Why are so many disability charities struggling to make ends meet, asks Rod Hermeston

Disability charities exist to make a difference not to make a profit. So they usually operate on tight margins, investing as much as they can in services. But many of them are struggling. Cathy Pharoah, director of research at the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), says that the disability groups which make it into CAF?s top 500 charities tend to be near the bottom third in terms of income growth.

Charities dealing with physical disability saw a 40 per cent growth in income and mental health charities 27 per cent between 1995 and 1999, compared with 55 per cent for youth charities and 84 per cent for hospital charities. Disability is losing out in an increasingly competitive charity market. Charities for youngsters, animals and health may be more attractive to donors, says Pharoah. And she adds: ?If the bigger ones are struggling then the smaller ones are definitely struggling.?

Certainly, middle-sized charities have suffered. Research published last year by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations found that between 1991 and 1997, organisations with an annual income of between ?250,000 and ?1m saw their income decline.

It is not just small and medium-sized charities that hit problems. Scope, one of the UK?s largest disability charities, has an annual income of ?85m, but the bulk of that is from fees to provide specific services. A fall in voluntary income from its 304 shops meant it had to announce cuts in discretionary spending of ?3.75m last November.

The problem was caused by cheap new clothes coming on to the market in commercial chains. This could not have been predicted, says Scope chief executive Richard Brewster.
?The fall in our income was around ?4m, which was about 20-25 per cent of the disposable money,? he says. This led to proposed cuts, including the unpopular announcement of an end to fieldwork services for adults in the community. The charity is currently consulting on continuing adult services. Shops are now showing signs of recovery and the cutbacks may not be so heavy either.

But the main lament from disability charities seems to be the difficulty in persuading the Government or other funders to meet administration staff costs. There is also a tendency to fund specific projects for only three years, because funders demand innovation and that projects do new things. The Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) is making cutbacks in order to avoid a potential ?200,000 deficit. Funding has run out for the SIA?s counselling and Personal Assistance (PA) services, though it hopes to continue them.

Acting chief executive Mary Ann Tyrrell says the fact that repeat funding is so difficult to secure simply harms the recipients of a service that works. ?If you have a good project and you say three years later you cannot get further funding people are devastated,? she says. The PA service has in any case withered on the vine because, while SIA tried to keep costs low for its members, other agencies were simply paying their personal assistants (PAs) higher wages. ?The need is still there but we cannot recruit the PAs,? says Tyrrell.

The small Disability Information Trust, meanwhile, faced the possibility of closure. Trust manager Patrick Molloy says its work of testing out products which then appeared in its publications was unique, and will leave a hole in provision. Funding from the Department of Health Section 64 grants scheme has now run out and a search for alternative funding has failed. Molloy says: ?We have looked everywhere. I doubt anybody could tell us where else we could go for money.? He says it is ?almost certain? the trustees will fold the charity.

Then there is the National Federation of Shopmobility UK, based in Worcester. This helps set up shopmobility schemes and monitors standards. Funding has almost run out and it has been unable to appoint a chief executive for over a year. It also desperately needs money for its premises.

The organisation may now adopt a regional structure to see if that brings in funding Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO), says the Government and other funders need to accept that core funding to pay for administration staff and the running of a charity is vital. He says: ?Without an infrastructure there is no project and without a professional infrastructure there is a poor project.?

And funding needs to change to allow longer-term investment in projects, he adds. ?Disability is not a three-year problem,? he says. ?We are dealing with a long-term problem and there are long-term solutions.?

A report by ACEVO, Funding our Future ? Core Costs Revisited, calls for longer-term stable funding arrangements and a recognition that core costs are unavoidable.

It may be a difficult time for disability charities, says Bubb, but the Government and funders could make things easier by establishing a more mature relationship with them.

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