Background
The Scottish Third Sector Tracker (Tracker) is a community of third sector organisations. The community was established* in response to the pandemic as third sector support organisations, including SCVO, Scottish Government and funders, sought to understand the challenges facing third sector organisations and how best to support them.
The information gathered from the community of organisations continues to inform and direct how these support organisations provide support to the sector.
The Tracker provides third sector organisations the opportunity to contribute to a national research project that reaches decision makers across the country.
The findings from the community are also used to produce regular reports and insights, published below.
There’s still time to join the community. To express your interest in joining the Tracker please complete this form on DJS’s website. If you have any questions about the Tracker, please email DJS at STSTracker@djsresearch.com
*The Tracker is funded by SCVO, The Scottish Government, The National Lottery Community Fund and The William Grant Foundation. The research is conducted by an independent research company, DJS Research.
Wave Four Findings — Summer 2022
The initial findings from the fourth wave of the Scottish Third Sector Tracker are available now. A more detailed report exploring the topics of rising costs and fair and sustainable funding for the sector will follow next month (November 2022).
Key findings
The findings from the latest wave of the Scottish Third Sector Tracker show the impact of rising costs is becoming increasingly apparent, both for third sector organisations and the communities they work with. Overall, 93% of organisations said they were experiencing rising costs in at least one area of their business, compared with 86% in April.
Organisations reported sharp rises in costs across almost all operating areas. The most pressing being the cost of materials and supplies (76% of the sector); transport costs (61% of the sector); energy costs (50% of the sector) and staffing costs (43% of the sector). Of organisations seeing rising costs, 43% felt this was having a negative impact on their ability to deliver their core services or activities.
To mitigate these impacts, 40% of organisations have applied for funding from new funders and one in three have used their financial reserves. One in ten have had to reduce their services or work.
Almost 80% of organisations reported they were seeing increasing financial hardship in the groups and communities they work with and 64% of organisations considered that demand for their services had increased, with 23% saying that demand had significantly increased. The majority (80%) of those organisations seeing an increase in demand for their services were able to meet most or all of that demand.
Rising costs are not the only challenge third sector organisations reporting facing in the three months since April, with 72% reporting shortages and issues with staffing and volunteers and one in three difficulty planning for the future.
Only one quarter of organisations reported being able to award staff a pay rise since April, typically a rise of between three and five percent.
Data tables
The weighted and raw data is available in the data tables. The data tables allow you to disaggregate the findings by organisation size (turnover); geographic location; type of organisation (e.g. Social Enterprise) and many other variables.
Wave Three Findings — Spring 2022
The findings from the third wave of the Scottish Third Sector Tracker are available now.
Key findings
Scotland’s third sector organisations continued to face challenges in spring 2022, particularly in regard to staffing, volunteer recruitment and management, and finances. Spring 2022 also saw the cost of operating increase for most
organisations. For many, this impacted their ability to deliver core services and activities.
For 71% of organisations the most common challenge was issues with staff and volunteers, this includes management, recruitment and retention. It also includes staff absence and health and wellbeing.
Sixty-one (61%) percent of organisations also report financial challenges.
Almost two-thirds (64%) of organisations continued to see increased demand for their services. Seventy-eight (78%) percent of those organisations were able to meet all or most of this extra demand.
For the majority of third sector organisations, online played a large part in their day-to-day management in Spring 2022. However, more than half of organisations conducted most or all of their programmes or services in-person.
There were notable increases in the proportion of organisations reporting food insecurity (40%, up from 24%) and fuel insecurity (45%, up from 23%) in the communities they serve.
Seventeen (17%) percent of organisations had increased the number of paid staff they employed since December 2021.
Eighty-six (86%) percent of organisations reported rising costs since December 2021, with the most common rises being: material and supplies (63%); transport costs (53%); staffing costs (47%) and energy costs (45%).
Of organisations seeing rising costs of any kind, 42% felt this affected their ability to deliver their core services or activities.
Twenty-seven (27%) of organisations had made use of their financial reserves between December 2021 and April 2022.
Sixty (60%) percent of organisations held less than 6 months’ financial reserves.
You can view all of these statistics and more in the infographic summary.
The challenge of rising costs and hybrid methods of administration and delivery
This wave of the survey also included three open-ended questions asking respondents about:
. the main challenges that rising costs are presenting their organisation
. the benefits of operating using hybrid methods of administration and delivery
. the challenges of operating using hybrid methods of administration and delivery
This report presents analysis of those responses and provides insight into the medium-term challenges of rising costs and the challenges and benefits of hybrid systems.
Data tables
The weighted and raw data is available in the data tables. The data tables allow you to disaggregate the findings by organisation size (turnover); geographic location; type of organisation (e.g. Social Enterprise) and many other variables.
Wave Two Findings — Winter 2021/22
The initial findings from the second wave of the Scottish Third Sector Tracker are now available.
The findings suggest that most third sector organisations continue to face challenges in the face of the pandemic. However, there has been improvement in the sector’s ability to deliver services and/or planned programmes of work.
The headline findings suggest that disruption to service delivery is no longer one of the top 3 challenges for organisations. That has been replaced by issues with staffing and volunteers and difficulty in planning for the future. Unsurprisingly, financial challenges remain in the top 3, up from 47% in summer to 53% in winter 2021/22. Despite this, organisations’ reporting a decrease in turnover has fallen from 48% to 25%.
Demand for services has increased from 57% to 62%, as has organisation’s ability to meet this increase in demand – up from 71% to 83%.
Redundancies have dropped 7%, but recruitment of paid staff is also down from 37% to 29%. Volunteering numbers started to stabilise over the winter after a 36% drop over the summer.
Finally, most in the sector are relatively confident in their future – 92% were confident that they’ll still be operating in 12 months’ time, down from 97% in summer.
Wave One Findings — Summer 2021
The findings from the first, baseline wave are now available. In this wave, organisations were asked to reflect on the challenges of continuing to provide services and planned work during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The findings highlight just how disruptive the pandemic has been for third sector organisations in Scotland. Many could not deliver fully on their work plan across the previous year. However, the sector has responded by adapting and creating new services to meet increased demand and emerging needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often will I be asked to complete the survey?
Once every three months.
How long will it take?
For most, the survey will take between 10 and 15 minutes to complete each time.
How do I complete the survey?
You complete the survey online. A link to the latest edition of the survey will be emailed to you once it is live.
What if I cannot complete the survey
A complete picture of the sector is crucial to the success of the project and so we ask, where possible, that members submit a response for as many surveys as possible. We appreciate that this will not always be possible due to a change in roles, leave or illness. In these cases, we would ask for another colleague to complete the survey in your absence.
If you leave your organisation altogether, please let us know and we can organise for someone else in the organisation to take your place in the community.
Finally, in the very unfortunate circumstance that your organisation stops operating at any point during the next 6 months, we would be very grateful if you could let us know, so that we know not to continue to contact you.
