James Purnell issued a ministerial statement on Monday on the government's plans to get people who are long term unemployed back into work. Unsurprisingly volunteering is mentioned but, at least the way I read it, he seems to have made the assumption that most volunteering will be full time. 

Obviously this is far from true, very few people volunteering are doing so full time.  I've come up against this assumption a couple of times with governmenty peeps, and I'm wondering what effect this has on government plans around volunteering?  Do they see the CSV full time model as the norm, and is effecting their plans and strategies?

Liam Byrne expands (slightly!) on the scheme Purnell mentions. It's right at the end again!

Sector to play key role in Government's plans to boost social mobility (Third Sector online today)...

Am I being cynical and a grumpy old man (more than likely!), but is this Government looking towards the sector to help with another initiative to boost popularity before an election?

I believe volunteering can help with social mobility, self development, gaining experience for work etc, but isn't this a bit tail wagging dog?  Surely the primary aim of volunteering is to support charities in their aims and objectives and to help them do more?

A new year is inevitably a time when we look forward, normally with more hope than trepidation. 2009 of course promises to be different - in charity parlance, a year of ‘challenges’ for all of us.

But let’s start with some of the more exciting events that will affect us. Firstly OTS hopefully will be shortly releasing details regarding their £4mil investment in volunteer management. Although this has been much delayed since its announcement last year, AVM has been assured the Govt is still committed to this and represents a real breakthrough in how volunteer management is viewed.

Of course, £4mil does not compare to the amount invested in, say, young people volunteering and equally whatever plans they have will never meet everyone’s approval but it’s fair to say that even 5 years ago the thought of £4mil being invested directly for VMs would have been outlandish.

Secondly the work of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering Action Groups will be coming to an end. I think one of the succeses of the work so far is how it has brought together players from across the sectors – the challenge for all of us involved in volunteering is to take forward what comes out of the Action Groups, build on it and not simply disappear back into our collective caves.

Thirdly, there is the revision of the National Occupational Standards on Volunteer Management. Strictly of course this happened last year although a new introductory guide will be coming out this year. The NOS were always very useful but in truth highly indigestible. The new format makes them much more user-friendly and should provide us with a tool to establish the skills and competences of a good volunteer manager, and enable organisations to properly value the role of volunteer manager.

Which leads me nicely on to what we as volunteer managers need to be doing.

Volunteering will have a crucial role to play in our society over the next couple of years – eg by meeting the demand for services and as a route for people to re-train and re-gain confidence having been made redundant. However, as charity income drops there will be internal jostling as funding decisions are made and the fear is that volunteer managers may be in the firing line as the work we do is not universally recognised.

The CRB have just published research saying that nine out of ten people say that anyone working or volunteering with vulnerable groups should be checked.  They say that this 'shatters the myth' that CRB checks put people off volunteering.  I've not read the full research report yet, so I don't know what their sample size was, or how they chose them.  However,  it does strike me that just because people believe checks should be in place, doesn't necessarily mean that having to be checked themselves isn't putting them off offering time.

Apparently the Government has launched a £3m volunteering fund in a bid to improve interaction between the generations. Further details from Third Sector magazine.

According to Third Sector magazine senior journalists are going to compile a guide on how to pitch stories about volunteering to the media.

VE is challenging the Government to invest in volunteering to contribute to national and personal economic renewal.

The Recession Challenge sets out nine key challenges to central and local government, volunteer-involving organisations and the private sector, in order to make the most of volunteering’s potential to contribute to economic recovery.

To government – central and local

1. Volunteering is a route to new employment for many people; volunteering can develop skills for employability and for new career pathways.

I thought you might be interested in reading the transcript of the short speech I gave in the debate on incentives at VE's AGM this week:

Thank you for inviting me to join the debate today. When I first heard of RockCorps initiative of offering young people concert tickets to encourage them to do 4 hours of volunteering I initially found myself doing a very bad impression of Victor Meldrew and being somewhat annoyed. Taking a backward step I started to explore why this was.  If found that there were a number of different issues, but the only that really stood out for me was how will offering incentives to volunteer impact on the integrity of volunteering?

Calling all volunteer managers!

Red Foundation has launched a new online survey to look at the support available to volunteer managers and volunteers who run projects. Are volunteer managers isolated in their work? Do you get to speak with other volunteer managers? Do you use Facebook to reach other people doing work like yours? Or to reach volunteers? Where do you get the information you need? How do you learn how best to recruit and manage volunteers?

This survey is part of the Modernising Volunteering Improving Support project which will inform the work of front-line support providers. This means that what you tell us will have a genuine impact on what support volunteer managers and volunteer-led projects will have in the future. If you want change - tell us! If you want things to stay the way they are - tell us!

Steve wrote recently on UKVPMs that he had advocated regional volunteer management strategies in his last post in a national organisation, but was looked at blankly.

I have recently been working in a national organisation with a centralised volunteering strategy role and certainly one of the things I thought was that if I were setting up a department from scratch there should be a regional element to it, fitting in with the way that the volunteering infrastructure has been organised as well as taking into consideration local needs as well as local opportunities for recruiting volunteers, other local organisations to work in partnership - and so much more.

Apologies if this is a bit too sector specific - but I've just set up an Online Volunteer Training Bank for museums to use to develop in-house training for their volunteers (info below). Obviously the sessions were designed specifically for museums, but there might besome stuff there that's useful for other volunteer involving organisations.

There are woekshops on Disabilty Awareness, Child Protection, and Customer Care, which are a bit more generic.

There's an interesting article in today's Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/05/philanthropy-city-lehman-brothers-charity

The York CAB case is distressing for many reasons; that 28 volunteers felt they had no option but to walk-out; the impact on the people of York who look to the bureau for advice; and what it might say to people interested in volunteering but are now thinking why bother. 

But, if we can take anything positive from this, it is an extremely timely reminder as to the necessity for effective volunteer management.