Jewish Care Scotland chairman George Hecht has pledged there will be no cuts to frontline services after the charity announced the "mutually agreed" departure of chief executive Suzanne Neville in order to balance the books.
"Our community is suffering at the moment," Mr Hecht said. "We have seen the numbers of people coming to us because of poverty, homelessness and mental health all go up due to the economic crisis. But the shrinking community is not able to keep up the previous level of donations. We can't turn anyone who needs our help away. This means we are taking a lot more people on without the funding."

But Mr Hecht insisted that there would be no other redundancies - or cuts to frontline care provision.

"We don't envisage any further cuts to other staffing positions," he said. "As custodians of Jewish Care Scotland, myself and the other board of directors decided that we must take action to balance the books. This is purely a financial decision."

Jewish Care Scotland has made financial losses of "approximately £400,000" over the past four years while providing assistance for more than 500 individuals and families. In the past year alone, the number of referrals or people who require essential services has rocketed by 35 per cent.

"People don't believe that Jewish people starve, or become homeless, or can't pay their bills," Mr Hecht said. "The situation for us in Scotland is the same as in every other community."

‘We can’t turn people who need our help away’

Ms Neville was unavailable for comment this week.