Reprieve for some but others still await funding decision
The city council has heralded a new way of distributing grants but some highly-regarded local voluntary sector projects still await the decisions that will determine their future. And with just six weeks before the start of the new financial year, management committees and voluntary boards across the city are faced with unpalatable choices: issue redundancy notices and risk losing staff or hope that all will be well with next year’s funding?
Third sector management committees across the city have been meeting to discuss the ramifications of last week’s council funding decision. For some, a 5% cut – following years of salami-slicing – will be managed once again, although when many already run on a shoestring budget any cut means a reduction in services.
For others, a twelve-month funding deal – as opposed to the originally proposed three year commitment – also makes it more difficult to plan your programme with any confidence: after all, you could be going through this whole debacle once again in less than twelve months time. It’s unsettling for staff and extremely tough on management committee members, who are volunteers and freely give up their time to support community projects.
Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre was one of the many local projects hit by a budget bombshell earlier this year – a report released by the city council recommended a 90% cut to the community organisation, which would almost certainly have caused the Centre to close down.
Common sense prevailed and that paper was subsequently withdrawn, but the anxiety, fear and anger it caused hundreds of staff and volunteers was palpable – this was not our council’s finest hour.
Drylaw Community Association chair Alex Dale said: “It is fair to say that threat of immediate closure of the Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre has been lifted, however this has still to be official ratified by the Management Committee who meet on Thursday (17th February).
“This follows last week’s decision by Children and Families to approve funding to the Centre – albeit only for a year and not the three years we had applied for and this follows a similar award made Health & Social Care.
“Both streams of funding is a one year award of 95% of last year’s Grant to the centre and not what we applied for – however in saying that its is 95% more than we were originally to be awarded, which is how we found ourselves in that position of facing closure.
“This achievement is down to the campaign by our Centre users and others who supported the campaign to keep the centre open by they way of the petition both online and on paper (above), and those who took part of the protest on cuts at the City Chambers.
“As Chairman of the management committee I would like to thank them all for their commitment in their efforts to keep the Centre alive but more important I would also like to thank our elected Inverleith Councillors who fought very hard on our behalf to persuade council officers and their fellow group members not to disinvest in Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre.
“As a management committee our hard work starts now to make sure the Centre operates to it full ability within the funding we have and also look at the long term future of the Centre. We will be looking at all ways to attract new stream of funders on board and to this end we will be meeting with our Inverleith Councillors this month to discuss a strategy to allow this centre to remain a vital asset for the Drylaw Telford community.”
While Drylaw has been reprieved, others including Pilton Retreat at Ratho must await the decision of a meeting of the Finance and Resources Committee on 17 March to learn their fate – just two weeks before the new financial year begins.
All told, sixty-seven voluntary organisations helping vulnerable and disadvantaged children and their families in Edinburgh will benefit from the £3m fund. The groups, which include youth projects, children’s clubs and mental health charities were been allocated the grants by the city council’s Communities and Families service.
In addition 26 organisations will benefit for the first time after a new formula used to allocate the money opened up the bidding process to a wider range of applicants – many of them national organisations. The grants were approved at a meeting of the Education, Children and Families Committee last Thursday.
Other developments include:
• £108,000 for a Small Grants Project which will allocate grants of between £1,000 and £10,000 for the next three years
• Setting up a small fund to develop breakfast clubs in areas of deprivation in the city. This will be £2,888 for next year which will increase to £57,746 in the following two years.
In total 107 organisations – with 26 being the new applicants – submitted bids of £6.4m from the Revenue Grants fund of £3m. Successful new applicants were given 50% of their bid whilst organisations that had received funding in 2015/16 were given 95%.
The council says the allocation means as many groups as possible can now benefit: they say this was a key aim after feedback from the voluntary sector who said allowing more organisations to receive grants would achieve maximum value for money.
Councillor Paul Godzik, Convener of the Education, Children and Families Committee, said: “This is a new process for allocating grants which we feel meets our strategic objectives for helping vulnerable and disadvantaged children and their families across the whole of Edinburgh.
“It’s a really positive development that 26 new organisations will benefit from our funding and we have taken on board advice from the voluntary sector about spreading the money as widely as possible.”
Iain Gordon, of Safe Families for Children Scotland, said: “We are most grateful for this grant award. It is a wonderful affirmation of the outcomes that Safe Families for Children Scotland staff and volunteers have seen through the Edinburgh pilot project.
“It is a huge encouragement to us to continue to grow and develop our partnership with the Council to support more struggling families across the city; strengthening family relationships and reducing the number of children who have to be looked after away from home.”
The Lothian Autistic Society applied for the first time and is set to receive £33,000.
Ann Brown, Chief Executive Officer, said: “We’re absolutely delighted with the award because for small organisations like ours it’s really significant especially in the ever-changing financial environment.
“We’re a charity that operates on a shoe string so we always have to be creative with our ideas and projects so this is great recognition which means more than just money.”
Project Scotland, which is an Edinburgh Youth Volunteering Project, also applied for the first time and is set to receive £24,000.
Paul Reddish, Chief Executive of ProjectScotland, said: “We’re obviously delighted given how tough funding is just now in the voluntary sector and this grant will allow us to continue with our work.
“It means we will be able to increase the number of young people we can help in Edinburgh over the next three years supporting them to get on in life through volunteering.”
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