Volunteering in Denbighshire - whats happening?

Yes its an interesting one. I was today directed to Mohammad's blog (Chief Exec of Denbighshire County) and interestingly the hot topics for this month include a volunteers scheme and the avoidance of duplication in services.

Most apt I thought. I warmly welcome raising the profile of volunteering but as for creating yet more volunteer schemes I shudder. How many schemes do we need?. Already WAG fund us to provide a generic County wide volunteer service and for which we received last year over 800 enquiries and placed just over 500 in addition to which I know of the Countryside Services scheme which again provides excellent volunteer opportunities and also lets not forget the Community Justice Volunteer scheme ,the North Wales police scheme and quite a few more but I won't bore you with the details as the list could be lengthy. I think our host organisations which number in excess of 250 would be puzzled as to why we need even more volunteer schemes.

I think we need to take a sharp intake of breath before we consider creating more schemes. The fact is why do we need so many ?, what is wrong with the generic DVSC service? All the feedback I get from various stakeholders, customers and host volunteer organisations are all positive and what is more we find some of the volunteers do obtain work which has got be good for their family and the economy and I think speaks volumes for volunteering. So why should we be establishing new schemes? Lets do the opposite , why not merge the schemes we have , that way we pool our resources and provide a more co-ordinated and joined up service - now let me think where have I heard those words before?

OK , now I have got that off my chest because to be honest when we are encouraged to be careful with spening public money my first thought always turns to duplication of services - Do I need to say more?

Last but not least whilst we are talking about volunteering I had an email the other day from an individual questioning why a particular statutory body ( not Denbighshire County Council I hasten to add) was seeking a volunteer for what was previously a paid position and the enquirer was asking straight out "Does DVSC support that new way of providing services". Well the fact is there is a volunteer protocol namely NO DISPLACEMENT of paid staff by the use of volunteers. I would therefore urge any organisation that is considering engaging volunteers to deliver services for posts previously waged should seriously consider how they comply with the volunteer protocols. The fact that I have had an enquiry to my mind shows that public service delivery agencies are now coming under increased scrutiny which is no bad thing as we are all publicly funded and therefore accountable for our actions.

I would welcome people's views on this and whilst on the subject of blogs thank you all for your emails regarding my previous blogs. I promise I will try and do better and write more frequently because I hadn't realised how many of you sign up to see what I have written.