Social Security Benefits: Voluntary Work

(asked on 17th June 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the potential merits of volunteering for people on universal credit and other legacy benefits.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 24th June 2021

Government is always interested in understanding and maximising the benefits of volunteering for all individuals.

Increasingly, we know that volunteering can bring considerable benefits to the individual themselves, in addition to the social value they generate for the people and causes they support through their activity. The What Works Centre for Wellbeing’s Rapid Evidence Review of volunteering and wellbeing (October 2020) found that while the context of volunteering is an important factor, there is ‘high quality evidence that volunteering is positively linked to enhanced wellbeing, including improved life satisfaction, increased happiness and decreases in symptoms of depression’. (What Works Centre for Wellbeing, Institute for Volunteering Research Universities of Sheffield, Salford, UEA and Manchester, The Impacts of Volunteering on the Subject Wellbeing of Volunteers: A Rapid Evidence Assessment, 2020.)

Beyond wellbeing, other studies have examined the links between volunteering and employability, particularly for young people and though socioeconomic factors are thought to be key, these also demonstrate positive benefits. A study by the Behavioural Insights Team for the #iwill youth social action campaign in 2019 found that employers prefer employees who have undertaken social action, since they demonstrate better skills. Accordingly, 81% of young people who have participated in social action believe that this will help them develop new skills.

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