Community Service Volunteers
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S3M-2693, in the name of Nanette Milne, on Community Service Volunteers. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament commends Community Service Volunteers (CSV) for its strong track record in supporting retired people to engage with their local communities as volunteers; congratulates the Energy Challenge project in Aberdeen, which trains older volunteers to bring fuel efficiency and energy savings advice to people in their own homes to ensure that they stay warm and have energy-efficient homes; notes that, in view of government funding ending in March 2009, CSV's support to 1,600 older volunteers working in their local areas will come to an end, which will have a huge impact on communities and individuals across Scotland, and believes that consideration should be given to how continued support can be provided for volunteer-involving organisations.
I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to highlight the valuable work that is done in Scotland by Community Service Volunteers, which is a national charity that promotes volunteer involvement as a route to strong communities and better public services. I thank the MSPs from all parties who have supported my motion.
CSV has nearly 50 years' experience of developing and managing volunteering programmes in response to public need. The organisation's objectives are to give everyone—whatever their circumstances, age or health—the opportunity to volunteer and to use volunteers to benefit public services. More than 14,000 volunteers are involved in CSV projects and placements and in their campaigns, such as the make a difference day, which I and many other MSPs support each year.
CSV oversees eight programmes, but I will focus on the retired and senior volunteer programme—RSVP. I am sure that the Presiding Officer will allow me to extend a warm welcome to the more than 30 RSVP volunteers who are in the gallery to listen to the debate. Some of them might wonder why not too many MSPs are in the chamber. I ask them not to see that as a lack of interest in the valuable work that they do; rather, it is possibly because two by-elections are taking place not far from here today. I look forward to meeting the volunteers after the debate and I hope that some of my colleagues can join us for a little time in committee room 4.
RSVP has a strong track record of supporting retired people to volunteer in their communities, where 1,600 of them provide a much-valued service in schools, general practitioner practices, care homes and myriad other places. Indeed, RSVP volunteers clock up an amazing 64,000 hours of service each week. Just think what that must save the taxpayer. Those people not only cut the costs of public services, but build up relationships with and support many elderly and vulnerable people who greatly appreciate their efforts and commitment.
The volunteer work is very varied and I can give only a few examples this evening. Volunteers drive patients to hospital and clinic appointments, help people with shopping and visit and befriend people who live alone and who have no other outside contacts. In Stirling, they organise health walks for patients with heart disease and diabetes. Throughout Scotland, older volunteers have helped 360 primary school classes to read and write.
In the north-east, several groups of older people—including one who is over 90 years old—keep their joints supple and their minds active by knitting a large array of items, which are then donated to maternity units, family support units and charities such as Blythswood Care and the New Hope Trust. Those groups have donated nearly 4,000 items in the past year and the feedback from them is that the knitters derive great satisfaction from using their talents to help people in their communities and beyond. They benefit from social contact with their peers and they feel valued. One sheltered housing warden said of her group, "They don't all knit. One lady is the sewer-up of teddies, one lady is the filler and one lady keeps everyone right." That is a win-win situation in which everyone benefits.
I agree absolutely that the reading and writing programme in primary schools is a huge success and very effective. Does the member agree that a successful and innovative programme could result from Jamie Oliver's recent "Ministry of Food" television series in which he talked about the need during World War II for cooking skills to be passed from one generation to another. Does Nanette Milne agree that we should encourage more schemes around the country whereby the older generation can pass on their cooking skills to a generation of teenagers who live in homes where many of those skills have been lost? Perhaps the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism will also respond to the suggestion.
I absolutely agree. I have advocated such a suggestion in my area. The older generation has a great deal of good experience to pass on, not only in cooking but in gardening and all sorts of things. I agree absolutely with the suggestion. Cooking is a case in point.
The final example of volunteer work is the energy efficiency challenge, which began as a two-year pilot in January 2006. It is a partnership between CSV, Exxon Mobil and Energy Action Scotland, which has funding from Exxon Mobil until the end of next month. The project recruits and trains older volunteers to bring fuel efficiency and energy savings advice to vulnerable people in their own homes—advice that will help them to achieve improved energy efficiency and therefore greater warmth. The work is on-going in Edinburgh, Stirling, Fife, Angus, Dundee and Perth. Assuming that current efforts to secure funding are successful, there is the prospect of the project expanding to Glasgow, Lanark, Ayr, the Borders and Inverness.
In Aberdeen, an embryonic project is under way with the city's Chinese community, which will hopefully be extended to other ethnic minorities in the city. Those are only a few examples of the work of RSVP volunteers. I am sure that subsequent speakers will give more.
This work is extremely important and cost effective. The staff-to-volunteer ratio of RSVP is one paid worker to 200 volunteers. It costs £250 to recruit, train and support a primary care or schools volunteer. That is insignificant money when one compares it with the cost of putting an elderly person into hospital, a child into care, or of someone leaving school unable to read, all of which can have long-term cost implications.
RSVP has many successful local partnerships with public service providers, but the funding that it receives from that source cannot cover costs. Despite its best efforts to secure other funding, the Government's core grant to the charity is essential to help it to lever in additional money. Unfortunately, RSVP is in year 3 of a three-year grant and has been told that the grant will not be renewed at the end of the financial year because its work does not match the criteria for the Government's new funding priorities. Its small team—six development staff and two part-time administration posts—is under threat of redundancy unless an alternative means of funding can be found. Many valuable projects that its volunteers have built up over the years could wither on the vine if that Government support is withdrawn.
I hope that the minister understands the very serious concerns of RSVP, and its many volunteers. I entreat him to meet the charity in the very near future to try to find some way of ensuring that its work can continue. To lose RSVP would not only have an adverse impact on the lives of many vulnerable people in Scotland, but would put a significant strain on some already overstretched public services. Scotland needs these volunteers. It is only right that they should receive support for the work that they do.
I congratulate Nanette Milne on obtaining the debate, which is important not only for CSV but for the general principles of funding volunteers and volunteer organisations.
The days have gone when volunteers were considered simply as interested amateurs: volunteers require training and support. Indeed, it would be inappropriate for volunteers to be allowed without appropriate training to enter many of the situations into which they are put, and to do so could expose them to harm and risk. The professionalism of the core organisation needs to be recognised as an absolutely crucial partner in the delivery of many of our care operations.
I was delighted to attend a meeting in the Golden Lion Hotel in Stirling last year of volunteers in the Stirling area. Stirling has one of the highest rates of CSV-supported volunteers—I believe that there are more than 400 of them. As Nanette Milne indicated, there are many different schemes. For example, I learned that it takes only one volunteer to change a light bulb. Volunteers will go into a person's house to change a light bulb for them if they are unable to reach high enough. Such small tasks help to maintain people's independence and can be crucial to their wellbeing.
The range of volunteering is absolutely massive; it might involve driving people to appointments, performing an advocacy role—even if it is not a formal one—befriending someone or taking part in walking groups and knitting circles. It is vital that we support all those volunteers.
Too often, older people—I can say this, as someone who has reached pensionable age—are seen simply as a cost centre for Governments, when in fact they are the most important resource for developing the cohesiveness of our society. As the age demographic changes and life expectancy continues to increase—it has increased by two and a half years over the past 10 years—large numbers of people in their late 70s or early 80s will volunteer. They will be fit and active, and able to make a major contribution.
I have a suggestion to make in addition to the one that was made by my colleague Jack McConnell, which relates to work that I did with volunteers in the nursing home that I was involved with in Manchester. I got volunteers to help tell stories to the young people whom we brought in to the nursing home at teatime, as they were on their way home from school, which meant that they stopped being latchkey kids and got involved in their community. It was a mixed community—there were many older West Indian people in it. By getting someone to train them to tell their stories properly, we were able to establish a verbal history for many families, which was important. That is just one illustration of what can be done.
During the power cuts that occurred in the 1970s under the Conservative Government—I say to Nanette Milne that that was just the way that it happened—we were extremely concerned about elderly people in our community being left isolated for long periods during power cuts. We got together a group of local volunteers, but our problem was that because we did not have contact with CSV, we could not train them. Training, which we were lacking, is extremely important. Another volunteer organisation that I have been involved with played a huge role at the Strathcarron Hospice, but in that case we trained the volunteers.
I am becoming repetitive, so I will stop. CSV is an organisation that requires funding, for the sake of all the good that its volunteers do.
I thank the wonderful audience for tonight's debate. It is not the best of days to come to Edinburgh, so I hope that the people in the gallery have not come desperately far on such a dark and dismal evening. On behalf of members who are not here, I apologise for the very small attendance which, as Nanette Milne has explained, has to do with political activities elsewhere rather than with the significance of what we are discussing.
I congratulate Nanette Milne on securing this debate on an important issue. What makes it so important is that as we grow older—my increasingly grey hair reminds me that time moves on—we develop two important characteristics: experience and patience. Those characteristics are hugely valuable in the voluntary activities that CSV and many other voluntary organisations carry out.
As other members have done, I have done some research into what the RSVP does. Among the activities that caught my eye was provision of a talking newspaper in Glasgow. There must be hundreds of folk in Glasgow who benefit from that and there must be many more around the country who wish that they had such a thing. I also picked up on the work that is done in Lanarkshire, in particular, on storytelling and reading aloud. Many people would benefit from having a good story read to them instead of having to put up with what is, sadly, mostly drivel on the television; in general, radio programmes are rather better.
Time marches on, so let me bring myself to the point, which is about funding. I know what the minister will say about how funding has changed—we all respect, I think, the way in which ring-fenced funding has largely gone—and how local authorities are expected to work in other ways.
Does Nigel Don agree that, particularly when relatively small sums of money are involved, the amount of time and effort that voluntary groups have to divert from core activities to the pursuit of grant funding from 32 different local authorities would be far better spent encouraging volunteers in the community? I hope that he—and perhaps his absent colleagues—will agree with the other political parties that the provision of core funding from central Government should be reconsidered by Scottish National Party ministers rather than dropped. Such funding would allow volunteers to be given training and back-up. It is not so much that they desperately need such back-up but that it would encourage more and more people to come forward.
Mr McConnell makes a perfectly valid point. Of course, some things are done locally, so working through the local authority is entirely appropriate. Plainly, other organisations work nationally, so it must be right to say—the minister will surely agree—that requiring them to submit 32 applications must be crazy. I do not think that anyone will fall out with the member over that. It is incumbent on Government to ensure that the balance of funding sorts that out. I have not the slightest doubt that that is the Government's intention, but whether it always works is a question that the minister will need to answer.
Moving on swiftly, I want to mention the energy challenge in Aberdeen. I welcome the involvement of Exxon Mobil in that project, but I recognise that many other corporations with significant roots in Aberdeen and in other parts of the country—I do not want to be too parochial about this—could provide funding to local initiatives without that even being measurable on their balance sheets or profit and loss accounts. Without wanting to rehearse the familiar problems with funding at Aberdeen City Council, given that life is difficult all around the country, I encourage any corporate listeners to consider how they could make a significant difference by providing, as we have seen, relatively small sums of money for organisations such as RSVP in their local communities. Businesses need to be encouraged to consider that.
I join others in congratulating Nanette Milne on securing this important debate. I agree with every word that she said on the matter.
We have had many debates in the Parliament on the value of the voluntary sector and volunteering. I have spoken in many of those and have no doubt made similar points. I have heard many strong pleas to support the sector, to entrench funding for core costs and to nurture the value of the voluntary sector and volunteers. It is disappointing that the debates in the current parliamentary session have so often been on cutbacks, struggles for funding and the sense that the Government does not quite understand the diversity and needs of the sector. I want to make a number of points about that.
Our previous such debate was on the SNP Government's decision to axe much of the funding for ProjectScotland; today's debate is on CSV. From my time as Deputy Minister for Education and Young People, I know of the value of some of the literacy and numeracy projects that we have heard about today. Behind those individual issues, there lurks a fear that the total results of current Government policy—whether that be the knock-on effects of the council tax freeze or the overemphasis on social enterprise—are damaging to the potential for volunteering and the strength of the voluntary sector. They push it to the margins and understate its contribution.
The axing of funding to CSV's retired and senior volunteer programme is specifically because the programme does not fit the new Government priority, which is all about supporting social enterprise organisations. The priority itself is not unworthy—I do not disagree with it to that extent—but it fails to recognise that not all, or even the majority, of voluntary sector projects fit that pattern. Indeed, the nature of their contribution often makes that impossible. I am all in favour of local decision making, but there is a tension in putting everything through the local community planning framework. In practice, that tends to exclude certain sectors and to sideline national bodies, which have the expertise to which Jack McConnell and others have referred. Such bodies have the physical resources but find it difficult to engage with 32 local authorities and even more difficult to attract reliable and adequate funding when that discretionary spend is fighting with statutory services for resources.
As we have heard, the RSVP volunteers provide 64,000 hours of service weekly, through 1,600 older volunteers right across the board. Such work is very difficult to replace. It is a major resource, but the costs of supporting it are about £250 per person per annum, which is modest.
The cutting of funding follows the cut to the programme for disadvantaged young people in February. As the minister will no doubt tell us, no project has the right to be funded for ever, regardless of its worth. I agree with that. Voluntary sector groups rise and fall. Some do well, but others lose their focus and deserve to be killed off. Meanwhile, new ideas clamour for funding. However, it takes time and effort to build an organisation, to establish key links, and to test and improve a service. It is counterproductive to kill off major projects without first identifying the successes and failures. I therefore join Nanette Milne in her plea to the minister to think again about the support given to CSV. More broadly, I urge him to consider how continued support can be given to organisations that involve volunteers. I urge him to re-examine how Government policy can have both intended and unintended effects on volunteering and the third sector.
The third sector is vital to the fabric of Scotland's communities—not least in these harsh economic times. CSV is a specific case, but broader issues lie behind it. I hope that the minister will be prepared to meet the organisation to discuss the issues open-mindedly. We have to recognise the value of central organisations in providing the support that we have been hearing about and we have to reconsider the removing of support from this very valuable project.
I add my congratulations to Nanette Milne on securing a debate on this vital issue and I welcome the volunteers from CSV to the public gallery. The fact that so many volunteers have come shows the strength of feeling on the issue that we are debating.
Community Service Volunteers was founded in 1962 by Mora and Alec Dickson, who, incidentally, also founded Voluntary Service Overseas. The aim of the founders was to involve young people aged between 16 and 35 in voluntary service in the United Kingdom; to enrich the lives of volunteers and those whom they help; and to generate social change.
Today, CSV aims to strengthen communities by improving public service outcomes through the involvement of volunteers, and by giving everyone the opportunity to volunteer regardless of their circumstances, age or health. I have no doubt that CSV's work over the years has contributed to Scotland being regarded as leading the way in Europe in innovation and good practice in volunteering.
There are numerous examples of projects that retired volunteers have been involved in, but I want to bring one in particular to the minister's attention. It is a befriending project that is based in Motherwell. The project offers a service to 30 young people who are aged between eight and 18. It is a partnership between CSV and North Lanarkshire Council's social work department. It recruits local adults to befriend the young people, who are referred by social workers on the basis of their difficult home circumstances.
Through the volunteers, the young people—often for the first time in their lives—have someone who takes an interest in them. The young people have the opportunity to discuss, in an informal environment, any difficulties or problems that they might be experiencing. They are encouraged to develop new interests and hobbies, and to use their leisure time constructively. For many of the young people, the time that they spend with the volunteer is probably the best part of their week.
Politicians are fond of speaking at length about the advantages of promoting intergenerational activities to facilitate dialogue between younger people and older people, and to foster a better understanding and tolerance between the two groups. It therefore makes no sense that, as Nanette Milne explained in some detail, the Scottish Government is in effect now proposing to cut the funding to CSV's retired and senior volunteer programme, which delivers practical examples of intergenerational activity that works, such as the befriending project.
As with so many of the CSV RSVP projects, the difference that the befriending project makes to young people cannot be quantified. It is sufficient to say, however, that if the social work department tried to replicate the service, I doubt that it would have the resources in terms of staff or finances to do so. I urge the minister to think again about withdrawing the funding. I also support Robert Brown's plea to the minister to examine general funding policy for the voluntary sector. I hope that the minister will take up the offer to meet the CSV volunteers.
I congratulate Nanette Milne on bringing this debate to the chamber. I confess that I was not originally going to speak—I hope that no one would view that as a lack of commitment to volunteering. Like other members, I am always inspired by the many people who give their time freely for the benefit of others. This time last week, I hosted a reception in the Parliament, which Margaret Mitchell also attended, for people who are involved with contact centres, many of which are staffed by volunteers.
I join Nanette Milne in congratulating those who are involved in the energy efficiency challenge. No one could be unimpressed by what she described.
I was encouraged to stay for tonight's debate when I heard that there was a threat to the funding of the retired and senior volunteer programme. I understand that RSVP is one of eight programmes under the CSV umbrella, and that it is in the third year of a three-year funding package. However, I cannot understand why the Scottish Government would allow such valuable work to fold.
We have heard examples of the work that is carried out, such as the provision of transport to hospitals, the healthy walks programme and help for children to boost literacy and numeracy levels. In my own constituency of Linlithgow, volunteers help out in schools and in Falkirk royal infirmary. Those examples all add up to the provision of many years of service.
I understand that representatives of CSV met the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, John Swinney, in July, and I am sure that he was equally impressed. However, I suggest to the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism that any chance of local authorities picking up the funding for the CSV programme is remote. At present, only three local authorities—Stirling Council, Falkirk Council and Scottish Borders Council—contribute to the programme, and I hope that they will continue to do so.
Last week, in the Local Government and Communities Committee, I heard representatives from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities outline the pressures on local government budgets. This week, I had the benefit of hearing Mr Swinney tell us that up to £70 million of additional money will be available to local authorities to freeze the council tax—but that was it. I ask the minister where he thinks local authorities will find the extra money for volunteering.
Older people are the fastest-growing group in our communities. Many of them have time and energy and want to contribute to those communities. I am sure that the minister agrees that one of the best ways for them to stay both physically and mentally healthy is to stay active. Just this week, I happened to call on a woman in a certain new town in Fife who told me that she would vote on Thursday after she had been to the charity shop in the village. She was 93, and would put many of us to shame. Examples of volunteering in older age groups are there for all of us to see.
RSVP appears to fit well with a whole host of strategies for older people, therefore I cannot understand the threat to its funding. RSVP received a grant of £350,000, but it levered in additional money to take that up to £480,000, so it is aware of the need to make the public pound go further. All I ask of the minister is that he further consider the loss to volunteers and people who benefit from their help if funding is not renewed. If, as Nanette Milne suggested, he meets CSV, I believe that there will be a much more positive outcome.
I put on record my congratulations to Nanette Milne on securing today's debate, and I welcome Claire Stevens, my friend Alasdair Hutton and the many RSVP volunteers in the public gallery.
This debate has been useful, and has underlined the value that all parties place on volunteering and its importance to Scotland's success and social fabric. The Scottish Government is keen to recognise the major contribution that is made by CSV and its programme for retired and senior volunteering. As someone who was born in 1947, I am keenly aware of that, because it will be my turn at some point. The track record of altruism, patience, experience, skill, warmth and empathy speaks for itself. Members have spoken eloquently about that.
However, we are in a changing landscape. We have the concordat agreement between the Scottish Government and local authorities, which is based on mutual respect and partnership and brings in local authorities as part of the overall system in Scotland. Key to that concordat is a reduction in ring fencing and the development of single outcome agreements.
We have taken steps to enable local decision making on local issues. We believe that that is right for local people and the delivery of local solutions, and that it will enhance those solutions over time. Indeed, I have spent considerable time in my constituency and others talking to community planning partnerships and bringing together the council, the health service, the education service, the business community and, most important, the voluntary sector.
I have a question about head office functions for organisations such as CSV. It is okay for them if they are dealing with one authority, but does the minister agree that the effort and input in dealing with 32 local authorities—as opposed to applying for central core funding—is disproportionately high?
We are dealing with an evolutionary process, and I expect something to evolve that is based on sounds roots, is much stronger and is more effective on a totally different and larger scale.
The member refers to the fact that successive Scottish Governments have been happy to fund projects proposed by CSV and RSVP, but they have always been fixed-term projects and that funding did not represent core funding. Many national volunteer organisations have been active for many years without seeking central Government support, and many nationally active organisations that used to look to Government have approached local authorities directly and found significant interest. The Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust is a fine example of that, and it has recorded the advantages and synergies that it has achieved. We firmly believe that CSV and RSVP have much to offer to the ethos of community planning partnerships and the ability to deliver single outcome agreements.
I am slightly perplexed. The minister has said nice things about CSV and RSVP, but he knows from all the other pressures that local authorities are having financial difficulties—not just in Edinburgh and Aberdeen but throughout the country. How, therefore, could the First Minister allocate £500,000 to the Scottish-Islamic Foundation before it even made an application, when CSV is being given no money? Is there not some paradox, problem or conflict?
There is no paradox; there is a huge opportunity for us to work better, more effectively and from deeper local roots. The key point is that we are keen for the third sector to engage strongly at a local level. It is right that local decisions are made locally, and we are more than willing to meet CSV and enter into new discussions so that it can achieve at a local level.
We recognise that volunteers are essential to the new way of working and must be properly supported. The RSVP energy challenge project, which rightly has been praised by members, is a great example of private and third-sector funding bringing volunteers to the fore in delivering high-quality energy advice, working in ways that no public-private agency does, and providing trusted altruistic intermediaries and facilitators. I have no hesitation in commending the partnership of Exxon Mobil, Energy Action Scotland and RSVP. No Government funding was asked for and none was needed. Exxon's funding will continue well into next year, and it is an example on which we can build.
I am finding this very difficult. All those sweet words mean nothing. Edinburgh is closing kitchens and nurseries and cutting back other provisions. It is not going to be able to find extra money for voluntary organisations. As Robert Brown rightly said, the Government ought to provide core, central funding. Surely the Government has a responsibility to do that, and if it can do it for other organisations—one of which I have already mentioned—surely it is even more important to do it for CSV.
The member ignores the fact that we are trying to create a new, organic, more widely based approach that will be more able to generate revenues and work in synergy.
I spent last week in Lochgilphead with the health secretary, running a session on the list of allies and stakeholders. We are looking to ensure that the voluntary sector works well with our councils, education system and health service in a way that saves each money and relies on real synergies. I am sure that a pound in the hands of the CSV would go considerably further than it would in the hands of the health service.
We are keen to ensure that the third sector, including every aspect of volunteering, is able to make its vital contribution to Scotland, and we will put time in to ensure that people understand that. Making local decisions on local matters, supported by the third sector, offers huge opportunities for communities and a better chance for the third sector to grow organically while removing the need to chase funding to the extent that we have seen in the past. We now have a task group, jointly assembled by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, COSLA, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and the Government, to ensure that that happens. That group will be happy to consider whatever support bodies such as RSVP need to play their full role. We are open to their overtures and we will meet them and hold a dialogue.
It is clear that the minister and the Government are not going to reconsider central funding, and that national organisations such as CSV will have to apply to the 32 different local authorities, but will he extend the current funding so that we can attest that the transition is as he says it should be?
John Swinney has written to Claire Stevens offering to help make contacts and move things forward, and we will honour that to the letter. Every member understands that volunteering is at the heart of our communities, and the Government is determined that the vital army of volunteers should be able to achieve its goals. The Government will not throw the baby out with the bath water. We will move on with CSV and RSVP to get the best possible outcome and a robust mechanism that will grow, last and deliver for them and their communities, which is what we all want.
Meeting closed at 17:38.