Kate Bowgett's blog

This was in today's Guardian. What do people think?  A good use of corporate expertise, or an assumption that anyone who can sell burgers can manage volunteers?

McDonald's is to help recruit and train 70,000 volunteers who will be involved in staging the London 2012 Olympics, it was announced today.

Renaissance London has just produced two new volunteering publications. 

Working With Volunteers in Collections Care a publication looking at best practice in collection care and conservation volunteering. It provides an overview of the benefits of involving volunteers in these roles and guidance on how to set up a new volunteer programme or improve current ways of working.

Did anyone see Mary Queen of Charity Shops Revisited last night?  This time Mary tried to tackle volunteer recruitment.  She identified that asking volunteers for a set commitment might be off putting, and came up with what she called 'V-day'.

In today's Third Sector Jonathan Sedgwick, deputy chief executive for policy and strategy at the UK Border Agency, is pushing the proposed scheme to fast track citizenship for people who volunteer.

He outlines some of the ways he sees it working, and reassures the voluntary sector that they have a chance to shape the way the programme develops:

The economic downturn would seem to have created boom time for volunteering. Volunteer Centres are reporting record numbers of volunteer enquiries, and the government has just put millions into a scheme using volunteering as a step toward employability for the long term unemployed.

But unless the sector is careful, this slump could have real risks for volunteer management, and the way volunteering is perceived.

 As the new Equality Bill makes it's way through parliament, Tim Boswell, Conservative MP for Daventry, has proposed that it should be extended to cover volunteers. Boswell's new clause states that, with the exception of matters related to pay, "all rights of employees under this act are deemed to extend to persons who work as volunteers without remuneration; and all duties of employees and their employers to avoid discrimination are deemed to extend to volunteers working without remuneration".

 If this goes through it would potentially have quite a big impact on volunteer involving organisations, particularly smaller ones with less formal systems in place. Over the course of my career I have seen quite a lot of cases of blatant discrimination, and a big part of me would welcome a move to give volunteers the right to challenge this. However I do also worry that without the resources to develop, and manage appropriate policies, procedures and practice, many organisations are going to seriously struggle.

If Tim Boswell's amendment was accepted, would it be a positive step forward to making volunteering accessible to everyone, or would it create a burden for organisations making volunteer involvement to bureaucratic and formal?

Dianne Abbott MP has put down an early day motion on volunteering, which:

"...notes that currently those volunteering more than 16 hours per week are not entitled to jobseeker's allowance; believes this is causing a trade off between gaining valuable skills and work experience and having access to financial support; and calls on the Government to allow people to work an unlimited number of hours on a voluntary basis and still claim jobseeker's allowance."

Whilst it's great to see an MP who wants to make volunteering more accessible, Ms Abbott has made the same mistake as Steven Bubb from Acevo did a couple of months ago, and assumed that there are the same restrictions on volunteering and claiming benefits, as there are on education and paid work.

In fact the rules state that someone on Job Seekers Allowance can volunteer as much as they want to as long as they are still 'actively seeking work'. The 16 hour rule in relation to volunteering, is nothing but a commonly held myth. It is worrying that this myth is so pervasive that it is held to be fact by Dianne Abbott, all the MPs who have signed the EDM, and the Director of ACEVO. It looks like a major programme of education on what the actual rules are is needed.

AVM have written to Dianne Abbott, and the MPs who signed the motion.

The letter follows below (click 'read more').  We'll keep you posted about whether we get any replies.

Volunteering England this week highlighted that the number of people looking for opportunities to volunteer has increased in recent months.

Third Sector reports that the government has announced that the £6.5 million pounds earmarked in ithe Third Sector Action Plan to offer volunteer opportunities to people who are long term unemployed will go to BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) as a prime contacter, with CSV, V, and Volunteering England as subcontractors. According to the article

Volunteering England have issued a briefing sheet, outlining some of the issues around the proposed clause in the new Citizenship and Immigration Bill which would mean people who volunteer can fast-track their citizenship applications.

Third Sector have reported that Stephen Bubb from Acevo, the chief executive's body, has put forward a report to James Purnell, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, examining how the third sector could help to alleviate unemployment problems. The report contains nine key ideas, one of which, is apparently that "unemployed people should be able to claim benefits while volunteering with charities". Obviously this suggestion comes as a bit of a surprise, because unemployed people already ARE allowed to claim benefits whilst volunteering. People who are recieving JSA must be actively seeking work whilst volunteering, so occasionally problems arise if people want to volunteer full time, but the vast majority of volunteer roles are part time, so there should be no problem at all.

Because I am a lowly Volunteer Manager, and not a Chief Executive, I'm not an ACEVO member, and can't access any of the reports on their site. So it's possible that Third Sector have got the wrong end of the stick. There is certainly a lot more that JobCentre Plus could be doing to support volunteering. For example, its still comon for their staff to miss-advise people about volunteering and benefits. So it's possible that Mr Bubb may have been suggesting a change in culture, rather than a change in rules. However, it is worrying that this article has appeared, because it's helping to perpetuate the myth that you might lose your benefits if you volunteer, a myth which creates a major barrier to many people offering time.

You can read the Third Sector article here:

http://tinyurl.com/dcg9mz

And read the actual rules around benefits and volunteering here:

Job Centre Plus (PDF)

"Charities should consider drawing up a coordinated strategy to attract more volunteers, key volunteering figures have been told. Caroline Diehl, chief executive of the Media Trust, which works to improve the relationship between the not-for-profit sector and the media, told a meeting of volunteering leaders in London this week that a more streamlined approach to communication could help groups to promote their work and recruit higher numbers of volunteers.

"Volunteering organisations are trying to do different things and give out different messages," said Diehl. "But perhaps they need to work out a unanimous strategy for communicating their work to the public and attracting more volunteers, instead of this potentially confusing, piecemeal approach."

There was an interesting (and fairly lengthy!) discussion about volunteering as part of the House of Lords debate on passing the new Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill. Clause 39 of the Bill would mean that anyone who volunteered could fast track their citizenship application.