Policy blog

Summary The voluntary sector continues to face unprecedented challenges. Voluntary sector costs are climbing, funding is falling, and demand for services continues to increase. Plans to increase employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) will compound these pressures. The... Read more

Ahead of the 2nd reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill, SCVO's Chief Executive, Anna Fowlie, wrote to Scottish MPs. Below is the text of the letter, minus tailored constituency information. You can find constituency information for other MPs on the Geographical... Read more

Summary SCVO and colleagues across the voluntary sector welcomed the Scottish Government’s commitment to deliver Fairer Funding for the sector by 2026, including exploring options to implement multi-year funding deals. Despite this renewed focus, 18 months on from the policy... Read more

Summary The voluntary sector continues to face unprecedented challenges. Voluntary sector costs are climbing, funding falling, and demand for services continuing to increase, as a result, eight out of ten organisations report that financial difficulties rank among their most... Read more

John Swinney MSP, First Minister Scottish Government 12 November 2024 Dear First Minister Autumn Budget 2024 As you have recognised in your recent public comments, the Chancellor’s intention to increase employers’ National Insurance contributions will have a significant impact on... Read more

Last week, following months of speculation, Britain’s first female Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, delivered Labour’s first Budget in 14 years. A historic moment and important opportunity.The Budget, the Chancellor promised, would invest, invest, invest, partly by raising taxes by £4... Read more

SCVO wrote to Scottish MPs on the 5th of November following the UK Autumn Budget on the 30th of October 2024. As part of the Budget process, we write to draw your attention to the impact of proposed National Insurance changes on charities and other voluntary organisations. You... Read more

Responding to the Autumn Budget 2024, SCVO Chief Executive Anna Fowlie, said: “At a time when many voluntary organisations are facing severe financial difficulties, announcements in the UK budget place new strains on the sector, while cutting key funding that people and... Read more

Last week, on behalf of SCVO, I was invited to give evidence to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee as part of the Committee’s Pre-budget Scrutiny focused on third sector funding principles. As the Committee shared in June, this inquiry examines, “how the Scottish... Read more

Congratulations on your appointment as Deputy First Minister of Scotland.  I very much look forward to working with you again in this new role. Read more

Last month First Minister Humza Yousaf joined colleagues across the voluntary sector at SCVO’s annual conference, The Gathering, where he shared that Fairer, multi-year funding for the sector was on the horizon. As part of the Scottish Budget process, he offered the voluntary... Read more

Last week the Living Wage Foundation announced the real Living Wage rate would increase by 10% to £12 an hour (£13.15 in London), as inflation and cost-of-living pressure continue to have the biggest impact on low paid workers. Scotland’s voluntary sector is a major employer... Read more

Back in 2015, SCVO and TFN surveyed around 1,000 sector workers about their experiences working in the voluntary sector. Eight years, four UK prime ministers, two referendums and a pandemic later, it was high time for a refresh. Last month GCVS and the Scottish Centre for... Read more

From the 1st of July 2023 all recipients of public sector grants will be required to pay at least the real Living Wage and provide effective workers’ voice as a minimum standard. These changes are part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to become a Fair Work Nation by 202... Read more

SCVO has written to Neil Gray MSP on the recently released Fair Work First guidance. Dear Mr Gray I look forward to meeting with you on 10 May to discuss how we collectively ensure that the Scottish Government's approach to economic development recognises the value and potential... Read more

On 19 January 2023, SCVO wrote to Richard Lochhead MSP, Minister for Just Transition, Employment and Fair Work to outline the key challenges facing Scotland's voluntary sector in relation to Fair Work. Fair-Work-and-Grant-Funding-Mr-Lochhead-2023-01-19Download Read more

On Tuesday, the Employment and Fair Work Minister Richard Lochhead and Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity Minister Lorna Slater, announced that all organisations that receive grant funding from Scottish Government, enterprise agencies, and public bodies must pay the... Read more

Chief executive Anna Fowlie has now offered to meet with Mr Swinney as we continue to work closely with the Scottish Government as the #RunningCostsCrisis worsens.  Read more

Scotland’s voluntary sector is a major employer, employing over 135,000 people, around 5% of Scotland’s workforce and a third more people than the 100,000 staff employed in Scotland’s digital and technology sector. This workforce makes a huge contribution to people and... Read more

SCVOBriefing_CostOfLivingDebate_22_10_26Download Read more

The Living Wage shouldn’t be an aspiration or a ceiling – it’s the bare minimum anyone should expect.   Read more

Summer 2022 has been like no other, dominated by excessive heat, drought, and what we have all learnt is the wrong type of rain. The political climate has fared little better, paralysed by a leadership contest while energy costs and inflation spiral. Despite the increasingly... Read more

Each year at the beginning of September, the Scottish Government delivers its Programme for Government, a set of actions that the government will take over the next year to progress its priorities. Specifically, the programme includes, legislation, spending, policy initiatives... Read more

The Fair Work Convention has recently published its ‘Fair Work Manifesto for Scotland’ urging all political parties as well as employers, unions, public agencies and civil society organisations to commit to delivering a Fair Work Nation by 2025. Scotland’s Fair Work Convention... Read more

Since the launch of the 2016 Fair Work Framework and the challenge set down by the Fair Work Convention for Scotland to be a world leading Fair Work nation by 2025, there has been much support, new government departments established, a Fair Work Implementation Plan and high level... Read more

The framing of a government budget is to identify the priorities and ensure funds reach where they're needed the most. That delicate process has become fraught with difficulty and trade-offs for local and devolved governments since the financial crash. Each autumn, our policy and... Read more

The release of the Paradise Papers during Living Wage week is something of a stark reminder of the inequality that still exists in the UK. While the wealthiest in society are able to stash money overseas, many are still fighting to receive a fair wage for a day’s work. Living... Read more

Happy #LivingWageWeek! This week sees the announcement of the updated real Living Wage, calculated according to the cost of living. The Living Wage increase will mean a payrise for hundreds of thousands of people. There are now 3,600 accredited Living Wage Employers that have... Read more

Recommendations fail to guarantee the human rights of the workforce in the UK The Taylor Report on the modern workforce was published earlier this week to mixed reviews. There was some criticism for a report that many feel is too cautious to enact real change for workers in... Read more

As we move from paper to action, practical projects like Community Jobs Scotland are key. Read more

Our out-dated, inflexible labour market is a key barrier to equality in employment Read more

Given the significant rise of working households experiencing poverty, the performance of the labour market can no longer be adequately represented merely by counting the number of people in work. Working with the UWS-Oxfam Partnership and Warwick Institute for Employment... Read more

Our sector has an ambitious vision for Scotland’s future. The question is how can we make our vision a reality? Read more