Changes at the Bat Conservation Trust

BCT works to secure the future of bats in a changing world and our vision is a world where people and bats thrive together in harmony. The Bat Conservation Trust (BCT) has grown significantly over the last decade but so have the demands on our resources and in common with many other charities we have experienced financial gaps due to the recession and rising costs.

Over the last few months the Board of Trustees along with our Chief Executive, Julia Hanmer, have been assessing what cost savings would enable BCT's core functions to continue and ensure capacity for sustainable growth into the future.

After examining several options, we have decided not to fill two posts which became vacant, Built Environment Officer and Press and Communications Officer and to streamline and restructure functions within the senior management team. This course of action has been identified as having the greatest potential for substantially reducing costs whilst retaining essential functions within BCT. Part of this process includes the merger of some of the senior management team roles into a new full time Joint Chief Executive role (reducing the senior management team as a whole from 24 days to 15.5 days per week). Julia Hanmer (current Chief Executive) and Kit Stoner (current Director of Operations) have been appointed to this new Joint Chief Executive post, as a job share, starting on 7 July 2014. Unfortunately as part of this restructuring, we have had to make the very difficult decision of making one of our senior members of staff redundant, Dr Karen Haysom (current Director of Science). Karen is handing over her current role by 7 July 2014 and will then be working on some discrete tasks for BCT, finishing on 23 July 2014. BCT remains committed to basing its conservation delivery on robust scientific evidence and will continue to be a user and generator of scientific evidence to underpin bat conservation; the Joint Chief Executive role will take overall responsibility for BCT's science and monitoring work. Other roles in the Senior Management Team remain unchanged (Director of Conservation and Director of Communications and Fundraising).

We will be in touch with our stakeholders and partners over the next few weeks to outline any changes in contacts, or do get in touch with Julia Hanmer (jhanmer@bats.org.uk) Tel 020 7820 7178 for further information

Professor Kate Jones, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Bat Conservation Trust, 18 June 2014