A VITAL children’s service is to close its Edinburgh centre, threatening 12 jobs and leaving 100 volunteers without a role.
The decision by ChildLine comes just four years after the charity was given £500,000 in public funds to open up the base in the capital and expand services in Glasgow and Aberdeen.
Although the decision was announced by ChildLine’s England-based parent charity the NSPCC, the jobs lost will be at Scottish charity Children 1st, which runs the helpline in Scotland. Children 1st will continue to run services in Glasgow and Aberdeen under a contract that runs until next year.
The NSPCC offers 24-hour support to children via ChildLine phone lines and website. It said the closure was part of a development programme to meet growing demand, although it will also make savings.
ChildLine director Peter Liver said: “We face growing demand for help and need to adapt to the changing needs of children so we can help more of them.
“To achieve this, we have undertaken a comprehensive consultation and have carefully considered the views of staff, volunteers and supporters. As a result, we will be closing our centre in Edinburgh but increasing the number of ChildLine volunteers in our remaining centres over the next five years.
“We are fully committed to working with staff and volunteers to identify suitable redeployment and volunteering opportunities wherever possible for those affected.”
Before the decision was confirmed yesterday afternoon Jim Eadie MSP lodged a motion at Holyrood, which was backed by 23 MSPs, expressing concern about the planned closure.
Last night he said he was deeply disappointed adding: “It is a kick in the teeth to the volunteers who have given their time over a number of years to be trained and provide their services to ChildLine.”
Mr Eadie added the charity should account for its decision given that the previous Scottish Executive put considerable sums of money into ChildLine, including the 2007 payment of £500,000.
This was in addition to funding of around £1.2 million from the Scottish Executive to ChildLine between 2003 and 2007.
“They should not be able to close services funded with public money without being properly held to account,” Mr Eadie said.
Professor Roger Davidson, from the Save ChildLine Edinburgh Action Group, said: “The NSPCC’s strategy is confused; they said initially they want to save money, but are now talking about replacing some Edinburgh volunteer roles with paid ones in Glasgow. They talk of increasing volunteers across the UK by 500 but are cutting 100 volunteering opportunities. It’s time for them to listen to the view of Scottish MSPs and volunteers and look again at the options for the Edinburgh ChildLine Centre.”
Mr Davidson, himself a ChildLine volunteer, claimed the result of the change would be a cut in 16,000 hours of telephone, email and online chat-based counselling for those children most in need.
However, the NSPCC said that by 2016 ChildLine would be delivering significantly more counselling hours “in the most cost-effective way”. Mr Liver told volunteers efforts would be made to redeploy them, including into roles at Children 1st.
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