Sector membership body SCVO has expressed disappointment at a lack of support being offered to charities by the Scottish government in light of increased employer national insurance contributions.
SCVO’s head of policy and research Kirsten Hogg described the Scottish government’s latest medium-term financial strategy (MTFS), which was published on Wednesday, as “warm words and empty promises”.
The sector body had called on the Scottish government to support the sector through the MTFS by ensuring grants and contracts between charities and the devolved administration, their agencies, and other public bodies, cover the full costs of employing staff, increased national insurance contributions (NICs), and inflation-based uplifts on par with those offered to public sector staff.
It also called for the Scottish government to align its “fairer funding” principles with the SCVO’s definition, including long-term action on the administration’s commitment to offer multi-year funding.
However, Hogg said the MTFS “offered neither” and that while the Scottish government’s recognition of the impact of increased employer NICs was “welcome”, more urgent action was needed to support organisations with additional costs.
Scottish sector needs more ‘urgent action’
The MTFS follows recent research from SCVO, which found that eight out of 10 organisations were reporting that financial difficulties ranked among their most significant challenges.
Hogg said action to extend multi-year funding more widely than a current pilot to charities contributing to Scottish government priorities across all departments “was not taken in the MTFS”.
She went on to say: "While the MTFS recognised the benefits of multi-year pay deals for the public sector workforce, and that this certainty improves public services and outcomes for the people and communities, there was no recognition of the voluntary sector’s essential contribution to public service delivery or the need to ensure voluntary sector staff benefit from multi-year grants and contracts, which should cover the full costs of employing staff.
“This strategy, like many promises made by Scottish government over the years, once again asks the Scottish voluntary sector to wait for support, while 81% of charities and voluntary organisations face financial challenges and more than one in 10 have no choice but to stop one or more strands of their work.
"Our sector makes a significant contribution to the Scottish economy and the government’s ambitions to end child poverty, grow the economy, tackle the climate emergency, and improve public services.
"To support this, our sector needed action, not warm words and empty promises."
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