Voluntary sector facing crisis over pay, says national association of charities

The ability of organisations in the voluntary sector to provide services for the State is being eroded by staff turnover caused by pay differences with the public sector, according to their representative body, which says the situation has become a crisis.

In its budget submission, to be published on Monday, Ireland’s national association of charities says the widening gap in pay exists between thousands of workers at organisations delivering health and social services on behalf of the State and those who work directly for it at agencies like the HSE.

Pay in both sectors was previously linked, but became decoupled at the time of the financial crisis and in the absence of restoration measures since, voluntary sector employees have fallen significantly behind their public sector counterparts.

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Hundreds of organisations, including high-profile ones like Rehab, working in areas like mental health services and homelessness are affected.

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“Community and voluntary service providers are grappling with a pay and staffing crisis that is blocking access to and affecting the quality of vital services,” said the Wheel chief executive Ivan Cooper.

“Turnover and vacancies are increasingly forcing organisations to reduce hours and cancel services because they lack the staff to deliver them. The vulnerability of service users and the risk of burnout among existing staff make this a matter of utmost concern.”

The Wheel puts the average difference in pay at 12 per cent, enough to prompt many staff, often the more experienced ones, with the option of simply switching employer to do so with the result that the voluntary organisations are being left short of key skills and personnel.

“In some cases the difference in pay, between people doing precisely the same work, is 20 per cent and organisations are seeing turnover of 12, 30 even 50 per cent. No organisation could deal with that,” said Mr Cooper.

“So there’s a real crisis now in the community and voluntary sector okay and we’re clear there’s a need for an increase of around 12 to 15 per cent in State funding to allow for adequate salaries within public service charities. There is a huge number of charities involved,” he said.

Siptu

Extensive negotiations on the issue have taken place between the Government departments providing funding and the unions — Siptu, Fórsa and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation — representing the workers. But after a recent engagement at the Workplace Relations commission an offer of 5 per cent increase was rejected.

Balloting for industrial action at a small number of organisations — including Chesire Ireland, Enable Ireland and the Irish Wheelchair Association — has been progressing in recent weeks with the results due in the coming days after which there is likely, as things stand, to be disruption to services. About 40, Depaul, Coolmine Therapeutic Community and Mental Health Reform are to be represented at an event to launch the budget submission on Monday morning.