"Our sector needed action, not warm words and empty promises"
Scotland’s voluntary sector has been overlooked yet again as the Scottish Government unveiled its latest financial forecasts.
Finance secretary Shona Robison this week announced the Holyrood administration’s Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS), which sets out spending and funding for the next five years.
The delayed report, which was supposed to be published last month, says that without action, Scotland faces a £2.6 billion gap in resource spending and £2.1bn in capital spending by 2029–30.
It had been hoped that there would be something in the strategy taking account of previous Scottish Government commitments to fairer and multi-year funding for the voluntary sector.
Instead, there was precious little in it for charities.
Responding to Wednesday’s Medium-Term Financial Strategy, Kirsten Hogg, Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations' (SCVO) head of policy and research, said: “To achieve the Scottish Government’s commitment to Fairer Funding by 2026 and recognise the importance of a thriving third sector in Scotland, the MTFS needed to set out the Scottish Government’s plans for multi-year funding, and make commitments on progressing Fairer Funding more broadly.
"This strategy offered neither. While the cabinet secretary’s recognition of the impact of increased employer National Insurance contribution costs on voluntary sector employers is welcome, if, as she suggests, multi-year funding is to be one of the policy solutions the Scottish Government adopts to support organisations with these additional costs, urgent action was needed, but not taken in the MTFS, to extend multi-year funding much wider than the current pilot, to voluntary organisations contributing to Scottish Government priorities across all departments.
"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."
Meanwhile, alarm was raised by plans outlined in the MTFS to make a £2.6bn “cashable saving” by 2029-30. Robison told MSPs: “We will reform and reshape our public services using technology and new ways of working.
“By focusing on efficient public spending, modernising services and growing our economy and taking a strategic approach to tax, we can build a stronger, fairer Scotland.”
However, Roz Foyer, STUC general secretary, said this would come in the shape of cuts to jobs and services – when it should be paid for by progressive use of the tax system, along the lines proposed by Tax Justice Scotland, a coalition of charities, civil society groups and academics.
Foyer said: “They may dress it up as efficiencies, but this strategy proposes scything cuts to Scotland’s public services. Over the next five years, more than 10,000 workers could be tossed on the scrapheap.
“At a time when ordinary people are crying out for help, our population is ageing, the climate crisis deepens, and public services are starved of funding, this strategy should have been a turning point towards a fairer, more progressive taxation system. Instead, we got cuts to our public services presented to us as some form of salvation.
“It’s hollow to keep talking about improving schools, hospitals, and care homes without acknowledging that it will take serious, sustained public investment. You cannot cut the staff who support these services and expect them to improve. That means being honest with the public about tax.
“The truth is, as groups like Tax Justice Scotland have made clear, we can’t build the high-quality public services we all rely on without raising more revenue. The fairest way to do that is through a progressive tax system that asks those with the broadest shoulders to contribute more.
“Collective investment in our future is how we ensure every child has access to a brilliant education, every patient gets the care they need, every older person is treated with dignity, and every family is free from the grip of poverty.
“We know Scottish ministers face fiscal constraints, but we need vision and political courage to build a better Scotland. Unfortunately, ministers have chosen to cut public services rather than use their powers to help redistribute wealth, tackle inequality and invest in our collective future.”
Read Kirsten Hogg's MTFS analysis here.
