voluntary organisations, social enterprises and volunteering
voluntary organisations, social enterprises and volunteering
voluntary organisations, social enterprises and volunteering
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Volunteering and Benefits
Created: 03/02/2014
News/Events Category: General NewsVolunteering is an excellent way for unemployed people to build up their work experience and expand their CV, however Fife Voluntary Action are aware that there are often confused messages around volunteering whilst still claiming benefits. The waters will doubtless only get murkier as Welfare Reform and Universal Credit starts rolling out. This article aims to clarify the current rules based on DWP guidance from 2009 which is the most recent formal publication on this, and also from recent memorandum on the effects of Universal Credit. Please find all of the documents referred to in this article below.
With the many benefits of volunteering it is important to encourage those seeking work to explore volunteering as a route to gaining more experience. There are several routes into volunteering:
- Fife Voluntary Action is an excellent resource for volunteering; we maintain a list of hundreds of voluntary opportunities across Fife and our dedicated staff can provide guidance and support in finding appropriate opportunities. For more information please get in touch or check out our website
- If someone wishes to volunteer for a specific organisation they can approach them directly, but it is important to ensure that any volunteering undertaken meets DWP criteria on what is deemed appropriate. Fife Voluntary Action can provide guidance on this. Asking family, friends, or someone in the community can help someone find out if there are local volunteer opportunities available.
We must emphasise that if someone volunteers they must declare this to their JobCentre Plus advisor as criteria on what is deemed appropriate voluntary activity is very strict. They will be asked to complete a form declaring any voluntary work undertaken. In conjunction with this someone must also declare their expenses, any money given on top of expenses, or anything else they are given, so tell them to keep receipts. If any of these conditions are broken this may affect someone’s benefits, but please don’t let this put you off recommending volunteering as we have some further guidance below.
The impact of Universal Credit and Welfare Reform
As part of UC benefit claimants can be expected to undertake up to 35hrs/week worksearch activity depending on the decision of their JobCentre Plus adviser. However a DWP Memorandum “Explanatory Memorandum for the Social Security Advisory Committee” states that clients can volunteer for as many hours as they wish and this can lead to a reduction of up to 50% of someone’s worksearch activity time. This appears to be corroborated by a recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request on the same topic. The FOI request gives the following example:
Mary is looking for work in the retail sector. She has caring responsibilities and a health condition which means that her expected hours have been reduced to 20 hours a week. She finds a voluntary job in the local charity shop for 12 hours a week. Her adviser makes a relevant deduction of 10 hours to her expected hours in order to accommodate her voluntary work. Mary is therefore spending 10 hours a week on work search activities, 10 hours volunteering as part of her relevant deduction, and a further two hours of her own time at the charity shop.
Anyone volunteering must still adhere to their job seekers contract and fulfil their work search criteria.
The DWP memorandum also states that someone doesn’t need to be immediately available for interview/work if they have volunteering commitments, but can instead be expected to be given 48 hours notice for an interview and up to a week for paid work.
Please take time to look at the documents below so you can fully inform your service users of their rights when it comes to volunteering and claiming benefits so they are able to take advantage of the great opportunities volunteering provides. Please also remember that someone must declare any volunteering they do to their JobCentre Plus advisor.
Fife Voluntary Action is here to help as the volunteer centre in Fife. Our website has hundreds of regularly updated opportunities and we are happy to meet with anyone to help them find the best volunteering opportunity for them or provide support and guidance if required.
Downloads:
• Volunteering and Benefits DWP
• Memorandum
• Freedom of Information Request
• Claim Form: Front
• Claim Form: Back
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