The initial findings from the second wave of the Scottish Third Sector Tracker are available here.

The findings suggested that most third sector organisations continued to face challenges in the face of the pandemic. However, there had been improvement in the sector’s ability to deliver services and/or planned programmes of work.

The headline findings suggested that disruption to service delivery was no longer one of the top 3 challenges for organisations. That had been replaced by issues with staffing and volunteers and difficulty in planning for the future. Unsurprisingly, financial challenges remained in the top 3, up from 47% in summer to 53% in winter 2021/22. Despite this, organisations’ reporting a decrease in turnover had fallen from 48% to 25%.

Demand for services had increased from 57% to 62%, as had organisation’s ability to meet this increase in demand – up from 71% to 83%.

Redundancies had dropped 7%, but recruitment of paid staff was 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 were relatively confident in their future – 92% were confident that they’ll still be operating in 12 months’ time, down from 97% in summer.

*   [Infographic summary](https://scvo.scot/research/evidence-library/the-scottish-third-sector-tracker-wave-two-infographic-summary-winter-202122)
*   [Data tables](https://scvo.scot/research/evidence-library/the-scottish-third-sector-tracker-wave-two-data-tables-winter-202122)
*   [Key charts](https://scvo.scot/research/evidence-library/the-scottish-third-sector-tracker-key-charts-for-wave-two-winter-202122)

[Previous: Wave 3](/research/scottish-third-sector-tracker/waves/wave-3) [Next: Wave 1](/research/scottish-third-sector-tracker/waves/wave-1)

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## About SCVO

SCVO (Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations) is the national membership organisation for Scotland's voluntary sector.

Our role is to champion the role of voluntary organisations in Scotland and to support them to do work that has a positive impact.

SCVO supports members and the wider voluntary sector with all aspects of setting up and running a voluntary organisation. SCVO represents the needs and concerns of the voluntary sector to the Scottish government in Holyrood and UK government and Westminster. Through our learning and events programme SCVO offers training and development opportunities to the sector.

Members access an extensive membership benefits package including specialist, in-depth, 1-to-1 guidance from our Information Services team and from professional service partners.

Access to exclusive membership networks (including comms, employers, governance and policy) supports members to grow their connections, stay up to date, exchange ideas and views with peers, and learn through tailored, learning opportunities.

SCVO members enjoy free access to Funding Scotland Premium to stay on top of funding opportunities to support their organisation’s financial resilience.

Discounts and savings savings on SCVO products and services (including our HR service, managed IT support, payroll service and events and training) and partner offers provide members with support to allow them to focus on delivering their organisation’s goals. Further SCVO products and services include [extensive digital support](https://scvo.scot/support/digital), a climate action resource [Growing Climate Confidence](https://climateconfident.scot), a voluntary sector publication [Third Force News](https://tfn.scot) and a voluntary sector jobs and recruitment service [Goodmoves](https://goodmoves.org).

For more information on SCVO membership, visit [SCVO membership](https://scvo.scot/membership)