Parish Accounts

1) Impact of COVID on 20 – 21 income and expenditure

The start of the financial year coincided with the first lockdown and the immediate impact of COVID on the parish and its finances was on Mass.  Masses as parishioners will be aware were stopped completely for a period and then limited to a maximum of 120 parishioners a time.

Fewer masses and fewer attendees has hit the weekly collection hard both in terms of the cash  “loose plate” and in terms of weekly envelopes and the cheques they include.  This went from £2500 – £3500 a week to a low of £600 – £700 a week, as the weekend collection also usually includes repository income, teas, catechetical income and second collections etc all of which decreased significantly.

The other major impacts on the Parish life that impact upon our finances have been:

• our income has been the reduced income from hire of the Parish Centre compared to previous years
• on our staff where staff have been furloughed but the parish has benefited from the CJRS scheme
• the number of funerals and decrease in catechetical programmes

This can be seen in the summary “Statement of Financial Activities” where one can see the total income has dropped to £285,211 from £386,030 the previous year.  Please note however, that whilst the offertory was down from £131,008 to £75,779 (a drop of over £55K year to year), standing orders had by April 21 gone up by 36% year on year and some on-line donations now take place.

It should also be noted that the Statement also shows that our expenditure in the year is also down to £233,303 from that of the previous year of £297,458.  This is despite the additional costs associated with:

• now having two priests’ salaries and household expenses
• and costs associated with COVID such as:
• the costs of sanitiser machine (paid from appeal) and sanitiser etc (EGO 4021)
• the costs of streaming masses including the initial set up (EGO511 on page 3 of analysis)

This reduction in our total expenditure and the overheads associated with running the parish and parish centre in particular therefore means that the net income over expenditure for 20 – 21 is a surplus of £51, 907 (subject to caveats outlined below) for the 20 – 21 financial year.

2) Caveats to final position for 20 – 21 year

Please note that some £13K of expenditure related to Restricted Funds (ring fenced monies) was postponed to the beginning of the 21 – 22 Financial Year (ie end of April 21).  This consisted predominantly of a reimbursement to CAFOD of £12, 465 for backlog of non-specific donations and collections in the year.  This has been readily absorbed by the 20 – 21 surplus as can be seen by the forward position.

OLOL 20 – 21 Draft Balance Sheet

OLOL 20 – 21 Income & Expenditure balance sheet

If you have any questions on this or the numbers in the annual report please contact Bob Fox via wansteadchurch@gmail.com