Pledge To Consult Is ‘Mockery’ Claim Charities

Charities across Scotland have reacted angrily to a decision by the Scottish Executive to restrict vital funding, warning that it will lead to a loss of jobs and services.

Last November The Herald revealed charities had been left £20m short as a result of changes to European funding and delays in decision making.

However, two weeks ago the executive announced that only projects with a minimum total value of £200,000 would be considered for funding.

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), which represents 50,000 groups, has asked ministers to remove the stipulation and warned that otherwise companies will been forced to start making redundancies and reducing services.

Martin Sime, chief executive of SCVO, said: “We are extremely angry about this decision which seems to contradict the many good words that have been spoken in favour of the voluntary sector by ministers and officials over many years. It makes a mockery of the commitment to consult and casts a shadow over the compact between the executive and the voluntary sector.”

There are 103 projects across Scotland currently dependent on European Structural Funding(ESF) which will therefore be exempt.

The executive said smaller projects could join together to create a bigger bid, but with the deadline just two weeks away and the complexity of joining diverse projects from different parts of the country, charities say that will not be feasible.

SAMH, Scotland’s leading mental health charity, faces 34 staff redundancies and the loss of services to 380 people if they are no longer eligible for ESF funding. Shona Neil, chief executive of SAMH, has written to the executive with her concerns.

She said: “The requirement for projects to have a minimum total value of £200,000 and the change to require most match funding to be provided in cash will mean that SAMH’s ESF-funded services are no longer eligible for ESF funding. They will, therefore, have to close.

“It is unlikely that we are alone in finding ourselves in this situation. As I believe SCVO has already indicated, the new criteria are likely to cut out large sections of the voluntary sector and therefore their beneficiaries from the opportunities which ESF funding has and can offer.”

However, Allan Wilson, Deputy Minister for Enterprise, insisted the “voluntary sector’s interests have been well represented”.

He said: “We regard a modest project threshold as an important step to balance partner expectations in such a changed funding environment with the focus on more strategic, legacy projects.

“It is, however, possible to bundle’ smaller related projects to meet the threshold.

“The prolongation exercise in the current Objective 3 Programme has been very successful in addressing all funding requests of existing social inclusion and employability projects. This contradicts claims that programme terminations and redundancies would ensue.”