Fairer Funding Pilot feedback survey: research findings

Context and Background

The Scottish Government launched the Fairer Funding policy^[1] in recognition that the third sector needs clarity and stability to secure its resilience and to grow its capacity. Fairer Funding is about improving the way Scottish Government provides funding to the third sector. Fairer Funding includes:

• improvements to our grant-making arrangements to provide greater clarity and consistency of practice
• increasing the number of multi-year agreements to provide stability
• proportionate reporting and monitoring
• ensuring prompt notification of funding and
• reviewing grant conditions

As part of the Programme for Government 2025-26, Scottish Government launched a Fairer Funding Pilot that provides multi-year funding to third sector organisations, prioritising those that deliver frontline services and tackle child poverty. The Pilot commenced in April 2025 and consists of 51 separate grants, totalling over £130m over 2025-26 and 2026-27. This supports projects in areas including health, education, justice, poverty and culture.

Some of these grants provide funding to multiple third sector organisations, such as:

• Children’s Advocacy in Children’s Hearings (11 third sector delivery organisations)
• The Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults (comprising 32 local authority third sector interfaces, which in turn disburse grant funding to third sector organisations within each local authority area)
• The Access to Childcare Fund (5 local childcare-related third sector organisations)

In announcing the Pilot in February 2025, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice said that it was the first step towards mainstreaming multi-year funding agreements across the third sector, and balancing our ambitions against the challenging financial situation.^[2] This short piece of research aimed to gather some initial feedback from organisations participating in the Pilot.