The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for calling this debate on such an important topic and the many contributors this evening. I fear that the length of time allowed was testament to the interest in the subject.
The latest Community Life Survey suggests that nearly two-thirds of adults engage in formal or informal volunteering at least once a year, and 22% said that they had taken part in formal volunteering at least once a month. People volunteer because they want to make a difference to the lives of others, to gain skills or build social networks.
I want to show tonight that the Government recognise the huge importance of volunteering as one way that people can tackle some of the greatest social challenges of our time and contribute to building thriving communities. We recognise the value of volunteering through not only the difference made to those we volunteer for but the improved wellbeing of the people who take on these roles in their community. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe clearly explained the benefits in her speech.
That is why we celebrate inspirational volunteers through Points of Light, the Prime Minister’s daily award, which shines a light on volunteering as a force for good. These awards showcase inspirational individuals making an outstanding contribution to their communities and encourages others to follow in their footsteps. We have already celebrated 896 UK winners to date, including, for example 13 year-old Sofia Crockatt, who has raised more than £40,000 for the Meningitis Research Foundation after the charity supported her and her family.
The Government are striving to promote a society where volunteering is celebrated and valued. We support new and innovative ideas for involving even more people in their communities. Since we created the National Citizen Service, for example—I shall come to the questions of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, in a minute—more than 400,000 young people have donated 12 million hours of their time to serve others in their communities. We also support Step Up to Serve’s #iwill campaign to encourage a lifetime habit of volunteering by providing more social action opportunities for young people from all backgrounds.
The Government are committed to removing barriers to volunteering, and that is why the independent full-time social action review was set up to look at the challenges and benefits of young people committing to full-time volunteering. Those findings are now being reviewed to see how participation can be increased in future. I shall say a bit more about that later if I have time.
Since 2013, more than £36 million has been invested in the Centre for Social Action to harness the power of social action and put it at the heart of communities and public services. The centre supports innovative ideas for bringing volunteering into public service delivery, concentrating on the roles that are shown to make the most impact in a variety of sectors. For example, through the Q-Volunteering programme, volunteers complement the work of clinical staff to ease pressures on the NHS. To help improve the scale and diversity of volunteering in sport, Sport England launched two new volunteering funds worth £6 million to create meaningful volunteering opportunities for people from economically disadvantaged communities.
The Government are also investing in volunteering for older people, which the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, talked about, and provided £7 million of grant funding to charities which are mobilising the time and talents of people over 50 in high-impact volunteering roles in partnership with Nesta. More research is currently being carried out with the Centre for Ageing Better into what barriers to volunteering older people face and what more can be done to remove them.
In the time I have, I shall try to answer some of the points that noble Lords raised. I start with the National Citizen Service, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said was very controversial. I agree with some things she said, but I do not agree with that. I know that she had issues with it and has been very open about that, and I said at the Bill’s Third Reading that I pay tribute to her for consistently bringing those points up. I agree that it should be capable of receiving scrutiny. I am very grateful to for saying that I could reply to her points in detail in writing, because we could spend a lot of time talking about the National Citizen Service. I will copy my replies to noble Lords who took part in the debate.
My noble friend Lord Freud talked about Grandmentors. DCMS is funding Volunteering Matters to scale up Grandmentors through the Centre for Social Action. The centre supports organisations to spread their social action projects in a sustainable way, which is an important point. An evaluation is also a core part of all of the centre’s grants to grantees so they can effectively measure their outcomes. I shall come to another more strategic issue, which he also says is important, in my concluding remarks.
The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, talked about full-time volunteering. I mentioned full-time volunteering and the benefits that it can bring, and I wanted to say a bit about the full-time social action review, which was published on 31 January. We will set out a response. The report set out the panel’s vision for a well-signposted continuous social action journey for young people, of which full-time volunteering is an important fact. It outlined eight recommendations, including for a number of organisations beyond just DCMS. As the Office for Civil Society, we will co-ordinate that across government. We acknowledge that full-time volunteering is an important aspect, both domestically and, of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, said, internationally.
My noble friend Lord Lingfield talked about schools, which will offer opportunities for their pupils to undertake volunteering, often working with national bodies such as Step Up To Serve or by creating their own links with local organisations. The Department for Education also works closely with the National Citizen Service on that, and will pilot a number of innovation pilots within the opportunity areas.
The right reverend Prelate talked about supporting disadvantaged communities, and I can reassure her that we think that is important. For example, the community organisers programme is kick-starting a grass-roots movement for change in England’s most deprived neighbourhoods. In this Parliament, Her Majesty’s Government have invested £4.2 million in expanding the number of organisers to 10,000.
My noble friend Lord Hodgson has wide experience in these matters, and I acknowledge and pay tribute to all that he has done, even though we have not always done everything that he asked us to. The ongoing interventions in jobcentres are, of course, important. Work coaches carry out diagnostic questioning to understand the claimant’s circumstances and, when there is lack of work experience, for example, they may encourage claimants to carry out some voluntary work. All jobcentre staff are strained to be aware of this. But I take his points on board and will bring them to the attention of the DWP—and I note that the DWP Minister was here to hear his remarks.
My noble friend Lord Colgrain asked about the DCMS numbers and participants. Some 75,595 took part in 2015 and just under 100,000 young people in 2017, which did actually miss the target of 101,000. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, also mentioned targets, and I shall address that in my letter to her. The fact remains that the NCS is still the fastest growing youth movement in this country for over a century.
The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, talked about devolution. The £4.5 million place-based social action programme will create positive change for people, communities and local organisations by creating a shared vision for their place and addressing local priorities through social action, including volunteering. She also referred to older volunteering, which I have already mentioned. The DCMS has invested £7 million to boost volunteering for people over 50.
The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, and the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, mentioned the International Citizen Service review. I will have to write to both of them; it is a DfID matter and I am not completely up on that, I am afraid.
I want to finish, if I may, by looking to the future. Civil society has developed significantly over the past decade, becoming more diverse than ever before. We have seen the rise of new ways to fundraise, a greater focus on grass-roots initiatives, increasingly flexible ways to volunteer, the rise of social media and digital and an ever growing inclusive economy. For this reason, the Minister for Civil Society, Tracey Crouch, has announced her intention to deliver a civil society strategy, which will provide a clear vision for the Government’s work with and for civil society. We will shortly be launching an engagement exercise which will inform this work. People from all across the country are encouraged to take part in the conversation, whether they are a young volunteer, a charity trustee, a social enterprise employee or an active member of a local community—and indeed noble Lords, who have demonstrated such knowledge and commitment tonight. The strategy will reaffirm the tremendous value that the Government place on this vital contribution and strive to work with and for civil society as a whole to support it in delivering its invaluable work.