Aberdeen City Council meet this Friday (11th October) to consider their Medium Term Financial Strategy which includes feedback from Phase 1 of the consultation on their budget for the 2025-2026 financial year.  

ACVO held discussion with its member organisations to understand the impact of the proposed changes to the Council’s budget at this early stage.  The message from our members was united and clear – the sector cannot continue to operate effectively without adequate resources. 

Our message hasn’t changed since last year – but it has got louder – the third sector is experiencing high demand for services and at the same time is suffering from dwindling resources.  Projects are being run on a shoestring across the city and staff hours are being cut to keep organisations afloat.  The situation is unsustainable.

ACVO members have posed this question.  What would Aberdeen be like if our third sector of community bodies, voluntary groups, charities and cultural organisations weren’t here?  We ask elected representatives, Council officials and the public to seriously consider this.  If communities are not properly resourced to deal with the consequences of public service reduction, then the most vulnerable in our society will suffer and additional pressure will be placed on our public bodies to respond to crises.

ACVO’s Chief Executive Maggie Hepburn said: “No one in Aberdeen’s third sector wants to see our Council in this position, we are one city and working in partnership is key to delivering for our communities – but our members are reaching the limit of what they can deal with.  There needs to be serious whole-system discussions about how our sector is funded and how we can sustain services which not only support the most vulnerable, but which prevent people getting into difficulty in the first place.”

You can read ACVO’s full response below or download a PDF version here.