Owen Tudor in the cuts watch section of the TUC Touchstone blog highlights proposed cuts to Volunteering England (which researches and provides information on best practice in volunteering) which could see 31 of its 55 staff made redundant. The government has announced that the Office for Civil Society will cut its “strategic partners” from 42 to 15 and make sure that no partner gets more than a quarter of its funding from OCS. Volunteering England’s Chief Executive, Justin Davis Smith, says the organisation faces cuts of 60 per cent of its funding. He points out that:
“It is extraordinary we have to plan on cutting back our organisation at a time when across our society there is more interest in volunteering than ever before. The coalition government’s Big Society is built upon volunteering, and Volunteering England has a crucial part to play in helping public and community services become more effective through involving volunteers.”
STUC hopes, in the next few days, to sign a joint agreement with Volunteer Development Scotland which supports the vital role of volunteers whilst making it clear that volunteering is an addition to, rather than a replacement for, important public service work.
We will be watching closely to ensure that funding for Volunteer Development Scotland is maintained at adequate levels in Scotland.
Dave Moxham STUC
The blog of the 'There is a Better Way' campaign by STUC staff about policy issues that are, or should be, in the news and guest contributors on issues of social justice. Written from a STUC perspective, contributions will often cover areas where there is yet no settled STUC policy and go into areas in more detail than our formal decisions. We welcome debate and we don’t expect everyone to agree with us, but we will remove any comments that are offensive, irrelevant or otherwise annoy.
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