New report counts cuts to spending in the UK voluntary and community sector

Counting the Cuts: The impact of spending cuts on the UK voluntary and community sector is a new report published today by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

Following a collaborative project to map stories of voluntary groups told their funding will be reduced – and analysing the government’s projected spending plans for the Spending Review period 2011–2015) – NCVO estimate “the voluntary and community sector is facing nearly £3billion in cuts over the next five years.”

Their key findings include:

  • The UK voluntary and community sector will lose around £911 million a year in public funding by 2015-16.
  • This means voluntary and community sector stands to lose £2.8 billion from Government over the current spending review period running from 2011- 2016.
  • These are likely to be conservative estimates based on analysis of the Government’s own figures published by the Office of Budgetary Responsibility. The figures assume that cuts with be made proportionately, they provide us with a solid baseline figure to measure any further cuts against.

NCVO published the Counting the Cuts report because they believe:

“Estimates of the extent of cuts to voluntary and community sector funding from government vary widely. Some published estimates are not we believe reliable and do not give the full picture.”

Shining more light on how charities operate, what they do and correcting statements about charities that are simply wrong, NCVO’s Karl Wilding has written about seven deadly charity myths. Here are Karl’s slides:

 

This busts some myths about charities. Are there other myths that could use busting?