A COUNSELLING charity set to lose funding from Fife Council faces closure if it cannot find an alternative source of cash, its manager says.

Mieke van der Zjipp, manager of Couples Counselling Fife (RSCCF), says the £23,000 it receives from the local authority makes up more than half of the “core funding” it needs to exist – and will not last beyond next year if the funding does not continue.

She said: “From the very small amount we receive from Fife Council we provide very excellent value for money.

“Without that, we would be fine for this year but, I don’t think we could run much longer than 2022 or 2023. We would have to fold.”

RSCCF, part of counselling charity Relationships Scotland, is one of 19 organisations being stripped of a total £410,000 of third sector funding by the council’s Children and Families Services division, bringing to an end over 30 years of financial support from the local authority.

Council contributions to the charity – which provides counselling and relationship advice on a “pay what you can basis” – have covered approximately two-thirds of critical operational costs: the salary of a manager and a part-time administrator, and the upkeep of its building on Kirkcaldy’s Tolbooth Street.

While the vast majority of its overall income comes from those who receive counselling, along with limited grants from anti-poverty charities such as The Corra Foundation and The Robertson Trust, this is used to train and pay counsellors who give their time to adjudicate discussions. The charity says none of this is possible without the core funding from Fife Council.

The fallout stems from the Children and Families division’s “recommissioning strategy”, which challenges all bodies receiving cash to prove what they offer meets at least one of eight new briefs – or lose out on their funding after receiving support for six more months from April.

Just nine charities will continue being funded by council welfare chiefs, down from a total of 35 the previous year. Seven organisations have been signposted towards funding from other sources such as the NHS and council housing bosses.

However, the charity cull disproportionately affects smaller groups. Organisations that are keeping their funding received an average of £246,000 for 2020/21, compared with £93,000 each for the 19 bodies facing the chop. Their share will increase in 2021/22.

Council officers insist the process was “robust and fair” and say they aim to work with the affected organisations to find alternate sources of funding.

However, while the new strategy promises to fund bodies that “build capacity and resilience within families” or “strengthen family networks”, Fife Council has concluded that Couples Counselling Fife is not eligible for continued financial support.

Ms van der Zjipp says that officers fail to acknowledge the positive effect the service has in preventing relationships from falling apart and requiring costly intervention from social work and other agencies. Of RSCCF’s 355 clients last year, more than three quarters had children.

And the service manager has serious doubts about the council’s attitude to the affected charities – at a time when people need support more than ever.

“The impact of Covid has had on relationships, people spending too much time together, with no access to friends, family, support groups, with responsibility to their kids – once the restrictions are eased we are expecting greater demand,” she said.

“We work at the preventative end of the scale. If you can resolve people’s issues with relationships and prevent family breakdown that reduces the chances of coming into contact with social work. That’s a good outcome for a family.

“For Fife Council to say we don’t match up with their agenda? We do, but they’re taking a much more simplistic view.”

The demand for RSCCF’s services is spelled out in its most recent annual report: it has more than doubled the number of sessions it delivers each year in the space of a decade, from 968 in 2011/12 to 2147 in 2019/20 – all without an increase in its core funding.

“We are grateful that Fife Council has been supporting our organisation for several decades,” the report’s foreword notes.

“Without this funding it would not have been possible to grow the organisation to the size it currently is.”