Tag: funding cut

National charity confirms 17 job losses after losing Scottish Government funding

Young Enterprise Scotland will continue to deliver enterprise and financial education with significantly reduced team 

Young Enterprise Scotland, the national charity that has delivered enterprise education to schools and colleges for over 30 years, has confirmed it has made 17 members of staff redundant after failing to secure Scottish Government funding in October. 

The national charity will now operate on a significantly reduced staff team of no more than a dozen people after being denied funding from the Scottish Government’s new Entrepreneurial Education Fund. 

YE Scotland’s funding has historically come from a combination of a core continuity grant from the Scottish Government, an ongoing pipeline of support from Trusts and Foundations and, to a lesser extent, support from the private sector. 

In July this year, YE Scotland was advised the grant process would now cease with immediate effect, replaced with a competitive process which subsequently opened in August. The new fund awarded seven organisations with a share of £829,346, with YE Scotland being unsuccessful in this round of funding. 

The charity was granted emergency funding of £285,000 which covered its existing costs for this financial year, allowing YE Scotland to avoid closure. 

Young Enterprise Scotland CEO Emma Soanes said: “It is a huge relief that we have been able to avoid a complete closure of Young Enterprise Scotland and we are grateful to the Scottish Government for providing us with emergency funding which prevented our worst case scenario becoming reality.  

“Sadly however, this will provide little consolation to the 17 valued members of our team who have lost their jobs just weeks before Christmas.

“Losing our major income source has been an enormously unsettling and upsetting time for everyone involved, and while we try to remain positive there is no doubt there will be challenging times ahead as we refocus and prioritise what programmes we deliver within schools and colleges on such a reduced staff model.”

Last year, YE Scotland supported over 18,000 school and college students through its enterprise programmes, including its flagship Company Programme, which many entrepreneurs credit with setting them on a successful business career.

In the past three years, more than 1,000 students have gained a YE Scotland enterprise qualification (SCQF Level 6) to prepare them for further education, work and life. 

Emma Soanes added: “We will definitely be engaging our own entrepreneurial mindsets in the coming weeks and months as we reposition ourselves within the education ecosystem and continue with our commitment to deliver financial and enterprise education from primary one and early years, right through to S6”. 

Creative Scotland responds to £7 million budget cut

CREATIVE SCOTLAND STATEMENT:

Following the Scottish Government’s budget announcement last week which proposes a reduction in funding for Creative Scotland of around £7million (more than 10%) – the Board of Creative Scotland met yesterday, 19 December, to discuss the implications of this settlement.

Whilst the Board fully appreciates the challenging context in which the Scottish Government has reached its decision, and the pressures that are being felt by everyone across all parts of society, we are extremely disappointed by the settlement.

It comes at a time of significant pressures for cultural organisations due to the impact of the pandemic, rising inflation, falling income and spiralling operating costs, when the value of culture and creativity to people’s lives has never been more important.

In an effort to address this, at its meeting today, the Creative Scotland Board has agreed to use a proportion of its National Lottery reserves to maintain funding for Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) at 2022/23 levels.

National Lottery reserves have been accumulated and earmarked to ease the transition to the new funding framework.  Using these reserves to cover the reduction in Scottish Government funding means that Creative Scotland will no longer have the flexibility of using these funds for other support, including the potential for an RFO supplementary fund previously referred to in our Future Funding for Organisations update on 3 November.

National Lottery reserves are finite and therefore can only be a time-limited solution to address Scottish Government budget reductions in 2023/24. As the Scottish Government budget does not give any indication of funding for 2024/25 and beyond, we cannot confirm RFO funding levels for 2024/25.

Creative Scotland will continue to act responsibly and pragmatically, however, if Scottish Government cuts continue beyond 2023/24, Creative Scotland will require to pass those on to the sector.

All other 2023/24 budget areas will be reviewed and published in our 2023/24 Annual Plan in Spring 2023.