Cost Pressures Survey Results October 2024

The latest cost pressure survey results are now published.

This report highlights the significant challenges being experienced by the Third Sector in Leeds, as reflected by the responses to the survey.

View the report

Forum Central Cost Pressures Survey Results – October 2024 (link to google doc)

Previous survey results and the 2022 – 24 summary can also be found, along with past results on the Forum Central Cost-of-Living and Cost Pressures page.

Summary

The third sector cost pressures survey gathers information on financial pressures faced by third sector organisations who operate in Leeds; and the impact financial pressures are having on staff, services and organisation viability. Findings reported in this document relate to information collected from a survey which ran between 25 September and 25 October 2024. A total of 74 organisations responded.

Headlines:

• Third sector organisations responding are under intense financial pressure.
• Results combined with state of the third sector in Leeds reporting indicate that the size of the third sector may be reducing.
• Organisations are running at unsustainable levels of risk. 
• Organisations are adapting to avoid closing, reducing services, or staff – other ‘workarounds’ are being found, including:
  • More people working voluntarily to keep services running.
  • Drawing on reserves to keep staff employed.
  • Management structures are being reviewed to cut costs and make efficiencies wherever possible.
  • Some organisations are finding positives, examples of this are:
    • More collaboration and joined up working.
    • Exploration of new ways of delivering services.
    • Diversification of funding streams and income generation where possible.

Key Data Points:

• Staff reduction:
  • • 71.6% of respondents have reported either already losing staff (25.7%) or they are at risk of losing staff (45.9%) as a result of cost pressures.
    • A further 12.2% responded ‘maybe’ to the risk of losing staff.
    • 16.2% of respondents did not think that their organisation risked losing staff.

• Service Reduction:

• • • 73% of respondents answered ‘yes’ they are concerned that their organisation was at risk of service reduction as a result of cost pressures.
    • A further 17.6% responded ‘maybe’ when asked if they were concerned about the risk of service reduction.
    • 9.5% (7 organisations) did not see service reduction as being a risk for their organisation. 

• Organisations Closure

• • • Fewer organisations (14.9%, n=11) considered closure a current risk, compared with staff and service reduction
    • A further 18.9% responded maybe to this being a risk.
    • 66.2%, almost two thirds of respondents answered ‘no’ they are not concerned about the current level of risk to organisation closure.

• Waiting Lists

• • • A combined total of 62.6% of respondents are either not able to accept new users (21.3%) or are operating a waiting list (41.3%). 
    • Almost a third of organisations (31.3%) reported still having capacity to accept new users or are not operating waiting lists.
    • Responses indicated that the organisations most affected by these capacity issues are those providing support around Mental Health, Long Term Conditions, People With Learning Disabilities and Neurodiversity.

• Risks and issues to flag

• • • 17.6% responded ‘yes’ when asked if they wanted to flag a risk to a population. A further 12.2% stated that they already had flagged risk.  
    • A third (32.4%) did not wish to flag a risk to the populations they support, with a further 24.3% unsure.
    • The population group that most risks related to were Mental Health (14 votes), Frailty (9 votes) and People With Learning Disabilities and Neurodiversity (8 votes).

• Organisation Size

• • • There was a spread in the size of organisations who responded.
    • The fewest number of organisations were Micro and Major with 3 in each category (4.1% each). 
    • The biggest gaps in respondents were from small and micro organisations, which based on the State of the Sector report make up the largest portion of the sector.
    • The portion of small and medium sized organisations is similar, however this was not reflected by our cross section of respondents – Medium organisations made up 36.5% of respondents but only 10.8% identified as Small.