There's been a lot of concern in the press recently about the negative (ie: costly) impact of the changes announced in the recent budget to employers' liabilities for National Insurance Contributions (NICs).
It is undoubtedly true that many organisation - in BOTH the commercial and the charity sectors - will be seriously adversely affected by the changes.   It was right for the NCVO and ACEVO to write a forthright letter to the government pointing out that the changes "... will place another major strain on charities at a time when we are already struggling."   And it is not surprising that, according to the NCVO's website (18-Nov-24), ".... 7,361 charities and voluntary organisations have co-signed our open letter." (that's about 5% of the charity sector).

 

I'm not a professional accountant, but I have looked into the actual consequences of the November 24 Budget from the perspective of the trustee of a “small” charity.   I have considered not only the changes in the employer NIC rates but also "... the government ... increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500 and removing the £100,000 threshold, expanding this to all eligible employers."   It was said that the accompanying change was specifically "To support small businesses with {those} changes ...".  
According to my calculations (and others seem to agree), taken together with the changes to employer NIC, the mitigating changes in the Employment Allowance will mean that employers with a wage-bill of less than around £80,000 (the exact figure will depend on the mix of salaries of the employees involved) will end up paying LESS in NI Contributions than they were before the changes.

 

To my mind, that makes the NCVO & ACEVO's assertions in their letter that "... charities of all sizes will severely feel the impact of the employer NICs increase ..." tantamount to "fake news" - ie: a bold assertion, without justification or adequate reference to significant mitigating factors.   Unfortunately, such "fake news" not only undermines the credibility of those presenting it, it can also mislead and/or unnecessarily create anxiety in those reading it, particularly the typical non-accountant trustees of “smaller charities” looking to the NCVO & ACEVO for advice and guidance that they can rely on.

 

If that is the case, it seems that it might be wise for charities which are in the significant majority (>75%) of "smaller" charities with annual expenditure (and, therefore, an employee payroll) of less than £80,000 (or even £100,000) to be checking that whoever manages their charity's payroll (if it employs staff at all) is properly claiming all the Employment Allowance that the charity is entitled to in order to mitigate/avoid the impact of the proposed changes to employer NICs.  

In some cases that might even result in them being better off rather than "severely impacted".

 

Post-script note:   The above issues were submitted to the NCVO for comment on Friday 8 November.   Receipt of my submission was acknowledged, saying that “… {someone} in my team will come back to you on this”.  
But, as at 11:15am Monday 18 November, the NCVO had not offered any comment on, or refutation of, my opinion/conclusions, nor had the text of the open letter been altered.