NARRATIVE REPORT 2009 - The ICHRP

International Council on Human Rights Policy - Narrative Report 2009
Notes on the 2009 budget
1. The International Council’s financial year runs from 1 January to 31 December. Its accounts are in Swiss
Francs. The budget covers the period from 1 January to 3I December 2009.
2. The Secretariat has taken further steps to allocate costs to projects rationally. Though staff time has
been allocated to projects for several years (using timesheets), some direct and indirect costs were not
similarly attributed, though projects incur most of the expenditure. This year, a share of the running
costs has been attributed to projects, based on staff time. (In broad terms, projects incur a share of
costs that is proportionate to the amount of staff time spent on them.)
3. In this budget, we have excluded these allocations in order to simplify the comparison between the
budget and the actual. Indeed, when the budget is constructed, only a portion of running costs is
allocated to projects in order to simplify our calculations. The allocations can be precisely made at the
end of each year. The Profit and Loss by project shows all allocations made to each project and can be
found in the annexes (Appendix V(b)).
4. Costs allocated are the following: Overheads, which include the running costs (“Operating Expenditure”),
as well as a portion of staff time spent on administration (“Staff Salaries”), including recruitment costs;
“Governance”, which includes Board meetings, Council meetings and other governance related activities,
such as reporting to Swiss authorities; “General Projects” (Project reference 101), which includes
representation of the Council at meetings, and all other activities that benefit all projects but that cannot
be specifically attributed to one project in particular; “Fundraising” (Project reference 101-FR);
“Communications” (Project reference 700); and “IT & Website” (Project reference 500).
5. The effect of the new arrangement has been to allocate more costs to the Council’s core activity, which
is the delivery of research and research projects. We are currently testing this model and will be in a
position to evaluate it at the end of 2010.
6. The Council’s budget is divided into Projects and Administrative Expenses. The latter include
governance, staff, and operating expenses (which includes financing costs).
7. Projects include the costs of all project activities that take place during the year, including feasibility
costs of new projects that started in 2009 or will start in 2010.
8. General projects include research costs that cannot be attributed to individual projects, costs that are
incurred before projects are designed, and the costs of projects that do not proceed to design.
9. Governance expenses include all costs related to Council and Board meetings. They include staff time
spent on organising such meetings, including preparation of documents and notes, and the travel and
other costs of Board and Council members. They also include all governance related activities, such as
reporting to State authorities.
10. Operating expenses mainly include running costs (such as the rent, electricity, depreciation and
amortisation of fixed and intangible assets), as well as financing expenditure (such as bank charges and
interest). With the method used this year, these costs have also been allocated to projects.
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