BYC planned drastic restructure to save costs ahead of closure

A consultation document detailing plans for a restructure and a recording of an internal Zoom call, seen by CYP Now, details the proposals which were shared with employees in February – a month before the organisation announced its closure.

Plans to save costs included the removal of six roles from BYC’s workforce structure including the head of youth impact, head of advocacy and communications, head of fundraising and roles in administration, communications and campaigns.

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The document also highlights a plan by the charity’s board of trustees to review the role held by  BYC’s chief executive “including the remit, skills and experience that they want to prioritise and the salary grading”.

A timeline for the restructure reveals that the consultation was set to run from 19 February to 6 March with any appeals from employees due to be submitted by 18 March, days before the charity closed with immediate effect last Thursday (21 March).

The Zoom call held on 13 February – during which former chief executive Jo Hobbs announced she was to leave BYC in mid-March - also reveals that the organisation had given notice on its rented south London office in a bid to reduce core costs, leaving the board in discussions over a “short period of fully remote working” or moving to a smaller office.

Board members also told employees that based on professional advice sought by the charity, it planned to focus on income generation, review restricted funds and review costs.

The proposals came after BYC was forced to delay the payment of staff salaries in January by a week.

During the Zoom call, Hobbs said this was due to funders and clients being “very slow” to pay more than £70,000 worth of invoices “over the Christmas break”.

Hobbs told employees on the call that BYC was also forced to delay January’s payments due to “our reserves position”.

She said that BYC had to “draw down on the financial reserves” due to a tough financial year in 2022/23.

“Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to build the reserves this year, our fundraising is behind target. We’ve spent more than we’ve brought in on fundraising,” she said, highlight a “shift” in the work of trusts and foundations towards “targeted and place-based grants”.

When asked by employees how long the organisation could run on its reserves, she added “about a week”.

The organisation's latest set of accounts shows that at 31 March 2022, its reserves stood at £83,333 - only a quarter of the £308,000 it said it needed in reserve for the 2022/23 financial year.

The consultation document for the planned restructure, dated 12 February, states: “We are undertaking a wide-ranging cost review that focuses on those costs that come from our general/unrestricted funds - this includes our staff team. We need to slim down our core-cost funded functions to enable us to keep delivering against the organisational objectives and within the restrictions provided by our funders.”

It adds that “fundraising during and post pandemic has been hard and we have brought in less unrestricted funding than we had budgeted in this financial year. In trusts and foundations alone we are £60,000 behind budget”.

The BYC was initially set up by the Foreign Office in 1948 but became an independent charity in 1963. 

It has been responsible for the running of the UK Youth Parliament in recent years and was awarded a £750,000 contract to run the programme in March last year. The funding was due to run until 2025.

A statement from the charity’s chair Zara Khan announcing the closure last week said: “Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to provide a sustainable future for the charity. The economic environment has significantly impacted our ability to generate income.”