Fall of 31% in workforce in voluntary and community sector — report

The social justice sector will have lost 31% of its workforce by the end of next year compared with the level before the recession, according to a report.

The study, conducted for Philanthropy Ireland, also claims there has been “state antipathy towards advocacy” at a time of plummeting funding to the voluntary and community sector by successive governments.

Entitled Scoping of Need in Social Justice Sphere, the study was written by researcher Brian Harvey and outlines how a 35% fall in government funding to the voluntary and community sector has been coupled with three important philanthropic funders leaving the country — with a reduction in funding from €60m to €13m.

A drop in public donations and revelations about top-ups and bonuses in some charities have also had a negative impact.

According to the report: “The Government has made it plain that government social spending will not rise from 2016, presenting us with a future of ‘post-austerity austerity’.

“The most dramatic, indeed unthinkable, development of recent years was the course of action embarked on by the State since 2002 to reduce and finally eliminate its investment in community development which comes to an end in December 2014 and which had been historically the frontline of state outreach to disadvantaged communities.

“We are left with a picture of a relatively prosperous four-fifths of Irish society, but a picture of 10% to 20% of children and adults living in poverty, facing lives of cumulative disadvantage across education, housing, welfare, the labour market, and living conditions,” the report read.

Mr Harvey said the job losses were most keenly felt in smaller, local organisations particularly in the community sector where there had been a 45% fall in employment levels.

“It is a case of [being] down to the bare bones and more likely to be local organisations,” he said.

Mr Harvey said services and advocacy “go together hand in hand” and that government needed to look at the “bigger picture”. He said projections on social protection spending indicated it would reduce further between now and 2018, consolidating the gap between the relatively prosperous and the worst off.

Anna Visser of the Advocacy Initiative said many larger national organisations had taken steps such as reducing salaries or trimming services so as to keep going, whereas many local organisations were worst hit.

However, she said any suggestion it led to a “chilling effect” among advocacy groups when it came to criticising government policies was “hard to pin down”.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including that funders back ideas and projects that are most likely to be directly applied, and the voluntary and community sector speak with Philanthropy Ireland about ways to address common problems.

Of the shrinking of the voluntary and community sector, Mr Harvey wrote: “Such a rate of reduction is unparalleled in any part of Europe since 1948.”

The report also details a 27% fall in corporate funding as well as decreases in monies derived from dormant accounts and court poor boxes.