Groundwork UK’s income fell by 45 per cent as the charity spent almost £100,000 on redundancy payments, reveals its recently published annual accounts.

Redundancy payments totalled £96,232 in the accounts for the financial year ending March 2014. The charity made 11 people redundant, most of whom were involved in the Community Spaces programme. This was a £58m Big Lottery Fund prgramme that had been managed by Groundwork and came to its conclusion last year. 

The average headcount at the charity fell from 89 to 55 over the year.

The charity’s total income dropped from £35.3m for the year ending March 2013 to £19.4m for 2014. Expenditure also fell by more than £10m from £32.5m to £21.9m in 2014.

The majority of the income drop can be attributed to a £13m fall in income from charitable activities. Within this Groundwork’s income from the Big Lottery Fund fell by £12m as the Community Spaces programme came to an end. Income from local authorities fell by £900,000 while income from central government rose slightly.

Voluntary income was down by over £2m from £8.4m in 2013 to £6.3m in 2014.

The 2014/15 financial year is the first year in a quarter of a century that Groundwork UK will not receive a core grant from the government. The charity said it plans to launch a brand awareness initiative ‘Going public’ and has earmarked £99,000 from its reserves to pay for this.

A new fundraising team has been appointed and will focus on raising more money from programme alumni and major donors.

During the year the charity undertook a review of its governance structure and is in the process of introducing a new committee structure for 2014/15. A Groundwork UK committee has been set up to take on the majority of the functions of the finance, audit and programmes committees.

The highest-paid employee earned between £80,000 and £90,000, which was the same bracket as the previous year.