The Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) earned a £47,329 profit in 2010, achieving a significant financial turnaround from 2009, when it ended the year with an operating deficit of £587,551.

When reduced costs and higher revenues were taken into consideration, the organisation’s 2010 performance improved by £634,880 over 2009, chief executive Kevin Green said.

The year’s financial results were revealed last week at the REC’s Annual General Meeting, which was attended by about 70 REC members and staff.

The results revealed that corporate membership accounted for 66% of the REC’s revenues in 2010, up from 54% three years before. Individual membership revenues were static at 7%, the identical percentage at which it stood in 2009, and continued a similar trend in 2007 and 2008 when the percentage contributed was 6% both years.

The REC gained 737 new corporate members in 2010, and has picked up 306 new members so far in 2011. Green said that the corporate membership renewal rate of 87.7% was the REC’s best in three years. The REC’s individual membership offering, the Institute of Recruitment Professionals, had 5,553 members last December and this month numbered 5,768.

This year, a variety of other professional recruitment bodies are competing with the REC for members, an issue which Green acknowledged in response to an audience question. “We welcome the competition,” he said. “I think we’ve got a great offering; we need to get the message across. There’s more work for us to do.”

Training income continued its decline, from contributing 13% of the REC’s revenues overall in 2007 to just 5% in 2010. That decline paralleled that occurring in the REC’s qualifications revenues, which fell from a 16% contribution in 2007 to 8% in 2010.

Green noted that the REC will launch “a whole new qualification” and process later this year, which will involve chief examiners and subject expert authors.

Members of the so-called Manifesto for Progress group, who have been vocal complainants about a variety of REC management issues, raised some long-running concerns at the AGM including their critical comments being deleted from an REC-moderated community forum.