Future Funding models for Volunteering in Wales

Descriptions

Background:The Welsh Government is committed to working with partners to identify more opportunities for people to volunteer and generate maximum potential for volunteering in Wales.Support for volunteering is a key feature of Welsh Government’s Third Sector Support Wales grant to the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) and provides infrastructure in the shape of volunteering centres and advisors managed by County Voluntary Councils (CVCs) and a volunteering wales website. In addition, the budget has been used to fund Volunteering Wales Grants (administered by the WCVA) to support individual formal volunteering projects that aim to recruit, support, train and place new volunteers and to support volunteering projects.Earlier this year the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services asked officials within the Welsh Government’s Communities division to explore opportunities to match fund the Volunteering Wales Grant budget beyond 2020 to lever in non-public funding to support volunteering in Wales.This new model needs to be developed in collaboration with the third sector and therefore the Cabinet Secretary has asked officials to establish a Task and Finish Group to create consensus on the aims, scope and set up of any new delivery/investment model to report back to him in 2019, with a view to establishing a new model of investing in volunteering opportunities from 2020 onwards.Aims:The aim of this contract is to work with officials to support the Task and finish group (through research and evidence gathering, stakeholder engagement, options development and analysis) in its work of answering the following questions that have been established to guide the work of the group:Q1. What is the future of Volunteering in Wales? What are the trends that will make volunteering more or less likely? What are the opportunities?Q2. What is the most effective way for the Welsh Government to invest in volunteering? How should it best spend its budget for Volunteering Wales Grants?Q3. What is the most effective model for levering in (and spending) investment in volunteering to Wales? How can a match-funding model work?Q4. Where should investment in volunteering be prioritised? How do we make volunteering accessible to those who are less likely or less able to volunteer? What would a long term approach look like?N.B. The five ways of working within the Well-being of Future Generations Act will be designed into the work of the Task and Finish Group, and will influence the way the work is carried out, and how the policy work is developed.Timescale and Budget:The work is expected to take place between January and April 2019 and has a budget range of £50-60k.