A number of voluntary and non-governmental organisations, including EDF members, are campaigning against the Government’s public spending cuts and compiling information on their impact:
The TUC is supporting False Economy, which is ‘for everyone concerned about the impact of the government’s spending cuts on their community, their family or their job’. The objectives of False Economy are: to gather and map information and personal testimony about the cuts and their effects; to show that there are alternative economic approaches; and to provide resources and tools for campaigners and campaign groups.
Voluntary Sector Cuts is a collaborative project which maps intelligence about voluntary groups experiencing reductions in public sector funding.
WCVA, the voice of the voluntary sector in Wales, has conducted a series of surveys into the effects of the recession on the third sector in Wales since February 2009. The survey reports can be downloaded from the WCVA website.
Right to Work is a national campaign to stop the cuts, defend public services and the welfare state and fight for every job.
London Voluntary Service Council’s ‘Big Squeeze’ campaign has collated evidence from voluntary and community organisations across London about the impact of the recession on the sector.
In 2013, Coventry Women’s Voices and the Centre for Human Rights in Practice at the University of Warwick published Layers of Inequality: A Human Rights and Equality Impact Assessment of the Public Spending Cuts on Women in Coventry. The publication is part of a joint project to assess the human rights and equality impacts of the public spending cuts.
The website of the Centre for Human Rights in Practice has a section with Human Rights, Equality and Public Spending Cuts.
In October 2011, the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics launched Social Policy in a Cold Climate, a major new research programme on the impact of the recession, spending changes and the government’s social policy reforms on inequality and poverty in the UK. The research, supported by Trust for London, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Nuffield Foundation,will be carried out by the over the period leading up to the next scheduled general election in May 2015.
SCVO’s #takingiton welfare reform campaign: UK Government welfare cuts and ‘reforms’ are already devastating families and communities across Scotland. The impact of these changes is affecting the work of many third sector organisations. SCVO is working with the third sector to share experiences and ideas and identify practical ways to mitigate the effects of the cuts and create visions of how to do things differently.
‘Who Benefits?’ aims to give a voice to the millions of us who have been supported by benefits at some point in our lives. By sharing our stories we can show the reality of who needs help, why they need it and the difference that it makes.
The Fawcett Society’s Cutting Women Out campaign looks at the impact of austerity measures on women.
The debate about social security is failing ordinary Scottish families according to a campaign launched in Scotland by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in October 2013. The ‘People Like Us’ campaign calls for the rejection of misleading stereotypes of benefit claimants and for a debate around benefits that reflects the needs of ordinary families.
The Hard Times for Equality section of the Equality and Diversity Forum Research Network website contains links to research and other material addressing the impact of the financial crisis and austerity measures from an equality and human rights perspective.