Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a £750m package to keep struggling charities afloat during the coronavirus pandemic.
The move follows concern that some charities are facing collapse, with income shrinking because of enforced shop closures. Bigger charities such as Oxfam and Age UK have furloughed two-thirds of staff. The measures involve cash grants direct to charities providing key services during the crisis.
As part of the scheme, £360m will be directly allocated by government departments to those charities. Another £370m will go to small local charities, including those delivering food and essential medicines and providing financial advice.
Hospice charities like Sue Ryder are to receive £200m of the funding. St John Ambulance will also be among the charities to benefit from the newly announced funds, along with Citizens Advice and those providing support to vulnerable children and victims of domestic abuse.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, said: “Hospices have suffered a huge challenge to their funding due to the outbreak of coronavirus but at the same time continued to play a vital role in delivering compassionate, quality end-of-life care for many people.”
Vicky Browning, chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, said the new funding would not be enough to save every charity. “When a charity closes, it is the people they work with that are harmed and we believe every possible step should be taken to prevent people from experiencing harm because of this pandemic,” she said.
Browning said that only around 30% of charities would be able to take advantage of the government’s job retention scheme, which allows organisations to furlough staff and receive a grant of up to 80% of their wages. “For many organisations there’s actually far more demand on their services, so it’s not that they have people sitting around doing nothing,” she said. “They can’t afford to mothball their staff, but they also can’t afford to keep them going, so they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
‘Gentleness of charity’
Announcing the move, Mr Sunak said the government could not match every pound of spending that the UK’s 170,000 charities would have received this year. He also said charities were eligible for help through the government’s job retention scheme.
However, he said the government wanted to help the charities that were “on the front line of fighting the coronavirus”. “Shutting up shop at this moment would contravene their very purpose,” he added.
Mr Sunak also said the government would match all donations to the BBC’s Big Night In fundraising event on 23 April, pledging a minimum of £20m. “We need the gentleness of charity in our lives,” he said.
Click here to find out more about the Job Retention Scheme
Credit Source: BBC News & The Independent