Financial pressure on social care sector 'isn't going away' says Darlington charity
It's a week to go until the Chancellor's budget
A social care charity in Darlington's warning the financial pressure on the industry's not going to go away and organisations should be working together.
The Do Good Charity says it's continuing to be a tough time for people but they just have to keep delivering its services.
Chief Executive, Paul Bott, said: "It is a tough time for lots of people and if we're looking at the upcoming budget, there's a £10 million hole for the UK Government, and we don't think that pressure is going to go away. So I think the challenge for us is how do we continue to offer really good levels of service, which are all built around a relationship between the people being supported and the people doing the supporting.
"What we can't change is geopolitics: the decisions made around invading other countries, driving up oil prices and pushing up the cost of doing what we do. That's outside of our remit, so we'll just focus on our knitting, which is providing really good services. One of the things we'd be really interested in doing is talking to other charities and organisations about how we can bring more money to the region.
"We're big enough to be an anchor organisation and to help other charities reach out to those big funds that are too small for them to apply for themselves. We can provide that opportunity to build a network and pour money into the region, something we've done before in previous roles. So if we can bring more money to the region, why wouldn't we?
"The Government could say to us that we didn't have to pay the National Insurance uplift, so they excused local authorities from that, and health, but not charities, and that hit really quite hard. That's not going to change, though.
"So our question isn't how do we reduce the costs; it's how do we bring in more income so that we can do the things that we do, and how we work with others so that we can maximise the benefit of every pound that we spend."
It's a week to go until the Chancellor's budget.