Advice Services funding update from City of Edinburgh Council

Greg Stark, Commissioning and Contracts Manager at City of Edinburgh Council, shares an update following the Advice Consultation held in September 2025 and next steps.

'Firstly thank you to everyone that attended our engagement event back in September 2025 to start considering what the future of third sector advice services looks like in our city.

A lot has happened since then, mainly securing £1.4m of funds to allocated to our existing third sector income max, welfare, and debt advice providers for 2026/27. Due to conditions on the allocation of these funds this was not open to other interested parties however lays the groundwork for long term future funding.

The paper and webcast can be viewed here: https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=150&MId=7599&Ver=4

Next, we await the Council meeting on the 26^th of February 2026 to agree the budget.  You will be able to watch this here:

https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CId=150&Year=0.

If all goes well the £1.4m will become continued revenue funding that will allows us to commit to a longer-term multiyear contract for the third sector.

Some of the feedback presented to us at the meeting in September is building the basis for our next workshop to consider what the service specification needs to look like for this longer-term service. We are still working towards procuring a new service to begin on the 1^st of April 2027.

Thank you for your patience on this update and again for your patience whilst we await the budget being approved. We will be working with Jo over the next month to plan in our next engagement session with the network to ensure we can, as much as is possible, co-produce a service that’s fit for those we strive to support.'