Sir Paul Ennals highlights impact of cuts on NCB

Speaking at the annual Aspect conference, Sir Paul Ennals told delegates that much of the charity’s work around promoting play and anti-bullying has been affected.

"NCB had more than £1m of funding withdrawn mid-year as a result of that first emergency Budget, specifically, for the work that we had been doing to promote and roll out the government’s play strategy," he explained.  

"We had also previously been funded to run Anti-Bullying Week in the autumn. Last year, when we were funded to do it, more than half of the schools in the country did something explicit during Anti-Bullying Week to highlight it as a cause. This year I hope we’ll still be able to get a lot of schools doing it. We haven’t got any money, but we’re still going to do our level best."

Sir Paul added that NCB could be forced to lay off some employees.

"It is going to be a tough few years," he explained. "There will be some cherished services that we might find ourselves losing and there will be some cherished colleagues who we will find are no longer employed. I’m having to go through a consultation that could lead to several staff in my organisation being made redundant. I don’t like doing it, but it’s what I’m having to do."

Despite this, Sir Paul urged professionals not to oppose all budget cuts from government, but to instead pick which services to defend.

"There will be budget reductions that we as a sector need to stand up and shout about," he said. "But if we waste our collateral by complaining about every single budget reduction along the way, we will not be listened to when that key moment comes, when they are making a grievously wrong strategic error in a decision that they’re proposing."