People and resources

We will be an inclusive, welcoming and sustainable organisation.

While the external environment remains challenging, we have continued to find creative ways to respond to the long-term effects of the pandemic, the national skills shortage and the cost-of-living challenge. Supporting our people and helping them thrive remains one of our biggest priorities.

Tina Lewis, Director of People

In response to the difficult external circumstances, we’ve focused on creating a safe, supportive and inclusive work environment, developing future talent and providing opportunities for people to volunteer.

We greatly appreciate the hard work and support of our staff and volunteers, who enable us to provide amazing experiences for millions of people each year.

Supporting the wellbeing of our people

We recognise the continued pressures that our people are facing both inside and outside of work. As a committed and responsible employer, we have made investments to support our staff and volunteers.

We have established a Mental Health First Aiders programme, training 100 staff. A Wellbeing hub, support group and toolkits for managers also provide support and guidance.

We continue to work in partnership with other charities including the Woodland Trust, Eden Project, RSPB and Royal Horticultural Society to benchmark and share best practice.

Recognising our volunteers

During the past few years, we’ve all been through change and upheaval and the support of volunteers is something we don’t take for granted. In 2022–23 we welcomed 8,708 new

volunteers. In 2022–23 we welcomed 8,708 new volunteers. Along with existing ones, they donated 3.4 million hours.

We are mindful that not all volunteers have been able to return due to changes either in their personal circumstances or at the Trust. We look forward to welcoming volunteers back when new opportunities arise, or when the time is right for them.

We are proud to be developing a Volunteering Charter in consultation with volunteers and staff. This will set out what a good volunteering experience looks like at the Trust. We are also continuing to run our annual People Engagement survey. In 2023 we included new questions to help us benchmark our volunteer experience against similar organisations.

We understand that the way some people want to donate their time and skills is changing and we want to increase the range of volunteer roles we offer. We also want to support the broader sector and empower more communities and individuals to care for nature and history.

This year, we’ve seen thousands of people get involved in different ways – from longstanding roles caring for houses and welcoming visitors, to getting behind our Blossom campaign, supporting Heritage Open Days, working towards their Duke of Edinburgh badge with us and participating in Great Big Green Week. We are looking forward to increasing these opportunities over the coming years.

Developing Future Talent

We are committed to supporting the development of future talent by expanding the number of apprenticeships we offer. During the year, we trained 170 apprentices. We plan to grow this to 500 apprentices a year by 2025.

We are focusing our attention on tackling a shortage of heritage skills in key crafts such as stonemasonry, carpentry and joinery through our apprenticeship programme, funded by the Hamish Ogston Foundation. After their apprenticeship, each person will benefit from a one-year work placement to further embed their skills.

‘Everyone Welcome’

We are making good progress with our ‘Everyone Welcome’ commitment to become a more inclusive and welcoming organisation. The programme aims to ensure:

everyone who works, volunteers, visits or donates to us has an equally positive experience;
we have a broader diversity of people represented in the demographics of our staff and volunteers; and
we improve and increase the benefit we offer to people by continuing to serve existing audiences to the best of our ability, while broadening our relevance for everyone.

As mentioned earlier in the report, we have invested almost £3 million in accessibility improvements. Nearly 11,000 staff have completed our inclusion training and we have overhauled our recruitment and attraction processes to ensure we reach a wider diversity of job applicants.

The LGBTQ+ network enables me to play an active role in championing the right to equality, fair treatment and for everyone to feel able to be themselves at work.

Sonja Orderley, co-chair of the LGBTQ+ Network.

Providing safer places

Following a comprehensive review of our safeguarding polices and processes in 2018–19, we have further developed our safeguarding framework to meet the requirements set by the Charity Commission. We have seen the confidence and capability of our staff increase, leading to a rise in reporting.

We now have more than 230 Local Designated Safeguarding Leads across the Trust, who support staff and volunteers with safeguarding incidents or concerns.

Staff pay and recognition

We recognise the importance of being transparent and accountable in all aspects of our work, including how we recognise and reward our staff. As a charity, we review our reward policy regularly to ensure we use the money entrusted to us by our supporters wisely, while ensuring we can retain and recruit great people with the right skills to deliver our strategy.

Our reward policy, pay framework and pay bands are published on our intranet and are available to staff, reflecting our organisational values.

Each year, as part of our partnership agreement with our trade union Prospect, we conduct a salary review and award pay increases for individual performance. Senior manager pay is decided by the Senior Management Remuneration Committee.

In April 2022, in agreement with Prospect, we invested in a 5.5% pay award to ensure our pay ranges remained competitive and staff were rewarded for their contribution during the year.

An additional cost-of-living payment was made to those in junior grades to support them through the winter months.

The Senior Management Remuneration Committee awarded the senior management team, including the Director-General, an average annual pay increase of 2.6%. This was below the 5.5% investment in junior staff pay.

Gender pay gap

Our gender pay gap report is available on our website. As of 5 April 2022, the mean average gender pay gap at the Trust was 8.6% in favour of men. This is below the national mean average of 13.9% (Office for National Statistics). Our median average gender pay gap is 9.1%, compared to a national average of 14.9%. Our results slightly worsened year on year, but we have seen significant reduction in our gender pay gap from our first report in 2017.

In 2020 and 2021, our gender pay gap results were affected by how we calculated furlough payments for our hourly paid staff. We are

confident in the accuracy of our 2022 data. Our gender pay gap is predominately caused by the balance of men and women across all levels in our organisation. We have a higher proportion of women working in lower graded roles. We’re proud to be an organisation where half of our senior leaders are women.

Director-General remuneration

In 2022–23 the Director-General Hilary McGrady was paid a basic salary of £204,604. Our independent pay benchmark data confirms the Director-General’s salary is comparable to the leaders of other major charities, senior government civil servants and the chief executives of medium-sized private-sector organisations.⁵

Following the Hutton Report, each year the Trust monitors the ‘pay ratio’ (this is the relationship expressed as a multiple between the highest salary and the median salary level within the Trust) to ensure salaries remain fair and appropriate. In 2022–23, the

Director-General’s salary was 1:9.4 times the median salary. Our pay ratio compares favourably to external benchmark data.

Information regarding our remuneration spend and the number of employees with pay higher than £60,000 is included in Note 11 in the financial statements.

5 Each year we access independent pay data from Korn Ferry’s Public and Not-For-Profit benchmark pay data survey and XpertHR’s benchmarking tool, ‘Cendex’. In January 2023, a further independent review of the Director-General’s remuneration was conducted by Innecto Reward Consulting. The independent pay reports enable the Senior Management Renumeration Committee to accurately benchmark the Director-General and director salaries.

Executive remuneration

Actual February 2023

Title	Name	Brief description of role	2022-23 Annual gross pay¹	2022-23 Annual gross benefits²
Director-General	Hilary McGrady	Accountable for delivering the National Trust strategy and charitable purpose and governance.	200 – 209,999	10 – 19,999
Chief Financial Officer³	Peter Vermeulen	Accountable for providing strategic leadership for financial sustainability and executive oversight of IT, Procurement, Risk and Assurance and Pensions.	100 – 109,999	10 – 19,999
Director of Land and Nature	Harry Bowell	Accountable for developing and implementing strategies to restore a healthy, natural and beautiful natural environment.	130 – 139,999	20 – 29,999
Director of Communications and Marketing	Celia Richardson	Accountable for developing and implementing strategies for Marketing, Corporate Communications, Content and Partnerships and External Affairs.	110 – 119,999	20 – 29,999
Director of Curation and Experience	John Orna-Ornstein	Accountable for developing and implementing strategies to conserve and connect people to our cultural resources.	130 – 139,999	10 – 19,999
Director of Operations and Consultancy	Andy Beer	Accountable for the strategic delivery of Operations and Consultancy support for our properties and places.	130 – 139,999	10 – 19,999
Director of Support and Revenue	Sharon Pickford	Accountable for developing and implementing an integrated supporter and revenue growth plan.	120 – 129,999	10 – 19,999
General Counsel and Secretary	Jan Lasik	Accountable for providing legal services and leadership on constitution, governance and regulatory matters.	110 – 119,999	20 – 29,999
Director of People⁴ (Part time)	Tina Lewis	Accountable for providing business services and developing and implementing plans to ensure our people (both staff and volunteers) can perform their roles with confidence and ease.	120 – 129,999	10 – 19,999

Notes (2022-23)

1 Gross pay earned in the financial year excluding any salary sacrifice.
2 Value of additional staff benefits received in the financial year; can include voluntary health benefits and the employer contribution to the defined contribution pension scheme.
3 8 months pay received only; as PV took a period of unpaid leave 1 June 2022 to 30 Sept 2022
4 TL increased her part time hours from 0.8 FTE to 0.85 FTE on 31 Oct 2022