The Scottish Third Sector Tracker - wave 6 summary report (Spring 2023)
This paper presents the key findings from the sixth wave of the Scottish Third Sector Tracker, data for which was collected in April-May 2023.
The findings from wave 6 suggest that more organisations are feeling the impact of rising costs, inflation, and other financial pressures. Core operating costs continue to rise with more organisations reporting a negative impact on their ability to deliver services. In addition, difficulty fundraising continues to be a perennial issue for around a third of organisations with over half applying for additional funding to combat rising costs. Funding delays and cuts, whilst not appearing to be prevalent, cause additional financial uncertainty for organisations.
Two-thirds of organisations would like to see more funding made available to help with rising costs, with 40% wanting specific help with energy costs. This comes after a quarter of organisations said that the practical and financial support available to help with rising costs was not very sufficient and an additional 15% said that it was not at all sufficient.
Financial reserves remain important to the survival of many third sector organisations, however, almost half of those organisations using reserves feel this use to be unsustainable. This wave also saw an increase in the number of organisations reporting that they had access to less than six months operating costs in their reserves.
Despite these financial pressures, 60% of organisations report reducing the cost of their services or making them free to support the communities they serve as the rising cost of living continues to have a detrimental impact on peoples’ lives.
While financial pressures are prevalent, staffing and volunteer issues remain high too, with volunteer shortages the response option most frequently ranked as organisations number one challenge. Many organisations report increasing the pay offered to new and existing staff and offering more flexible working conditions to attract and retain paid staff. In the face of these challenges, most organisations remain confident of their future survival, although the percentage of organisations that are very confident has dropped.
