Programme Evaluation 2014-15

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that formal and informal volunteering contributed the equivalent of
£23.9bn to the UK’s economic output in 2013 13 . It used a ‘replacement cost’ approach, based on median hourly wages for
similar activities in a paid environment. A parallel study prepared for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and
the Cabinet Office in the same year, while noting a long-term decline in levels of volunteering, calculated a national total of
approximately £70bn for the wellbeing value of such activities to the volunteers and beneficiaries 14 .
These forms of analysis have however attracted scepticism 15 , due not only to the seemingly inflated figures generated, but
also, problems in their use as a systematic basis for project evaluation, choosing between different courses of future action
and their applicability to a range of real-world situations. This is all the more evident in areas such as North West England
where wages are low, exclusion from the employment market is widespread and volunteering is more likely to be born of
social and economic necessity than a leisure pursuit of choice. Neither do such methodologies tie in with an organisation
like F4C, which sees the value of people and places in more rounded, organic ways.
The examples set out on page 18 illustrate the range of ways in which volunteers have helped F4C to deliver its mission,
not just by completing individual projects, but bringing positive, long-term benefits to the environment and disadvantaged
communities across the North West. As we shall see later, the positive, long term benefits to the volunteers themselves are
an intrinsic part of this added value. This is particularly true of asylum seekers and members of the region’s Muslim
communities, whose growing contributions as volunteers proved crucial during 2014-15.
Photo 7: Rubbish being cleared from the river close to Spa Road, Bolton, during a community clean up
undertaken as part of the Environment Agency-sponsored Flood Awareness Project
13 Office for National Statistics (2013) Household Satellite Accounts – Valuing Voluntary Activity in the UK Available at:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_345918.pdf
14 Fujiwara, D, Oroyemi, P and McKinnon E (2013) Wellbeing and Civil Society Estimating the value of volunteering using subjective wellbeing data
Department of Work and Pensions and Cabinet Office Available at: http://www.vanl.org.uk/images/downloads/volunteering/Estimating-the-value-ofvolunteering.pdf
This was calculated on hypothetical estimates by ‘frequent, formal volunteers’ of the financial compensation they would require for the
loss of satisfaction in their lives if they stopped volunteering: it suggested an average sum of £13,500 per person. The motivation for this study, however,
would appear to relate more to the DWP’s desire to establish a research-based justification for its controversial mandatory Workfare regime.
15 Hill, M (2014) ‘It’s the Economic Value, Stupid: But is Volunteering Really Worth £100bn to the UK?’ NCVO Blogs Available at:
http://blogs.ncvo.org.uk/2014/06/26/its-the-economic-value-stupidbut-is-volunteering-really-worth-100bn-to-the-uk/
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