“working tirelessly to explore all available options”<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe charity – which operated for 75 years – added it faced a complex set of circumstances, including growing pressure on its services.<\/p>\n
Charity regulator OSCR has now said it had received “concerns from the public”. BBC Scotland News has contacted Mental Health Aberdeen for a response.<\/p>\n
MHA provided various services including counselling, services in schools and community projects. <\/p>\n
The charity had said funding had been reduced or withdrawn and rising operational costs including a “significant increase” in National Insurance contributions led to the closure.<\/p>\n
The charity said in July: “Despite the team’s tireless efforts to meet rising demand, our current income can no longer sustain the level of service we aim to provide. <\/p>\n
“Like many third sector organisations across the country, we are facing the stark reality of being asked to do more with less – a position that is no longer viable.”<\/p>\n
MHA also called on “funders, partners, decision-makers, and government policy makers” to recognise the need for more investment in mental health services. <\/p>\n
It added: “It is vital that charities, like ours, are given the tools and resources to continue delivering essential services to those who need them most, before it’s too late.”<\/p>\n
The OSCR said in a statement: “We have received a number of concerns from the public about the closure of Mental Health Aberdeen, which included allegations of inappropriate expenditure by the organisation.<\/p>\n
“These concerns are currently being assessed in line with our standard policies and procedures.”<\/p>\n
Alan Paterson, who worked as a counsellor at MHA for five years, told BBC Scotland News how staff were informed of the closure. <\/p>\n
He said they were sent an email by management in which they were told there would be an emergency meeting the following day.<\/p>\n
“At the meeting, staff were told of redundancies, and that the liquidator was being called in,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It was brutal. People were in tears at the meeting, people were holding each other with the sense of loss.<\/p>\n
“For all of us, it was just utter shock and trauma.”<\/p>\n
Mr Paterson said he was still waiting for his last month of pay.<\/p>\n
He said the sense of loss was compounded by the fact MHA was providing a crucial service.<\/p>\n
“We are talking about loss of clients undergoing their counselling journey,” he said. “It’s heart-breaking.”<\/p>\n
Last year a number of charities had warned they had “nowhere to cut”<\/a>, and their operations were in jeopardy due to the increase in employers’ National Insurance.<\/p>\nThe UK government said at the time that it supported charities through a “world-leading tax regime which provided \u00a36bn in relief for the sector in the last year alone”.<\/p>\n
It added that an increased employment allowance would protect charities, meaning more than half of them with NI liabilities would “either gain or see no change”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allegations of “inappropriate expenditure” are being probed after the closure of an Aberdeen charity which provided mental health…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":143936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[210,517,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-143935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115024728289451053","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}