The infrastructure body Navca made a loss of almost £73,000 in the 2016/17 financial year, its most recent accounts show.

According to its accounts for the year to 31 March 2017, the membership body’s income fell from £476,766 in the previous year to £395,185 in 2016/17.

Expenditure also fell slightly from £581,050 to £564,785, the accounts show.

When net gains on investments of £82,326 and a £2,984 loss on Navca’s defined-benefit pension plan are taken into account, the accounts show that Navca made a loss of £72,725 for the year covered by the accounts.

It is the second year in a row that Navca has made a loss, with the infrastructure body losing £121,000 in the year to 31 March 2016.

Navca said last year that its trustees had planned to underwrite deficits between 2015/16 and 2017/18 so it could continue to operate in a “climate of unprecedented austerity”.

The umbrella body has reported a substantial fall in income in recent years because of the loss of funding from the Office for Civil Society and from other one-off grants, with its income in 2012/13 totalling about £2.6m.

The latest accounts also show that the number of members fell from 184 to 176 in 2016/17 – although membership income remained flat – and income from grants and projects fell by 21 per cent to £193,944.

Reserves are approximately £300,000, with the accounts saying this is likely to have increased to £500,000 by the end of March 2018.

Navca is carrying out a digital leadership programme, is implementing new research, member engagement and income generation plans, and is consulting with members on transforming its membership model, the latest accounts show.

Jane Ide, chief executive of Navca, said: “We established a three-year plan to address the financial issues we faced, and the results in our latest report show that we are firmly on track and making progress.

“We still have work to do and I’m in no way complacent about that, but we are in a good position at this point in the plan and I am very optimistic about Navca’s future as the voice of local infrastructure and a champion of local social action.”