It would seem that there has been a cautious but generally positive response to the Conservative's Voluntary Action in the 21st Century although it should it be said, at this stage of a Government an Opposition's role is to provide a broad-brush approach as to what their policy agenda will be, so the devil may well be in the detail.

An interesting debate in the Commons on Wednesday (4th June) on volunteering. One thing that particularly caught my eye was the discussion about the success or otherwise of the Experience Corps and v, following on from the Conservatives' suggestion that some of the Government's initiatives are little more than 'a launch, a lunch and a logo.'

The Conservatives have published their green paper on the Voluntary Sector.

It can be found on the Conservatives website here.

The Office of the Third Sector has launched new guidance on CRB checks for volunteers in response to the Commission on the Future of Volunteering recommendations. AVM helped advise on the guidance prior to launch.

The guidance clarifies a number of issues in particular the bad practice of 'blanket' checks, although we are aware that some statutory agencies still insist on this. The Criminal Records Bureau has previously advised us that where this happens to let them know.

We are also pleased to note the greater emphasis placed on CRB checks as being just part of the risk management process.

The Morgan Inquiry has just published its report which looks at "the real reasons for more young people to volunteer, the barriers that prevent young people from doing so - and produced a series of practical recommendations for change".

We've highlighted some of the recommendations from the final report:

"It is widely acknowledged that children and young adults often relate better to, and are inspired by, young adults who are closer to their age. However, attracting and retaining young adults into voluntary positions where they have a leadership/mentoring role for young people is proving difficult to achieve."

"There has been a lot of speculation about the introduction of a new national bank holiday, with the notion that it could be dedicated to volunteering. However, from our evidence the introduction of a new bank holiday per se, would have very little impact on volunteering. Instead this Inquiry would like to see the introduction of a new scheme that would grant young adults an extra day a year to volunteer."

"There is also a particular issue with regards to the payment of expenses ‘up front’ to young adult volunteers. Again, DWP along with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) need to produce clearer guidelines on this practice, which is sometimes wrongly regarded as a means of payment and thus means that unemployed young adults are penalised with regards to their benefit claims."

"With volunteering so vital in the development of the transferable skills that employers are looking for nationwide, this Inquiry would like to see the development of a Government accredited volunteering skills award that would be universally recognised and valued by not only industry but also higher/further education establishments."

"Our final recommendation is that we would like to see a consolidation of the information that is available for young adults who wish to volunteer. At present information is confusing to both young adults and employers who are interested in getting involved in volunteering."

The full report can be downloaded here.

Here at AVM we've been staying up late working on a new AVM project- developing a wiki in volunteer management. The idea is to build a resource for volunteer managers which is free, open and community driven. The project itself is still pretty rough and ready- but we have a bunch of articles that are gradually growing. If you're interested put your name down in our community page, check out what's going on and how you can get involved.

One page on the wiki we'd currently really like to draw your attention to is a discussion paper we've drafted with a view to approaching the Office of the Third Sector about the future of training for volunteer managers. We'd love your input in this discussion and would welcome additions (ideas or points we've missed) to the article. 

On a recent trip to Australia, there was much coverage in the news about a 'think tank' type summit looking forward to 2020. The new Labour Government was looking for a few new ideas to help make Australia a better nation. There were some good ideas that I liked, for example, volunteering as a way of paying off your HECS debt (the cost of going to Uni = about A$40,000 for the standard degree) off.

Daily Telegraph recently (03-05-2008) published a long article on volunteering and the National Trust. It's well worth a read, covering lots of different roles and issues in volunteer management. Here's a quote from one of the volunteers, Darcy, who's interviewed in the article: 

 "Volunteering doesn't feel like a burden," he says. "You do what you can, and it is an enjoyable experience. We're a small team, we're friends."

The Institute for Volunteering Research has published the first piece of major research into volunteer management capacity 'Management matters - a national survey of volunteer management capacity'

Here below is the recent mention in Parliament of the amendment proposed to include childcare costs as reasonable expenses which don't trigger the minimum wage legislation. Hooray :-)