"Our future prosperity as a nation depends on everyone playing their part – as workers, consumers, volunteers and business people.” (Scottish Government Economic Strategy, 2007)
The Volunteering Round Table has been established to proactively address the challenges facing volunteering. The key to this is to focus on the outcomes of volunteering activity: stronger communities, more responsive services, more confident, healthier and skilled individuals.
We believe that volunteering is an important public policy issue at both national and local level.
Volunteering plays a significant part in all aspects of life in Scotland. Approximately 1.3 million people in Scotland are involved in volunteering, regularly contributing to and improving life in our communities. Annually, this activity contributes some £2.2 billion to Scotland’s economy. Because of the significant levels of volunteering - almost 1 in 3 people in Scotland are volunteers - there is a clear need to give volunteering a voice at a national level and to keep it high on the agenda of the key policy and decision makers. Volunteering should not be a static phenomenon - it has to adapt to economic, social, environmental, technological and political changes in our country - but an active and dynamic movement.
- Although the levels of volunteering are impressively resilient, they have remained practically unchanged for a decade – essentially we have the same people doing the same volunteering from the same sections of society;
- The blunt fact is that approximately 70% of the people in our country do not take part in formally-organised volunteering;
- In 2007 the Scottish Household survey showed that 41% of people who had stopped volunteering said that nothing would encourage them to begin volunteering again.
The Volunteering Round Table, established in September 2009, is an informal grouping representing national volunteering organisations in Scotland. It has come together through a shared recognition of the significance of volunteering to Scotland, the need to give volunteering a voice and to keep it high on the public policy agenda – it does not seek to lobby on funding issues for specific organisations. The Round Table supports and seeks to work towards the Scottish Government’s policy aim of creating the right operating conditions in which volunteering can play a full role in the development and design of policy and services in Scotland.
The Round Table recognises that the development of Localism presents significant challenges to national volunteering organisations in the ways they engage with government at national and local level. The Round Table will:
- Work with key stakeholders – the Scottish Government, Local Authorities and Community Planning Partnerships, elected members at national and local levels and volunteer engagers in both the public and voluntary sectors - to develop policy interventions, with the aim of improving the outcomes of volunteering for individuals and communities
- Use the current evidence base to influence and determine policy development and show the value of volunteering
- Give a collective and consistent response to the growing debates over citizen participation, community engagement and community resilience
- Demonstrate how volunteering can achieve the national outcomes
- Connect policy and decision makers to key volunteering organisations
- Produce a Volunteering Manifesto for the UK and Scottish Parliamentary elections
Membership of the Volunteering Round Table:
Barnardo’s
CSV
Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland
Home-Start Scotland
Lead Scotland
Voluntary Action Fund
Voluntary Arts Scotland
Volunteer Development Scotland
YouthLink Scotland
December 2009
Shaping The Future