The Big List

One East Midlands are compiling a Big List of cuts impacting on voluntary and community organisations in the East Midlands. This will give us and policy makers an overview of how the voluntary sector in the region is faring in regards to public sector spending cuts.

If you would like to include any cuts that you have received in the list below please email Claire Chapman, Information and Membership Officer, at clairechapman@one-em.org.uk.

Organisation & Cut Funder Comment
CASY (£15,000) Local Government - Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire County Council have cut the funding contribution for our counselling service in the Worksop area of Bassetlaw District as of end March 2011. This pays for the service covering two schools, community areas, a team of a project co-ordinator and 6-8 volunteer Counsellors seeing, on average, three clients each per week i.e. between 18 and 24 young people with emotional traumas per week.
Centrepoint Outreach (£3,300) Outreach (£3,300) Local Government - Lincolnshire Local Authority Rate Relief and Core Grant. We will seek alternative sources - to fundraise to make up the shortfall. Not easy!
Daventry Volunteer Centre (unknown) Local Government - Northamptonshire One full time staff member made redundant in April 2011. Two project funded until 2012 and 2014. Core funding until 2013 unless Northamptonshire County Council reverse their decision.
Derbyshire Unemployed Workers' Centres (£33,000) Local Government - Derbyshire We have received an annual grant from Derbyshire County Council for 20 years. This is worth £33,000. The council have informed us that they will no longer be awarding us this grant from April onwards. This money is going to be given instead to CAB working in the more affluent south of the county - we work in the former coalfield areas of the north and east side of Derbyshire. As a result, One full time post will be made redundant, and two part timers on temporary contracts will not have these renewed. We currently have over 700 tribunals pending in our files (mostly ESA) and will only have two full time advisers to deal with these. Drop in sessions will have to be reduced leading to longer queues and waiting times.
Disability Nottinghamshire (Unknown, but based on 10/11, 35%, equating to £13,300) Local Government - Nottinghamshire The charity would no longer be able to continue operating as its running costs would not be covered. This would affect their clients, which have increased by 20% in the last 12 months, their carers, families, friends and other professionals who rely on their services, which include their general disability and advice centre that would have to close.
Eastwood Volunteer Bureau (£12,000) Local Government - Nottinghamshire This was a result of the new Conservative majority in the county. They also planned to totally withdraw the grant of £17,000 for the Voluntary Transport scheme, but reinstated this as a result of a massive publicity campaign through local radio, TV, newspapers and local popular support. But the 50% concessions for the transport scheme were withdrawn despite the protest, resulting in our clients having to pay about double for their fares to cover volunteer mileage allowance this year. This took place during a consultation period. But the above cut for our other services was imposed on us after the beginning of this financial year.
Eastwood Volunteer Bureau (£25,230) Local Government - Nottinghamshire We have been unable to replace this cut so expect a deficit of £12,000 this year, more than a quarter of our reserves. Our promised/agreed grant of £24,000 was halved at the time of the first payment in April with no warning at all; there was some consultation about the transport grant, which was threatened and then reinstated, but the transport concessions, half the cost of the fares charged in the voluntary transport scheme, was removed with only a month's warning,
Erewash Voluntary Action CVS (unknown)

Local Government - Derbyshire, PCT

Closure of Future Jobs Fund equals loss of two posts at EVA. Derbyshire and the PCT have not yet decided on the future of former Joint Finance so all our core funding is under threat from April 2012.
Groundwork Derby & Derbyshire / The Bridge Centre (unknown) Unknown Went into administration on 20 September 2012.
Helpful Bureau, Broxtowe (£55,000) Local Government - Nottinghamshire The cut has resulted in the closure of some services for older people and a reduction in others.
Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL) (£70,000)   We had £70,000 of cuts all in relation to Disability Infrastructure, so we are left with limited resources, which means this has the impact of only being able to provide electronic information and a small amount of one-to-one support for small local disability organisation.
Lincoln & Lindsey Blind Society (£90,000) Local Government - Lincolnshire Although we held a Supporting People contract with Lincolnshire County Council for five years, being graded under the Quality Assessment Framework as the highest that was required, this contract was included in a tender for a Sensory Impairment contract and was awarded to a society in Birmingham.
Lincoln Pelican Trust Ltd (£250,000) Local Government - Lincolnshire, NHS Beneficiaries will be losing their placement unless they can obtain a personal budget, at present we have six out of our current 62 that have got through the system and have a budget in place. We will have to look at cutting services offered unless we attract new learners. At present no staff redundancies planned.
Lincolnshire Association of People with Disabilities (LAPD) (Unknown) Local Government - Lincolnshire We have lost our service level agreement with the Lincolnshire County Council and now relay on finding bids which are getting harder to get. The outcomes of this loss of funding are that we have to charge for services, ie training, access audits and mentoring. We have just been awarded money from our Co-op and now hope to operate until Easter 2011. The cuts have impacted on our service delivery by one worker was made redundant and then of cause we had redundancy of £2,500 to pay. also the extra work that process involved.I have agreed to cut my hours by half and from 37.5 I now work 15 hours per week over three days ofter working unpaid as work piles up and is needed to be completed, meeting are needed to attend. We are charging for training and access audits before they were free but we asked for a donation. We are being more commerical and undertaking mail shots to attract business. We no longer paid expenses for our members to attend AGM or other meetings. We no longer attend most of the meeting and sit on committees because of the time and costs to LASPD. The cuts to others has increased our work load because for information on disability metters and benefits we have increase our work. We now use more volunteers. Look at costings for events etc and also can LAPD afford to attend. If we don't get anything out of it then we don't go unless our expenses are covered. The frustrating thing is that phone calls get missed, people and meetings get over looked because of lack of time, it is difficult to deliver the same service under these conditions, also to keep up beat and motivate the volunteers.
MRC Community Action (£121,000) Local Government - Leicestershire Debt & Benefits Advice (£21,000) - entire service, delivered by 1.5 equivalent posts to be decommissioned from April 2011. Last year our debt advice worker dealt with 149 debts and helped 262 clients with benefits. The service, including home visits outreaching to the most vulnerable clients is not being replaced and demand is increasing dramatically. Carers Support (£32,159) - This entire service, delivered by two part time workers, is expected to be decommissioned from April 2011. A contact list of 400 unpaid carers will no longer have localised support and information, local forums and peer support. Personalisation is a key change in the market, people are living longer and there are increasing diagnosis of conditions, e.g. ASD, requiring care. Community Hub (infrastructure) services (£68,000) – loss of locality presence for support services for voluntary and community sector.
NAVO - Networking Action with Voluntary Organisations (Unknown) Local Government - Nottinghamshire We have had a major funding cut from our Local Authority, which has meant we have had to reduce staff and the services we deliver. We have written an exit strategy as part of our business plan. if we do not secure further new funding we may have to implement the exit strategy and close in June 2012.
Nottinghamshire Scouts (Received £58,000, a reduction of 58% on previous years) Local Government - Nottinghamshire This equates to £2.30 per child per year or 6.4p per child per week.
Partnership Council (Unknown) Local Government - Nottinghamshire, One Nottingham This funding is crucial to our existence. It is a crazy position to be in - we have been told there will be a cut to this years grant, but we still don't know how much the cuts will be three months into the year. We have been told next financial year that we won't receive any monies from this source.
Partnership Council (Unknown) Local Government - Nottingham, Childrens Services, Capacitybuilders, Working Neighbourhoods Fund I have never experienced in year cuts before. Although we are a medium sized organisation, the amount of monies we receive for overheads is small and thus we will really feel any cuts made. However, it is next year I am really concerned about. At the moment we have secured just under 9% of our funding for next year. Our Government sources of funding are all saying that either there will definitely be no money next year or unlikely to be.
Rural Community Action Nottinghamshire (£80,000) Local Government - Nottinghamshire £40,000 lost to cover delivery of core activities and another £40,000 lost for project work, leading to a great reduction in services for older people.
Self Help Nottingham (£36,000, on top of £4,000 last year) Local Government -- Nottinghamshire The impact of the cut to their funding was that they were no longer able to employ a full time training and development worker to work exclusively in Nottinghamshire. The impact on the small often unfunded self help groups in the county has been reduced access to advice and training on how to run their group. Self Help Nottingham are funded by the PCT in the county to work with groups for people living with long term health conditions. The county council funding enabled them to broaden their scope to any type of group. They were able to avoid redundancy in the organisation due to a new contract they were awarded by the county council to support the setting up of self help ‘work clubs’ in the county. However, this funding has now been cut and the work taken ‘in-house’ by the county council. This effectively reduces our income by a further £25,000 and removes a job from our sector.
The Crossing (£10,000) Local Government - Nottinghamshire The county council funded this community centre to the tune of £10,000 last year and has supported it for the last five years to between £15,000 and £10,000 a year. The result of the cuts is that the centre has lost their part-time volunteer coordinator to redundancy. This means that they will no longer be able to induct and train new volunteers, unless they can source this income from elsewhere. They have spent the last 12 months trying to do this and so far have been unsuccessful.
Tuxford Mine of Information Ltd (£10,000, following a grant of £30,000 in 08/09, £32,000 in 09/10, £23,000 in 10/11 and £10,000 in 11/12) Local Government - Nottinghamshire Since 09/10 Tuxford Mine of Information’s grant from Nottinghamshire County Council, has been part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) programme, which has now finished so at present they will receive no funding from them in 12/13. NCC have moved the date for new grants to start until 1 July 2012, which means there will be a three month gap after their grant finishes in 2012, even if they do receive another grant from the council. The impact of the cut means that the organisation is having to turn vulnerable people away because they are no longer able to help with Blue Badge applications and renewals; cannot offer a welfare rights system; withdrawal of outreach citizens advice bureau services from their building; a reduction in opening hours due to reduction in staff hours; a reduction in volunteers, as they can no longer afford to cover their travel expenses; reduction in training; and lost of revenue from and support to other VCS organisations that use their facilities.
Volunteer Centre Broxtowe (£39,500 over two year period, from £49,500 in 10/11 to £20,000 in 11/12 and £10,000 grant in 12/13) Local Government - Nottinghamshire The grant funded the centre’s Chief Officer, Volunteer Coordinator and Office Manager posts, which are difficult to get funding for elsewhere. The centre is now having to generate its own income by charging for services and through staff and volunteer fundraising. They have not had to cut services yet but the workload of their Group Support Worker has increased dramatically to support other groups whose funding has been cut.
Wellingborough Welfare Rights Advice Group (£28,000) Local Government - Northamptonshire £28,000 cut proposed in our funding from Northamptonshire County Council. This is our major funder and we will almost certainly have to close if the cut is agreed at the end of February. We support over 800 clients a year to claim their welfare benefit entitlements. Our client groups are overwhelmingly the elderly, disabled and disporportionally people from ethnic minority groups (50% of all clients). It is good news that our funding is now extended to 31 March 2011 then we will have to put in a bid – maybe with a larger organisation or close. It is still at a reduced rate. Coordinator hours has been reduced and because of all these funding problems have also lost two good volunteers. No longer have a land line so it is only mobile and seeing clients at Azuka, Places for People, 67 Elsden Rd. Wellingborough NN8 1QD on monthly basis and working from home.