Voluntary Sector (Funding)
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-06405, in the name of Gavin Brown, on funding of the voluntary sector. This debate and the debate that follows are very heavily subscribed, so the Presiding Officers will keep members very firmly to time.
14:41
I am delighted to open this Conservative debate on funding of the voluntary sector. Members across the chamber will applaud the critical role that the sector plays all through Scotland week in, week out. Voluntary sector workers perform their duties with professionalism and they help many of our most vulnerable citizens and those who lead the most complex of lives. Almost without exception, they have very good local knowledge, whether they work for a genuinely local charity or for a national charity with a local branch. They are specialists in what they do and they tackle some of the most stubborn challenges faced in society, whether homelessness, unemployment, poverty or reoffending. Importantly, they are trusted; they are not part of the state, so the service users who rely on them trust their independent expertise and judgment.
We could easily spend the entire afternoon talking about the merits and strengths of the third sector or the difficulties and challenges that it currently faces. However, on this particular occasion we want to see action, and in order to make genuine progress on what we think is a critical issue, we want to narrow the focus. This afternoon, we want to have a very targeted focus on the vital subject of multiyear funding for the third sector.
I will focus on why we believe that that is important. We will look at the joint statement on the relationship at local level between Government and the third sector that was signed in 2009, we will look at the results that we have seen since the joint statement was made and we will close with the action that we are asking the Government to take to move the issue forward.
Three-year funding is important because we want strategic investment in the third sector. The third sector really wants to see parity of investment and opportunity when compared with other sectors. In its briefing for the debate, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations said that it believes that it is
“strangled by annual funding”.
Let me praise the work of the SCVO, as it has been particularly helpful in driving the issue forward over the past couple of years.
Will the member give way?
I think that this is the first time that Willie Rennie has ever intervened on me, so I will take his intervention.
It might be considered as friendly fire.
I, too, congratulate the SCVO on its support for the voluntary sector. The Liberal Democrats do not have a speaking slot in this debate, but I wanted to lend our support to Gavin Brown’s efforts for three-year funding. There is an increasing focus on preventative measures and early intervention. Does Gavin Brown think that three-year funding would help those efforts to secure those long-term goals?
I welcome that Liberal Democrat support. It is not the first time that I have heard a Liberal Democrat support the three-year funding measure, but to hear it again is most welcome.
Would three-year funding help with preventative measures? In comparison with single-year funding, it undoubtedly would. There will be occasions when funding for longer than three years is deemed necessary and is the right thing to do, and there will be occasions when short-term funding is the only option and is better than nothing. However, as a general proposition, three-year funding is a far better suggestion for the third sector than is annualised funding, which is what is often provided today.
Single-year funding is just not an ineffective way in which to conduct business. It is inefficient because it means that far too much time is spent on application processes, and it diverts key staff away from the critical function of delivering for the most vulnerable service users. Any time that is spent on filling in extra application forms is time that is not spent on the front line with those who need their help.
Single-year funding can also lead to instability. What is required is stable employment for staff in the third sector and a stable and consistent service for service users. Close and long-lasting relationships are key for the most vulnerable citizens, who use the services, and any hint of instability through single-year funding is to be avoided. When inefficiency is combined with instability, that leads to a less effective service for those who truly need it and an overall negative impact.
It is important to conduct the debate in Parliament, as it is pretty difficult for individual charities and voluntary sector groups that are going to lose out to stand up for themselves publicly. For example, a charity that is reliant on one particular local authority for survival is unlikely to complain seriously about getting only a single-year deal because of the perception—if not the reality, although it could be both—that that would count against it in the next funding round. Therefore, it takes it on the chin, crosses its fingers and hopes for the best for next year, the year after and probably the year after that. It is critical that Parliament stands up for the third sector, as it is difficult for individual organisations to do so.
The issue of three-year funding has been recognised by many in the public sector, including the present Scottish Government, which was responsible for pulling together the joint statement on the relationship at local level between Government and the third sector. That statement was signed by the Government, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the SCVO. On paper, it is a very useful piece of work that covers what successful relationships should look like, talking about funding, shared services, applications and evaluations. In paragraph 7, it states that
“as a general rule funders will aim to take a three-year approach to both grant and contract funding”.
It is there in black and white, and it has been signed up to by all parties. However, what matters is what happens on the ground in relation to three-year funding, not what appears in a document.
I accept that there is no full evidence base at this stage to outline exactly how many local authorities have followed the statement and how many have not. We will call for that from the Government later in the debate. However, the anecdotal evidence is heavy that, in practice, the joint statement has not made an enormous difference in respect of three-year funding. Many organisations say that three-year funding is the exception rather than the rule and that the statement is ignored almost as much as—and potentially more than—it is applied.
During a round-table discussion that was attended by members from across the chamber, it became apparent that annualised funding was the most common form of funding and that, on occasion, six-monthly funding happened, too. It also became apparent that some work, sometimes lasting months, is done up front by third sector organisations before a contract is put in place, which means that they bear the risk if the contract is not concluded. One particular organisation stated that it has no contract at all for 40 per cent of its engagements with the public sector, that only one in six of its contracts has multiyear funding and that, at the time—this was a couple of months ago—with 10 weeks to go before the next financial year, it had no idea about the funding arrangements for 60 per cent of its operations.
It is clear that action is required. In the past couple of months, the Scottish Government has appeared to be listening. I call on it to take forward some of the ideas, look at the concerns and gather the evidence base that is needed to make progress and to prevent single-year funding and adopt three-year funding.
The spirit—and the letter—of the joint statement should be implemented in practice. As a general rule and a default position, the public sector ought to give three-year funding to the third sector.
How can that most effectively be achieved? Simply having a debate shines a light on the issue, particularly if consensus is reached in the debate.
As set out in the motion, we call on the Scottish Government to remind all those organisations over which it has both direct and indirect influence about the joint statement and the responsibilities contained in it. It is time to examine in more detail the credible claims made by individual third sector players and the groups that represent them. We need an evidence base to show the extent—with regard to volume and value—to which three-year funding is happening on the ground. By shining a light on the issue, we can initiate change.
I move,
That the Parliament acknowledges the outstanding contribution made across Scotland by the third sector; recognises the importance of multi-year funding to the sector in order to allow it to maximise its contribution; notes the Joint Statement on the Relationship at Local Level between Government and the Third Sector, which states that “as a general rule funders will aim to take a three-year approach to both grant and contract funding”; is concerned by reports that this three-year approach does not happen as widely as it could; calls on local authorities, NHS boards and the wider public sector to take a three-year approach as a general rule, and further calls on the Scottish Government to encourage the application of the joint statement on the ground and to review how widely the three-year approach currently happens in practice.
14:51
I congratulate the Conservative Party on securing this subject for debate, and I thank Gavin Brown for raising the issues that he has raised.
I reinforce Mr Brown’s words by paying very warm tribute to the work that the third sector undertakes in all the communities that we represent. We will all be familiar with the valuable and significant role that is performed by the third sector in community activity, in reaching some of the individuals who have the greatest challenges in our society and in ensuring that many of the solutions that are designed to address those issues on behalf of members of the public are formed in a way that addresses the needs and circumstances of every individual.
The state could not—literally—deliver the services that the third sector provides, and nor would that be a good thing, because it would intrude on a genuine level of community development and empowerment that the Government believes in and will legislate on in due course in the bill that will be introduced by the Minister for Local Government and Planning.
The Government is clear about the role of the third sector and since being elected to office in 2007 we have taken steps to ensure that it occupies a strong and stable place in the delivery of public policy and, in particular, in delivering the Government’s agenda on public service reform and community planning.
If I trace back to the initial steps that the Government took in the 2007 spending review, I see that we gave a three-year settlement to local authorities, health boards and the third sector through the third sector budget and we took steps to entrench the role of the third sector in many aspects of the design and delivery of our public policy. We encouraged the establishment of the interface organisations at local level. A criticism made by other public bodies was that the Government’s demands that there be broader engagement with the third sector were difficult to pursue at local level because of the multiplicity of organisations undertaking that activity. The interface established in all parts of the country was designed to give a clear opportunity to articulate the interests of the third sector and to focus on discussion and dialogue with other public sector partners.
We made it clear in the arrangements around community planning and the formulation of single outcome agreements that we expected third sector organisations to be represented around the community planning table as equal partners with public sector organisations. I have persistently made it clear that if there are examples around the country of that not taking place, I want to know about them, so that I can remedy the position and ensure that the third sector is strongly represented.
We have also made it clear that the third sector has a strong role to undertake in the delivery of public service reform, particularly in delivering the Christie commission’s recommendations on integration of services at local level. We see the third sector as being a key player in that process.
A key element of whether the third sector can be successful in delivering public services is whether we have a broader range of organisations that are able to deliver those public services at local level. That is why we have invested significantly in some of the enterprise development programmes, to encourage the emergence of a broader range of social enterprises in Scotland—the just enterprise programme, the enterprise growth fund and the developing markets contracts. All those enterprises have served to strengthen the third sector’s ability to tender for public sector activity. I enumerate that detail to demonstrate that the Government is pursuing a clear and consistent approach to strengthening the third sector at local level and to giving it more entrenched opportunities to participate in the delivery of public services.
I turn to the issue of three-year funding, which is the focal point of the Conservative motion today. I want to say at the outset that I agree in principle and in practice with the Conservative point on this issue. Indeed, Gavin Brown has fairly reflected the fact that a preference for three-year funding—I think that it is a preference, given that it is not mandatory in the joint statement—lies at the heart of the 2009 statement that was agreed jointly between the Government, the SCVO, SOLACE and COSLA. I am committed to ensuring that, wherever possible, we can deliver three-year funding allocations to public bodies to enable them to deliver on those commitments. We delivered a three-year settlement in 2008 to span the three succeeding financial years, and delivered a three-year settlement to commence in 2012 to span the next three years. Therefore public sector organisations can have a reasonable amount of confidence about the rough shape of their funding allocations. They will not be able to see precisely what resources they will have at their disposal in future, but they will certainly be able to see the general shape of those resources. In my opinion, the funding indications that the Government has given provide no obstacle to such certainty also being passed on to third sector organisations, where public bodies believe that to be appropriate.
On Gavin Brown’s point about a call for action, I am willing to explore the issues around and performance on the delivery—or not, as the case may be—of three-year funding. I am willing to discuss with relevant public sector partners how we can take forward the particular concern. I accept in principle the point that if we give funding certainty to organisations, they will be able to spend more time focusing on the delivery of better outcomes for the citizens involved, rather than wondering where the money is going to come from. We will certainly explore those questions, and that is at the heart of the Government’s amendment today. We look forward to hearing the points that are raised in the debate this afternoon.
I move amendment S4M-06405.2, to insert at end:
“in partnership with local authorities, COSLA, the wider public sector and the third sector itself.”
14:59
I thank Gavin Brown for persuading his colleagues to use their time for this useful and important debate. We will be supporting both the Conservative motion and the Government amendment. At the risk of appearing too cosy with Gavin Brown, I also thank him for hosting in January the round table on strategic funding and the third sector. It was a very worthwhile meeting that brought into stark reality the chaos that single-year funding and delayed funding decisions bring to third sector organisations.
We can all testify to the work done by the third sector and by charities in Scotland. Their efforts often go unnoticed and unappreciated, yet they are a vital cog in our society—dare I say, they are one of the hallmarks of the genuine big society: a community that cares.
We should also recognise that third sector organisations provide essential services. They do not simply top up existing services or provide recreational activities; rather, they are the care providers and the addiction services and the ones on the front line dealing with unemployment, homelessness and offending. We need to stop treating the third sector as an addendum to state provision and start thinking of it as an equal partner.
Multiyear funding must be an integral part of that approach. At the round table in January, we heard at first hand from several major organisations which, at that stage—a matter of weeks before the new financial year—still had no clue about which projects they could run, which staff they could retain, which buildings they could continue to rent and even where they would be operating from.
The motion highlights action that could be taken by local government and health boards, but it is worth noting that the Scottish Government’s employability schemes, delivered by Skills Development Scotland, are also awarded to training providers on one-year contracts. Multiyear funding not only gives security to organisations that are in receipt of contracts, but provides stability for specific projects and, crucially, for service users. In turn, that provides continuity for local authorities, which do not then have to pick up the pieces when voluntary organisations’ funding is cut. It allows third sector organisations to focus on long-term outcomes, rather than just short-term funding considerations, and allows time and room for innovation in a sector that is often best placed to be the innovator of public service delivery.
As I said at the outset, we will support the motion, but we feel it necessary to amend it to raise the wider issues of third sector funding. Reorganising funding towards a strategic funding approach is an important step and one that I hope the Government will act on today, but the issue of funding the third sector generally is also important. At a time of reducing income for third sector organisations, their workload is heavier than ever. With welfare reform comes increased pressure on advice services, support for the homeless, food banks and care providers.
With more than a fifth of all funding for the third sector coming from local government, it is no surprise that the more than £200 million of cuts to local authority budgets over the next year will have a knock-on effect on the funding that is given to organisations. Many charities are supported in one way or another by local government, whether through direct core grants or the provision of services, such as transport to and from activities. All of them will feel the strain as the cuts begin to bite.
One direct fund that the Scottish Government administers is the third sector early intervention fund, which replaced two existing revenue streams. It is worth noting that, despite the rather panicky additional interim funding of £10 million that the Minister for Children and Young People rushed out, the new fund is still worth less than the support that was previously available. Even more worrying is the fact that the fund was four times oversubscribed, with more than 400 groups applying and a total of £73.4 million requested. Many organisations reported their concern about not being given enough notice of whether they would receive funding, with the result that no long-term planning could be completed and staff were put on redundancy notices. On 2 April, The Herald reported that many organisations are leading an “uncomfortable hand-to-mouth existence”.
That is no way to support our third sector and it is the reason why multiyear funding is necessary. It is needed to remove the threat of projects ending precipitately and to end the morale-sapping practice of organisations, of necessity, issuing annual redundancy notices, despite their then finding that the funding is renewed. A practical suggestion that my colleague Richard Simpson MSP has pursued is to make it a requirement that funding decisions be made at least three months prior to the secession of funding, or to insist on three months of funding after a decision to terminate a contract so that staff are not necessarily threatened with redundancy. I hope that the cabinet secretary will reconsider that.
I look forward to the rest of the debate and, I hope, to our coming to a consensus on multiyear funding. Labour will support the motion and the amendments.
I move amendment S4M-06405.1, to insert at end:
“; further notes that the Third Sector Early Intervention Fund was oversubscribed, meaning that many organisations missed out on core funding and is concerned that the interim funding to support those organisations will shortly run out; acknowledges that the third sector is operating under extreme pressure, providing essential services with limited resources, particularly as a result of decisions taken by the UK Government on welfare reform and the Scottish Government on local government spending, and praises all those who work and volunteer in the third sector.”
We move to the open debate, with speeches of up to four minutes, including interventions, please.
15:04
I have carefully read Gavin Brown’s motion on voluntary sector funding and I cannot find a single word that I disagree with, which is probably a first in my parliamentary career. John Swinney’s amendment certainly finishes it off properly.
I have great respect for the third sector’s ability, often with limited financial resources, to connect, reach and empower communities to help to address important social, cultural and economic needs, and for its ability to multiply the impact of those resources, which often gain a social return that other agencies would be proud of—or might be embarrassed about. I am keenly aware of the critical role that the third sector plays in the community planning agenda and in meeting the outcomes of community planning single outcome agreements. I therefore very much support the call in the Conservative motion for multiyear funding that affords the sector the opportunity to plan effectively to deliver sustainable services.
In my experience, the sector can and will go the extra mile. That is for one reason: it can see the need for action in society. The sector brings expertise, capacity and connectivity to communities and enables the neighbourhood approaches that we know provide the most benefit, to achieve success beyond statutory engagement alone.
We should note that, just a few months ago, the Scottish Government’s budget was cut by the Conservative Administration in London. So much for the forward planning that is implicit in the motion. That suggests to me that the Conservatives do not have the same level of commitment to stability as the rest of us have.
I have no doubt that, in the coming weeks and months, the third sector across Scotland—indeed, the third sector across the whole United Kingdom—will come under severe pressure not only financially but from capacity issues. That is as sure as night follows day.
When the benefit cuts take hold and the impact is felt at all levels, some of the fallout will be picked up by an already overstretched third sector—by, for example, advice services, child and family support services, homelessness agencies and, increasingly, food banks. I know that that will happen and that the third sector will do what it can to alleviate potentially devastating effects on our communities and to help those who are least able to help themselves and who are experiencing the blunt end of the Westminster-led reform of social welfare. We are only at the start of the impact of the Westminster reform agenda, and we are already seeing a profound need for our communities to come together to help one another in the Scottish tradition of community action and support.
How can we expect the third sector to maintain its critical role without the ability to plan over a minimum three-year term? The more all the agencies—from the national Government to local authorities to the third sector—combine to ensure that every person works to their capacity and that every pound is properly targeted with little or no wastage, the more we will have a chance to use and direct our resources to address the challenges that lie in store for our country.
15:08
As convener of the cross-party group on volunteering and the voluntary sector, I thank Gavin Brown for bringing the debate to the chamber. Just last week, the cross-party group heard from Handicabs, which is an annually funded, Lothian-based community transport charity. The difference that being funded over three years would make to it is that it would have security of business and hence, of course, security for service users.
The third sector does a tremendous job in tackling the problems that we face in Scotland compassionately and effectively under huge financial pressure. I am sure that all members would join me in expressing gratitude to all those who work and volunteer in that sector.
The Scottish and UK Governments appear to take advantage of charitable organisations in Scotland, as they are cutting more and more public services and expecting—indeed, encouraging—the third sector to extend itself further into vital public service delivery with insecure and inadequate budgets. As the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations has pointed out, the debate is not about giving charities more funding, although a halt to the reductions seen in Government spending on the third sector last year would be welcome, but about giving organisations certainty over how much funding they will get and when they will get it, which allows them to plan and deliver services securely, invest in their staff and communities and build projects that service users can rely on when they need them most.
Despite the joint statement on the relationship at local level between Government and the third sector, many third sector organisations are trapped in a yearly cycle of making funding applications. That not only undermines staff morale and increases turnover but reduces the time and scarce resources that are spent on reaching out to those in need and developing the organisation.
Clearly, we need a renewed commitment from local authorities that they will endeavour to increase spending commitments to a three-year cycle or more, in accordance with their agreement under the joint statement. The reality is that, due to a roll-back of public sector services, third sector organisations provide a lifeline to many communities in Scotland that they simply could not do without. It is incumbent on us all to ensure that, when organisations are threatened because of financial uncertainty, the Scottish and UK Governments act quickly and decisively to ensure their survival and their service users’ wellbeing.
Therefore, I support the motion in calling for the Scottish Government to carry out a review of how common the application of a three-year approach to funding is across Scotland, to pinpoint where inconsistencies exist and use that information to draw up guidelines for local authorities, and in strongly encouraging a three-year approach to funding and therefore going some way to allowing for financial certainty across the board in Scotland for third sector organisations.
15:12
I, too, welcome the debate, and Gavin Brown is to be congratulated on bringing it forward.
The Local Government and Regeneration Committee is in the third strand of its inquiry into public service reform. As we have gone around the country, we have found a level of uncertainty in the third sector and community-based organisations in certain geographical areas. As a councillor in my past life, I found that annual grants to organisations did not necessarily deliver the goods on the ground and that what was required was certainty about funding for the third sector organisation that was fulfilling a contract and certainty for the council that that was being done.
It benefits all to move, when possible, to three-year funding. It offers the people who receive the services that are being delivered a sense of security. I hope that changes that are made through the proposed community empowerment and renewal bill will mean that the various bodies in community planning partnerships go to meetings before they take budgetary decisions and discuss future budgetary decisions, which I hope will lead to more joined-up thinking and more common sense, so that we will see much more joint procurement of services over three years.
We are in exciting times in that regard. I wish that we did not have to deal with the cuts that are taking place, but where we are means that we can be a bit more flexible than previously. We can come up with much more radical thinking about the delivery of services across the board.
There are always plenty of warm words for the third sector, but in many places the sector’s work is still not appreciated as much as it should be. I might get a slap on the fingers from colleagues in local government for saying this, but my experience tells me that the third sector does better in many areas of service delivery than councils and the health service do. I hope that we will get to a point at which folks can take their hands off the purse strings and trust others—whether we are talking about the third sector or community organisations—to deliver services. We are getting to the point at which we will realise that hope of mine.
I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the issue and I hope that folk out there are listening to what has been said and are aware of the level of consensus that there has been in the debate so far. I hope that budget controllers will give a little leeway in the future.
15:16
I know very little about being cosy with Gavin Brown, but I assure Ken Macintosh that Mr Brown did not have to persuade any of his colleagues to bring the motion for debate in the Parliament. We fully support the debate, which is as timely as it is important, given that we are approaching one of my favourite weeks of the year—volunteers week.
Everyone who takes part in volunteers week is reminded of just what a debt we all owe to the voluntary and third sector, as Gavin Brown said and others reiterated. During volunteers week every year, I remind anyone who will listen to me that, as John Swinney said, if the third sector ceased to function, there is no way on earth that the state or the private sector—or even both together—could pick up the pieces and continue to deliver the range of services that the third sector provides.
The third sector’s work is invaluable and I greatly welcome a debate that focuses on the financial security and sustainability of organisations in the sector. I commend the SCVO for responsibly saying, in the useful briefing paper that it sent us, that
“Whilst this debate is about money, SCVO are clear that it is not necessarily about ‘more money’ for the third sector”.
The debate is, however, about getting the best value for money. No organisation, however earnest its intentions, can do that when its funding is decided annually or more frequently, often so late in the budget process that bodies are left in the dark as to whether the services that they seek to deliver will be funded at all on 1 April.
I am sure that I am not alone in having received, over the years, anguished calls from third sector organisations as the end of a financial year approaches, when they have had to issue redundancy notices to key employees as a precautionary measure, in case hoped-for funding was not forthcoming. No private or public sector enterprise could be expected to operate in such a fashion, and it cannot be right to expect third sector organisations to do so.
As has been made clear, the Government’s intentions were entirely honourable when it brought out the joint third sector statement, which sets out guidelines for best practice in funding the sector. The statement says:
“As a general rule funders will aim to take a 3-year approach to both grant and contract funding.”
As we all know, the best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley. It is all too clear that, as the SCVO put it in another briefing paper:
“in our experience three year funding is rare to non-existent between local authorities and third sector organisations”.
I think that we all agree that that cannot go on, and I would like to think that the cross-party support for the motion that seems to be emerging, and which I think is achievable, might begin the process of changing the situation. Everyone wants the same thing; it is simply a question of having the will to make it happen.
In the short time that remains, I will highlight a local situation about which I harbour serious concerns. Almost a third of Scottish Government funding for the third sector next year will be delivered through the third sector interface, which has been established for entirely understandable reasons. In Dumfries and Galloway, the interface has been put in place, but Stewartry Council of Voluntary Service and Nithsdale Council of Voluntary Service—the two most active and effective of four such councils in the region—felt that they had no option other than to exclude themselves from the new structure.
I appreciate the cabinet secretary’s involvement in that debate and I understand why he felt that he had no choice other than to press ahead, but I put on record my concerns at the prospect of a third sector interface that excludes about 50 per cent of the organisations involved. That concern aside, I have great pleasure in supporting the motion in Gavin Brown’s name.
Thank you, and I apologise to you and the earlier speakers for the drilling and thumping that our esteemed contractors are doing outside the building. That is—allegedly—being dealt with.
15:20
I take great delight in taking part in the debate and in the comments that have been made about the voluntary sector. My speech will be about my experiences as a volunteer and working in the voluntary sector.
It must be a good 13 or 14 years ago that I was one of the volunteer founders and youth workers at Westerton junior youth club. Before that, I was the volunteer librarian at the Marie Curie Huntershill hospice in Springburn. After my son went to school, I was fortunate that the voluntary sector came to me and asked me to come and work for it. I worked in East Dunbartonshire Council for Voluntary Service, which is now East Dunbartonshire Voluntary Action as a result of the merger of Volunteer Centre East Dunbartonshire and East Dunbartonshire Council for Voluntary Service. I also worked in Carers Link in Milngavie. A lot of the comments that I will make today come out of that work, instead of my usual facts, figures and evidence.
It is interesting that Gavin Brown talked about the fact that there is no great evidence base for how we fund the voluntary sector, and I support the call for us to go out and get that evidence. Funding is important to the voluntary sector—the SCVO 2012 sector survey showed that. Funding, especially three-year funding, was recognised at paragraphs 7 and 8 of the 2009 joint statement on the relationship at local level between Government and the third sector. Each of those publications talks about something other than funding that my experience also supports, which is the third sector and the voluntary sector being recognised for what they are—skilled providers of services and support to the most vulnerable in our communities, as my colleague Gil Paterson said.
I was pleased to hear the cabinet secretary talk about another aspect that is incredibly important. The third sector and voluntary organisations are recognised as equal partners in the delivery of services, the development of policy and their role of advocating for the vulnerable communities that they support and serve. I was pleased to hear the cabinet secretary say that today.
When I was on holiday in Skye last year, the Cabinet was there and, at the meeting in Portree, the citizens advice bureau asked the cabinet secretary a question from the floor. People left that meeting having heard the cabinet secretary say how much he values and supports the third sector and how he sees third sector organisations as partners in delivery. I was pleased to hear that again today and I know that the third sector recognises that.
I am also pleased to see that such recognition is coming through in legislation, such as the proposed procurement reform bill. I was in the chamber for the debate on that and it was interesting to hear members and the cabinet secretary talking about it. It is important that that is recognised in the Scottish Government’s guidance note on community benefits in public procurement. I will not quote it, but I guide members to it to see how important it is.
I am pleased that the Government recognises and understands the importance of the third sector. It is incredibly important that, after today’s debate, local authorities and other public agencies do exactly the same thing.
15:24
I am delighted to take part in this debate on the important subject of Scotland’s outstanding voluntary sector. I thank Gavin Brown for securing the time in the chamber to consider the pressures facing third sector organisations.
The on-going economic circumstances mean that, for charities of all sizes, securing funding is a continuous struggle. In my region of Glasgow, few—if any—organisations can be confident about their ability to provide crucial services over the next few years. Many operate on budgets that represent a fraction of what they used to receive.
Welfare reforms mean that more and more ordinary Scottish people will rely on the ability of charities to provide additional support for communities that had until recently been able to survive without assistance. That hardship has been compounded by the Scottish Government’s hesitation to mitigate those reforms and by the draconian cuts that have been handed down to councils throughout Scotland.
A grave example of that is food banks. In this country, food banks are now feeding more than 14,000 people every year—that is 14,000 people who can no longer put food on the table for their families and who cannot afford to do anything other than put a roof over their heads. The number of people who rely on food banks has risen by more than 150 per cent compared with the same time in 2012 and it shows no signs of falling.
That is the devastating reality of living in the eighth-richest nation on earth. Our priorities should always be to invest in the economy to create jobs—[Interruption.] I am not sure whether someone wants to intervene. Our priority should also be to reduce the devastating level of unemployment throughout the country.
However, if we are to cut benefits, public sector funding and local government funding, how do we expect the most vulnerable among us to survive? We often talk in the chamber about the tragic choice between heating and eating. The reality is that some of the families whom we are talking about do not even have such a luxury.
I agree that the third sector plays a crucial role in improving the lives of the most vulnerable people in our communities. I also agree with the SCVO that steps could be taken to improve the third sector’s efficiency without allocating increased financial resources at a time of economic hardship. Instead of awarding grants on a six-monthly or annual basis, we should commit to the projects that we support and offer our charities—small and large—the security of a three-year funding commitment.
Overburdening charities that are already overstretched is not a solution to the problems caused by political mismanagement. If we want the voluntary sector to deliver more, we must find the resources to fund it appropriately. To challenge effectively the growing levels of poverty and disadvantage in Scotland, the public and voluntary sectors must work together to provide assistance to those who need it most, without leaving the most vulnerable people in our communities behind.
15:28
I, too, congratulate Gavin Brown on bringing this important debate to the chamber. For the most part, I felt that we would get through the debate in a very consensual manner. It is perhaps unfortunate that the previous speaker decided to politicise it.
I worked in the third sector prior to being elected and I was very much aware of the importance of three-year funding. The organisation that I worked for was perhaps one of the rare ones that were referred to earlier, because we had three-year funding. I was very much aware of the fact that other third sector organisations were given only one-year funding. That precluded organisations from forward planning and staff from feeling confident about their future. That had an impact on how services were delivered to the wider community.
The issue is not all about funding and money; it is about confidence. Gavin Brown mentioned professionalism. There is professionalism—and trust—in the third sector that I know. The community at large trusts the third sector.
I keep talking about the third sector rather than the voluntary sector because I believe that the use of the term “third sector” confers kudos to it. We have the public sector, we have the private sector and we have the third sector. I sometimes think that talking about the voluntary sector creates a perception in people’s minds that everyone in the sector is a volunteer. The majority of people in the third sector are employed to provide a service. Of course, they are quite often complemented by many volunteers, to ensure that the service is delivered in the way that the customer group needs it to be.
Three-year funding is essential for organisations. There is probably historical evidence that organisations have been delivering using year-on-year contracts. However, it is essential that we ensure that we are getting best value for each pound. Councils are strapped for cash sometimes, and they need to ensure that whoever is providing a service on their behalf is doing so to the best of their ability and is meeting needs fully, to the full value of the money that is being spent. That is why it is important that agencies do not replicate the work of other agencies in the sector. Those that are doing so should consider merging. When organisations consider what they can provide and who they are providing for, they should take a look at their neighbouring organisations and ask whether they are doing the same job and, if so, whether they could come together, if only for one project. That can sometimes deliver the best value for the clients in the area.
I was a service manager in the first agency in Scotland to bring sensory impairment issues under one roof. That was the result of a merger of two organisations that came together to deliver the best possible service for a community. I believe that that model should be replicated, as it is delivering the service that the client group needs it to deliver.
15:32
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate about funding for the third sector. Like others in the chamber, I used to work in the third sector, so I bring a little bit of experience to the debate. However, I will not rehearse all of my past history.
I hope that Dennis Robertson will forgive me if I get just a little bit political. If I do, that will be born out of frustration, because we have often talked about how we can best fund the voluntary sector. This is not a new debate, and we still have not achieved something quite basic, which is to provide three-year funding.
Under the previous, Labour-led, Scottish Government, we witnessed the advent of the compact with the voluntary sector. That included three-year funding. We agreed it at a national level, and we agreed it at a local level. Then, as Gavin Brown rightly pointed out, we had the joint statement on the relationship at a local level between Government and the third sector, which was signed by no less than the SCVO, SOLACE, COSLA and the Scottish Government in September 2009. All that is welcome. We all agree that three-year funding is the right approach. However, we simply have not delivered it on the ground, and we have a patchwork of differing experiences across the country. Consistency is most definitely an issue.
The other issue is resource. Although the third sector would be quick to point out that the majority of its income is self-generated, 21 per cent comes from local government and a further 21 per cent comes from a combination of central Government and the rest of the public sector, such as national health service boards. I saw the cabinet secretary’s face in response to Margaret McDougall’s point about the volume of funding, so I know that I am risking his wrath when I say that third sector funding from the Scottish Government was cut by 11.5 per cent in 2012-13, and is projected to fall in total by something like 15 per cent over the spending review period.
Ken Macintosh was equally right to point out that the third sector early intervention fund of £20 million is four times oversubscribed with more than 400 groups applying. I welcome the previous announcement by the Minister for Children and Young People that that fund will be topped up with an extra £10 million, but it feels a bit like sticking a finger in a dam that is about to burst. The fund is now less than the schemes that it replaced and, because of the delay in sorting everything out, many voluntary sector organisations have a hand-to-mouth existence while they wait to hear.
By anybody’s book, that is not good practice. We should collectively try to set the highest standards in Government as well as in the rest of our public bodies. However, the point of the debate is three-year funding and, on that issue, we are as one. The most striking difference is in how we treat the third sector compared with the private sector. Private sector bodies regularly receive three, five and—for goodness’ sake—in some cases, 10-year contracts but, in some places, the third sector feels strangled by annual funding arrangements, as we heard earlier from Gavin Brown.
I recall without any fondness spending nine months delivering a service and three months chasing money for the next year and worrying about whether I would retain committed and specialist staff. We rightly talk about how much we value the work of the third sector, whether it is tackling homelessness, providing social care or building capacity in our communities. However, we cannot expect the sector to keep doing more while looking over its shoulder to see whether the money will follow. Cuts to local government funding are having a detrimental impact on three-year funding, because local authorities are uncertain about what lies ahead.
I genuinely believe that the cabinet secretary wants to do something about three-year funding. If that is the case, he will have the support of Labour members, too.
15:37
Fiona McLeod demonstrated an overwhelming commitment to supporting the Government by revealing that, on her holidays to Skye, she decided to spend part of the day listening to the assembled group of ministers at the summer meeting of the Cabinet.
That is sad.
There is nothing sad about it. It is purely and simply an expression of total support and enthusiasm for the Government. I suppose that there was one sentence of Jackie Baillie’s speech that was overwhelming support for the Government. The rest of it was business as usual.
In driving at some of the issues at the heart of the debate, Gavin Brown fairly pointed out the absence of overwhelming evidence on the subject. There is, of course, anecdotal evidence. Alex Fergusson said that three-year funding was “rare to non-existent”. Dennis Robertson explained that he worked in an organisation that had three-year funding. It is clear that there is an evidence problem.
I take from the Conservative motion and the remarks that have been made by members from across the parties the impression that there is an appetite to get to a stronger position on evidence. I will reflect on how best that can be achieved.
Without wishing to argue with what the cabinet secretary says, I point out that the words “rare to non-existent” were not mine but the SCVO’s.
I am grateful for that clarification. That is, as I would expect of Mr Fergusson, a helpful intervention, because it allows me to move on to the comments that John Downie, the SCVO director of public affairs, made about the debate. He said:
“It’s important to remember that this debate is not about trying to secure more money for the sector.
Instead, it’s about taking a more strategic and longer-term approach to funding which gives charities and other third sector organisations extra security.
This means that they can make long-term plans and build more sustainable services, which will better meet the needs of the vulnerable people who use and rely on these services across Scotland.”
I entirely and unreservedly agree with the points that Mr Downie made in those comments. That is at the heart of all the detail that I set out at the beginning of my opening speech about how the Government has taken a set of decisions to try to establish stronger foundations from which the third sector can make a contribution towards the quality of life of people in Scotland.
I am clear about my view: I want the third sector to be involved in the delivery of public services. I listened with care to what Margaret McDougall said. If I picked her up correctly, she was raising concerns about the third sector becoming more involved in public service delivery, and I completely disagree with her point of view. Better outcomes are achieved if third sector players are involved in the finding of solutions and the designing of services that meet the needs of individuals. That will certainly be a major part of the Government’s agenda regarding this subject as we proceed.
A number of members raised issues about the volume of funding that has been made available to third sector organisations. Some of the Labour Party’s rather confused contribution to the debate has been made on the basis of the impact on local authority funding. I have gone through this detail before, but I will go through it again in the hope that, at some stage, somebody on the Labour benches might listen to and understand what I have said. Between 2007-08 and 2012-13, the resources within the Scottish Government’s control increased by 6.4 per cent. Over the same period, local government’s budget increased by 8.9 per cent. I repeat: a 6.4 per cent increase in Scottish Government money and an 8.9 per cent increase in local government money. That shows the Parliament that local government has benefited disproportionately from the Government’s funding settlements.
I listen to absolutely everything that John Swinney says. Will he also listen to what I say? Eighty-three per cent of all the Scottish Government’s cuts last year were passed on to local government.
The problem with that terribly clever formulation that Jackie Baillie advances is that it ignores more than £2.5 billion of non-domestic rates income, which is a pretty substantial number in the process. I gently point out to Jackie Baillie and Ken Macintosh that neither of them is in a terribly strong position to come to me and complain about local government funding when, on every available opportunity regarding the budget for the current financial year, they came to me with three asks: housing, rail and colleges. There was not a mention of—
I did not.
Oh—Jackie Baillie did not. I have now learned a very important revelation: I should not believe a word that Ken Macintosh says to me as representing the Labour Party, because it does not have Jackie Baillie’s sign-off. We all know where we stand now. I should make it clear that I will not be offering the Labour Party two meetings on the budget process—one is more than enough.
I convey a warm word of thanks to the Conservatives for choosing this subject for debate, which has allowed Parliament to reflect on the issues around three-year funding. I commit to considering the questions and points that Mr Brown has raised on the pursuit of evidence and to advise Parliament how the Government intends to address the issues that have been raised today.
15:43
It was probably about five months ago that I attended what might be described as an outreach day, organised by the Finance Committee, when various committee members were sent to different parts of Scotland to speak to representatives of the third sector, local businesses and the public sector about employability and employment opportunities for people furthest from the labour market.
I was listening to someone who represented a particularly impressive third sector organisation with a national profile, and I heard about a range of remarkable projects that were run by that organisation. Near the end, one of its managers said, almost in passing, that she was about to issue staff with their annual redundancy warning notices. That happened each year—most staff members were told that they were at risk of redundancy. I found that fairly shocking at the time but, having spoken since then to representatives of a number of organisations, I have found that that is not unusual. In essence, that was captured by Jackie Baillie, who mentioned that her time in the third sector involved nine months of working on the front line and three months of chasing the next funding opportunity. A combination of work since then led us to lodge a targeted motion on the issue of three-year funding, and for the most part it has been a targeted debate with good contributions from members all round the chamber.
Jackie Baillie got to the heart of the issue quite well when she said that three-year funding captures a broad consensus but that, despite positive efforts from the previous Scottish Executive and the current Scottish Government, we have not quite delivered it on the ground. Members on all sides need to look at that carefully, take responsibility for it and, most important, decide exactly how we can turn it around. There have been good intentions on the part of several Governments over at least a decade since devolution was given, yet three-year funding still does not seem to happen on the ground.
Although I entirely accept the cabinet secretary’s comment that we do not have an evidence base, we have good anecdotal evidence from many organisations. I would describe it as fairly heavy anecdotal evidence and it is almost exclusively in one direction, which leads me strongly to believe that, when we get the evidence base in front of us, it will broadly back up the sense that many of us in the Parliament have about what has happened and is happening on the ground. We can call it an audit of what is going on, a survey or an inquiry. The name does not really matter. It is critical, though, that the work happens fairly swiftly. We do not want it to happen overnight. At least, we want the thinking to begin overnight, but we want to get it right so that we start to solve the problem instead of simply looking as if we are attempting to solve it.
I hope that the work will show us who within the public sector is performing, because there are examples of good practice. Some local authorities do a very good job and some health boards have excellent examples of funding. Who is performing and who is not? What are the differences between the various elements of the public sector? What are the differences between local authorities? We should also consider the differences within certain local authorities, because at the round table there was some evidence to suggest that, even within a local authority, one department will perform well and give longer-term streams of funding but the department just next door will give only annualised funding or less. In some senses, what happens seems to depend purely on the personalities or processes of departments rather than being part of the wider culture that we all want to foster.
We have had useful contributions from across the chamber. The cabinet secretary rightly pointed out that three-year settlements are given by central Government, so there is no strong reason why we could not get three-year settlements from local authorities and other parts of the public sector to the third sector. I listened carefully to what he said. If I wrote it down correctly, he said that he is willing to explore the issues of the extent—or not—of three-year funding. I take him at his word on that and hope that we will get announcements in due course. We do not want to be too hasty, but I hope that that happens sooner rather than later.
Margaret McDougall rightly made the point, as did my colleague Alex Fergusson, that rather than being about the level of funding or about more funding, the debate is about certainty and the ability to plan. She put it particularly well when she said that it is about people being able to plan securely so that they can build projects. I emphasise, as I think that she did, the word “build”. It is pretty hard to build something over the course of a single year. She gave an excellent local example—it is local to me; I do not think that it is local to her. If people are going to build projects, they need multiyear funding. They certainly cannot do it over the course of a single year.
I was interested in Kevin Stewart’s speech, because he has some good experience from his previous life as a councillor. He said that, in his view, annual grants did not deliver the goods on the ground. I was also interested to hear that, when the committee that he convenes looked at what was going on on the ground, it found a similar picture to that which was found by the Finance Committee.
I was also interested in Dennis Robertson’s speech. He said that, although the organisation that he was involved in had three-year funding, he recognised that many others did not. Having single-year funding precludes forward planning and takes away a little bit of the confidence and security that the organisation as a whole should have, as well as the confidence and security that is passed on to the service users of the third sector; we should all have those people at the front of our minds, because it is they who make this area so important.
In the main we have had a very consensual debate, which has been particularly refreshing for me as someone who is usually involved in fairly robust exchanges across the chamber. The issue commands widespread support, as it has done for some time, but it is critical that we move it forward.
The ball is in the Government’s court, and it is for the Government to reflect on how best to take the issue forward. I hope that we return to the issue soon and that we achieve a degree of progress, so that when we debate it in a year’s time we can say something different, and so that when we speak to various third sector organisations we will not hear the manager say, “I’m about to issue the annual redundancy notices.”
I was particularly taken by a statement from the SCVO briefing:
“These issues”—
homelessness, unemployment and reoffending—
“are generational yet public bodies fund them annually.”
Although we cannot fund them generationally, I hope that we can take a step forward by funding them for at least three years.