The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Caledonian Exchange, 19A Canning Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EG.
Children & young people
Time and again, our members tell us that short-term, insecure funding makes it harder to plan, retain skilled staff, and, most importantly, provide consistent support to children and families. Whilst constantly worrying about where the next pot of money will come from, we lose the invaluable expertise of people who leave for more secure roles elsewhere, and children and families lose access to the trusted relationships that they rely on.
The evidence is clear: prevention and early intervention deliver better outcomes and reduce demand for costly, crisis-driven services further down the line. Yet the way we fund the third sector actively undermines this ambition. We continue to invest in short-term fixes rather than long-term solutions, and this stops us realising the sustainable, preventative approach set out in the Christie Commission almost 15 years ago.
Fair Funding is not just about the amount of money available. It is about how funding is designed and delivered. Multi-year settlements, timely decisions, and support for core costs would give organisations the stability to plan, innovate, and focus on delivery rather than survival. This is why we are proud to support SCVO’s Fair Funding campaign.
Children and young people deserve services they can rely on, delivered by people who are supported to stay and thrive in their roles. If we are serious about giving every child in Scotland the best start in life, we must get serious about funding the organisations that make that possible.
Can’t we just provide what young people tell us they need?
The Scottish Government has been clear that eradicating child poverty is its number one priority, but this is far from the only priority that impacts on the lives of babies, children, and young people across the country. Whether it is improving mental health services, closing the poverty-related attainment gap, keeping The Promise, or simply striving to ensure that children have the best possible start in life, both national and local government rely on the voluntary sector to help work towards achieving these aims. In fact, third sector organisations often deliver the very services and support that make achieving these goals possible.
It is unsurprising, then, that so much of the work supporting children and young people is provided by a voluntary sector that is, at the same time, being hampered in that work by an unfair, unsustainable, and inaccessible funding landscape. This can be as counterproductive as it sounds, with organisations providing crucial support to children and young people forced to reduce the very services relied upon by both those children and young people and the Scottish Government.
“We have a successful, evidenced programme working with young people but struggle each year to guarantee its continuation,” explains a youth work charity in the north east. “It’s exhausting and demoralising – can’t we just provide what young people tell us they need without the annual fight for survival?”
“The uncertainty is the hardest part,” admits a national children’s charity. “We cannot properly plan services, we cannot offer staff the security they deserve, and we cannot give children and families the consistency that is so important to the work we do and the relationships we build.”
“Short-term funding means short-term thinking,” adds an organisation supporting disabled children and their families. “We are forced to focus on the immediate rather than the long-term, which is the complete opposite of what these children and families need from us.”
Investing in children and young people through the voluntary sector is, by its very nature, an investment in the future. But that investment can only be maximised if the organisations providing support are able to operate from a position of security and stability, planning for the long-term and retaining the skilled, experienced staff that children and families come to know and trust. That is exactly what Fair Funding would provide.
“With Fair Funding, we could plan with confidence, retain our brilliant staff, and focus our energy on the children and families we are here to support,” says the national children’s charity. “It really would be transformational.”
“[Fair Funding would let us] build on what works rather than constantly starting from scratch,” confirms the youth work charity. “It would allow us to give young people the consistency and stability they deserve.”
Core costs – vital to success (anonymised)
Organisation D provides vital support to children, young people, and their families in communities that experience significant levels of deprivation. Delivering a range of services focused on early intervention and prevention, the organisation works hard to ensure that children and young people are given the best possible chance to thrive, no matter their background or circumstances.
Like so many organisations across the sector, Organisation D has found that securing funding for core costs remains one of its greatest challenges. Despite these costs being fundamental to the delivery of every single service and programme the organisation provides, funders too often prefer to support specific, time-limited projects, leaving the essential infrastructure that underpins them dangerously underfunded.
This creates a situation in which the organisation is expected to deliver an increasing number of projects while the core capacity needed to manage, support, and sustain those projects is stretched ever thinner. Without adequate funding for core costs, Organisation D struggles to cover the essentials – from premises and utilities to management, administration, and the systems that keep the organisation running safely and effectively.
The short-term nature of much of the funding available only compounds these difficulties. With many grants secured on an annual basis, and confirmation often arriving late, the organisation is regularly forced to make difficult decisions about staffing and service delivery without knowing whether the funding required will actually materialise. This uncertainty has a direct impact on the children, young people, and families who rely on the organisation, as well as on the dedicated staff who deliver its services.
For Organisation D, the implementation of Fair Funding – particularly multi-year funding and greater recognition of the importance of core costs – would be genuinely transformational. It would provide the stability required to plan ahead, retain experienced staff, and continue delivering the preventative work that makes such a difference to the lives of children and young people, while also reducing the pressure and demand on statutory services further down the line.