Crime reduction charity Nacro cut 143 jobs last year and more than 600 in the last three years, according to annual accounts filed last month.

Nacro’s accounts for the year to March 2014 show that staff numbers reduced by 16 per cent to 725, and that it spent £336,000 on redundancy payments. The charity did not say how much of the reduced headcount was due to redundancies.

In the previous year Nacro reduced headcount by 261 and spent £652,000 on redundancy payments. The year before that, it cut numbers by a further 202 and spent another £869,000 on redundancy payments.

Accounts also show that the charity has a substantial deficit in unrestricted reserves. In its most recent accounts the charity also reported an £11.8m deficit, caused by a pension deficit of £12.3m.

The charity saw its income decrease very slightly to £47.3m – the fourth year in a row it has seen income fall. In total, Nacro’s income has fallen by around 24 per cent since 2011, when its income was just under £62m.

Barry Aspland, director of finance and corporate services, said: “Nacro’s restructuring of its services and business model has resulted in the organisation stabilising its income at £47m in 2013 and 2014 – achieving a surplus of £735,000 in 2014 compared to a deficit in 2013 of £191,000.”

The charity is likely to see its fortunes improve after winning six contracts to run community rehabilitation companies in partnership with Sodexo, as part of the government’s reform of probation services in England and Wales.

Nacro said it had recently appointed a new chief executive, carried out a governance review, and merged its housing arm into the core business. It said it had now developed a three-year business strategy to cover the period up to 2018, and was planning to work with more people, grow and diversify its income, and develop partnerships with like-minded organisations.