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27th November 2025

Volunteer Scotland Statement: UK Government Budget 2025

Wednesday’s UK Government Autumn Statement brought mixed news for Scottish volunteers and the broader third sector. Although most policies directly relating to volunteering are devolved to the Scottish Government, the decisions announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves will have significant implications for Scottish funding.

Volunteer Scotland will be looking to January’s Scottish budget with the following key points in mind:  

  1. The Chancellor announced an additional £820 million for the Scottish Government throughout the review period, averaging roughly £275 million extra per year through 2029. This comes in addition to an additional £9.1 billion pledged during June’s Spending Review. While all increases of this nature are much needed, the full impact on Scotland’s third sector will not become apparent until Finance Secretary Shona Robison presents her budget. The block grant is used for all devolved policy areas including health and education, so it is now the responsibility of the Scottish Government to ensure that a fair proportion of this funding increase is allocated to the third sector, both directly and through strong funding of local authorities.  

  2. Several measures were announced focused on easing cost-of-living pressures, the most notable being an increase to the Minimum Wage and Living Wage, as well as the removal of the two-child cap on claiming benefits. Cost-of-living has laid at the heart of the Covid-era decline in adult formal volunteering participation, although the most recent Scottish Household Survey data covering 2024 has shown a partial rebound to 25% from 18% the previous year. Lifting the two-child benefit cap is particularly helpful, as the Scottish Government had already announced their intention to do this, and so the necessary funds will now be provided through the block grant.  

    While these measures are welcome, the increase in minimum wage will have to be paid for by Volunteer-Involving Organisations, with 41% of sector spend in 2023 going towards staff costs. Combined with last year’s increase in employer’s National Insurance, the cost of hiring staff has never been higher. Volunteer Scotland will prioritise the Fair Funding of the third sector in our communications with the Scottish Government ahead of January.

These broad funding decisions will have downstream impacts on many of Volunteer Scotland’s 2026 Manifesto policy asks, however the specifics of these impacts will not be clear until the Scottish Budget. Volunteer Scotland will be writing to Finance Minister Shona Robison MSP to recap the relevant themes of the UK Government budget, and to reiterate sector-wide calls for Fair Funding settlements which protect Volunteer-Involving Organisations from being forced into damaging cuts which will severely harm Scotland’s communities.  

Volunteers are not expendable and cannot be subjected to the worst of damaging funding decisions, at a point in time when volunteering participation rates are only just beginning to recover. These observations represent our initial thoughts regarding the Chancellor’s budget. We will continue discussion and collaboration with partners including the Policy Champions Network, and representatives from both the UK and Scottish governments. 

Ewan Macleod

Policy Officer