Action on Hearing Loss saw its total income fall by almost £10m over the year to March 2015, after a spike in the previous year because of a property sale.
Income fell from £47m to £37.1m. But £9.2m of the previous year's income came from the sale of the charity’s London headquarters.
A statement in the 2014/15 annual report said that excluding the effect of the spike, this year’s income was just “marginally lower” than 2013/14’s income of £37.9m.
There was a slight increase in legacy income - from £7.7m to £8m – and a small boost in donations – from just under £3m to £3.2m.
The charity also spent slightly more than it earned over the past year – at £38.3m.
The charity has seen a gradual decline in income over several years. Until 2014, total expenditure declined steadily from £44.6m in 2010, to £40m in 2011, £39.6m in 2012 and £37.4m in 2013.
Savings were made last year across the board, including slight drops in fundraising costs and investment management cost, while charitable expenditure also fell by £400,000 during the year.
But the charity maintained a healthy reserve pot at £8.8m – some £2.8m more than the board’s reserve target of £6m.
Staff costs were just under £20m for the year – a slight decrease from last year when it spent £21.3m on staff.
Despite the drop, the number of high earners increased from the previous year. A total of eight staff members earned over £60,000 – up from 6 the previous year. Two of those earned between £100,000 to £110,000.
A joint statement by chair Stephen Hill and chief executive Paul Breckell said the charity was “continuing to make exciting progress” towards achieving its objectives – including expanding services by 10 per cent over the year.
“To make sure the work we do is sustainable, we worked hard to diversify our income streams,” they said in the report’s introduction.
“We increased our fundraising income and secured more media coverage. We completed the restructuring of our commercial services and outsourced the logistics element of our Products business to improve efficiency and ensure future cost-effectiveness.”
