Stonewall is now increasingly reliant on taxpayers’ money as its overall finances suffer, prompting calls for public bodies to end their support for it.
The LGBTQ+ lobbying group reported a deficit of more than £800,000 as its income fell while it was forced to use up half of its reserves, new accounts show.
Yet the amount the charity received in grants from public bodies increased, taking the total to more than £600,000, despite many severing their links with its controversial diversity ratings schemes.
Last night John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, told the Mail: ‘Taxpayers will be shocked that the state is effectively paying to prop up a charity that has gone increasingly rogue in its agenda.
‘For years Stonewall has been attempting to drag swathes of the public sector into uncharted waters which most of the British public want to go nowhere near, yet it’s been receiving taxpayers’ money to further its demands.
‘There needs to be far stricter rules about taxpayer-funding of charities who also engage in political lobbying.’
Stonewall’s annual report for 2023/24 admits it has endured ‘challenging operating conditions’ and incurred a deficit of £858,461, up from £574,269.
Its income fell from £7.7m the previous year to £6.9m while expenditure also dropped to £7.7m from £8.3m. Total reserves fell from £1.8m to just £998,173.
Stonewall is now increasingly reliant on taxpayers’ money as its overall finances suffer (pictured: Members take part in Pride in London parade in 2015)
Money from donations and wills fell from £1.8m to £1.4m while fee income including from its Diversity Champions schemes dropped from £2.9m to £2.4m.
The report says ‘more than 200 schools and colleges’ were signed up to its programme for education which tells teachers to stop calling pupils boys and girls as part of efforts to make classrooms gender-neutral. But the previous year’s report put the figure at over 300.
Yet it also reveals that ‘total income from Government sources’ stood at £618,757, up from £572,868 the previous year.
Grants included £151,840 from the Foreign Office, £106,505 from the Scottish Government, £100,000 from the Welsh Government and £34,328 from Arts Council Wales.
Stonewall also got £233,583 from the Global Equality Fund run by the US State Department.
Other grants not included in the government figure included £226,085 from the National Lottery Community Fund, which gives away money raised by lottery tickets, and tens of thousands more from charitable foundations run by major companies including Vodafone and UPS.
The accounts also show high levels of turnover in Stonewall’s boardroom with three chief executives serving over the course of the past two years while a treasurer appointed in March resigned three months later.
Women’s rights campaigners said the turmoil at Stonewall showed it was wrong to have taken such a hardline approach to trans rights, which included trying to get Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission watchdog reprimanded for its support of single-sex spaces.
Stonewall’s annual report for 2023/24 admits it has endured ‘challenging operating conditions’ a. (pictured: A group from Stonewall take part in the Pride in London parade)
Maya Forstater, chief executive of human rights charity Sex Matters, said: ‘Stonewall made a huge mistake in 2018 when it failed to listen to the 10,000 people who signed a petition pleading for the country’s premier gay rights charity to acknowledge that there are a range of valid viewpoints on sex, gender and transgender politics, and pleading with it to support respectful debate. Stonewall refused, saying: “We do not and will not acknowledge a conflict between trans rights and ‘sex based women’s rights”.’
‘The failure of what was once the country’s pre-eminent gay rights organisation to tackle this issue in a grown-up way has caused it to drift away from its founding principles and charitable objects.
‘This probably helps explain serious institutional churn, with 26 trustees, five chairs, five treasurers and five CEOs in the past five years.
‘It’s no wonder that companies and many public bodies that used to pay for its guidance have walked away.’
Last night a Stonewall spokesman said: ‘Many charities have financially struggled because of Covid and the economic downturn, and Stonewall is no different.
‘However, our work to advocate for LGBTQ+ equality has never been more important as rights are being rolled back globally.
‘We are confident that support will increase as wider society rallies against the increasing suppression of rights globally.’