A leading children’s welfare charity spent about £640,000 in redundancy payments last year, its latest accounts show.

Action for Children’s annual accounts for the year to the end of March 2024 show the charity’s redundancy payments increased from £67,000 in 2022/23 to £640,000 in 2023/24, £249,577 of which was made up of ex-gratia payments in line with Action for Children’s redundancy policy.

The charity said 106 employees were made redundant over the period, 97 of whom qualified for statutory redundancy as they had more than two years of service. 

A spokesperson said: “We deliver 372 services in communities across the UK, and last year we helped reach over 687,000 children, young people and families.

“In the last financial year, we had to make the difficult decision to close a number of our services, or in some cases to reduce our service offering, which resulted in a reduction in staff.

“Among the closures were a number of our Spring Nurseries and Family Support services.

“This resulted in redundancy payments being made to those affected.”

The spokesperson said that Action for Children’s redundancy policy allows for discretionary ex-gratia payments to be made to eligible full- and part-time contracts of employment, based on length of continuous service.

“As a charity covering all four nations, the number of staff (FTE) employed at any given time can fluctuate depending on the services we are delivering as we respond to the needs of vulnerable children,” the spokesperson said.

The accounts reported an overall increase in staff numbers from 3,128 in 2022/23 to 3,407 in 2023/24.

Action For Children’s overall income rose to a total of £155.3m, up from £149.8m in 2022/23.

In the notes to the accounts the charity said 2023/24 had been a difficult year for fundraising, particularly for restricted income, with several multi-year grants coming to an end.

The charity generated £12.4m in unrestricted income, which it partly attributed to £2.8m generated in regular giving, and £4.2m in legacy giving.

The accounts also showed the charity brought in £136.3m in income through its core service provision, up £6.4m on the previous year. 

The charity’s expenditure increased from £149.4m in 2022/23 to £161m in its latest accounts, which the charity attributed to increasing inflation and investment in its residential care growth strategy. 

“Continued investment in our planned residential care growth involved significant expenditure as the homes needed readying and staffing ahead of regulatory inspections, and before children can move into the home,” the charity said in its notes to the accounts. 

“We will continue with our residential growth strategy, with six new homes planned to open to children in the next 12 months.”