UKH

The second BMC Members Open Forum webinar took place on 20 March. Recently-appointed BMC CEO Paul Ratcliffe, President Andy Syme and Chair Roger Murray shared updates on staff changes, new and ongoing initiatives, insurance policy changes and the current financial situation.

Members were able to submit questions in real-time and interact with the hosts and other participants in the call, which improved communications between staff and members in comparison to the December forum.

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Another fantasy budget, £600k disappears from the Expenses line v 2023.

Not necessarily; various depatmental savings were identified last year in non-GBC areas of approx £240k annualised, not repeating the grant based expenditure errors in GBC gives approx £250k annualised, and not recruiting a new CFO until later this year will give around 9 months salary saving from that position, so its not too far to get from that to £600k with a bit of care and attention.

E2A - all figs approx based on details on various threads here and on BMC watch and "knowledge gained elsewhere".

For UKC/anyone who was there:

• Membership revenue is shown as going up but the budget is based on no increase in membership. Is the cost of membership going up?
• UKS and SE grants have gone down. Was there a reason for this? (i.e. has the BMC failed in some way so receive a smaller grant, or has the total grant pot just got smaller due to outside factors and the BMC get the same grants a before, they are just worth less?)

The budget is a lot more conservative this year to avoid being dependent on new people joining to meet the budget was my interpretation of what Paul said.

Not sure about the answer for your second question.

Thanks for the detailed write up of the Open Forum Natalie! One thing I didn't see was Roger's response to Simon's question about the deficit, presumably as this was based on provisional figures?

Membership subs are debated and set late in the previous summer. Yes it's going up but less than inflation at that time.

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/british-mountaineering-council-announces-2024-memb...

Anyone else notice the two finance images change in units. The first in £000’s and the second in £m’s but without actually changing the decimal place. Looking forward to that £5Bn income in 2024!

#financial competency 

Ok, I’ve tried to resist but I’ve got to point to something I’m not happy about in the disclosures from the BMC here.

Pointing to two serious accidents as being the source of the rise in insurance premiums isn’t ok. These accidents happened to individuals who received life changing injuries through no fault of their own (if they are who I think they are) and are now trying to live their lives as best as they can.  I’m sure they have enough to deal with without being made aware of this. 

After all this is what insurance is for, if the premiums were not sufficient to cover what it’s there for in the first place, then that’s is on the insurance company for underestimating what claims they are likely to receive rather than the individuals for making the claims for which they have paid for.

I appreciate this was shared in the interests of transparency, but less specific language (and dates) could have been communicated in place of these disclosures. 

Accounting for grants can be a bit confusing, and it can depend on when the grant money is actually received / spent, and how it is accounted for in an income statement. E.g. a 4 year £200k project may have all the money paid up front, and be released to the income statement over the 4 years depending on levels of activity, so possibly £40k / £80k / £50k / £30k over the 4 years. So grant income may not be a constant. Also, in the case of the BMC, some of the grants are then redistributed to partner organisations (NICAS / MTE / ABC etc etc), and the income / expenditure profiles of these may vary. So just because grant income is lower in one year compared to the previous one is not really cause for concern; its much more likely to be because of project timings / accounting policies.

Thanks Ian. Makes sense.

Cheers Steve. I’d managed to totally miss that! 

The error tells you why it needs to cut its budget by £250k, it doesn’t tell you how. If I overspend one month it’s no good just saying “Ach, I won’t do that this month!”. GBC presumably spent that £250k on GBC activities, if it is as simple as just not doing that why stop there?

As it is, with the grant cuts, it looks like £400k will need to come out of GBC budget - assuming BMC continues to fund it to the same degree as 2023.

Well Lorraine B isnt being directly replaced, and Tom Greenall leaves next month and (AFAIK) isnt being directly replaced, so there's a decent amount on those 2 salaries alone.....

I know it isn't the biggest expenditure on the books recently, but it does make me wonder just how profligate the BMC are if they can spend c. twelve grand on a teams live call.

The open forum was a great improvement in openness than the previous one in terms of both the set up (able to interact with the Directors and use the chat function) and also the level of detail of financial information presented by Paul Ratcliffe notably the slide (not in the article) with the breakdown on grant income and expenditure. This is a strong indication that there will be an improvement in openness and transparency to ordinary members going forward 

re: “The BMC deficit for the year is expected to be in the region of £250-£300k” I would still like to clear something up.

This was a question I asked of Paul Ratcliffe as to whether the above range stated by Roger Murray in the November update still stood. Paul said it was broadly right but then went on to say £147k was from GB Climbing £50k from the insurance debacle and another £200k from elsewhere.

I asked about the £200k and he said it was spent on restructuring. I started to question that and pointed out that adding up those three figures came to £397k.

At this point Roger intervened rather angrily and said that Paul had provided a “realistic set of figures” and I would “just have to live with it” which shut down the conversation so I was left with the impression that the current best guess of the deficit was £397k but unsure what the primary contributing factors were. 

We know that the initial budget pencilled in a £70k deficit but predicated on unrealistic membership growth. When that growth failed to materialise there were cuts (course corrections). It was then identified that £200k+ of budgeted grant income didn’t exist but £150k was spent in the expectation of it arriving. I understand that significant further cuts were made though I don’t know on what. 

Offwidth has said on UKB that based on figures he had sight of on Members Council that those figures from Paul didn’t include significant savings made and extra income received of over £100k but it would be reassuring to have official confirmation that is the case and indeed the £250-300k deficit/loss estimate is still correct which is obviously still an eye watering amount. 

Finally the attendance was low which I would put down to a date change and it not being directly publicised. It would have been lower still if I hadn’t publicised it on BMC Watch and UKC. 

I was nearly caught out as I was expecting an email with a zoom link having registered and attended the previous one. This is what happened with the previous series of Open Forums and I suggest that process is resurrected rather than having to re-register each time for each individual forum.

With regard to notification about open forums feedback has already been responded to.

If folks are of a mind to they can now pre-register for all of this year's fora....

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/open-forum-webinar-series

Did he really say "Build back better"

That doesn't bode well borrowing a slogan from an inept failed government.

Thanks Natalie - really detailed and informative write up. 

Fwiw, I dont think there's any disclosures that are wrong here. It's reasonable that the organisation say if there's been a big claim that has put the premium up, they have to provide an explanation. Obviously there is no blame attached and as you say it's fairly typical underhand practice from the insurance companies to so dramatically hike the premium straight after a claim.