Scores of foodbanks providing emergency grocery parcels for needy families in the North East have been hit by a possibly unintended blow by the Chancellor’s budget.
The hike in employers’ National Insurance (NI) contributions and the lowering of the threshold for payments announced in Rachel Reeves’ Autumn budget have left foodbanks operated by the Durham Christian Partnership with an estimated added £20,000 bill on top of their already tough running costs.
Peter MacLellan, the partnership’s CEO, said four more of the charity’s 33 employees now fall into the NI payment bracket, while greater contributions will have to be made for others.
Mr MacLellan said the ripple effect of the budget announcement has been felt across the charity sector.
“Some, such as hospitals and others operated by local authorities, are receiving more support to cover it than the other charities.
“We are in a fortunate position where we’re not particularly looking to shrink our workforce and, thanks to the support we receive, we’re able to carry on as we are, but its still £20,000 more to find.”
Mr MacLellan was speaking after three of the partnership’s foobanks in the Durham area received a welcome £1,000 seasonal donation from the charitable trust of city’s freemen.
The three hubs, operating premises in Waddington Street, Old Elvet and Gilesgate, are part of a network of 27 distribution points across County Durham with a further 12 in neighbouring Sunderland also managed by the partnership, all from a central warehouse on Chester-le-Street’s Drum Industrial Estate.
Thirty unpaid volunteers in Durham offer five-day collection-point availability from Waddington Street’s United Reform Church on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with Elvet Methodist Church covering on Tuesdays and Gilesgate’s Edge Court Baptist Church, on Saturdays.
In the year ending in October, 854 individual families in the city area each received a three-day supply of food, as well as a pack of household toiletries and cleaning products.
It results in 1,408 adults and 406 children being supported by the partnership just in the Durham city area.
“We could not provide this service without our volunteers and the financial support of the public and organisations like the Durham City Freemen, who first helped us two years ago with a matching contribution,” he added.
Across its 28 outlets, the partnership, set up in 1999, can call on the help of 300 unpaid volunteers and 34 part-time staff, which includes specialist debt advisers.
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Alan Ribchester, one of the freemen’s five charitable trustees, said: “We are supporting the Durham foodbanks when they are working to meet increasing demand for their services and, at the same time, face rising overheads which are the direct result of recent changes in Government policy.
“We sincerely hope they will succeed.”
In response to criticism of budget measures Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “The Budget is restoring stability to our public finances and rebuilding our public services”, which she said is all aimed at bringing “economic stability” to the nation.
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