Barnardos seeks to cut €800k off budget

The country’s largest children’s charity is looking for voluntary redundancies in an effort to trim up to €800,000 from its budget, with Barnardos admitting it needs to make savings “to keep the show on the road”.

Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay yesterday said that staff had until Nov 5 to consider voluntary redundancy and that applications would then be assessed ahead of the new year.

Barnardos, which has an annual budget of €24m and about 420 staff, has seen a reduction in State funding and donations in the past two years.

Mr Finlay said huge efforts had already been made by staff to reduce costs and maintain the standard of services being provided, but that more needed to be done to tackle the financial gap between what was being spent and what was being brought in.

This year there have been cuts to senior pay, and in August the organisation stopped all services for a week. Mr Finlay said next year will see a repeat of that strategy and further cuts to senior pay. Additional savings of between €600,000 and €800,000 will be needed as well.

Operating profits are expected to reduce by €850,000 this year, following a reduction of €650,000 last year. At the same time funding from the State sector has fallen 13%.

Mr Finlay said that “the fundraising environment is more and more challenging, for the simple reason that people just don’t have as much to give any more”.

There were a small number of redundancies in Barnardos this year and on the voluntary redundancy option, Mr Finlay said: “The numbers will be determined by who applies, the level of pay [they are on], and whether or not we can do without them.”

He said many people making donations had actually increased their monthly contributions while staff had worked hard to ensure that core services would not be affected and that this will continue.

However, Mr Finlay said some programmes — such as a literacy scheme which has been running on a pilot basis in some schools in Dublin and Limerick — can not be sustained.

“People like the minister of education, who are committed to improving literacy in schools, are going to feel the loss of that programme,” he said.

“What we are trying to do is trying to maintain a very high quality and range of services but as a smaller organisation.”