Agenda item

(Indicative timing 2:05 – 2:35pm)

ThePanel hadrequested anupdate onWorcestershireCounty Council’s (the Council) support for volunteers and volunteering through the Here2Help Service (Here2Help), following on from the previous report in September 2021.

The Service Development Manager for Communities and Partnerships summarised the report. The main points highlighted were:

·         Here2Help was set up in March 2020 as a direct response to the needs of local people impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

·         It was now nearly 3 years since the pandemic but there were still a large number of people who needed help.

·         Over 16,000 hours of volunteering had been delivered by a network of  over 1,000 volunteers in areas such as food collection, medication delivery and support for COVID-19 clinics.

·         A Volunteering Development Officer had been appointed within the Communities and Partnerships Team and was driving this work forward.

·         Here2Help was able to mobilise very quickly and was able to provide support to Worcester City Primary Care within a week to help with flu clinics, showing that the process to get this in operation was capable of flexing to demands within the community. 

·         There had been positive feedback from volunteers and there were many different ways that the Council engaged with them to ensure volunteers  felt supported and valued.

·         Links had been made with the Council’s wellbeing week for staff, to promote volunteering as an important part of wellbeing.

·         An internal working group of representatives involved in volunteering across the Council had been set up to look at standardising and streamlining processes across the organisation. This group would also look at the cost benefit of volunteering and shared policies.

·         The Council was developing the WeCan network (Worcestershire Community Action Network) which was a group of six local infrastructure organisations for the voluntary community sector (VCS) to look at joint working and how the Council and WeCan were able to work more effectively together and maximise support collectively.

·         The Household Support Fund, coordinated by the Service Development Manager for Communities and Partnerships was a £3.95 million fund to provide support around:

o   Free school meal vouchers

o   Energy support scheme through Act on Energy

o   One off payment to pensioners on pension credit or low income, carers and those with a disability

o   One off winter payment where applicable.

The Chairman of the Panel commented on the value of volunteers and felt it was heartwarming to see how many people were helping through volunteering.

It was agreed that as part of the Panels quarterly performance monitoring, data would be provided around how people were benefiting from volunteers and the value of the Volunteering Development Officer role. It was noted that statistics relating to the outcomes of referrals or requests for help should be available within the next quarter, however, for the statistics cutting across several Scrutiny Panel’s remit, further advice would be sought.

During the discussion, the following points were noted:

·         The work of the Here2Help since its inception in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was commended.

·         Here2Help and WeCan provided two pathways where volunteers could register for volunteering.

·         Clarification was requested on how volunteers could register and whether the transition between these two networks had been seamless. It was confirmed that this was a transition period for Here2Help and WeCan with both pathways advertising volunteering positions in a collaborative way thus providing a joined-up service.

·         COVID-19 had impacted on the numbers of volunteers, and therefore recruitment continued to be a challenge.  It was agreed that the Panel would be provided with data relating to number of volunteers who were no longer volunteering for the Here2Help Services and the reasons why.

·         In response to a question about how the Here2Here Service would continue to evolve moving forward, it was explained that the role of Here2Help Service, post COVID-19 and what business as usual would look like was being considered by the Volunteering Development Officer. An executive summary of the business plan would be shared with the Panel.

·         In response to a question about how the added value of the Here2Help Service was measured, it was confirmed that it was possible to quantify the added value by the number of volunteer hours eg in the Countryside Centres and green spaces where volunteers worked alongside staff to undertake fence repairs.

·         A member questioned whether there were any volunteer roles in education such as helping with reading. The Panel was advised that any requests for help from schools would be sent to WeCan and also advertised via Here2Help. This question would be fed back to the Volunteering Development Officer to look into.

In summary, it was agreed that the Panel would receive quarterly performance monitoring information on the Here2Help Service and would be provided with a further update on the Service in due course including the Executive Summary of the Business Plan.

The Chairman thanked officers for the report and looked forward to a further update.