Cats Protection received its biggest-ever legacy of £2.2m last year, contributing to a £7m rise in its total income, according to its recently published accounts.

Total income in 2013 was almost £44m, up by 19 per cent from almost £37m the year before. Legacies accounted for almost 60 per cent of its income, contributing £25m in 2013 and £20m in the year before. 

Expenditure for the year was £35.6m, meaning the charity finished the year with a surplus of £8.3m. The surplus will be used to invest in fundraising and speed up the refurbishment of existing centres as well as building new ones.

The charity continued to see savings from its 2012 restructure, when 80 staff were made redundant, with staff costs falling from £12m to £10.3m in 2013.

Cats Protection also invested in fundraising to widen its sources of income, spending £3m more on generating income. This has resulted in its subscriptions and donations income going from £7.6m in 2012 to £9.4m in 2013 and the number of regular givers growing by almost a quarter to 65,000.

It launched two new fundraising initiatives: a weekly lottery, which had 8,000 players by the end of the year, and a new cat sponsorship scheme, which attracted 7,000 sponsors. The charity began an expansion of its charity shops and opened six new shops during the year.

In 2013 eight members of staff were paid more than £60,000 and one member of staff earns up to £110,000.