The cost of living crisis is more than just a squeeze on household finances. For many households with low incomes and little or no savings, the impacts of rising food prices and high energy costs have been devastating for physical and mental well-being.
For these households and the communities in which they live, the wide range of services provided by local charities and social enterprises have never been in greater demand. Whether providing access to affordable finance or helping people return to work, many of these organisations are playing a key role in supporting those people who are hardest hit by economic pressures.
Many other social enterprises, who were previously focused on other areas of social or environmental good, are also now pivoting to meet local demands and address important issues relating to the poverty faced by their communities. However, this is coming at a cost to their own long-term mission, sustainability and growth prospects.
Not only are they facing major operational changes in service provision, but these same organisations are also battling against current economic pressures, particularly high energy costs, wage inflation and recruitment. At a time when demand on services is increasing, the volunteer pool is dwindling due to the cost of living.
Community Transport Glasgow (CTG) is one such social enterprise having to adapt to economic headwinds. CTG plays a major role in supporting the transport needs of people in some of Glasgow’s most disadvantaged areas. Those needs can range from getting to hospital appointments to ensuring that young people can participate in team sports at an affordable cost.
As a result of the squeeze in grants and service level agreements and the anticipation that this trend will continue, CTG is having to increase the percentage of revenue generated from vehicle hire income to meet increased costs, impacting its ability to maintain the same levels of community provision.
CTG is clearly not alone in this regard. The latest third sector tracker from the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) showed that financial pressures continue to dominate the Scottish third sector landscape, highlighting an increase in organisations reporting lower turnover. Those reporting lower turnover were also increasingly pessimistic about how long this will last. Rising costs were also a prevalent issue for third sector organisations, with all except a small minority seeing their costs rise. This has affected the ability of almost half of all organisations to deliver their core services or activities.
The strength of our social enterprise sector in Scotland has rightly been a source of pride for many years. However, if they are to remain a core component of a wellbeing economy, then they need our collective support. From consumers purchasing goods to businesses procuring services, from the allocation of government funding to the assessment of funding applications – we all have a part to play in ensuring that this sector can continue providing vital services, but yet has the resources to plan for a post-crisis sustainable future where it can continue to deliver positive impacts for communities across Scotland.
Chris Jamieson is Head of Investments, Social Investment Scotland
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here