Huge budget cuts 'could push Yorkshire charities to the wall'

Council chiefs say they are having sleepless nights over the financial position of charities and the protection of vulnerable communities, ahead of next month's comprehensive spending review from Chancellor George Osborne.

Budget cuts of between 25 and 40 per cent are expected across the board as the coalition Government reduces grants to public bodies.

One fifth of UK charities plan to lay off staff over the next three months and nine in 10 believe economic conditions in the voluntary sector will worsen during the next year, according to a poll.

The director of civil liberties group JUST West Yorkshire, Ratna Lachman, said: "There is a big question about whether smaller organisations, who are there at the coal face, delivering vital services to the most vulnerable, are going to survive these cuts.

"Our analysis is that they won't, because they haven't got the voice or the skills in terms of coming together, and the vital investment work that needed to happen to skill them up hasn't happened – so we think a lot of them are actually going to go to the wall.

"Given the speed and scale of the cuts, our sector is probably looking over the abyss, and there is a real possibility that an already depleted sector is facing terminal decline."

Two thirds of voluntary sector bosses expect balance sheets will worsen over the next 12 months, according to the survey by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

Its chief executive, Sir Stuart Etherington, said: "It is crucial that the Government listens to the sector's concerns. Spend-

ing cuts must be managed intelligently, otherwise they will compromise the sector's ability to deliver vital services."

A meeting was held yesterday by JUST West Yorkshire at the Royal Armouries in Leeds for charities and black and minority ethnic groups to discuss their fears with council leaders.

Kirklees Council leader Mehboob Khan met delegates from groups such as Bradford Action for Refugees and Leeds Jewish Welfare Board.

Coun Khan said: "The cuts make me extremely worried.

"It's something that keeps me up at night, thinking about how we're going to manage to deliver good quality public services and protect vulnerable communities. The level of cuts is absolutely draconian.

"A meltdown in public services is what's coming. West Yorkshire councils are all driving very hard on improving efficiencies, but we'll have to be very honest with local people that services will be affected.

"You can't take this amount of money out of public services and not cut them."

The chairman of voluntary support consortium West Yorkshire Local Development Agencies, Chris Hollins, believes that cuts already hitting third sector organisations can only get worse.

"The immediate future is dire," he said. "There are going to be lots of organisations which will disappear, there are some which have gone already and organisations which have already faced cuts within the past few months or past couple of years."

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