GM VCFSE Sector Instability Warning: An Open Letter to Commissioners
The Greater Manchester VCFSE Leadership Group have written an open letter to Greater Manchester Commissioners calling for urgent action to support and protect the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector following years of systemic issues, underfunding, disinvestment, delayed commissioning decisions, and new financial pressures.
Why we have written to commissioners
Our sector has endured years of challenges, including:
- Contracts that fail to keep pace with inflation and relevant pay scale
- Delayed decisions that undermine our ability to plan.
- A lack of funding uplifts, even as operational costs surge
- Lack of long-term funding.
- Lack of a level playing-field in commissioning decisions.
On top of this, new financial pressures such as the recent National Insurance increase announced in the Autumn Budget have increased the strain.
We are asking that Commissioners work with us to tackle these systematic issues.
Whilst we have already seen support from local and GM leaders, including Mayor Andy Burnham and Councillor Arooj Shah who called on Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, to urgently reconsider proposed NIC changes in order to protect the sector, we now call upon commissioners to support our shared vision of a thriving VCFSE sector in Greater Manchester.
Organisations have already been forced to make staff redundancies, to make real-time pay cuts and to scale back services, leaving the most vulnerable members of our society without essential services. Essential agreements, such as the VCSE Accord and GM VCSE Commissioning Framework to name a few, are being undermined.
We are asking that Commissioners work with us to find a way forward. We are calling for immediate action from GM Commissioners to:
- Adopt a full cost recovery model including inflation-linked funding adjustments built into contracts as standard. Alongside this, where our full costs are being taken into commissioning decisions with a value for money assessment, ensure a level playing field by not comparing our full organisation costs with salary-only in-house contracts.
- Make long-term contract and grant arrangements. Offer multi-year contracts to VCFSE organisations to help you scale up and deliver GM’s Live Well ambitions effectively.
- Work with the sector to understand and mitigate risks of disinvestment, underfunding, and commissioning delays. Prioritise commissioning decisions that protect and grow the VCFSE ecosystem by mitigating risks when keeping services in-house within NI-exempt institutions.
- Urgently finalise and communicate their commissioning intentions for 25/26 to the sector.
