Report highlights mistreatment of volunteers
The recently published findings of the Volunteer Rights Inquiry have highlighted cases of badly managed and mistreated volunteers.
In addition to stressing the need for greater volunteer management and leadership within organisations, several options are proposed by the report including the establishment of an Independent Arbitration Service, Volunteer Complaints Commission or a Volunteering Ombudsman.
following concerns that when problems arise, volunteers have no rights when dealing with the organisations they give time to. The next stage will be to engage with key stakeholders and organisations to discuss proposed options and agree a final ‘call to action’ later in the year.
According to Sukvinder Kaur- Stubbs, chair of Volunteering England, the stories of bullying, bad management, poor governance and improper behaviour were ‘shocking’ but because of the size of volunteering across the public, private and voluntary sectors, identifying a universal solution will be challenging. He said the report highlighted the issues and that it was down to all parties to work towards a solution.
