UKC

The British Mountaineering Council has published a series of papers outlining new proposals for the oversight of GB Climbing, following management issues related to the internal business unit last year and a member-led proposal to establish GB Climbing as an independent subsidiary of the BMC. The leadership also shared its assessed implications of a splinter organisation, and an update to members regarding the 2023 annual report and accounts.

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The financial statement is possibly unique in containing no figures whatsoever and is a series of rehashed excuses for overspends and delayed reporting. Are we to expect a qualified set of accounts? 

However, there are some new figures in the paper rebutting the proposed member led subsidiary resolution. 

For context in July 2023 the previous CEO Paul Davies indicated that the shared costs were £81k in support of GBClimbing. 

The current CEO now says the “in kind BMC support to competition activities” is worth of the order £200k pa !!

Quite some difference and is in addition to the level of direct funding of £186k pa which he says was agreed by the BMC Board in October 2020. 

This level of financial support is significantly higher than that indicated in the last annual report and is unfairly disproportionate support to a minority segment of the BMC.

My instinct that we have been grossly misled on the true cost of GBClimbing to the BMC have unfortunately been proved true. 

I should add that the above is just the baseline contribution by the BMC to GBClimbing. Extras such as the £90k Ratho World Cup in 2022 and the £150k spent on the expectation of grant income that didn’t exist in 2023 are in addition again. 

Back again! This £200k is really irking me in terms of how it is made up but also in terms of grant funding. 

It was disclosed last year by Jonathan White last year that a significant chunk of grant funding (£100k+) is towards the shared admin costs. I don’t know, but am pretty sure, that this element of grant funding didn’t go straight to the BMC coffers but instead was claimed by and spent by GBClimbing for general expenditure. 

I am now wondering whether there is some of this element of grant funding actually includes all or some of the aspects of the “in kind support” in which case it should be subtracted from the net BMC support. 

In short I think we should be informed:

- Whether this element of grant funding was included in the grants attributed to GBC in each of the annual reports?

- How much it is and has been each year?

- Was it spent by GBC in general expenditure?

- What if any elements of the £200k might be covered by this element of grant funding?