Action for Blind People has said it made nine redundancies in the year ending March 2014, following an "efficiency review".

The charity’s income was £20.4m, down from £21.5m in the previous year, according to its annual report and accounts, filed last week.

Total expenditure for the year was £20.7m, down from £21.7m the previous year.

The charity ended the year with a net deficit of £298,000, compared with £248,000 in 2013.

Redundancy costs for the year were £360,000, down from £426,000 in 2013 when Action for Blind People made around 10 per cent of its staff redundant, and saw a 14 per cent drop in income.

The cost of salaries and wages in the year ending March 2014 was also down £663,000 to £11.08m.

The average number of full-time equivalent employees during the year was 404, down by 20 from 2013.

A spokeswoman for the charity said: “In 2013/14, Action for Blind People carried out an efficiency review of its central resource functions, to ensure maximum resources continued to be allocated to its vital front line services for blind and partially sighted people. This resulted in nine people being made redundant.”

In the four hotels that the charity operate, they have “recently undergone a significant restructure of management and staffing to reduce costs”.

The charity has also sold one of its properties, the Russell Hotel, to disability charity Livability for £1.275m.  

RNIB entered into a group structure arrangement with Action for Blind People in 2009, and assumed responsibility for Action’s fundraising operations at that time. In accordance with the provisions of the agreement, Action receives a block fundraising grant from RNIB, which remained stable at £8.4m in 2013/14.

As of 1 July 2014, two of Action for Blind People’s trustees, Mike Nussbaum and Alan Tinger, sit as the charity’s representatives on the RNIB group board.