British Museum income falls £25.9m in last 12 months

31 Jul 2015 News

The British Museum’s annual income fell by around 18 per cent in the year ending 31 March 2015, according to its latest set of accounts.

The British Museum’s annual income fell by around 18 per cent in the year ending 31 March 2015, according to its latest set of accounts.

Annual income fell from £144m in 2013/14 to £118.1m in 2015. The accounts, published earlier this month, show that this fall in income can be almost entirely attributed to a £16.7m fall in donations and legacies in the last financial year.

Resources generated by charitable activities have also fallen by around 5 per cent in the last financial year, from £30.1m in 2013/14, to £23.6m in 2014/15.

In terms of resources expended, the British Museum’s total spending has also fallen from £111.5m, to £104.6m in the year ending 31 March 2015.

In 2015, the British Museum employed 1,059 full-time equivalent staff, 18 more than the 1,041 staff in 2014. The British Museum spent a total of £38.7m on total staff costs, £28.6m of which was spent on wages and salaries alone.

28 staff earned £60,000 a year or more at the charity, the same number as were registered the previous year.

The highest paid staff member at the organisation earned between £180,000 and £190,000 during the last financial year. Neither the job title nor the person’s name are mentioned in the accounts.

In the last 12 months, 6.7 million people visited the British Museum.