Debate contribution: Voluntary and Community Sector Funding

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 5 May 2026.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

5 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Voluntary and Community Sector Funding

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5525027

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

The crisis facing the voluntary and community sector did not arrive suddenly, nor was it inevitable. It is the product of decisions taken and decisions not taken over many years. To understand how we reached this point, we need to be clear about what previously worked, why it worked and what has been lost. For decades, European structural funds, particularly the European social fund (ESF) and the European regional development fund (ERDF), provided stable, strategic investment in Northern Ireland's communities. They worked because the Northern Ireland Executive treated them as core policy instruments, not as discretionary add-ons. Executive match funding was not a courtesy; it was a statement of intent that said, "Tackling economic inactivity, supporting people into work, addressing inequality and strengthening communities are central priorities of devolved government". That match funding ensured three critical things. The first was scale. European funding came in at a level that was meaningful because it was matched locally. The second thing was stability. Organisations could plan across programme cycles, retain skilled staff and build trusted relationships with participants. The third thing was integration. Programmes were embedded in local strategies for employability, skills, disability inclusion and regeneration. That is why those programmes delivered results, particularly in places such as my constituency of Foyle, where economic inactivity is deeply entrenched and driven by disability, long-term ill health and caring responsibilities. What replaced that model was something very different. Brexit resulted in the loss of EU funding, especially for the most marginalised groups in society. The parties that championed Brexit must bear some responsibility for that and for where we are today. Since then, we have seen a succession of schemes — first, the Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF) and, now, the local growth fund — that lack those three qualities: scale, stability and integration. Most critically, the Executive match funding principle has disappeared. Savings arising from the end of European structural funds have not been reinvested in a way that protects the delivery capacity that those funds supported. Instead of being treated as foundational, voluntary and community sector programmes have been left exposed, dependent on short-term, externally designed schemes with limited local flexibility. The failure of continuity matters, because the local growth fund, as currently structured, is not just smaller in revenue terms; it is fundamentally mis-designed for Northern Ireland. A 70:30 capital-to-resource split might suit the regions where growth challenges are infrastructure-led, but our challenge is people-led. Capital funding does not support a person with a disability into sustained employment; it does not address trauma-related barriers; it does not keep skilled employability staff in place, and yet that is the funding model now being imposed. Ministers have already acknowledged key elements of the problem. The Finance Minister has put it on the record that the Executive cannot rebalance the capital/resource split and that the resource element will be delivered directly by Westminster in 2026-27. At the same time, we are told that the responsibility for delivery later reverts to the Departments here, meaning that the Executive will inherit the consequences of a model that they did not design. The Executive have also failed to take any responsibility for a problem that, we knew, was coming. Yes, what the UK Government have done is indefensible, but Ministers here have abandoned their responsibility to the thousands of people supported by those projects and organisations. That places an even greater responsibility on the Executive to assess and mitigate the impact now, but, as usual, when a crisis points to a collective responsibility for the Executive, the response is a collective silence. Assurances to the sector have been paper-thin. As far back as January 2025, the then Finance Minister agreed to set up a cross-departmental group to identify the risks coming forward from the transition, but we do not know whether that group even got off the ground. If it did, it was in secret with no collaboration or consultation with the community and voluntary sector. Despite accepting that job losses and service reductions are inevitable, Departments have produced no clear or published analysis of the impact of the funding transition on the voluntary and community sector's ability to continue delivering support. That is not my interpretation; it is the clear implication of answers already given in the House and to Committees. We are effectively being told that the full impact cannot be assessed, while organisations are already issuing redundancy notices. That is not an evidence-based approach; it is policymaking while blindfolded. Let me bring it back to Foyle, because those decisions have a real-world impact. In my constituency, the voluntary and community sector carries much of the weight of tackling economic inactivity. Action Mental Health's north-west provision, YouthStart’s delivery partners, the Bytes Project, the women-focused employability and confidence programmes and community-based support organisations from the Bogside to the Waterside are not peripheral; they are central. Those organisations work with people who do not transition neatly between mainstream programmes, such as people with learning disabilities, people who are managing long-term mental health conditions, women returning to the labour market after prolonged care responsibilities and young people whose barriers cannot be addressed by short-term interventions. Yet there is no published assessment to set out which of those services can survive the funding reduction, what staffing capacity will be lost or how the loss of the provision will affect local economic inactivity rates, not to mention the vulnerable individuals. Instead, the Executive acknowledge the problem but appear to be willing to proceed without modelling the impact. In contrast, under the ESF, the Executive understood that withdrawing match funding would collapse delivery, so they did not do that. Under the current arrangements, however, the withdrawal has happened by default: not through decision but through omission. The motion is not asking for charity; it asks for the restoration of a principle that previously guided policy: if we rely on the voluntary and community sector to deliver core outcomes, we fund it accordingly.

Ring-fencing funding in the multi-year Budget is not a radical measure. It would achieve predictability, continuity and accountability. Let us be honest about the alternative. If we are to allow experienced staff to leave, services to close and community trust to dissipate, capacity will not be easily rebuilt. The costs will simply reappear elsewhere: in mental health services; in long-term unemployment; in poverty statistics; and in the very economic inactivity figures that the Executive say that they want to reduce. That is not fiscal responsibility but cost-shifting.

The questions for the Executive are fairly straightforward. If, under European funding, we knew that match funding was essential to delivery, why is its disappearance being treated as acceptable? If Departments cannot assess the impact on service delivery here, why are they content to proceed regardless? If we accept that Westminster will not adjust the funding profile in the short term, what is the Executive's plan to prevent permanent damage to the sector on which we all depend? The motion asks the Executive to stop managing decline and to start managing risk, proactively and strategically. We know what worked and what has been lost, and we still have an opportunity to act. I urge Members to support the motion, and I urge the Executive to re-establish the principle that made European structural funds so effective here: long-term commitment matched with deliberate political choice. The voluntary and community sector here depends on the re-establishment of that principle. It deserves no less.

1,241 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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