The sudden collapse of Mental Health Aberdeen after 75 years of service has shocked the city. These were essential services, and yet they were delivered by a charity running on precarious funding. If a service is essential, it should be guaranteed. Not left to chance.
Unfortunately many in the third sector face a similar and seemingly impossible future: more people needing help, fewer resources to meet that need, and rising costs that made the numbers unworkable. Whilst it could be easy to be caught up in the many valid questions about what went wrong in this instance – this shouldn’t just a story of one charity’s breakdown. It should be a story about a system that is loading essential responsibilities onto organisations never designed to carry them.
Where has the public sector gone?
Aberdeen knows the strain of shrinking public services. NHS Grampian struggles with demand and costs. Local authority budgets are cut year after year.
The Health and Social Care Partnership faces extreme budget challenges. Preventative and intervention work has never been properly funded in a sustainable way in the city. Into that vacuum, charities have stepped – and have come to be expected to do the heavy lifting with little security. It’s true that charities can innovate, connect better with communities, and offer local person-centred support, but they cannot replicate the stability and resilience of state run services.
When the public sector have to pull back from delivery of services, communities are forced to deliver what they can without the proper resources in a postcode lottery.
The closure of MHA should spark a bigger debate. What are charities for? To deliver essential services to society? Or to provide the community connections and creativity that make our society richer through challenge, innovation and change? Because right now, too many are being pushed into the first role. And that should worry everyone. What we are seeing right now across the country and in this city is not community empowerment – it’s overburdening communities.
Time to demand more
The whole story is not simply that a charity closed, but that we allow essential services to depend solely on charities in the first place. If something is essential, it surely must be guaranteed from the public sector.
Charities and community groups in Aberdeen have a vital role to play – as innovators, advocates, and connectors. But they cannot and should not be the last line of defence for communities. That responsibility belongs to the public sector, and unless we demand it steps up, we will keep reliving the same story: more charities will reach breaking point, and the most vulnerable people in society will be faced with the consequences.
There’s a Scottish Parliament election coming soon, and we can only hope that all those seeking power recognise the serious issues facing the third sector.
You can help by making sure the message is loud and clear.
