Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to enhance local networks through which people are signposted to positive social action and volunteering opportunities.

Volunteers have been critical to the ability of local communities to respond to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. Local networks between councils, community groups, the voluntary sector and individual citizens have enabled an army of volunteers to step up and help during a time of national crisis.

Through the Covid-19 response, the government has funded the Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership to help charities - large and small - to work together to identify and reach communities most in need, signposting volunteering needs and opportunities across a network of more than 200 organisations. Over £6million of funding for the Partnership has so far been committed up to 30th June 2021 with an option to extend should the need continue.

The government will continue to draw upon the lessons of volunteering, both from the Covid-19 period and more broadly, to develop current and future policy.