The Christian development charity Tearfund spent more than £1.6m on severance and redundancy payments related to 114 redundancies last year, latest accounts show.

The charity’s income decreased by 3 per cent to £82.6m in the year to the end of March, according to its 2023/24 accounts.

Earlier this year, the charity told Third Sector it was “regrettably moving away from high-level policy work and focusing on more locally-led influencing”, which led to two rounds of job cuts last year.

The charity said it had to make “really difficult choices” in a strategic restructure to reduce unrestricted spending.

The redundancies – which affected more than 10 per cent of its staff – resulted in “significant” redundancy costs in the short term, the charity said. 

A spokesperson for Tearfund said: “We care deeply about everyone who works for Tearfund and want to look after them well and we also have a responsibility to be good stewards of our supporters’ money and ensure that we are set up to continue our life-changing work around the world.”

The charity’s emergency appeals income fell by 40 per cent to £8m in 2023/24 from £13.2m in 2022/23 and its income from grants increased by 18 per cent from £25.8m in 2022/23 to £30.4m in 2023/24.

“Emergency appeals income fell by 40 per cent (from £13.2m to £8m) due to fewer emergency appeals launched,” the Tearfund spokesperson said.

“In 2022/23 Tearfund’s emergency appeals income rose by 45 per cent from £9.1m to £13.2m (including £4.2m of Disasters Emergency Committee funding), representing over 15 per cent of total income.

“Most of this relates to the crises in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Pakistan (floods) and Syria (earthquake), where in all cases our supporters responded with great generosity.”

The charity’s expenditure decreased to £82.7m in 2023/24 from £90.2m in 2022/23 with a decrease of £6.9m in expenditure against unrestricted funds.

“The fall in unrestricted expenditure was mainly attributable to decreases of £3m (45 per cent) on reconciled peace-filled societies, and £1.3m (16 per cent) on environmental and economic sustainability,” the charity said.