LOCAL community groups are in a financial fix thanks to the Government’s push towards service level agreements and contracts for services, research suggests.
Fifty-eight per cent of community-based organisations say that funders have reduced the number of grants used to finance local activities, according to a survey of 55 of its members by the British Association of Settlements and Social Action Centres (Bassac).
Of those, 73 per cent say that their long-term survival is under threat and half believe that their independence is being compromised by the contract culture, reports Regeneration & Renewal (Feb 10).
Forty-two per cent say that the move towards contracting means that they are less able to provide services designed to meet local needs such as befriending schemes, informal advice or the provision of free community space.
“The move away from grant-funding is reducing the type of work community bodies are able to carry out,” says Ben Hughes, the chief executive of Bassac.
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Then there’s the effect of haggling over the cost of services, says Susan Spencer, the chief executive of the Birmingham Settlement, which provides nursery care among its local services. She tells New Start (Feb 10): “What is happening on the ground is at complete odds with Government rhetoric on civil renewal and active citizenship. Organisations like Settlement are well placed to deliver on these agendas but this will be impossible if our funding (depends) on us promising to deliver at a price lower than actual cost.”
Charities have never had it so good, says Stephen Cook, the editor of Third Sector (Feb 8). But, he cautions, “the very groups that the Government says (that) it wants to foster as part of the project to energise civil society” are those most under pressure and “most fragile”.