Top Sephardi earner takes pay cut

A spokesman for the congregation said it would not comment ahead of the meeting — or on matters relating to “individual salaries”.

But the accounts stated that the combined cost of its two “key management personnel” — Rabbi Dweck and chief executive David Arden — dropped from £277,951 in 2019 to £224,380 in 2020, including national insurance and pension contributions.

Trustees reported that after completing a “significant restructuring exercise” in November 2019, the SPSC community had been looking to the year ahead with “a sense of some stability and certainty”.

But the pandemic was partly responsible for a net drop in members from 1,084 to 1,042 over the course of the year.

According to the accounts, the SPSC had moved within 18 months from “a substantial operating deficit to a near break-even position”, spending £126,309 more than its income of £2,399,050 in 2020.

Reserves stood at over £10.6 million, with just under £4 million in investments and the rest in land and buildings, excluding synagogues.

The opening of the La Petite nursery on the Lauderdale Road Synagogue site in Maida Vale in 2019 would encourage young families to join, trustees hoped. And the move of the offices from Maida Vale to Hendon the same year aimed to bring closer “a new cohort of young, modern-thinking Sephardi communities” in North-West London.

They said they were implementing a plan which included “a cost-cutting programme and increasing fundraising that will have cash surpluses in future years”. But they warned that if donations fell by 20 per cent, the community might have to draw on its investments.

According to the investment committee accounts for 2019, the SPSC took out a loan of £200,000, which it paid back at three per cent interest in October that year and withdrew as capital.

Participation in online activities grew over the first six months of the pandemic and remained stable, while attendance numbers at the weekday online services had “exceeded pre-pandemic” levels.