The following information was taken from the Volunteering England web site (www.volunteering.org.uk) and was correct at the time of writing.

Benefits

Volunteering shouldn't affect your benefits. You may encounter a benefits advisor who isn't well trained and doesn't know the law. They will sometimes tell people that they cant volunteer even though they can. If you do get problems with your benefits advisor you can get the organisation that you volunteer for or your local volunteer centre to have a word with them.

You cannot make money from your volunteering though, and the organisation that you volunteer for can only give you money in reimbursement for cost you have incurred in volunteering (such as bus fare, care costs etc) They should collect receipts and only pay you EXACTLY what your costs have been.

Job Seeker’s Allowance

You can do as much voluntary work as you like while on Job Seekers Allowance, as long as you continue to actively seek work. If you are on JSA, then you can do as much voluntary work as you want as long as you continue to actively seek work. You will have to show that you are looking for work and applying for jobs where appropriate.

Income Support

Volunteering will not affect your Income Support as long as you are not receiving any money other than reimbursement of expenses.

Incapacity Benefit

There is a lot of confusion over Incapacity Benefit because there used to be a rule saying that people on Incapacity Benefit could only volunteer for 16 hours a week. This rule no longer applies, although sometimes benefits advisers might tell you that it does. If you are receiving Incapacity Benefit then you can volunteer for as long as you want. People often worry that starting to volunteer will automatically trigger an investigation into their need to claim Incapacity Benefit, but in fact this very rarely happens. Volunteering is very different to paid work because you can decide what hours you work, when you go in and what sort of work you want to do.

Asylum seekers

Since April 2000, asylum seekers (people in the process of applying for refugee status) have been allowed to volunteer. This includes while they are appealing against a decision to refuse them asylum. If you are an asylum seeker, the Home Office suggests you should be careful that you volunteer for a not-for-profit organisation (an organisation like a charity, school or hospital that works to help people or the environment rather than to make money). If you are an asylum seeker then you are entitled to receive out-of-pocket expenses just like other volunteers.

Ex-offenders

Just because you have a past criminal conviction you aren't automatically prevented from volunteering. Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act only organisations that work with vulnerable people are allowed to ask you about spent convictions or carry out a police check. There are a lot of voluntary roles where you would not come into contact with vulnerable people and so organisations would have no right to question you about spent convictions.

Even if you want to work with vulnerable people, a criminal conviction won’t necessarily prevent you from doing so. Organisations are only looking for past offences that suggest you might be a danger to their clients. Under the Protection of Children Act 1999 and the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, it is an offence to knowingly employ (paid or unpaid) anyone with a conviction for specified crimes against children including murder, manslaughter, rape, GBH and a number of sexual offences, to work with people under 18. Apart from this, there are no set guidelines on which other offences would make you unsuitable to work with vulnerable people, so it is up to the organisation to make a decision based on your individual case.

Organisations who work with vulnerable people should have policies about how they will work with ex-offenders to make sure that they treat you fairly and do not discriminate against you. Unfortunately, some organisations may treat ex-offenders unfairly, but most voluntary organisations will be fair and will want to involve as many people as they can. The best thing that you can do is to be open and willing to discuss things with them. You may want to talk to them about:

• How long ago you were convicted
• Whether you have more than one conviction
• How your life and circumstances have changed since you were convicted
• The circumstances surrounding the offence.

Anything you tell an organisation about past convictions should remain confidential. It is an offence for them to pass on information about your past convictions unless you have told them that they are allowed to. If you are worried, ask them about who in the organisation will be told about your past convictions and ask to see their Data Protection policy so that you know how information will be stored and how long it will be kept for.

Children and young people

If you are under 18, then there is no legal reason why you cannot volunteer, but you will find that not all organisations will be willing to take you on. People under 18 (and in particular those under 16) are classed as vulnerable, so any organisation who takes young volunteers on has to be careful to protect them. This may mean that organisations with volunteer roles where you would not be supervised all the time or may have to do something risky would not be happy taking you on. Organisations also have a legal duty to protect the people that they work with, so they may feel that people under a certain age are not mature or experienced enough to carry out certain types of work safely. However, there should still be lots of roles that are safe and suitable and lots of people under 18 do volunteer.

For more information go to the Volunteering England web site at www.volunteering.org.uk.

Articles List

Why Conserve?
Why Volunteer?
Am I Allowed to Volunteer?
Be Prepared for Working Outside
How to Read a Grid Reference
The Conservation Year

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