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FAQ on people changes

Following the start of consultation with colleagues, we’ve put together the following questions and answers. These will help with some of your initial concerns.

If you cannot find an answer below, please contact the Supporter Care team on:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0300 500 8084

You can jump straight to any question by clicking the links below:

  1. 1. Why is the MS Society restructuring?
  2. 2. Why is the charity restructuring now?
  3. 3. What’s changing?
  4. 4. How many roles are at risk?
  5. 5. What cost savings will be made through the restructure?
  6. 6. When will final outcomes be known?
  7. 7. Have you considered other measures in order to avoid redundancies?

Specific areas:

Grants to individuals

  1. 8. Why is the MS Society stopping individual grants when people living with MS really value this support?
  2. 9. Where can I go for support now if I need financial assistance?

Local support  

  1. 10. How will volunteers be supported in the future?
  2. 11. Were volunteers consulted before making this decision?
  3. 12. Why can’t the MS Society provide a UK-wide Community Networks team alongside the local support already in place?

Local influencing 

  1. 13. How does the MS Society propose to influence local services now?

Fundraising  

  1. 14. How do you propose to raise more money if you’re removing roles?

Questions:

1. Why is the MS Society restructuring?
We know this is a worrying time for the MS community, our volunteers and staff.

The coronavirus crisis has had a huge impact on our organisation and, like so many charities, we’ve been hit hard financially. We expect to lose 30% of our income this year – and 15% next year.

We were already planning some changes but now we’re having to go further.

We’ve started a process which will consider redundancies in two phases and changing how we work.

We know people might be concerned about the impact of the proposals; we want them to know this hasn’t been an easy decision.

Our absolute priority is making sure we can continue to be here for people affected by MS.

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2. Why is the MS Society restructuring now?
The coronavirus crisis has had a huge impact on our organisation and, like so many charities, we’ve been hit hard financially. We expect to lose 30% of our income this year – and 15% next year.

We were already planning some changes but now we’re having to go further.

We’ve started a process which will consider redundancies in two phases and changing how we work.

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3. What’s changing?
We’ve started a process which will consider redundancies in two phases and changing how we work.

Proposals in the first phase include changing the way we support local volunteers and groups, pausing our grants programme for the next two to three years and the closure of our high dependency day care service in Northern Ireland. We have also proposed plans for how we fundraise in the community and how we influence local services.

Later in the year we will start the second phase of the restructure. This will review our support services such as administration, facilities and fundraising processes.

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4. How many roles are at risk?
We have created opportunities for redeployment through this restructure, but overall this first phase will see a reduction in around 36 roles.

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5. What cost savings will be made through the restructure?
To ensure our organisation remains financially viable and can meet the needs of the MS community for the long term we need to reduce our annual expenditure by £4m from the end of 2021 and this restructure will significantly contribute towards this total.

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6. When will final outcomes be known?
We will share the outcome of the consultation with colleagues around 19 August and will update volunteers soon afterwards.

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7. Have you considered other measures in order to avoid redundancies?
The coronavirus crisis has had a huge impact on our organisation and, like so many charities, we’ve been hit hard financially. We expect to lose 30% of our income this year – and 15% next year.

We know we need to take some difficult decisions if we’re to secure the future of the MS Society. Back in March we developed a package of short-term cost saving measures. This included pausing some of our work, like the grants programme, and approximately one third of staff members taking furlough leave (some are still currently on leave). Additionally, our executive directors and CEO are donating 20% of their salary to the MS Society while use of the government’s Job Retention Scheme continues.

We've already reduced planned investments in new research this year by pausing our research grant round for 2020 and delaying a number of larger investments we were planning on making this year. We are also currently looking at what we can afford in 2021 and, at the moment, expect to run a reduced research grant round next year.

We’ve also worked hard to create new online fundraising ideas. Thank you to so many of you who’ve supported us; whether you’ve joined the Scott Mills Pub Quiz, hosted a virtual Cake Break or done something else.

However, our absolute priority is making sure we can continue to be here for people affected by MS. We are currently consulting on the proposed changes and commit to listening and reviewing all feedback before a final decision is made.

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Specific areas:

Grants to individuals

8. Why is the MS Society stopping individual grants when people living with MS really value this support?
Given the unprecedented drop in the organisation’s income due to COVID-19, we propose stopping our national grants programme for at least a two to three-year period. This was not an easy decision. We know for many people with MS the help offered by the grants programme has been invaluable – and that’s why lots of our local groups offer grants too.

We are consulting with staff on the plans to reduce the number of roles in the grants team from five to one. That staff member would focus on supporting local groups to continue offering their grants and would help us plan for a potential resumption of our national programme in the future.

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9. Where can I go for support now if I need financial assistance?
Please call our helpline on 0808 800 8000 who can advise you on other charities and organisations, including the our own local groups, who may be able to help.

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Local support

10. How will volunteers be supported in the future?
We have proposed we change the way we support our local groups by creating a new ‘UK-wide Community Networks Team’. This team will bring together support currently offered by a variety of different departments across the organisation, like finance, volunteering and health and safety and would have responsibility for all day to day support to local groups and their volunteers.

The proposed changes will simplify how we support volunteers, improve our communication, and make it easier to access information.

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11. Were volunteers consulted before making this decision?
We consulted extensively with the MS community, including volunteers within our groups, when we were developing the MS Society’s new strategy – Every MS Story – that was launched earlier this year.

In those discussions, volunteers told us they want us to simplify the requirements we place on them, improve our communication, and make it easier for them to access information.

We were already considering these changes but now faced with the financial impact of COVID-19 there is a greater need to save money and an opportunity to adopt news ways of working.

We are speaking to staff affected by the proposed changes at the moment and are now sharing our proposals with volunteers for their feedback.

These proposals are about changing our staff structure and our approach to supporting groups, they don’t change the day-to-day work of our groups, or the roles of local volunteers.

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12. Why can’t the MS Society provide a UK-wide Community Networks team alongside the local support already in place?
We simply do not have the financial resources to do this.

We know our volunteers really value the personal support they receive from their local MS Society staff members and these colleagues do a great job. But we also know volunteers struggle with the multiple points of contact, and feel they lack support for some specific areas like IT.

Volunteers have also told us they want us to simplify the requirements we place on them, improve our communication, and make it easier for them to access information.

Resolving these longstanding issues whilst also reducing expenditure requires a radically different approach.

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Local influencing

13. How does the MS Society propose to influence local services now?
We’ve proposed creating a new, Stakeholder Engagement Team to help deliver service improvement in healthcare across the UK. 

The plans mean we will be reducing the amount we spend on influencing local healthcare services, which sadly means redundancies in some cases. We’ll instead influence service improvements through peer to peer support among healthcare professionals and regional forums.

We will, however, be investing in innovation and volunteer led local campaigning so that people with MS can campaign on issues that are most important to them in their local area. The increased resource will enable us to provide toolkits and templates, opportunities for campaigners to support each other online and ad hoc advice and support to local campaigns that are of particular importance to people with MS.

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Fundraising

14. How do you propose to raise more money if you’re removing roles?
We have proposed bringing together our community fundraising across the UK in order to increase consistency, and to save money.

The plans propose one national team to support the development of new fundraising activities, the delivery of mass participation events across all nations and to ensure consistent supporter experiences. Working together across our nations is a more efficient use of resources and enables fundraisers to have more time to fundraise.

We’ll have a smaller number of fundraisers in the community who will focus on high value supporters and pursuing new fundraising opportunities.

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