Spending at the homelessness charity St Mungo’s increased by six per cent in the past year, largely driven by increased staff, energy and repair costs, its latest accounts show.
The charity’s accounts for the year to the end of March 2023, filed with Companies House last week, show that expenditure rose from £118.6m in 2021/22 to £126m in 2022/23.
The increase reflects “incremental staff costs” after the charity offered its staff a National Joint Council pay settlement of £1,925 per person, according to the accounts.
The charity also offered a £700 one-off payment to its staff earning less than £40,000 to support them amid the cost-of-living crisis.
The accounts come six months after St Mungo’s settled a months-long pay dispute with a pay offer that means 90 per cent of its staff will receive a total minimum increase of £3,125 in the 2023/24 financial year.
Staff costs rose to £73.6m in 2022/23, the accounts said, compared with £68.6m in the year before – a seven per cent increase.
The accounts say that the charity’s spending increase in the 2022/23 period was also driven by an incremental spend of about £900,000.
Spending on repairs and maintenance across the charity’s estate of owned, managed and leased properties also increased.
This increased spending drove an operating deficit of £3.2m, the accounts show, which was reduced to £2.4m after a property sale gain and a pension credit.
The deficit comes despite the charity reporting a nearly four per cent increase in income compared with 2021/22, up from £118.7m to £122.8m.
Income from the charity’s social housing activities, including lettings and supporting people contract income, rose from £59.2m in 2021/22 to £69.9m in 2022/23 – an increase of nearly 19 per cent.
And income from support services rose to £33.6m in 2022/23, compared with £27.2m the year before. There was a marginal increase in the charity’s fundraising income, from £8.7m to £9.8m.
The number of full-time staff at the charity who earned more than £60,000 over the year rose from 32 in 2021/22 to 40 in 2022/23.
The number of employees earning from £60,001 to £70,000 nearly doubled, rising from nine to 17 in the same period, the accounts show.
During the 2021/22 period, the charity paid its chief executive Steve Douglas, who died in May 2022, a total of £189,418.
>Emma Haddad, who became the chief executive of St Mungo’s in November 2022, had earned £73,285 by the end of the 2022/23 reporting period, the accounts show.