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.
Sector workforce & Fair Work
We believe that our members who work in the voluntary sector should be paid on par with those in the public sector and we require organisations to be funded accordingly to accommodate and secure future pay uplifts in line with others. Failure to be able to plan and forecast funding arrangements means decisions will have to be taken on what services are able to continue and this places uncertainty on service provision and on our members, regarding their long-term employment and career options.
Failure to provide sustainable funding risks damaging the services and the recruitment of staff into this sector which will result in no community service provision long-term and no career development or jobs for our members.
We welcome SCVO’s continued advocacy for a fairer, more sustainable funding landscape for Scotland’s voluntary sector. The principles outlined—multi-year funding, flexibility, sustainability, and accessibility—are essential to ensuring that voluntary organisations can deliver vital services with stability and confidence.
As Chair of Unite’s Community, Youth Workers & Not-for-Profit Regional Industrial Sector Committee, I strongly support the call for the Scottish Government to align its Fairer Funding commitments with SCVO’s definition, which has been shaped by extensive sector engagement. We recognise the urgent need for funding models that reflect the real costs of service delivery, including inflationary pressures, fair wages, and core operational needs.
Our members are committed to echoing these calls in our own work and communications, and we encourage others across the sector to do the same. A unified voice is crucial to securing the long-term changes our sector needs.
Fair Funding would allow us to… embed Fair Work practices more deeply
Employing around 5% of Scotland’s 2.67 million workers, there is no question that the voluntary sector is a significant employer. In 2023, the sector spent £3.2 billion in staff costs, up from £2.9 billion in 2021, costs that will undoubtedly have since risen further following the UK Government’s increase to employers’ national insurance contributions, costing the sector an estimated £75 million, and increased inflation over recent years.
Fair Work First, described by the Scottish Government as the “flagship policy for driving high quality and fair work”, seeks to achieve its objectives by applying fair work criteria to grants and other funding. There is then no surprise that a lack of Fair Funding can subsequently pose barriers for the organisations seeking to meet these criteria.
Against the backdrop of a worsening voluntary sector pay gap, and despite performing better than the private sector, 10.4% of people employed by ‘not for profit’ organisations were paid below the Real Living Wage in 2024 and, as set out in SCVO’s 2025 Scottish Voluntary Sector Workforce Survey, only 39% of paid staff in the sector feel that they are paid fairly, with more than one in five saying their salary does not cover basic needs. In addition, a quarter of staff are employed on fixed-term contracts or more casual arrangements – a rate far higher than in other sectors. This is compounded by funding uncertainty, which respondents consistently describe as the most stressful aspect of their work.
We also know from the Scottish Third Sector Tracker that 41% of organisations have found the recruitment of staff to be an ongoing challenge, with 44% laying the blame squarely upon an inability to offer competitive pay or benefits.
“[Current funding] impacts staff who start looking for other jobs with better employment prospects,” explains a Borders-wide community transport organisation. “We often lose good staff because the funding is uncertain for the next financial year.”
“[It] makes it more difficult to plan and deliver long-term impact,” confirms a large veterans’ support charity. “We struggle to maintain costs and provide staff with pay uplifts.”
“With a small remote team, we deliver significant impact but operate under high pressure,” adds a small charity supporting live performances in the Highlands & Islands. “We are proud to be a Real Living Wage employer and embed Fair Work principles, yet funding insecurity affects staff wellbeing and volunteer retention, with some promoters stepping back due to costs and lack of support.”
It appears that regardless of the type of organisation, the support offered, or the geographical location there is an understanding across the sector that the Scottish Government cannot expect organisations to meet its Fair Work First criteria without first improving the funding landscape in which voluntary organisations operate by implementing SCVO’s Fair Funding principles.
“If we had more certainty longer-term then more staff would be retained and more development would be done,” says the community transport organisation.
“We could pay a fair wage to our staff, retaining a quality workforce,” adds the veterans’ charity.
A small, rurally-based creative opportunities provider for young people confirms: “Fair Funding would allow us to maintain Real Living Wage commitments, improve job security, and embed Fair Work practices more deeply.”
Relationships are key to effective funding! (anonymised)
Organisation C is a membership organisation that works with various bodies, groups, and representatives within its sector to progress work collaboratively, achieve a shared vision, and be a strong voice for its members and their strategic aims. The organisation provides a range of important services and resources to support the delivery of vital services both locally and nationally across Scotland.
After over 20 years of obtaining funding from the Scottish Government, during which Organisation C enjoyed positive relationships, the organisation has recently experienced “an administrative nightmare”, with a whole new process being introduced and previously good relationships changing overnight. This new process has focused more on outputs rather than outcomes, a backwards step prioritising matters such as numbers of meetings and newsletters over a substantial impact on Scotland’s communities in what appears to be a move towards a target-driven culture.
New objectives have been introduced with no input from charities and business plan templates have been utilised, resulting in Organisation C having to write a business plan based on objectives it wasn’t involved in setting. In addition, the changing process has led to the organisation having to devote the time and resources involved in rewriting a funding application multiple times to successfully obtain funding.
As a result of the new approach, Organisation C has not just found its previously strong relationships reset but, instead, having to develop new relationships with grant managers staff don’t know and who don’t know staff. The organisation has been informed that they are “lucky” to receive funding at all, cannot assume that they will be funded the following year, and that metrics and output data are the most likely way to evidence their success. Furthermore, the organisation, due to its close links with similar organisations, is aware of information that it has been given that is either inaccurate or different from that given to others accessing the same funding stream. Organisation C now describes itself as being in “a parent and child relationship rather than the partnership” that it enjoyed for over two decades.
Whilst eager to agree to Fair Work principles as a mandatory part of the grant agreement process, the organisation is aware that staff are now more anxious about the certainty of their salary and security of their jobs than ever before, further compounded by the challenge of finding cost-of-living increases in a standstill budget.
Organisation C has always taken responsibility for public money very seriously but has found this recent process incredibly concerning and demoralising, causing great worry that, should relationships and processes deteriorate further, funding will become hugely difficult, if not impossible, to successfully obtain. Nevertheless, Organisation C is keen that relationships improve and is striving to return to a happier place of positive relationships that are so crucial to ensuring that the organisation, and Scotland’s third sector, is able to continue to deliver the critical services that it does so well.