The situation rests on the challenges of the cost of living and rising costs crises – which have not gone away
The number of Scottish charities forced to make job cuts has doubled – and many organisations are eating unsustainably into their reserves just to survive.
That is the sobering, and troubling, findings of the latest Scottish Third Sector Tracker, which monitors and provides a regular health check on the state of the sector.
Increasing numbers of organisations are struggling to meet the demand for their services, while six in ten organisations feel the use of their reserves to be unsustainable, up from four in ten just six months earlier, and the number of organisations making redundancies has doubled, from 5% to 10% in the same period.
The tracker, which samples 390 organisations, is published by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), and the new data covers the first half of this year.
Another issue raised is staff recruitment and levels of stress and burnout.
Researchers found that recruitment was down - just 34% per cent of Scottish charities said they had hired new paid staff in the past four months, compared with 51% in the last survey.
Many respondents said the main obstacle to recruitment was a low number of applicants with the required skills.
Burnout of existing staff is hammering retention. One respondent said: “staff are exhausted, underpaid and not given the recognition they deserve within the sector. We are increasingly becoming the frontline/first point of contact for a great number of vulnerable people who either don't know how to or don't feel able to access the support services they need.”
Overall the situation rests on the challenges of the linked cost of living and rising costs crises – which have not gone away.
Charities reported struggling with costs, demand and energy bills.
This is leading to the unsustainable use of vital reserves, with 39% of charities reporting that they have had to use these to respond to financial challenges.
Most worryingly, 60% said they believed their use of their reserves is unsustainable.
Anna Fowlie, chief executive of SCVO, said: “The latest findings from the Scottish Third Sector Tracker make sobering reading. A shortage of money, staff and volunteers at a time of rising demand, significant societal challenges and uncertainty is making things more challenging than ever before.
“Charities and community groups are having to resort to using reserves just to keep going. That is clearly unsustainable - you simply can't keep using non-recurring money to fund recurring costs.”
Read the full tracker here and an analysis of the findings here.
