Institutional grant funding at Christian Aid dropped by £15.1m last year, partly driven by UK government aid spending cuts.
The anti-poverty charity received £25.3m from institutions such as the United Nations and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in the year to March 2022 compared with £40.4m the year prior.
Christian Aid said in its annual report for the year to March 2022 that the reduction in the UK aid budget to 0.5% of gross national income led to the early termination and discontinuation of numerous key aid programmes in six African and Asian countries.
Grants to African partner organisations fell by more than half to £10.4m as a consequence of the fall in the charity’s overall institutional income.
Meanwhile, the charity’s total income was down 9% to £78.4m and its number of employees decreased by 113.
The accounts also show the charity’s gender pay gap has widened further to almost double what it was five years ago.
Significant loss of funding
Christian Aid’s accounts show that institutional grant funding fell by 37% to £25.3m due to “major reductions in UK government, UN humanitarian operations, USAID and EU funding”.
After completing two major contracts for the FCDO in Sierra Leone and Ghana, the charity did not win any contracts in 2021-22 while several submitted tenders were cancelled because of the cuts to UK aid budget.
The loss of institutional grant funding resulted in fewer grants to partner organisations, which declined by 28% to £25.2m.
From 2022-23, the charity will use its core funds to increase its grant allocations but warned that they “cannot match the scale of the funding cuts by the FCDO and the impacts of Brexit”.
“Therefore, we’re also investing in our in-country capacity to secure institutional funding at scale from a range of other donors and hope to see improving programme awards from 2022-23,” it wrote in the accounts.
Total income in 2021-22 was £78.4m compared with £86.4m in 2020-21. In line with this, spending decreased by 15% to £75.6m.
Chief executive Patrick Watt wrote in the accounts: “Over the last year, we experienced a substantial fall in our institutional income, and as a result saw an overall drop in our programme expenditure. This decline had no single cause, but the sudden and deep cuts to UK aid that followed the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office, and the loss of EU funding opportunities following Brexit were important factors.
“The good news is that our gradual recovery of voluntary income gives us the space to be strategic about how we go about rebuilding our institutional income. Some positive work has already begun in this area, as we sharpen our focus on programme impact and improve our systems.”
Sharp increase in emergency appeals
Voluntary income grew by 23%, from £42.3m to £52.1m thanks to a sharp increase in money from emergency appeals (79%) and strong performances in legacies and Christian Aid Week.
“Emergency appeals dominated due to new appeals for Afghanistan, hunger, Covid-19 and, in the last quarter of the financial year, the Ukraine crisis, which brought significant new income,” the accounts said.
“Legacy income rose 13% above the previous year, supported by a strong domestic economy and property market. Our legacies pipeline at year end is £16.3m (2021: £15.8m), with both years including a significant and generous legacy of £5.4m. Regular giving increased by 6%, reflecting a variety of measures including encouraging major donors to contribute regularly as opposed to only through one-off donations.”
Fewer staff and wider gender pay gap
The number of staff at the charity decreased from 866 in 2021 to 753 this year.
Christian Aid’s gender pay gap appears to have worsened every year since it started reporting it in 2018.
As of March 2018, it had a mean gender pay gap of 7.5% in favour of male staff and a median gender pay gap of 4.2%. Now, these figures compare with 13.9% and 11.5%.
The charity acknowledged in its accounts that the data over the last five years “continues to show a trend that is getting weaker year on year”, explaining that the gap has increased “because men in the UK have secured more of the senior positions”.
It added: “The data does not take into account our recruitment at a global level to senior positions outside of the UK, including two female directors. Our analysis indicates that our UK gender pay gap is also primarily driven by having substantially more female staff in lower pay quartiles. There is no pay difference between male and female staff who carry out the same job, similar jobs, or work of equal value.”
In 2021/22, Christian Aid received 17 safeguarding concerns. Of these, four related to its employees, eight to partner organisations and another five did not involve its staff nor its partners.
Of the four complaints, one resulted in a formal investigation and the dismissal of a staff member. Two did not meet the threshold for an investigation and one is currently being reviewed.
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