Here they are again, providers moaning about the money. 

I work for a canny big organisation employing 350 staff to support 170 people.  We are a Co-operative and Community Benefit society with Charitable status.  We are not in it for the money.  

I’m proud to say that 94% of our income goes straight back out again in staff wages and other employment related costs.  The remaining 6% pays for running an organisation, no waste .…we are aiming to be a lean, mean citizenship machine.

We do make a tiny bit of money, towards reserves for a rainy day, these reserves are currently below what Charity Commission advice would say we needed, we could keep going for 98 days if it all went pear shaped. 

I love it when the minimum wage increases, we try and go beyond that whenever it increases, we’ve managed this every year. 

The vast majority of our income is from Local Authorities and I’m smart enough to know that they are skint. 

Last winter a group of us banded together to fight for a higher percentage increase from local authorities.  I stepped back from this ‘fight’ and felt like a bit of a fraud, felt I was leaving my colleagues in the lurch. 

The reason I stepped aside was that I could see that the real battle was being transferred to people we support, and I’d need all of my energy to fight for every last scrap of support that people need – even to get safely out of bed – that is the level of fighting we are doing, not for people to go sky diving or white water rafting…getting…out…of…bed.  

My colleagues in local authorities are in the bunker, helmets on, repulsing wave after wave of demands on their (our) budget.  If they were more open with us, a few of us would be in the bunkers with them. 

I am very worried now for the future, operating on very tight surpluses to put towards reserves – sometimes as little as 1%, the rise in Employer National Insurance contributions will more that wipe this out.  It is unlikely we will get the full minimum wage increase from Local Authorities as we will have to ‘tighten our belts.’ 

We are not in it for the money – but we can’t do it without the money, and there are no more holes left on the belt. 

We have charitable status but local and national government are not our beneficiaries. 

If your aim as an organisation is to support Good Lives whether you are looking for 1%, 3% or 10% and whether you call that surplus, contribution to reserves or profit – the system should still support the viability of organisations however they are structured.