Volunteering England launches lunch expenses campaign

PRESS RELEASE
11 July 2006

Volunteering England is launching a campaign urging the government to reissue its contradictory guidance on lunch expenses for volunteers on benefits and is encouraging volunteers and volunteer-involving organisations to write to their MPs to put their names to an Early Day Motion (EDM) tabled by Diane Abbott MP.

To this end, Volunteering England is calling on the Department of Work and Pensions to:

• Amend and reissue the guidance, confirming the right of volunteers to be reimbursed for all reasonable expenses including lunch.
• Ensure that appropriate consultation mechanisms are in place before any future guidance on volunteering is issued.

Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said:

“Volunteering is a vital way in which all members of society can contribute something back to the communities in which they live. It allows people who would not normally meet to work together on important and worthwhile projects, and create more social cohesion. Everybody can benefit from being involved in voluntary work: it gives us all the chance to develop ourselves personally and professionally.

“People who are unemployed should not be prevented on volunteering by not being given lunch expenses. Not only does volunteering give them new work experiences from which to draw in employment, it is also something that they can do positively just as well as someone who is employed. We should not be discouraging anyone from this activity, or prejudicing anyone against taking part.”

Christopher Spence CBE, Chief Executive of Volunteering England, said:

“It seems absolutely ludicrous that one arm of government is promoting volunteering as a means of increasing social cohesion while another is excluding people from participation. Lunch expenses have long been accepted as a legitimate expense to reimburse and nothing has changed in the relevant legislation or regulations. Our research has shown that a key barrier to volunteering is the concern of being out of pocket as a result and it is grossly unfair and divisive that better-off volunteers will be able to claim back for their lunchtime snack while those on benefits are left out of pocket or go hungry. I would strongly urge the department to reconsider and re-issue its guidance to avoid further confusion.”

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Notes to Editors

• For more information and to arrange interviews, call Cat Dean on 020 7520 8932 or email cat.dean@volunteeringengland.org
  or Sonya Roberts on 020 7520 8965, email
  sonya.roberts@volunteeringengland.org
  For out of hours press enquiries, contact Sonya Roberts on 07952 128057.
• Read the DWP guidance (PDF).
• Read Volunteering England’s initial response to the guidance
• Read the Early Day Motion
• Volunteering England estimates that approximately 1.8 million people could be affected by the guidance. Figures are based on the Home Office Citizenship Survey 2005 findings, where 37% of those classed as “economically inactive” engaged in formal volunteering at least once in the last year. For more details, visit: www.communities.gov.uk

Volunteering England’s aims are to increase the quality, quantity, contribution and accessibility of volunteering throughout England; secure and support an England-wide network of quality volunteer development agencies, promoting and enabling volunteering and community involvement; undertake research, policy and development activity; and provide grants, support and advice to sustain and develop volunteering. It understands the term volunteering to include formal activity undertaken through public, private and voluntary organisations as well as informal community participation.