VOTE: Should councils and the government be giving more financial support to charities like Home-Start Arun?

Home-Start Arun highlighted the “pain” it was suffering from spending cuts against a backdrop of Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge this week that work to help improve parenting would be “accelerated, expanded and implemented as quickly as possible”.

Last year, Home-Start Arun, based at Arundel but working across the district, supported 120 families with 246 children, but West Sussex County Council, which funds almost half the group’s income, cut its grant by 20 per cent.

The council has given Home-Start the same level of funding for the first half of 2011-12, but has not yet said whether it will provide any more money for the remaining six months.

Ian Graham, chairman of Home-Start Arun’s trustees, said despite the cuts, the charity would strive to ensure it adapted and responded to the “socially and financially difficult times”.

Bridget Richardson, senior organiser for Home-Start Arun, said the charity appreciated the difficult financial situation facing the county council as a result of its own grant from central government being cut.

“One of the main problems for us is that more charities are in the same position that we are, chasing the same pot of money,” she said.

“We are now employing a part-time fund-raiser and looking at trying to diversify our fund-raising activities to become more sustainable.”

Home-Start Arun, an independent, local charity, is part of the national Home-Start network and provides friendship and support to families with children under the age of five years.

Do you think charities like Home-Start Arun should receive more help?

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