Community Base response to draft volunteering strategy for Brighton and Hove, July 2009
Community Base welcomes the opportunity to comment on the draft volunteering strategy for Brighton and Hove. Our board of trustees has asked me to make these comments and recommendations on its behalf.
1 BRIGHTON AND HOVE VOLUNTEER SEARCH
Hundreds of people come into Community Base’s central Brighton reception every year wanting to volunteer. In 2007, in response to this demand, we set up Brighton and Hove volunteer search, a free service putting people interested in volunteering in touch with community and voluntary groups in Brighton and Hove looking for volunteers.
Brighton and Hove volunteer search lists over 280 regularly updated volunteer opportunities with around 120 local community and voluntary groups. People interested in volunteering can browse through these opportunities in folders available at Community Base’s reception for 40 hours a week or online 24/7 at www.communitybase.org/volunteersearch.
The online version of Brighton and Hove volunteer search allows individuals and other volunteering brokerage services (services that put potential volunteers in touch with organisations looking for volunteers) to search volunteer opportunities by what the opportunity involves, who it involves working with, where it is located and when volunteers can give their time.
We recognise that different people have different needs and tell everyone using Brighton and Hove volunteer search about other local volunteering brokerage services. Everyone coming into our reception interested in volunteering is given a leaflet listing these services. Everyone using Brighton and Hove volunteer search online is shown a link to the same list at www.communitybase.org/servicesearch/volunteering.
A unique aspect of Brighton and Hove volunteer search is that it requires no funding – it will continue to operate as a free local service for the foreseeable future, even if funding becomes restricted. As such we believe Brighton and Hove volunteer search is a valuable resource our city can be proud of – we know of no similar service anywhere else in the UK - and that a local volunteering strategy, written at a time when funding is becoming restricted, should have it at its heart.
The draft strategy describes Community Base as providing a “wide range of volunteering opportunities accessed via on-line database (p10)” but makes no mention of Brighton and Hove volunteer search by name. The draft strategy makes no mention of the fact that a thousand people a year find out about hundreds of local volunteer opportunities through Brighton and Hove volunteer search by walking into Community Base’s central Brighton reception which is open 40 hours a week.
Recommendation 1 - that Brighton and Hove volunteer search be mentioned in the strategy, described accurately and recognised as a valuable and uniquely sustainable resource for local people, local community and voluntary groups and other volunteering brokerage services.
2 SUPPORTING THE EXISTING DIVERSE RANGE OF LOCAL VOLUNTEERING BROKERAGE SERVICES
The draft strategy states “There is poor awareness and usage of local volunteering brokerage services across volunteers, community activists, volunteer-involving organisations, and employers with a lack of clarity around the roles each organisation plays (p22)”
We see no evidence of poor awareness and usage of existing local brokerage services for students, young people, people wanting to volunteer in the NHS or Brighton and Hove volunteer search. The number of people coming into Community Base reception to enquire about volunteering has doubled since 2006.
We do not agree that there is a lack of clarity about what different volunteering brokerage services do. The existence of a wide range of local volunteering brokerage services (all listed and described on Brighton and Hove service search) working with particular groups (young people, students), particular types of opportunities (community and voluntary groups, the NHS, overseas volunteering) and in particular ways (provision of specialist advice, letting people contact groups looking for volunteers directly) rather than one centralised service is a positive aspect of volunteering in the city that we think the strategy should welcome and support.
Recommendation 2 – that the strategy recognises the value of the existing wide range of overlapping volunteering brokerage services in Brighton and Hove in providing different services to meet different needs.
3 DEVELOPING FRONTLINE SERVICES INSTEAD OF CREATING UNNECESSARY BUREAUCRACY
The draft strategy states “There is a lack of co-ordination, communication and partnership between agencies involved in volunteering across the City (p22)”
We see no evidence for this assertion, which was challenged by volunteering brokerage services at the volunteering strategy meeting Community Base was invited to attend. We cooperate well with other brokerage services, regularly exchanging publicity material and talking to each other when necessary.
We would be concerned if this unevidenced assertion was used as a justification for an increase in bureaucracy, unnecessary inter-agency meetings and ‘coordination’ that would waste funding and people’s time at the expense of the provision and development of frontline services.
We do not agree with the draft strategy’s assertion about “the need for one body to lead the development of volunteering in Brighton and Hove (p2)” or the statement that “The Volunteer Centre Brighton & Hove, which has been given a leadership role for the long-term development and co-ordination of volunteering in the City, needs to be adequately resourced to fulfil this role (p22)”. We do not understand who has given the Volunteer Centre Brighton and Hove this ‘leadership role’ or what it means.
Recommendation 3 - that the strategy calls for resources to be put into frontline services and an outward looking approach to promoting volunteering rather than unnecessary meetings and the creation of a local volunteering bureaucracy.
4 INCREASING THE CAPACITY OF THE VOLUNTEER CENTRE BRIGHTON AND HOVE
A few years ago Brighton and Hove each had a separate volunteer centre/bureau open most days of the week. Currently there is only one bureau/centre in Brighton and Hove, the Volunteer Centre Brighton and Hove, that is open two days a week in Hove. This significant drop in capacity makes it difficult for many potential volunteers to access the Volunteer Centre Brighton and Hove’s services.
Recommendation 4 - that the strategy prioritises the resourcing of greater opening hours for the Volunteer Centre Brighton and Hove beyond its current two days a week.
5 INCLUDING ALL VIEWS IN THE STRATEGY
Recommendation 5 - that the recommendations made here are considered when writing the final strategy and that this and other comments on the draft strategy be included in the strategy as an appendix.
Colin Chalmers
Community Base director
July 2009