Further memorandum from Barnardo's
At Martin Narey's oral evidence session before
the Committee in July 2007, he stated as an example that 70% of
our work in the North West had uncertain funding. This memorandum
updates the Committee on the situation after 1 April 2008.
At 31 March 2008, Barnardo's in the North West
lost 11 contracts—five from the Children's Fund totalling
£290k, and six from a range of funders totalling £355k.
This represents a loss of 5% of our work. In addition five contracts
have been extended on a temporary basis ranging from 6 to 12 months
and these have a value of £1.437 million, representing a
further 10% of our current work which has funding threatened.
Regardless of the amount of work retained, the
issue remains that because of the funding arrangements large numbers
of staff in the voluntary sector face an uncertain future every
year. Whilst we have been fortunate to be able to continue most
of our work in this region, uncertain funding means that this
is a process that the voluntary sector must go through each year.
Unless more is done to secure longer-term contracts
and funding stability, Barnardo's and other charities will need
to issue redundancy notices to significant numbers of staff every
year. At the end of January 2008, Barnardo's had issued redundancy
notices to over 100 staff across England, and 261 more staff knew
that they might also be issued with redundancy notices. We are
able to withdraw notices as contracts get renewed, but all the
staff affected worry about what will happen to their livelihood.
This is in comparison to the public sector where staff know that
they will never be treated in this way.
Although we are pleased that we have retained
a large proportion of our work, I wanted to make it clear that
Martin's original point is still of deep concern, and one that
we do not think has been adequately addressed by central and local
government.
May 2008
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