Edinburgh charities have urged the council to allocate further funding to the city’s voluntary sector, warning that services will be forced to close and make redundancies due to anticipated cuts.

It comes after the Edinburgh Integrated Joint Board, which directs the city’s health and social care partnership, announced plans to cut its £4.5m third sector grant programme from June onwards.

The programme funds more than 60 charities in the city, many of which have warned that they are now at risk of closure. 

Charities have called on the City of Edinburgh Council to allocate a minimum of £2m to support their services, as the council prepared to lay out its budget on 20 February.

Health All Round, a charity that supports local people’s physical, social and emotional wellbeing, said it was preparing to take the initial steps towards closure around the beginning of March, since it no longer had guaranteed core funding.

Catriona Windle, manager of Health All Round, said these plans included initiating a consultation process for the redundancy of eight staff members, beginning TPE procedures for four employees and giving notice to its landlords.

Feniks, a counselling charity for Edinburgh’s central eastern European community, is also looking at downsizing, with its chief executive, Magda Czarnecka, saying that due to the anticipated budget cuts the charity would begin issuing notices in March.

Czarnecka said: “At least eight out of 19 staff members will face significant reductions in their working hours. 

“It is not only staff and service users who will be impacted by the cessation of the grant. Families and carers of service users will also be placed under greater pressure.”

Stephanie-Anne Harris, strategic development director of the membership organisation Edinburgh Health Community Forum, said: “The cessation of the EIJB funding will only put greater pressure on Edinburgh’s wider health and social care services, which are already at breaking point.

“With the council’s budget day coming up, we urge the council to make good on its previous advocacy for prevention and early-stage intervention and commit to funding these vital health and wellbeing local organisations beyond June 2025.”

“We understand the pressure the council is under and that savings must be made. This is why we are asking for a minimum of £2m to support the city-critical organisations who deliver significant local services to those at risk in local communities. Without the funding, the very fabric of our community support systems will collapse.”

In a statement, councillor Mandy Watt, the council's finance and resources convenor, said: "Over the last decade cuts in core grant funding of over £400m have been mitigated by council staff continually delivering more with less resources. This year’s financial challenges are the UK government’s increase in national insurance, costing the council £9m and the Scottish government changing the stability funding floor, taking away £6.3m. 

"Huge pressures on health and social care remain unaddressed by national governments. Yet again, Edinburgh is expected to be the lowest funded local authority in Scotland per head of population and we’ll still need to find best value efficiency savings to deal with service pressures of £40m and keep the books balanced this year."