17 December 2009
On Tuesday 15 December 2009, Justin Davis Smith, Chief Executive of Volunteering England, and Mike Locke, its Director of Public Affairs, met with Angela Smith, Minister for the Third Sector, and her officials at the Cabinet Office. The meeting was held to pursue the issues about funding of volunteer centres arising out of the Minister’s speech and responses at the fringe meeting (organised by British Red Cross and Volunteering England) at the Labour Party conference in Brighton (29 September).
Volunteering England focussed on the vulnerability of volunteer centres in current funding regimes and economic conditions and reaffirmed the volunteer centres’ pivotal role in supporting volunteering in general and particularly during the recession.
The Minister emphasised that she recognised the importance of volunteer centres and that a number of government programmes are providing funding to them. The Minister also expressed her willingness to help address the funding challenges.
In discussing ways the Government and Volunteering England could tackle the issues together, it was agreed:
The Minister would put the issue on the agenda for a future meeting with Communities and Local Government Minister Barbara Follett, and would seek to broker a meeting of CLG and VE on local infrastructure;
The Minister would follow up the issue in her regular meetings with the Local Government Association, and OTS officials would assist VE in building on the relationships established through their conference with LGA (29 April 2009);
The Office of the Third Sector and Volunteering England would produce a note on funding opportunities for volunteer centres;
Volunteering England would produce a publication targeted at local authorities on volunteering and the case for volunteer centres, and subject to the content, the Minister expressed her willingness to write a foreword
Notes to Editor:
- Volunteering England is a the national volunteering development agency and a registered charity. For more information about our work visit www.volunteeringengland.org.uk
