Redundancies - funding cuts now beginning to bite at DVSC

This is not a good week. I have already had meetings with one member of  staff explaining that due to a cut in the funding the post will be terminated  28th February 2011. The officer in question , Sarah Breeze, has already emailed the various voluntary and community groups and explained that the Rural Development funding is ending and that she will finish on the 28th February just 4 weeks away. This is bad news for the community as many of the groups are midway through their development projects and Sarah has provided an invaluable service to them. This is not just me saying it but the groups that have told me directly how much they value Sarah' support, knowledge and expertise .  I live in hope that just maybe the funding cut will be lifted but clearly that is now a decision that is being taken elsewhere many miles from Denbighshire.

Now starting to look at our funding stream profile for March and beyond and again I can see Cymorth is now ending for us and so again I will be having a conversation with another staff member which will lead to just one outcome namely redundancy as we have no other alternatives on the horizon. The solution here will be looking for funding from sources other than Welsh Assembly Government and Denbighshire County Council and to that end we have already made a number of submissions and working on others as it is clear that the role of the officer is highly valued and the outcomes we have been getting were very significant and making a huge difference to the lives of the people in the communities.

Aside from Cymorth there are funding issues with both Denbighshire and Flintshire County Councils given we operate a carers service across both Counties as well as delivering Voluntary Council activities in Denbighshire. Its not surprising that  we are talking about cuts as the Councils themselves are being subjected to cuts by WAG although I was always hopeful that our services would be seen by the locally elected members as having a priority particularly around the work we do with carers and  children and young people. Democracy will prevail and  as history shows there will be winners and losers  and sadly for us the losers will be the carers and children and young people although we will persevere to see if we can secure funding elsewhere or perhaps and/or persuade the funders to look kindly on our services and avoid the cuts - after all Councils revenue budgets this year are being cut by just 1.6% or so.

I know we are not alone in this period of austerity  and it would be good to hear how other third sector organisations are coping  as they are in total employing a significant number of  people . At the last count in Denbighshire alone the third sector was employing over 4500 full or part time and I think that figure marks them as employing more people collectively than Denbighshire County Council .

Here's to next week and I hope to have better news as I am expecting to hear the results of  one of our funding bids to do with safeguarding children and young people   and also have a meeting with Big Lottery relating to our ground breaking bid for a North Wales project ,in collaboration with the other 5 County Voluntary Council's , around working closely with the business sector which we piloted in Denbighshire last year.

One thing you can say about the third sector - there is never a dull moment , always plenty to do  and people to see .