Relationship support charity Relate has entered administration and made just under a third of its workforce, approximately 80 employees, redundant.
Founded in 1938 as the National Marriage Guidance Council, the charity has fallen into financial difficulty following the loss of government contracts.
Administrators FRP Advisory said around 200 employees remain in post at the charity, with those made redundant being supported with applications to the Redundancy Payments Service.
Relate’s network of 23 local charities across England and Wales will be unaffected by the central organisation’s administration and will continue to deliver relationship counselling and other services as normal, the administrators said.
The central charity will also continue to trade while it considers options for restructuring.
But Relate’s counselling service, launched in 2018 for areas of the country not covered by its federated centres, is under threat.
“The financial climate and the loss of government contracts has impacted Relate Ltd’s ability to sustain that service,” a spokesperson for the charity said.
They added that the charity is exploring various “restructuring options that might be available to the charity in consultation with the local network of centres”.
Government contract loss
Relate reported an income of £7.58m and expenditure of £7.30m in its most recently filed accounts for the year to March 2023.
Most of the charity’s income that year (£5.26m) came from government or other contract income, with £759,000 from donations and legacies.
Relate’s accounts note that its contract with the Department for Work and Pensions, as its prime delivery partner for eight local authority areas in the North East of England, came ended in July 2022.
This contract ending is listed as an “important event” that had “directly or indirectly impacted the charity and its financial performance”.
FRP Advisory partners Phil Reynolds and Ian Corfield were appointed joint administrators of Relate on 26 November.
“We’re exploring a number of options for the central support organisation and are in communication with both employees and clients about what the ongoing process means for them,” Reynolds said.
Meanwhile, the chief executive of Relationships Scotland, a separate charity which has formal referral arrangements with Relate, said he was sorry to hear about the charity south of the border entering administration.
Stuart Valentine said: “We wish our colleagues in Relate the very best with the challenges they are currently facing.”
He added that the 21 member services of Relationships Scotland continued to operate as normal.
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