 Well, good afternoon and welcome to the Scottish Parliament. My name is Jeremy Balfour, MSP, and I'm one of the core conveners of the cross-party group on volunteering, and I want to welcome you to the 2023 Festival of Politics. This year celebrates the 19th year of providing inspiring, informing people of all ages from every work of life to engage in three days of debate. We're delighted that you can today participate in volunteers and the state panel event in partnership with Volunteers Scotland, and later I'll be inviting you to make questions and comments in a few moments. If you are one of these people that can do Twitter, then you can do hashtag Festival of Politics and put down nice comments about the event. I'm pleased to be joined by three guests, Alan Stevenson, Sarah Redmond and Alan Sherry. Alan is CEO of Volunteers Scotland, one of Scotland's national centres for volunteering, and last year, Alan led more than 100 sector stakeholders, including colleagues from Scottish Government, in the development and successful launch of a 10-year volunteering plan for Scotland. Sarah is the chief officer of development with health and social care in Alliance Scotland. Her work involves working closely with members and promoting the role of a third sector as a key innovator and partner in realising Scotland's national health and wellbeing outcomes. Finally, but not least, Alan Sherry is the chair of the Community Learning and Development Standards Council. He is now retired, but has had a long career working in Scottish colleges. Alan is also a member of Jobs and Business Glasgow, Fuse Youth Coffee in Glasgow, East End and White Ribbon Scotland. Let's just have a quick think about where we are. About 27 per cent of Scotland's adult population regularly volunteer for an organisation or group, and they will help deliver, often, public services. During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a significant increase in people volunteering, and the ways that volunteers gave their time changed. As we have come out of that, we are in a cost-of-living crisis, and we are placing significant strain on public services, on organisations who engage volunteers and volunteers themselves. Many public services, as I am sure we are all aware, are experiencing staff shortages, and public sector workers in many sectors are seeking better pay. In that climate, we want to explore the whole topic of volunteering. We are going to start with a couple of questions to the panel from myself, and then it will be over to you to ask questions or to make a comment. What might be helpful to start with a question to Alan Stevenson, if that is okay? What is the current role of volunteers in Scotland? Thanks, Jeremy. I think that the first thing is to take a step back and think of the scale of volunteering as you have touched on. 27 per cent of the adult population is about 1.2 million people that volunteer. When you break that down a little bit further and look at that group of volunteers, you find that they volunteer in many different areas and in many different ways. Around 21 per cent of those volunteers volunteer in education, training and coaching to help people in terms of personal skills. 15 per cent of that volunteer cohort volunteer in health, disability and wellbeing. You have also got large cohorts of volunteers who volunteer in things like working with children out of schools. 17 per cent working with children in schools. 11 per cent, so it's absolutely huge. To sum up in a few words what volunteering does in terms of public sector is very difficult because the range of roles are huge. Probably just to illustrate it with a few examples. For example, Silver City surfers in Aberdeen, a group that provides IT skills to over 55s and they do that on a voluntary basis. Or you could look to Compassionate Inverclyde, who are a group of organisations that come together and think about the needs of their community. And offer things where statutory services stop. Companionship for people end of life. Welcome boxes for people coming out of hospital. School kids filling in welcome cards every day, every week. They go into those boxes. Or whether it's bereavement cafes or friendship hubs. Or whether it's singing that brings the community together. These are things that volunteering does that you wouldn't expect public sector to do. And what does that mean? Well, you couldn't probably sum that up in numbers, you probably couldn't sum it up in words. You'd have to speak to those individuals that are impacted by that volunteering and they'll tell you it makes the world a difference. Siwa, any initial reflections? I think one of the things that we are very aware of. So the Alliance's membership covers small volunteer based organisations. So some groups and organisations that are completely volunteer led. But also some of our bigger charities and volunteer organisations who very much work with and support volunteer roles. It often strikes me that volunteering itself. And it can be, I think some of the figures that Alan has described are quite formal volunteering roles. Also what we see are often quite informal, you know, volunteer activities that people participate in. So things such as more community involvement, things where it's perhaps a life experience that a person has had. That they then want to provide that information, that advice, what's worked for them. And share that knowledge and experience with others through maybe more peer support mechanisms. I think health and wellbeing generally is quite a big motivator for people to want to get involved in volunteering. My reasoning for that is I think it's volunteering itself. Sharing your experiences, sharing your time and your contribution with others. Itself is a health generating activity. So I think there's a really interesting wellbeing contribution that volunteering makes. I think something that is also quite apparent in the figures at the moment is that more and more it's quite a diverse range of groups of people who are volunteering in society. I think some of the biggest numbers are people who are over 60. People who are living with long term conditions tend to volunteer quite some of the biggest numbers of hours of volunteering activity in a month. So making sure that the volunteering roles reflect society is something that we're seeing more of. But it's also something I think that we want to continue to do more of because those opportunities to volunteer is also something that people gain a lot for their own health and wellbeing out of those activities. Alan, I don't know if you've got anything. I think just to kind of build on what's been said already, in our sector about 30 per cent of adult volunteers supported community learning development. That's from the full spectrum from youth work to adult learning to community capacity building. That's key and in our work predominantly volunteers volunteer two categories. There's those who would like to work with young people through the uniform services or through traditional youth work, as we would say it. People who support adult learning from adult literacy to silver surfers, as Alan's already mentioned. But part of the key element is also helping communities build capacity to take responsibility and participate in things like participative budgeting to enable them to be empowered to question people like us. How we're making decisions, how we're spending public money and often it's difficult for us to differentiate what people do because it's a bit of a seamless thing because people who are involved in youth work become advocates for other things. So that's key I think for us to make sure that we enable people to participate across the piece and to recognise that the skills that they have make a difference. I also think in recent years one of the big differences has been that the range of volunteers bring more extensive skills that previously were provided by the state through professional workers. Some of that's to do with demography, I can say this now because I'm over 65, is that people of my generation, some people retired earlier and didn't want to stop working but they brought a range of skills that previously they would have been employed full time and couldn't do. And there are others who have missed out on that opportunity because of the precarious nature of the economy over the last 15 to 20 years, even without the pandemic. So I think that's a key part of it but one of the things that strikes us in our sector is that though they're a valuable resource and bring huge amount of skills, volunteers still need professional workers to support them to ensure the high quality of the experience. For us, for learners, because we see everyone as a learner, but for another areas to ensure that services are delivered properly and appropriately. So there's that balance, I think, as we see it, about the need for volunteers to bring that richness of experience and that diversity of experience but then the requirement that they have professional support in order to deliver that effectively. I wonder if I can add and just kind of push you a wee bit on that a bit further. One of the things that services are saying now is that volunteers often feel there's no difference between them and someone who's been paid. And that kind of differential has disappeared. I suppose from your perspective, is that a good thing or should there always be a difference between a volunteer and a paid member staff? Yes. I think it's very unfair to ask people to do the tasks that professionally qualified staff should do. I volunteer in other things and I don't expect to run organisations, I don't expect to run the boards I'm on now, I don't expect to do that, I expect to support but I expect someone else to do it. I also think it's really difficult for volunteers. If I take our sector for a moment in education, if you look at the major reforms proposed by the Scottish Government, they'll have a considerable impact on community based adult learning and youth work. So, if I just give you some of them that I've got written down today. So, how many of you have read Professor Muir's Putin Learners at the Centre, the Scottish Government's response to that document, the subsequent Hayward report and qualifications, the post school education research skills purposes and principles report which was published in June, July this year and the withers report on skills? It's a straw poll but I guess if more than one of you have done it I would probably fall over. All those reports will have a major impact on what we do in CLD. Even if you only focussed on the wider attainment bit in the Hayward report but everything else will have a huge impact on what we do. I think it's terribly unfair to expect somebody of volunteers for five or six hours a week to sit down and read those documents, have an intelligent discussion with someone else about it and then come to a considered in conclusion about how that's going to help their practice to develop. That's why we need professional workers. It's their job to read that, to put it into a context and then to support volunteers to deliver within that framework. For me that's crucial. Yes they should be empowered, yes they should be engaged, we shouldn't treat them as handmaids to anybody or handpersons or whatever but they likely should expect professionally qualified people who are salaried to do the work. That makes sure the system runs effectively and appropriately. I think that the other thing volunteers need is someone who has a view of what's going on out with the area they volunteer in. Someone who can bring, in our sector we have the inspectorate, someone who can bring that evaluative process to what's going on. Often things can be going well on the surface and you get a very positive response from the groups that you're working with but it's not necessarily best practice, sometimes it's because they like you rather than what you're doing. The reality is we need someone who can evaluate the effectiveness of what we do, particularly when we're in the public sector when we're spending public money or in the voluntary sector when we're being funded by either the local government or the Scottish government to deliver. There has to be some quality check to be accountable for what we actually do. Yes professional workers, no to replacing professional workers. Though I have to say in our sector that's becoming very difficult to do is to trace where the cuts volunteers have stepped into replace professional workers. It's very difficult because of the lack of information that the Scottish Government holds on the services that support community learning and development. I will come back to that in a moment. I don't know if you've got anything to add to that. I think I completely agree with Alan that we do need to be aware and attentive to the possibility of expecting more and more from voluntary roles and particularly in a time of budgetary restraints and constraints. It's very easy I think for particularly in the voluntary sector and we see that very much from some of our members that at a time when they're facing budget cuts, they're facing higher costs for delivering the services and running their organisations, they're seeing higher demands on their services and their supports but they don't feel able to reduce what they're doing. There is a real risk that we rely more on voluntary roles or for people to do more but not get paid any more for that. So I think that is something we do need to be attentive to. I think there's also some concerns. I was mentioning some of the positives around volunteering and the inclusiveness of volunteering and more and more people from different groups in society are volunteering. But actually when you look at the employment rate for some people in society, there's real inequalities there as well. So there's a huge disability employment gap and that's problematic. So I think there's something about making sure there are routes for people to get into paid roles. Sometimes I was referencing the mind to people that get into voluntary roles because of their own personal experiences and they share and they support others in their own recovery and their own health and wellbeing through a peer support role. We probably need more routes into paid roles for that. It's something that people value really highly in terms of their own health and wellbeing and if that's the kind of roles that we're wanting to see in society then those also need to be paid for. People need to be renumerated appropriately for the work they're doing. So I think there's something there about the nature of work. I think that more and more of us are living with long-term conditions or we're providing unpaid caring roles as well for people that we love who are also living with long-term conditions. Work has to work for our circumstances in life. Perhaps the kind of model of Monday to Friday 9 to 5 really doesn't work for as many people these days as it might have done in the past. I think there's quite a lot of changes that are going on and I'm not sure all of our systems are keeping up with that. I think there's the potential that some people are taking on more responsibilities in a voluntary capacity. I also think that fundamentally volunteering, community involvement, these things are real goods. There's lots of strong evidence that having a sale over decisions which affect your lives, having strong connections in your communities, these are good indicators of wellbeing. It's something that helps to generate wellbeing. It's not always a neat thing. We need to make sure that those opportunities are available to people but that they're not happening instead of paid roles. I'll come to you in a moment, Alan, but I wonder if I can just piece a wee bit on that here because obviously our public services, whether it's education, health, social work, all these areas, we're seeing a squeeze and we're seeing shortages even today just dealing with constituents who can't get the services because people aren't there to do it. So you've volunteered not to step in and do it? I think the risk with that is whilst that can seem like a short term solution, I think in the long term one of the big challenges that we face across the UK but acutely in Scotland is inequality. That is one of the main reasons why some people are dying earlier than they should be. Some people are living less years in good health. It's because there is less equal access to income, to wealth, to having access to the building blocks of health. So I think the risk is that we need to be considerate about the potential long term consequences of that. Those people who can volunteer and do so because they have the conditions in life that allow them to do that, but that's not going to be everyone's circumstance. I think there's some reasons why we need to be cautious of that. Alan, you're pushing volunteers. Let's get rid of all teachers and get those volunteer teachers on. I don't know if you know what I'm going to say here, but no, it's complex, isn't it? I mean we're starting to get into the nub of this. It's quite contextual, you know, fun fact. If you have an incident at sea or on a mountain, it's volunteers that are going to come to your aid, but if you're on land or whatever it's, it's probably paid staff. So there is a context to some of this and there's a history to some of this as well. So when I hear opinions from different sectors, subsectors and so on, trying to understand the context of that is really important. But I think for us, we try and ensure as a national body that there is clear water, so that you use the pun again, clear water between volunteering and paid work, you know. The acronym I'm going to draw on here is fun. I think volunteers should always be fun, but I'm going to use the F for free choice. Volunteers should always be a free choice. And that starts to feel quite different from paid work in a sense that you've got a contract. You don't have a contract as a volunteer. You should have a volunteer agreement. You should have some idea about what the role entails and what's set out and how you get support and so on. But you shouldn't have a contract. You shouldn't ever have an employment contract through volunteering. And I think that's the danger that you step in and you create employment contracts, you know, by mistake almost, by well-meaning, but you step into that space. HMRC are quite clear on when you create a contract around volunteering, and it's when you reimburse more than what would be considered out-of-pocket expenses, i.e. travel, food, subsistence, maybe a bit of... If you are actually maybe have a disability, you might need adaption technologies, et cetera, so that can be considered part of an expense for your volunteering. But you move out of that and you start reimbursing more than that, you're actually creating a contract. And HMRC will be saying to them what you're doing around living wage, what you're doing around taxation, et cetera. So there is something here about free choice, there's something here about volunteering always being unpaid in that sense, although we look at expenses. And I think there's something else about volunteering not being for profit, you know. So if we talk about volunteering in private sector organisations that get a profit motive, you have to really be clear about what's a volunteering role and what's a paid role. It shouldn't be part of service cuts as well, we believe, through a charter. And it certainly shouldn't be a substitute for paid roles, and that is where the real nub is. It's when you've got volunteers who are doing something very, very similar to people who are paid. How does that make you feel either way? It doesn't feel too great as a volunteer. It certainly doesn't feel too great as a paid worker looking at someone working alongside doing the same things but actually not getting paid. And just to give you an example of that, you know, during the pandemic we were, and this happened down south. So it does vary if you leave, if you go out the border of Scotland you'll find that the way we think about this can be quite different. But we were talking about volunteers coming in and giving Covid jabs to help out. But at the same time we were also paying doctors and pharmacists and others to come along and do that. Our advice was no. And it wasn't that volunteers can't do it. It wasn't that they couldn't be trained up to do it. It was the fact that you're moving into that space of volunteering butting up against paid roles. So that's our position. Volunteering should be fun in that acronym sense. And in the other sense as well. Aron, yeah, couldn't you? I spent most of my career working in the East End and Greater Easterhuis in Glasgow. The poorest communities in Scotland still are the poorest communities in Scotland. And from this role the standards council is that for many people in deprived communities volunteering is the first step to get their confidence, their self confidence back and to gain skills that prepare them for employment or further study that might lead to sustainable employment. And if we reduce professional roles they have no markers as to what could possibly be achieved. And the Scottish Government rightly focuses on what I'd like to call family poverty because children themselves aren't poor, it's the families that are poor. As in deprived communities taking away professional roles in areas like community learning and development make it very difficult for families to escape grinding poverty. And we need to consider that when we're thinking about middle class people taking up roles because they have time to do it. Where in other communities volunteering is a way of getting back to work, to having a work pattern, to working out what it's like to be in a team to have a degree of responsibility to feel comfortable within that context of responsibility because in the communities that I used to work in very few people had sustainable jobs and particularly men, very few men had sustainable jobs for any period of time and that makes a fundamental difference. If you look in the sector I work in and say I could be a youth worker, I could be an adult educator, that sally would make this difference to my family and that comes to the other point I'd like to make is that part of our duty should be for all volunteers is to give them access to training courses that give them accreditation with qualifications that are portable so that if people do want to move to employment or so that they have it, it's not just here's our group certificate. Now that means more joined up in this across how education and awarding bodies work together with the voluntary sector and volunteers but Scotland's so small that's not impossible and we have a really good system in the Scottish qualification framework. We're now talking about micro-credentials, I'm not boring you to what micro-credential is but you can have chunks of learning that are meant for 10 hours that you could have credit if people could build up and again those people who have fewer or no qualifications suddenly feel confident in learning and have something that's sustainable that they can take to an employer or an education institution and say look this is where I'm at and it opens doors and I think sometimes in the big debate we forget that's key for lots of people is giving them steps to escape from the poverty that is getting worse and is going to continue to get worse presumably for the next four to five years anyway in terms of looking at the economic outturn so I think there's that debate in there with both Sarah and Alan we're saying about the importance of making sure that we give people a framework and make it fun for those who want it to be fun but put something else in there for those people who think I'll enjoy the fun but I could do something else if I had a few more skills or a bit more support Alan, can I then ask you, just to derive it from then, is part of volunteering for some people a step towards going back into employment and if that advice, how do we make that jump from, so let's, you know, I work in a charity shop maybe during X number of hours how do I then make the jump or how do you think that the sector should help people make that jump from doing those hours to then maybe becoming another or maybe in the shop or somewhere else but jumping from a charity or volunteering into employment, paid employment I think it happens, I think that does happen, I think more should happen around making that more equitable you know, thinking about EDI quality diversity inclusion and ensuring that those barriers I mean when I said free choice it isn't a free choice for everyone because you have barriers in the way so actually it's our job as a national centre to break down some of those barriers but it's quintessentially volunteering, one of the key benefits of volunteering is about the skills it provides about the tacit, the explicit skills and also those, you know, the confidence, everything else that you get from the social skills as well the, you know, just going to something regular as well each week gets you into that habitus of preparing you for work I think what I'm saying is volunteering shouldn't be exactly the same as a paid role but it doesn't mean that a volunteering role can't give you all of those things so it is about thinking about what is that volunteering role and thinking about what are the differences between that role and paid work but also thinking what are the real benefits from that role as well a good way to get there I think is actually to involve staff and volunteers together in creating those roles because they really understand where those differences lie and where they really get those experiential benefits staff also benefit from volunteering and they benefit from it in a different way and it does feel different from work as well but they get all those other benefits as well that they might not get in their job so it's, I do think it needs to be seen as something quite distinct, quite different but let's not think that it's just, you know, that cursory fun, throw it away you don't get all these benefits, you get all of these benefits and more from volunteering let's ensure we have those benefits baked in but I think we can avoid the trap of saying here let's create a role that looks exactly like a piece of paid work as a politician I always have lots of questions but I've been told I can't ask all the questions so I am now going to open it up so if you can put your hand up then somebody will come with a microphone and if you want to say your name and then just ask your question or make a statement so the lady in the audience is on the front thank you, has it turned on? hi, I'm Gail Halveson, thank you for the talk I'd like to slightly change track I'm one of the middle class volunteers who is not on the ladder to move up but we still need help I'm an architect and so volunteering roles that I've taken have all been to do with buildings 10 years on Gorbridge Community Development Trust getting a 2.5 million community centre established now working for an organisation that I run which is helping in rural Scotland and we're now looking at providing affordable housing in each case I've personally come across this and I meet so many other people that are coming across the problem of not having the expertise, the backup they're not being a resource pool of knowledge in our area and when I think of everything that I've been through with contractors going bust financial crisis, an arsyn attack on the building, all sorts of things and we had to reinvent the wheel every time now if there was a pool of resources, a central pool if the Scottish Government could provide some sort of central body where we could go to to get advice it would be a real help I come across this again and again Development Trust in rural Scotland trying to have been taking sort of 20 years to get five affordable houses built in their community they just need that expertise of lawyers, architects, building service I'm talking about the building sector sorry but I'm sure this will apply to other sectors too if there was a central body it would be a real economy for Scotland in the future because all these organisations would not be repeating the same mistakes again and again so it would definitely be an economy to invest in something like that in my view so I'd just be interested in the panel's view on that Alan next? Yeah I mean it sounds like a great idea and I could see where you bring in expertise into organisations that obviously don't have the funds, don't have the access to that expertise but I think again it's just finding where the boundaries are of that and how to make that workable there are similar types of organisations in place I think it's tech for good, it's Scottish tech army I think it is they do something similar in a technology space, they bring technology experts together and those technology skills are available to organisations who wouldn't have the funds available to do that so there probably is a blueprint for how you could do that for our professional services I'm not aware of anything else that's there at the moment that does that and it sounds like you're not aware of that either and that's why we're in you've got that issue but I don't think it's a bad idea I think it's just making sure that those boundaries are in place that it's not exploited, you can imagine how that can be exploited that organisations that can afford to do that are suddenly availing of that but it'd be easy to put in the right checks and balances to ensure that doesn't happen My observation recently has been that in Scotland we do lack some of that social research and development initiatives that allow good learning, good practice in one area to be identified and that learning to be shared and to help other parts of Scotland to make those similar mistakes or to learn and improve quickly I think some of the challenges that are facing us have been challenges that have been facing us for decades so there is a real need for us to give real attention to some of the social issues that are impacting on society and the risk is if we don't do that and I think what we're beginning to see now is that it's impacting on our economy that we have more and more people who are feeling as though they can't be in work because of health reasons that is very much because of the social circumstances that people are finding themselves in so I think there is a need for us to have some infrastructure and actually we've been talking about the need to do that within a climate transition space so thinking about some of that that we need within the green economy but that needs to happen in a way that also doesn't leave any parts of society behind so I think there is a real need for something I know you're talking about that within the built environment space but actually from the point of view of a built environment that is inclusive that allows all people to enjoy the environment that they're in there's an inclusion dimension to all of these issues so I think that is something that would be really beneficial nationally I think one of the challenges about community empowerment and devolving powers is that there is no overall view or overall resource to the point that Alan was making so in theory it's great but in practice whereas that central knowledge across 32 local authorities in Scotland says this idea was really great and it worked in these five communities because but in these ten communities didn't work for the following reasons therefore the learning from this is that and it ties in with the specialist knowledge and I was reflecting on that within Glasgow that Glasgow Life wanted to give all its community based assets to local communities based on a very successful model in a more affluent part of the city where people had the skills, they had people who were architects people who were surveyors, people who were accountants people who ran businesses who could support it but in other communities there was that lack of that social capital and skill set and people were going to be given buildings that weren't fit for purpose because that was one of the reasons why they wanted to get rid of them and didn't have an idea of how they could make them viable and there was no one there to go to help and I think what you're saying is really useful but it's that notion of the balance between centralisation and devolution a former colleague used to remind me all the time is that the cultural revolution followed letting a thousand brothers bloom but there's somewhere in the middle where we can devolve and let people make local decisions but give them the resources to make better local decisions on the basis of what's happened elsewhere so I do think there's value there and perhaps that's the Scottish Government needs to think a wee bit more around what would that look like without being direct of or taking control back to Edinburgh so yeah, there's value in that I think yeah, thank you we tap here in the front row with a green shot yeah, thanks very much just a couple of points just about looking at the word fun and also about what people volunteer in the first place I think we look at unpaid carers I think it's not fun because the state is clearly not there with respite or benefits or extra support or adaptions to the house etc etc so yeah, with unpaid carers is a massive barrier and with deprivation areas it's really important to look at that my second point is a question really about being realistic because of my understanding of looking at the feedback from volunteers from the pandemic in the NHS is that there's lots of positive feedback but there's also a lot of criticism about not feeling supported not feeling valued not having a firm role of not being all these constructive and other criticisms and so it's really like we know we've got over 10 years we've had 10 years of austerity it's not going to change so these jobs are they going to come they're not going to come in the short term because I support organisations in the third sector with funding and the messages I'm getting is a lot more competitive a lot more competitive for all types of funding so just a question of where we're going and being realistic because I agree with you that we need staff to support volunteers but actually where will it come from if the state's not doing it where the job is going to come from I agree where is it coming from I think we're all in the same boat to some extent that we're looking at where's the funding where's the acknowledgement that volunteers are important where's the investment in appropriate volunteer programmes and volunteer managers and professional development and all those things that you need to ensure that in future this thing that we can all love and cherish is one of those flowers that bloom and isn't dying on the vine and I think that is a question that is a society we're trying to wrestle with at the moment for organisations it is more competitive absolutely no doubt about it the number one issue for most third sector organisations past how do we find funding is how do we get volunteers how do we get people into our organisation to support our services and you've also got the pandemic issue of the volunteers that were there are now doing other things they've got other pressures as well so you've had lots of people leave volunteer programmes and you've not had people come back in to fill those places and it's a struggle to get people in there's no doubt about it but I think the key thing here is there needs to be a value put on volunteering at the right levels to say we need to invest in this thing the other thing I just want to pick up on unpaid carers I think volunteering helps unpaid carers and unpaid carers do an awful lot of volunteering but I don't think unpaid carers are volunteers and I think it comes back down to free choice I don't think they have the free choice I think it's you have to care for someone it's not volunteering and it's not diminishing in any way an unpaid carer quite the opposite it's actually giving an unpaid carer that identity to say don't put them in the bucket of volunteers see them as something different actually and you need to support unpaid carers but it's probably a different question for a different time but I think we're on the same I don't have that what's the future hold but I think we're all on the same boat saying invest at an organisational level invest at a national level because look at all the good it does across society no I think actually your comments and questions highlight the grey areas the bits where it's not always neat answers to what's the difference between a voluntary role and a paid role and actually the value that we place on caring is I think a really good example but actually both in paid work and for people who are unpaid carers in that we don't place enough value on caring and we don't place enough support for those people who you know caring is a massive part of what it means to be human but actually for many people when we're in caring roles that leads to poverty it leads to a loss of work it leads to a loss of wealth there's some really problematic societal implications around that so I think I would agree with Alan I think there's something about not seeing it necessarily as a volunteering role I think there's something about I guess the roles that we've been reflecting on where it's a freely given time and experience and knowledge but actually underlying that are some of the inequalities that exist that mean that not all people some people can choose to volunteer and give their time freely but actually for some people they don't have that option employment is not a route through which they can easily access because all the circumstances they're born in because of maybe an impairment that they're living with or because they're caring for people so I think inequality harms our society and I think that's kind of almost the it's possibly sometimes too often an unspoken about aspect of what we're seeing in society at the moment around the cost of living and the lack of economic growth we're seeing so I think that the issue that you're raising really around the value of caring is a really big one I think it's slightly different but related the other thing I would say with regards to your point about where are these roles coming from one of the things that we're hearing very clearly from our member organisations is just how low confidence is amongst the voluntary sector that the voluntary community sector that sometimes we refer to as the third sector confidence is low because there have not been uplifts in people's pay over this last period of constant crisis around our economy contracts are still being expected to be delivered despite the cost of living and despite the fact that staff are not getting paid anymore so we're seeing an expectation that contracts will still be delivered at the same rate over coming years as they have been in the past so organisations are really facing pressures at the moment to continue doing that and that is often where our voluntary roles are hosted it's often where those supportive roles are coming from so I do suspect we're going to be talking more and more about the impact that the cost of living is having on our voluntary sector over years I think we're going to see some organisations folding and really struggling to survive and one of the things that we're hearing from members is partly that they're not necessarily having a huge uptake in new volunteering roles but they also don't have the capacity to support those roles anyway there is a bit of a kind of coming crisis around that I thought the question actually got I don't want to sound very philosophical today I think is your question I think really is around what kind of society do we actually want and what choices do we want to make within the context of that society and what are we willing to pay for that so that's the bit for me that struck me from your question if we debate about what kind of Scotland do we want what does that mean, what's the state prepared to fund what's the state not prepared to fund and where's the volunteering role in that space but there's also the interesting bit about the demography of Scotland I mean you were talking about the health service and so on it's an aging workforce at virtually every level folks tends to be on the highest levels because doctors get more stuff than anybody else so there's a space in there for people in their 30s and 40s the right qualifications where there will be jobs because there's a commitment still to a national health service in Scotland so as people of my wife's generation are leaving they need to be replaced and there's not enough young people people who've got care experience as perhaps circumstances change I've got a whole raft of skills how do we fast track them into professionally qualified roles how do we have articulation and progression routes from community based learning like that into more traditional, I hate that phrase more traditional learning so that people who are really good who are empathetic because one of the stressing things I find is that everyone seems to assume that technology is going to be the answer a robot will appear at your door and care for you we know that empathy and people actually talking to other people identify more issues and can solve more problems rather than just simply ticking a box and I think that that's some of the debates we need to have about where do we need people to do things and where can the machines number crunch and do things intelligently but we need to think about that but we also need to discuss what kind of society we want we're very good in Scotland saying oh yeah it's great we want Scandinavian levels of welfare and support but just don't ask us to pay for it I mean to have that kind of conversation and then where does the volunteering role sit within that appropriately supported so that people have time to volunteer most times it should be fun to understand further as it won't be but everyone have the opportunity to volunteer without worrying about if I skip this shift I might lose my job so there's a bigger debate there I think about the question you asked I'm going to go right to the back with the gentleman I'm going to just say to the panel we are getting very close to the Scottish Parliament here with a question and a 20 minute answer so if we can maybe just edit our answers slightly so we can get a few more questions in or I will cut you off Thank you this is really directed at Alan Stevenson you said earlier and understand why you said it that volunteering shouldn't be a substitute for paid work but you also gave the example at the beginning of I imagine the RNLI which is I think 97% frontline staff or volunteers that strikes me as an incredible organisation and an incredibly successful service what's your argument to say that those should be paid workers or would you make that argument because I find it difficult to say that that isn't volunteering it's very best if you like and there's an obvious reason as well which is if you were to replace that by full-time staff they're sitting about doing nothing a lot of the time whereas the volunteers have got pagers or whatever to alert them when they're actually needed but that's my question anyway it's a good question it goes back to the complexity I think and I wouldn't be saying to RNLI ditch that and get paid staff in I wouldn't be doing that with the Mountain Rescue Service either I think really what we're talking about in the charter is where you've got paid roles in there already and it's that jaren with volunteering and paid roles now how that came into being is another question and how you just come up with what is an emergency service and think, conceptualise that as volunteering in its essence is incredible by the way that has happened but it'd be difficult to do that today I think it'd be difficult to do that tomorrow in another area and just say actually we're just going to go at this just to be volunteering I think because I think there'll already be there'll be a history of paid staff in there already there'll be service cuts there'll be funding pressures and all the rest of it and then you're in a difficult territory so I think to answer your question no I wouldn't, RNLI you're certainly safe in my book you do a great service I think as well and I'm sure volunteering has got something to say about how you do that and the quality of service and all the rest of it and the dedication that's shown so I wouldn't be doing that but I'll just say if we're looking at a different context I would be bringing the volunteer charter into effect and saying have a look at that first and look at those principles in there the 10 principles and can you meet those 10 principles when you're thinking about your volunteering roles and that charter's allowed us to get blue water between volunteering and paid work and I think it makes sense for most people that look at it but I've set myself up for a follow-up in that example but that example itself is almost like it's shown you something very different and shown you why the context is very important when we look at this and look at different sectors and how they operate I agree, I think that there are certain parts that lend themselves more easily to volunteering and that need to be on call but are not there but in the same way I wouldn't necessarily want surgeons to be volunteering in that sense as well because you want people who've got that kind of experience we need to be subtle here, there isn't we can't be monolithic we have to be stratify and be responsive to what we're actually trying to do and what's the best means of delivering it and sometimes I think it's very easy for us and my organisation sometimes because we prescribe qualifications that make you a registered worker and sometimes we do think more radically about that and sometimes we can't because of legislation and sometimes we can't because it upsets the interest groups that are in our organisation so it's about thinking appropriately for the 21st century and thinking what life in the 21st century is going to be about I was just reflecting that the other day there that my phone has more computing power than sent meant to the moon because if you watch Apollo 13 you bring them back using a slide rule before I retired the first time in 2019 I was speaking to some engineering students and I talked about having a slide rule and how I hated it and they all looked at me like I had three heads and just dropped down from Mars because none of them knew what a slide rule was but they could all do massive calculations on their phone and sometimes I think we've got structures and systems and ideas that probably weren't even fit for the end of the 20th century but I certainly know we're ready for the 21st century and the nature of what the 21st century is going to be like and something I think we need to think around that piece around the volunteering element as well what will 21st century volunteers need to do what will be the differences and the roles that we expect of them and what will they benefit from from that participation and how will we recognise that other than sometimes lots of it's been how they feel about themselves I think society has a role to acknowledge and I was going to say a reward but I don't mean necessarily monetarily but reward people for their contribution in a way that we currently don't do so there's a bit in there about that as well I think Excellent Yes Halfway back on the wall perhaps Yaron White Hi Thank you for a really interesting conversation so far I'm a researcher I research employability support for younger people and my question is about I think it's about volunteering in the context of the social security system that we have so I see in my research I think I see volunteering sort of being a bit of a substitute for work experience and also for supported employment for people with additional support needs and disabilities now those both work experience and supported employment can be paid and volunteering of course is unpaid and so I think the question for me is how do we strike a balance between the kind of benefits of volunteering that Alan you talked about about sort of confidence building and social skills which are great and they certainly help people move into work I've seen that but also not saying well actually you have to volunteer to be able to get that experience in the context of a very ungenerous benefit system so how do we strike that balance of encouraging volunteering while also acknowledging that this is a very difficult time to do anything unpaid for lots of people You can remember these things it was much easier to get work placements for people from the most deprived communities and with disabilities when the economy was booming companies took their corporate disposability further than they currently do and as soon as you hit recession they start to chop the things that they think are difficult to do and don't hit the bottom line so there's always that paradox during austerity and that's why it's important that public sector organisations don't fall into that trap too because the bodies that we fund as taxpayers should be at the forefront of offering opportunities paid opportunities to the audiences that you're serving in the research and I'm not sure that happens because often that's the service that gets cut too because they go back to this is what we need to do we need to deliver social work we need to deliver education because it says that and then the government ring fences money so they chop the things that are not ring fenced all governments do this so we need to think it's back to what is 21st where is the line in the 21st century who benefits from paid employment in the first instance is the point that Alan was making that ability to go along to turn up for you even if it's for a short period of time for your work being part of another team having new experiences and developing skills and for whom the first step to getting to that is to be a volunteer and a more sheltered existence before you're put into another one but I do agree it's a challenge and I don't see any way out of it at the moment simply because of the current economic situation and the projected economic situation Sean? I think you're highlighting another really important aspect of what we're experiencing at the moment and I think as a voluntary sector there have been some examples of quite less than ideal practices around that unpaid internships and such like who can benefit from such things is very stratified in society so I think it is really important I think it comes back to Alan's point about a charter which helps to set we all need to as employers there's a real role for employment and Alan your point about what kind of society do we want what kind of economy do we want I think employers are at risk of having to play catch up with the nature of the demographics we have in Scotland and making sure that work reflects people's lives I think we do need to make sure that there are opportunities for people to gain experiences but not in a way that excludes some people I think there's quite good evidence that one of the things that helps young people build resilience it's a good indicator of wellbeing is the informal networks that they have that they often benefit through their the grown-ups in their lives the adults in their lives and those are often the opportunities that people get to have work experience to have work-based placements that needs to be something that's available to all people so I think there there are some there's some real opportunities with this as well though there's real opportunities for us to be looking at these grey areas these subtle areas one of the things as an organisation that we've been having conversations around is there's a real understanding that the best policy, the best strategies are made by involving the people that they affect you involve people with those direct experiences and then you tend to get much better policy, much better services as a consequence that type of involvement is often unpaid and that type of involvement for people who are in receipt of out-of-work benefits has to be unpaid because of the nature of how our social security system is structured but that is an injustice there there's some people who can who are there sitting around a table offering their expertise and getting paid for it and others who are not in Scotland and actually the Scottish Government have also been involved in this about how can people be paid for the invaluable time that they're giving based on their own personal experiences and life experiences and which is a real good for society at least much better policies much better services so that's another example I think of where it's not always a neat distinction nonetheless I still come back we do need to understand that there are some distinctions between volunteering and paid roles I want to try to get two questions in so if we go across to my project is going to go across to the other side to different interviews I know we've got just about four minutes left so we'll take both questions together and each panel member will have a minute each to answer questions thank you it was just a touch on what you were speaking about there then so is there anything that defines the difference between volunteering and working and how could someone who's essentially involved with an organisation go to their employer or volunteer lead with that distinction and be able to say actually you should be paying me for this and this is a voluntary role so just if you could point to any of those that would be helpful so just quickly going on top of Sarns Point I've been involved in a lot of this kind of great area almost like policy volunteer to an extent not getting paid for it and what I'm curious about is it's the thing here's volunteers in the state is the state kind of almost using people here to kind of really not funding it and moving forward do we actually want people to get paid for this do we because looking at it from my perspective for you when you talk about the work I've been doing work with the Scottish Government on this for a year and they've been telling me oh yeah we're working on this and I found that personally very devaluing somebody who's not personally going to be affected but I'm still giving up my time as I'm not in receipt of social security benefits I'm essentially giving up well I'm at a table with colleagues from the Alliance and other organisations who are there and getting paid for it and doing the same work big questions, short answers what we are down the line probably you just mentioned in the last words you said there that she was doing the same work so I think looking at the paid role and looking at the volunteering role and breaking that down a little bit and saying is it substantially the same if it's the same then I think she'd be getting paid so that's pretty much there's something else there as well about just that habit of employers saying holding out of experience a bit of something on your CV and saying that can be free now and you need to question where they're coming from and it's not always a social good but there's some nature mercy about prospect of work as well it's also forming a contract so though you're not getting paid at that point if there's a prospect you will get employed reasonably down the line with that organisation then that is actually an employment contract as well on to HMRC so look at the roles and if they look the same they're the same so in response to the first question HMRC do have some good guidance on what constitutes a worker relationship it's not, there's a difference between an employee and a worker role but there's some clear parameters around that and that's coming to your other point about paying for involvement I feel that everyone should enjoy a basic standard of income I think everyone, I'm really interested in some of the work around a universal basic income I think people contribute to our society in so many ways sometimes that will look like a paid role and sometimes it will be the caring that we offer the community involvement that we have a whole range of things I think we devalue too much of what is good in our society so I think there is something there should some of that deliberative democratic participation be paid for yes, should it be paid roles maybe not always I think it probably is something that I don't have the conclusive answer on but I think it is something we do need to have dialogue because it's an increasing example of the ways people are volunteering sorry, I'm not interested in it Alan Nothing to add in response to the first question but to the second question I think there is an issue around unpaid internships and how it reinforces stratification the point that you were making earlier only some people can do it because they've got the where with all or their parents have the where with all to allow them to do it so I think there's a debate round about if it's an internship and it's a job to be done people should be paid to do it so I think that's my kind of my view on that one Okay, thank you one of the slightly frustrating things of being a chair of it is that you can't answer my questions which I will not get into because I haven't seen some really interesting comments made here particularly from a question from a lady on my left in regard to how the social security system interacts with volunteering but anyway, that's for another day we are nearly done with Alan on my far left and just one minute anything to summarise, take away comment and then we'll just walk away down the line I think we have to value what volunteers do and the skills that they bring and they enrich the experience not only for the people they work with but also the professional staff they work with because it gives them another sense of another take that's not groupthink I think we should celebrate it but we think we should differentiate between what's paid employment and I accept it's not possible every turn but I'm with the other Alan is that volunteers should be fun and should get enjoyment and feel that you've made a difference from it Okay I guess some of my concluding thoughts from this are that society benefits from you know from the ways people are able to participate in society not all of that is through paid work that there is a well-being dimension to informal to formal voluntary activities and that's a good thing and I think there's opportunity for us to make those roles those opportunities more inclusive reflecting our society I think there is also some really big societal questions we need to keep having dialogues about the 21st century is different our institutions our systems need to reflect how they look now and so I do think that we do need to have serious ongoing dialogues together about what kind of society do we want what are we willing to pay for and how do we tackle some of those social injustices that we can see I mean I think we're in a period now of public service reform so it's right that we should have these discussions community wealth buildings out there national care service we're having conversations around that as well we need to acknowledge the role of volunteers we need to be thinking about volunteer roles from a preventative point of view in terms of the societal impact and look at these roles as being enhancing and complementary not substitution for paid work and that actually calls on policy makers and so on to have really meaningful conversations really meaningful consultations with the communities out there in Scotland and to bring in that voice and bring in that lived experience and that's where a lot of volunteering happens we've got a lot to say we've got a lot of the answers as well but quite often we're not listening to that's it thank you very much we are coming towards the end of our time so on your behalf can I thank all three panellists Alan, Alan and Sarah for their contribution can I thank you all very much for coming along this afternoon I hope you at least did has perhaps stimulated some thinking perhaps encouraged you to go and volunteer or get more involved in volunteering if you want to find out more about some of the policy issues then you can go to volunteer charter web page or volunteer Scotland's website has a lot of information do have a look at those and find out more and then can I also encourage you to hang around the festivals I said last today tomorrow and the day after so there are lots of other events you might want to go and look at there's a bookstore next door there's a cafe so coffee food is available so please do make the opportunity to have this to thank you all very much for coming this afternoon and enjoy the rest of your day