raising money, which the NSPCC said was driven by negative media coverage. Fundraising costs fell from £20.4m to £19.2m.
Expenditure on helping children fell from £98.2m to £91m. But the charity’s reserves also decreased after a £20.1m fall in the value of the charity’s pension assets.
“In April 2016 we launched our new strategy setting out what we would do over the next five years to bring us closer to ending cruelty to children,” the charity said in its accounts. “Our goal is always to do the most for children with the resources available to us and in 2016/17 we have reached approximately 80 per cent more children with marginally less income than we raised last year.
“These restructuring actions necessary to support the delivery of our strategic objectives has meant that we have incurred £5.8m of one-off costs this year related to restructuring and the write down of property and equipment. These actions have however ensured that we are able to plan for the achievement of our objectives in the longer term.
"Our plans for the future have been set in the context of a challenging economic climate and a difficult time for the charity sector as a whole. Following intense media and government scrutiny over fundraising practices we suspended some of our marketing activities in 2015/16 and this continued into the first part of 2016/17 as we ensured that everything we or our partners do meets the expectation of our supporters and the public at large. This resulted in reduced expenditure on TV advertising and volumes of mailings to our supporters.”
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