Big Society

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and the Backbench Business Committee for initiating the debate.

I shall focus on volunteering, which in many ways is the keystone of the big society. I started my career 25 years ago as a volunteer with the citizens advice bureau. I have to say that I never thought of myself as part of the big society. Indeed, I gained so much from my time as a volunteer and from the support from the paid staff that I wanted to remain in the voluntary sector and work to provide the same service with both volunteers and paid staff. However, in the 23 years that I did that, the demographics of volunteers and the type of support that they needed to enable them to have a positive experience and to be of value to the organisation changed dramatically.

When I began, the majority of volunteers were, to put it kindly, older ladies with time on their hands. They wanted to volunteer for three hours or so a week and anticipated remaining with the organisation for quite a long period. The volunteers worked extremely hard and were very dedicated but, as we all know as Members of Parliament, life has become more complicated, the public’s expectations of any service have become much greater and family life has changed, causing the pool of volunteers to change, too. People are retiring later, and many women work until retirement age and then want a break or become carers as people live longer. Younger people, particularly women, are returning to work as two incomes are a necessity, and grandparents are pressed into service.

The expectations of services have been raised and volunteers have become younger, more short term and often use volunteering as a route to work. All that increases the need for paid support to ensure that the expectations of clients, volunteers and organisations are met. There are a number of different and diverse volunteering opportunities, and it is important that prospective volunteers are matched with the right organisation that will give value to both the volunteer and organisation. That is why I was appalled to hear that my local council for voluntary services in Wigan has lost £100,000 from the involved scheme, which provides volunteering support and brokerage for 16 to 25-year-olds, and the other non-age specific project performing the same function. This has led to an overall loss of the entire volunteering infrastructure within the borough, which is more important now as the big society is introduced and people are encouraged to volunteer.

People who want to volunteer will now face the choice, as used to happen in the past, of approaching an organisation that they may have heard of, without knowing how suitable that choice is for them and the amount of time that they want to give, or not bothering. If they find a place and discover bad practice, which exists in some voluntary organisations, there will be no one to report it to, to improve the practice and to work with the organisation to ensure that the volunteers are working in a healthy, safe and supportive environment.

I want to speak about that supportive environment. Volunteers give their time freely, but they, in return, can expect adequate training and support for the roles that they take on. A paid employee would not be left to get on with the job, and neither should a volunteer. Particularly in these days, when people of working age are volunteering to improve their CVs, volunteers demand a development plan and ongoing training and support. Volunteers’ time is given freely, but the support costs and the money for infrastructure costs is ever more difficult to find. In some cases, I cannot see where they can get it, apart from state bodies.

I turn to the example of citizens advice bureaux. I ran a citizens advice bureau, and we had almost £1 million of funding. One third came from legal aid, about one tenth came from the local authority, and there was primary care trust funding, Government funding to increase face-to-face advice in communities and Government funding from the financial inclusion fund. Citizens advice bureaux do not have popular appeal, however. They are not a “fluffy bunny” charity, so people do not give large amounts to them. Furthermore, volunteer turnover is increasingly rapid, and money needs to be made available to train and replace volunteers as they leave. Any responsible employer has a budget for recruitment and training, and how much more urgent and necessary that is when working with volunteers. I have referred to larger voluntary groups, but even small community voluntary groups need money.

Stubshaw Cross residents association started a teenagers disco when young people who were hanging around the park and causing a bit of trouble said that they had nowhere to go. The association volunteered to staff the sessions for nothing, but it needed access to a small grant to buy some sound equipment, to heat and light the building, to clean it and, as they said, to buy some earplugs. Those young people now run their own disco, with some support, but they still need ongoing funding. Without the support of the local council for voluntary service and the council’s funding officer, and without the availability of the small grants pot to help them to look for that funding, the disco would never have happened. Those teenagers would not have been part of the local community, and they would not sit on the residents association as they do now.

The big society is not new, but most of all it is not free. It is a partnership between community and voluntary organisations and the state, and to unbalance one side either by removing state funding or by restricting access to state funding and to grants, is to threaten society. It will leave people disaffected and dissociated. A true big society does not replace the state and public sector jobs; it works together to support and to empower the most vulnerable. To expect volunteers to replace public sector workers is to undervalue both, and it will unravel the fabric of society. It is by working together, with adequate funding, that the two sectors will become more than the sum of their parts.