Volunteering England is the integrated national volunteering development organisation for England. We work across the private, public and third sectors to raise the impact of volunteering as a powerful force for change. In particular, we are working to improve the capacity of the volunteering infrastructure. We are the accountable body for the Volunteering Hub and accredit and brand the network of local volunteer centres. We are a strategic partner of the Cabinet Office (Office of the Third Sector).
Volunteering England welcomes the acknowledgement in this plan of the important role of volunteering in supporting the work of the Ministry of Justice.We particularly welcome the recognition of the difference between volunteering and the Voluntary and Community Sector, a distinction not often grasped in government yet an important one, not least because volunteering happens in all three sectors and because not all Voluntary and Community Sector activity involves volunteers.
Please note that Volunteering England has also responded to the NOMS Third Sector Action plan and a copy of that response is enclosed for your information.
There are two specific points we would like to make in response to your consultation:
1.In Paragraph 3.5 reference is made of the priority for “Improved engagement with the more local groups utilising [community] anchor organisations to help reach the right stakeholders”.
We would encourage the Ministry to look more widely than community anchors for ways to engage local groups to reach the right stakeholders.We would particularly draw the Ministry’s attention to the network of Volunteer Centres in England who can provide a key route to access committed and active individuals and organisations from all three sectors.
2.Also in Paragraph 3.5 reference is made of the priority for “Shaping central government and ministerial priorities & objectives to help influence local practices and Local Area Agreements”.
In Volunteering England’s experience, the inclusion of volunteering as a target within the national indicator set for Local Area Agreements has helped raise the profile of volunteering within local government.However, the target simply counts the numbers of people volunteering and as such fails to assess the impact volunteers have on their local community or recognise the value of volunteering wider public policy e.g. economic regeneration, effective public service delivery, integration & cohesion.Examples of how volunteering can contribute in these ways can be found the “Volunteering Works” publication from the Institute for Volunteering Research and The Commission on the Future of Volunteering (see http://www.volunteering.org.uk/Resources/publications/Volunteering+Works.htm).
We would therefore encourage the Ministry to consider how volunteering can contribute to all the priorities and objectives it seeks to shape and influence, both locally and nationally.For example, we note with interest recent plans to create more prison spaces and build three Titan prisons. We would encourage the Ministry of Justice to give early consideration to the supportive role that volunteers can play in this new model and how a well resourced internal structure for volunteer management would help to deliver this.
Finally, Volunteering England would welcome the Ministry supporting our call for a sustainably funded local volunteering infrastructure throughout England.This would help enable the potential of volunteering to contribute to the Ministry’s ambitions as laid out in this strategy consultation.
We would be happy to meet with Ministry colleagues to discuss this or any other aspect of our response further.
