Three Scottish charity bodies announce job losses as funding cuts bite

Finance | Vibeka Mair | 31 Jan 2011

Three Scottish charitable organisations, including the umbrella body Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, have announced redundancies this week as a result of funding cuts.

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is to make 23 people redundant from a total of 132 staff.

Martin Sime, SCVO chief executive, said: “In these tough times making difficult decisions is something our members and the voluntary sector as a whole are facing on a daily and weekly basis. Like every organisation in the sector SCVO is not immune to funding constraints, but it makes it no less painful to lose valued colleagues who have contributed so much to our organisation and the sector.”

SCVO gets funding from a variety of sources, including the Scottish government, Big Lottery Fund and member charities.

An SCVO spokesperson told Civil Society that few short-term contracts had come to an end and the overhead money from these was no longer available.

Further, the Scottish Refugee Council has announced 44 of its 59 staff are at risk of redundancy while it has confirmed that 25 per cent of its staff will definitely be cut due to losing contracts with the UK Border Agency.

And Apex Scotland, a charity which works with ex-offenders says some of its 160 staff are at risk of redundancy.

An Apex Scotland spokesman said it was too early to know how many staff would be affected but a redundancy consultation process was in process:

“Many of our streams of funding come to an end in March,” he said. “And with changes in government policy it is likely some contracts will not be renewed. We have notified staff under certain contracts that the funding for their work is unlikely to be around in March.”

Directory: SCVO
Who's Who: Martin Sime

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