Volunteering - its time has come

With National Volunteering Week here, it is timely to say, as chair of v – the national charity established to inspire a million more young volunteers – I have seen the power of volunteering first hand.

Focused specifically on reaching 16 to 25-year olds across England, v has been given the exciting challenge of making volunteering a valued part of the lives of young people.

We have spent the last two years working closely with voluntary organisations, government and the private sector to make a significant impact. And this progress is reflected in our annual report, published this month, which reveals that more than 750,000 new volunteering opportunities have been created.

Guiding v, we have v20 - 20 young, talented and committed volunteers who sit at the heart of the organisation, actively contributing to our direction through the board of trustees and by developing their own initiatives. They are our 'user voice'.

I believe there is a substantial opportunity for the public sector, particularly local government, to use volunteering in a number of ways. First, by working in partnerships with the third sector, volunteering can be used to deliver some of its services. There are some leading examples of where this is already happening, but they tend to be championed by a few, rather than considered to be a mainstream approach to delivering public services by all.

Second, volunteering also presents a way to develop skills, particularly the softer, transferable skills of teamwork and communication, so valued by employers, in its own workforce.