The Scottish Government has announced that it will be allocating more than £60m of multi-year funding for charities with pilot projects focused on offering essential services and eradicating child poverty.
Its Fairer Funding pilot will provide multi-year funding in the form of 45 grants, delivered to charities across Scotland.
The funding, subject to budget approval, will support projects in areas including health, education, poverty and culture and have a total value of £61.7m in 2025-26 and £63.2m in 2026- 27.
Pilot heeds previous warnings from parliamentary committee
The announcement comes after the Scottish Government was urged by the country’s Social Justice and Social Security Committee to extend funding for charities to three years, due to short-term arrangements creating financial instability for many organisations.
In a pre-budget report published last autumn, the committee had warned that short-term funding cycles were diverting time and resources away from charities’ delivery of services.
In addition to calling on the government to prioritise three-year funding and include provisions for inflation-based adjustments, it also called for a shift towards more flexible, unrestricted core funding.
‘Scheme will give charities ability to plan for the future’
Speaking last week at third sector event the Gathering, Scotland’s social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “The pilot is the first step in mainstreaming multi-year funding agreements more widely across the third sector.
“It will give organisations the ability to plan for the future and make the most of their resources.
“The pilot’s focus on grants connected to tackling child poverty and the delivery of frontline services to our communities will maximise the impact of longer-term funding and support the delivery of our number one priority, eradicating child poverty.”
‘First step towards rolling out Fair Funding principles’
Anna Fowlie, chief executive of umbrella body the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, said: “The voluntary sector has a crucial role to play in delivering essential services across Scotland that people and communities rely on.
“Multi-year funding models are vital, providing security to voluntary organisations and, crucially, allowing them to get on and deliver for people and communities.
“We welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to piloting multi-year funding for a range of voluntary organisations across Scotland – a first step, we hope, towards rolling out Fair Funding principles to voluntary sector funding.”
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