A case study – part of a series of work undertaken by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) looking into the funding of Scottish voluntary organisations – draws on voluntary sector intermediaries to explore direct funding by the Scottish Government.
…a convincing response to these challenges….would include….Offering real multi-year funding…
SCVO writes:
The interviews held with intermediaries to inform this case study highlighted several recurring themes on the challenges that voluntary sector organisations encounter in their funding relationships with the Scottish Government, including funding that is disseminated by Non-Departmental Public Bodies and other organisations on behalf of the Scottish Government. The case study concludes that a convincing response to these challenges from the Scottish Government and those responsible for disseminating funds would include:
- Adopting timely processes for funding decision making and payment of funds
- Providing written documentation for effective and consistent communication
- Offering real multi-year funding falling between at least 3-5 years with uplifts
- Providing an inflationary uplift to ensure that organisations and their staff can meet rising costs
- Providing meaningful core costs to help to build services and support income generation
- Being transparent around funding to organisations and from government
- Offering flexible unrestricted funding to support changing need and gaps
- Modernising approaches to monitoring and reporting to capture real success
- Building consistent and accessible applications and fund information to help with planning
- Establishing visible relationships and partnership from senior civil servants who have power.
