Financial performance
Published 9 June 2022
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Income
Total operating income (excluding disbursement income) for the year was £251.3m (2020-21: £232.9m), an increase of 8%. Our income from legal fees and charges to clients increased this year to reflect demand for our services. Our other income includes income from secondments, subscriptions for the Legal Information Online Network (LION) and the recovery of the costs of Bona Vacantia from the Crown’s Nominee.
Expenditure
Our administration costs (excluding disbursements) this year were £235.9m (2020-21: £226.7m), an increase of 4%.
Staff costs represent 87% of non-disbursement expenditure (2020-21: 87%) and have increased by £6.5m in line with the increased demand for our legal services with a 6% increase in staff numbers. The ratio of staff costs to legal fees and charges income is 84% (2020-21: 88%).
We continue to employ agency and contract staff where there is a need for specialist skills, such as within Information Communications Technology (ICT), where for practical business reasons the Board has agreed there should be a mixed economy of permanent and contract staff to provide some flexibility to cope with changes in demand. We also employ agency staff in lieu of recruitment, to support our resourcing where we have not been able to attract as many permanent staff as required to deliver our work. Spend this year was £19.9m (2020-21: £16.9m). Agency staff accounted for 12% of average staff count for the year (2020-21: 11%).
Non-staff costs (excluding operational disbursements) have increased by 9% to £31.8m (2020-21: £29.1m). This increase mainly relates to increased rental costs and investment in software.
Expenditure on legal disbursements varies from year to year depending on the number, type and complexity of cases. The majority of this expenditure is passed on directly to clients.
Net operating income
The net operating income for the year was £12.0m (2020-21: £4.0m). The surplus reflects lower than anticipated resources costs for our fixed fee work and lower than expected costs for the departmental change programme.
Capital expenditure
Capital investment was £1.6m (2020-21: £0.8m) mainly relating to the annual cycle of investment in ICT equipment.
Financial position
Taxpayers’ equity is £15.7m at 31 March 2022 comprising total assets of £78.6m (non-current assets of £5.8m, trade and other receivables of £45.7m, and cash of £27.0m); and current and non-current liabilities of £62.9m (trade and other payables and provisions). Further details are in the Notes to the Accounts. Cash flow and debtors are both closely monitored throughout the year to ensure that we have sufficient cash to meet our liabilities and pay our creditors promptly; we rely on receipts from our clients for the bulk of our cash flow. We ended the year with cash of £27.0m (2020-21: £1.7m) and a trade receivables balance of £23.5m (2020-21: £24.1m).
The financial statements and notes are set out here: