Earlier this year, we asked voluntary organisations and charities working with children and young people in the North East to describe the impact of spending cuts on their organisation and their beneficiaries, as part of a survey undertaken with Voluntary Organisations Network North East (VONNE).
The responses that we got were fascinating and painted a very complex picture. Some organisations had made staff redundant as as result of decreases in funding whereas other had not been affected to date. The variety of responses serve as a good reminder that the ‘third sector’ is not a homogeneous group of organisations, which is how it is often presented by politicians.
Quality vs Quantity
A number of responses highlighted that they attempted to protect the quality of service provision and felt that it was more appropriate to change the reach and scope of their provision (the quantity of it) rather than the quality:
“The quality of our service is the same, but our volunteer advocate has decided she needs to get a paid job so we have lost her”
“we try not to let the quality of our work be effected by cuts in our income”
“No change to quality of service”
“Quality of service remains high”
“The quality has not diminshed, but the health and wellbening of staff has”
“Lack of funding means that we are having to close groups and limit the service we are offering”
Early Intervention
Anoher theme that emerged form the responses was the pressure that funding reductions placed on early intervention projects and services, despite good evidence and government rhetoric about shifting service delivery towards early intervention and away from crisis intervention. Some organisations also noted that the cuts meant they potentially had less time to spend developing and maintaining relationships with service users:
“we will not be able to spend quality time with sevice users and early intervention support will be at risk”
“Giving less time and resources for clients”
“Domino effect of cut in services and resources meaning we are less able to … work proactively at prevention”
“this (the uncertainty surrounding the future of the project) limits our ability to provide consistent and meaningful relationships with young people”
Commitment of staff and volunteers
A number of responses also highlighted how staff and volunteers had helped to support the organisations and the young people they worked with and how the situation had affected them:
“20 staff were made redundant over the last year due to decrease in funding”
“The quality of our service provision has not been affected, but this is manily due to the commitment of our volunteers, who enjoy working for our organisation and have fully supported the ethos and vision of the project”
“Less staff to work with children on essential basic skills such as reading and writing”
“have had to make staff redundant and others on shorter hours, using reserves to fund part of the work until funding can be found”
“The loss of funding for one part time youth worker has meant that we have withdrawn from work with the older age group. But the increasing level of young graduate unemployment has meant that we have been able to build up a very skilled group of young volunteers. Subsequently the number and quality of our activities has increased”
“Staff stayed with us on reduced salaries to continue our services”
“The quality has not diminished, but the health and wellbening of staff has. We are relying more heavily upon in kind donations and volunteering above and beyond what is expected or safe”
Conclusions
It is, of course, difficult to draw any conclusions from a small number of responses but that is part of the reason for looking to continue the conversation here and the responses perhaps raise more questions than hey answered. In summary, some organisations are doing ok at present, whilst others are faring a lot worse. Whilst the number of service users is predicted to increase as a result of the economic situation and cuts to public services and other charities, the resources available to the voluntary organisations is, in a lot of places, already decreasing. Some organisations noted that staff had altered their working hours or salaries to stay with the projects, whilst others noted an increase in volunteers – potentially as a result of increased unemployment and a very competitive jobs market?
North East Child Poverty 
Surviving or Thriving?
Organisations working with children and young people in the North East
Earlier this year, we worked with VONNE to develop a survey aimed at understanding how austerity measures were affecting voluntary organisations delivering services to children and young people in the North East. 39 organisations from 10 out of the 12 local authority areas responded to the survey and whilst the findings of the survey therefore aren’t particularly robust, the responses we received painted a very complex picture of how the cuts to service providers are impacting on large and small charities that work with children and young people every day.
Rather than producing a report based on the findings, we discussed the potential with VONNE of doing something a little bit more interactive and, with their support, we are hoping to post a series of blogs over the coming 10 – 12 weeks exploring the situation facing organisations working with children and young people in the North East. These blogs will include some posts relating to the responses from the survey, some case studies of organisations that responded to the survey and some interviews and guest posts with some reasonably influential individuals who work with children and young people in the region. We may even get some young people to contribute their thoughts….
The National Picture
The future for voluntary organisations does not look particularly bright and there is some evidence that children’s services in local authorities and small youth charities are faring particularly badly when budget decisisons are made. The North East is also disadvantaged as research carried out by JRF suggests that “Government spending cuts are hitting poorer northern councils much harder than their richer southern counterparts”, according to the Northern Echo. Meanwhile, IPPR North produced a report last year which questioned, from a North East perspective, whether the ‘Big Society’ could be a ‘fair society’. The report noted that:
“the withdrawal of public funding and a move to greater reliance on philanthropy could doubly disadvantage organisations in some areas, such as the North East”
The North East perspective
VONNE have been carrying out their Surviving not Thriving surveys since 2009. (They also run a very informative and thought provoking blog – one recent post asked ‘Is the sector crying wolf’ in relation to the responses to the Surviving not Thriving surveys). These surveys have attempted to understand how voluntary organisations across the region are coping with changes to their funding and how they are organising for a future that, at best, appears uncertain. The survey has been adapted on a number of occasions to provide a focus on a specific geographical area within the North East and we decided to develop a survey specifically for organisations working with children and young people in the region. Here are some of the headline findings from the organisations who took part:
These initial responses suggest, as the IPPR report noted, a move to a greater reliance on philanthropic investment in charities and voluntary sector organisations does not bode well for organisations in the region.
Questions looking at the future brought the following responses:
When asked to decribe the long term future of the organisation, a number of people responded with ‘Bleak’, but there were some bright spots in amongst all the gloom and the picture was far from clear. Many organisations felt that there was still a great deal of uncertainty over how the future may pan out and we hope that the blogs in the coming weeks will provide an opportunity to explore some of the issues in more detail, as well as providing an opportunity for people working with children and young people in the region to take part in the discussion.
The next post in this series will look in more detail at how the cuts have affected organisations, communities and children and young people in the region, drawing on the responses to the survey. It will be published here on Wednesday 1st August.
As always, we’re keen to hear your views.
Best wishes,
Steve
(The photographs were taken as part of the Children North East photography project that took place last year)
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