The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has reported a £6.3m increase in fundraising income over the last financial year – from £51.7m in the year ending 31 December 2013 to £58m in 2014, according to the latest set of accounts.

But legacy income dropped by £5.5m over the same period from £118.4m to £112.9m, due in part to an “exceptional legacy” of £7.4m gifted to the charity in 2013.

Investment income also saw a slight drop of 900,000 over the year.

The charity spent an additional £2.7m on lifeboat rescue and a further £1.2m on lifeguard rescue over the year, bringing total resources expended to £157.7m – up from £152.9m the previous year.

Some £18.3m was spent on lifeboats – up from £11.6m in 2013 – and £24.6m was spent on “stations and shoreworks”, according to the 2014 accounts. This represented an increase of £11.8m from the previous year.

Salary expenditure rose by £3.6m – from £46.7m in the year ending 2013 to £50.3m last year.

Charles Hunter-Pease, chair of the RNLI, described the charity’s impact last year as “exceptional”.

“The impact that our lifesaving communities made in 2014 is extraordinary,” he said. “460 lives saved, over 8,500 lifeboat rescues carried out, and over 17,000 incidents attended on lifeguarded beaches. We also delivered safety messages to hundreds of thousands of people.”