Timeb*nkers
Posted by Christie Malry on March 14, 2011 at 9:29 am
The press and Twitter have united in outrage at the news that Big Society-endorsed charity, Timebank, is to have its funding cut. The cuts, amounting to a quarter of its income, "will mean drastic cuts among its 35 staff, a scaling down of its workload and potentially closure." The charity has responded by encouraging people to write to their MPs about it.
Like so much on the Internet, there's more to this story than meets the eye. In order to fully unpack it, you need to turn to Timebank's accounts for the year ended 31 March 2010. This shows that they had total income of £1.909 million for the year (down from £2.636 million in the previous year). And they spent £1.366 million of that on staff costs (down from £1.425 million in the previous year).
One employee received a salary of "between £60,000 and £60,999 during the year". OK, so it's fair to assume that the chief executive of an organisation ought to receive more than other members of staff. But, even excluding this member of staff, we can calculate that the other 36.9 full time equivalents were paid an average of £31,496 1 each. This looks pretty generous, considering that it's an increase of nearly 6% on the previous year 2. Had they frozen salaries, as so many private sector employers have, they could have saved nearly £66,000, some 13% of the £500,000 shortfall they are said to be facing as a result of the Office for Civil Society's decision. People often say that they would gladly take a pay cut for the warm glowy feeling they get from working for a charity. Here's a chance to prove that it's not just hollow rhetoric.
The accounts also show that they have already absorbed a £500,000 shortfall in the previous year, which they managed to accommodate. It's sad that they can't do everything that they want to. But if they're unable or unwilling to find the income or make the savings themselves then it's not very Big Society-like to demand that the taxpayer make good the shortfall.
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