Mental health charities are facing ever-increasing cost pressures. For organisations delivering commissioned services, it’s important that their fees match the true cost of delivering services. The Government’s Autumn Budget 2026 gave mental health service providers no new support to mitigate these pressures.

Councils are setting their 2027/28 budgets now, so a clear, evidenced request sent early is your best chance of a fee rate uplift that covers your real costs.

This is why we have created a template letter for our members providing commissioned services to send to their local commissioning teams.

The template does most of the work for you: it sets out the national picture and the legal duties, so you only need to add your own figures.

Our Members Guide tells you:

• Why sending a letter requesting fee rate uplifts is important
• How to work out your organisation’s increased costs
• How to complete and send the letter

Please let us know if you have used the letter and what the outcome was by emailing [email protected]. Your experiences help us build the national evidence we use to influence on behalf of the mental health charity sector.