Our response to the Autumn Budget – We need your help!

Whilst we welcomed last week’s budget and the focus on rebuilding public services, the impact of the National Insurance Contribution and minimum wage increases will have significant impacts on the financial sustainability of the VCSE sector.

We’ve done a rough calculation based on national figures (this doesn’t account for variance between wages within Cornwall’s voluntary sector and the national breakdown of wages within the sector) and we estimate a financial impact of somewhere in the region of £9m on the Cornwall VCSE sector.  Nationally the impact is estimated at £1.4bn.  There is currently no provision made within existing public sector contracts or philanthropic grant funding for this unexpected increase, and we know this is likely to result in a cut to service provision or worse the closure of some organisations.

We need your help to lobby government and local partners. Please help us to help you by:

• Completing our survey so we understand the impact this will have on VCSE organisations in Cornwall and Isles of Scilly.
• Agreeing to put your organisation’s name to a letter to our local MPs
• Signing this open national letter to the Chancellor from NCVO and ACEVO

Thank you.