Debate contribution: Voluntary and Community Sector Funding

Debate contribution by Ms Diane Forsythe on 5 May 2026.

MLA

Ms Diane Forsythe

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

5 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Voluntary and Community Sector Funding

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5525043

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the SDLP for tabling the motion on funding for the voluntary and community sector. As chair of the all-party group (APG) on the voluntary and community sector, I have long called for an assessment and quantification of the extent of the public services that the voluntary and community sector delivers in Northern Ireland. We all know that its organisations are at the heart of our communities, delivering front-line services across all Departments. The extent of their delivery has never been quantified, and the scale of it has never been fully built into our Programme for Government (PFG) assessments. The voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland continues to deliver front-line services to our public and to fill the gap that public services do not reach. From 2023 until 2025, the voluntary and community sector-led UK SPF programmes supported almost 24,000 beneficiaries. Members in every corner of the Chamber will no doubt testify to the impact that such organisations have in their constituencies. It is therefore vital that our voluntary and community sector feel valued for the work that it does. Ensuring stability and sustainability of services and volunteers is critical to ensuring that the support infrastructure is there for the people who need it. The unprecedented challenges facing our departmental budgets have the potential to create a much bigger problem and greater uncertainty for projects and groups in the sector, given organisations' reliance on core funding. The DUP believes that the UK Government have a responsibility to provide clarity on the future of that funding without delay. It is appalling that organisations in the voluntary and community sector, which do essential work, have been left in such an uncertain position. In particular, the 70:30 capital/revenue split has caused major concern that 11,000 people a year may lose support. Our party has raised that issue at every level, with Gavin Robinson raising it at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Right across the House, we have been speaking with a united voice. Put simply, there is not enough capacity within existing statutory services to replace the loss of the programmes, and that will undoubtedly mean that individuals will be denied access to services, resulting in negative consequences for health, well-being, economic development and skills growth across our Province. We want to see the previous spending power under the EU structural funds be replicated and enhanced. The UK always paid more into the EU than what it received back in structural funding. There therefore can be no excuse for any shortfall in funding now. The DUP does not accept that a shortfall was in some way inevitable as a result of our exit from the EU. Ultimately, previous Governments made promises that have not been honoured. Over the past years, we in the DUP repeatedly sought clarity on when that funding would be available and how it would be administered, and it is clear, on all of those fronts, that the engagement of the previous Government was severely lacking. We want to see that remedied. The size of the pot is extremely important, but it is also critical that the priorities of future programmes reflect the needs and circumstances of communities in Northern Ireland. The role of the voluntary and community sector has been highlighted and rightly recognised throughout our Programme for Government. We have always been clear that the aims and funding objectives of our local growth fund must align with the Executive's agreed plans for economic growth and social inclusion. We cannot be in a situation where funding coming from the UK Government duplicates aims already covered by Executive programmes or where Northern Ireland's circumstances are not reflected in the development or administration of the funding. Equally, the DUP does not believe that providing a more meaningful role for the devolved Administrations in deciding how and where that funding is targeted must be at the expense of retaining a national approach to providing greater economic and social cohesion between different parts of the United Kingdom. That is where our amendment tries to bring in a degree of assessment of our current position. Given the tough decisions that will need to be taken by Executive Ministers in the coming weeks and months in the difficult budgetary situation, we, on balance, do not believe that devolving responsibility for the schemes solely to local Ministers would be prudent or conducive to providing greater certainty to the sector; rather, it would add to the challenges facing our Departments. Our amendment removes the suggestion to ring-fence the money, because, as we see it, if you ring-fence everything and set it aside to deliver on previous schemes when the Budget is already under pressure, it will put additional pressures on Ministers and force the question: when we do not have additional funding, where do you take the money from? Which Department do you take money from to ring-fence it for this? As I say, the DUP has consistently raised the poor way in which the local growth fund has been progressed at every level. We believe that the UK Government need to step up, fund it properly, restore the fund's full aims and remove the capital/revenue split. We support the voluntary and community sector, and we recognise the valuable contribution that it has made for the public in Northern Ireland. That sector has been let down, and we support the call from our Assembly, the parties that stood united, our Executive and our MPs to reinstate the local growth fund in full.

922 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

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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