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Voluntary Work

Volume 486: debated on Thursday 15 January 2009

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what recent assessment he has made of the cost effectiveness of his Department’s policies on support for volunteering. (246144)

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what assessment he has made of the cost-effectiveness of his Department’s policies designed to support volunteering. (246364)

Over the 2008-11 CSR period the Office of the Third Sector will be investing £150 million in volunteering programmes. This supports a range of programmes including v, GoldStar, Volunteering for All and strategic funding to large national organisations.

The monitoring of these projects consists of formal monitoring meetings with delivery partners, tracking of volunteering numbers through the Government’s Citizenship Survey and, where appropriate, external programme evaluations.

In relation to the specific programmes, recent assessments show that v has created 875,000 volunteering opportunities since its launch in 2006, the GoldStar programme has run a programme of activities to promote good practice in volunteering and Volunteering for All has successfully delivered a number of campaigns to promote volunteering to groups at risk of social exclusion.