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Tuesday Mar 14, 2006

Volunteering information on Government sites

Good news from the Home Office last week:

A new Home Office programme to break down barriers to volunteering received a £3 million boost today. Volunteering For All will be a two-year strategy led by the Home Office and reaching across Government to identify and remove barriers to volunteering and to promote these opportunities to potential volunteers.

One area that they might like to look at is the Government's own websites. A couple of years ago we tried to get those with remits relevant to volunteering to include a listing of do-it.org.uk but met mostly with frustration. Finding the right person to speak to was incredibly difficult – all power over website content seemed to be outsourced to someone unobtainable.

In some respects things have now improved. The Directgov site ("Public services all in one place") has some good information (although no mention of do-it) and a search on the Home Office site also provides plenty of advice about how to volunteer.

Other Government sites, however, leave something to be desired.

The NHS is one of the biggest involvers of volunteers in the country with an estimated 36,000 people directly involved, as well as tens of thousands more with health-related charities. But a keyword search on the Department of Health site offers lots of reports but no information for potential volunteers. The NHS site is little better, offering information solely, so far as I could find, about volunteering by NHS staff.

Similarly, despite the importance of prison visitors and other volunteers, I couldn't find any information about how to volunteer on the Prisons Service website.

The Courts Service gives a link to Department of Constitutional Affairs. But while they provide a volunteering strategy there is no actual information that I could find about how to volunteer in law centres, for Citizens' Advice Bureaux or with the Witness Service.

Of course, these are big websites and I might have missed something. But if I did, so will other people.

Other poor performers include the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (aiming "to create prosperous, inclusive and sustainable communities"), all of which provide studies and reports but no apparent practical information for would-be volunteers.

Thins improve with The Department for Education and Skills, which, despite a very bad keyword search, does have information if you dig for it. And, finally, The Department for Culture Media and Sport is good for sports, but the Arts Council, which it funds, seems to have nothing at all.

Posted by Tom Green ( 10:30 AM ) Link to this post Comments[5]

Comments:

Dear Tom - You may be slightly over-critical in terms of volunteering for young people and your perceived lack of volunteering opportunities in the context of the arts funding system and the development work it enables. Apart from regularly funding hundreds of arts organsiations nationwide (a large proportion of which are able to offer volunteering opportunuities and some which deal exclusively with participation and engagement of young people) for there are many ACE initiatives that allow the flexibility for young people to get involved - Spaces for Sports and the Arts, Specialist Arts Colleges, Artsmark, the New Audiences Programme, and especially the first nationally accredited arts award, called... the Arts Award (www.artsaward.org.uk), a national partnership with the Youth Justice Board, etc etc. Arts organisations are often in a brilliant position (subject to capacity and funding) to offer great opportunities, and I personally feel the arts are well placed to emed the arts within the social policy contact of ECM and Youth Matters. regards, matt

Posted by matt hinks on March 14, 2006 at 11:56 AM GMT+00:00 #

I wasn't being critical of the opportunities available, but of the information on the website.

Try a search for 'volunteer' or 'volunteering' on the ACE website and see what you get.

Posted by Tom Green on March 14, 2006 at 12:08 PM GMT+00:00 #

Fair point and agreed, I will pass this on to comms and the website gurus in London. I think the point is that we do fund 1100 autonomous organsiations that deal with this kind of area according to their own goals/business plan, therefore often it's difficult to capture a generic 'arts offer' when there's so much diversity out there. But I do appreciate your point, and we should make every opportunity to fit in with social policy initiatives where we, and more especially our clients, can communicate this wherever possible. I think the arts award for young people (which originated in Birmingham) is the closest 'fit' we have right now, which allows young people, perhaps especially those at risk of exclsuion, to convert their passion for the arts and the time they voluntarily spend, into a nationally recognised level 1, 2 or 3 on the NQF .

Posted by 127.0.0.1 on March 14, 2006 at 02:20 PM GMT+00:00 #

It would seem to me that there has to be a generic portal where (especially) public sector orgs can upload their own information, and encourage clients to post their opportunities onto this. I totally agree with you that (ironically) websites are still often tough to navigate, updated irregularly and very rarely communicate the work of the host to the fullest extent possible.

Posted by 127.0.0.1 on March 14, 2006 at 02:34 PM GMT+00:00 #

There is a generic portal which we run: www.do-it.org.uk This is the National Volunteering Database where voluntary and public sector organisations can post their volunteering opportunities. Have a look at how organisations can get involved: http://do-it.org.uk/needvolunteers

Posted by Simon Jenkinson on March 16, 2006 at 10:09 AM GMT+00:00 #