Tony Blair, January 1999
Background
1. The Active Community initiative was launched by the Prime Minister in January 1999. It sets out to promote the value of community involvement and to encourage more people to become involved as volunteers and in community action. Equally, it aims to support public, private and voluntary agencies so that they recognise the important contribution that active communities make towards planning, policy making and service delivery.
2. The draft strategy is designed to take forward the Active Community initiative in Scotland in the medium to long term. It has been prepared by a Scottish Working Group, appointed by Scottish Ministers, chaired by Laurie Naumann, and supported by the Scottish Executive Voluntary Issues Unit (see Annex 1 for the list of members and remit). It complements a UK-wide strategic framework prepared by a Home Office-appointed Working Group chaired by Lord Norman Warner, which reported to Government in September 1999.
Policy Context
3. The draft strategy has not been prepared in isolation. The Working Group is concerned to ensure links between this strategy and others that are being developed in Scotland to strengthen community capacity. We have sought, in particular, to relate our proposals to other initiatives concerned with social inclusion, lifelong learning and active citizenship.
4. The Working Group met during a period of rapid development in policies to promote a socially inclusive and participative society, which emphasise the centrality of citizen participation as a strategy for change. Volunteering-involving and community organisations extensively contribute to or provide services that address issues of exclusion. Equally, for many people, the act of voluntary participation is a route to greater social inclusion and influence in community affairs. Indeed volunteering and community action may be viewed as a barometer of a healthy, inclusive and democratic society.
5. Volunteering and community action may also have direct learning and economic benefits for participants. They acquire skills, knowledge and confidence that may be transferred to personal needs or to the employment market. Voluntary action as a whole may contribute in a variety of ways to local economic development. Policies for life-long learning and the social economy have therefore formed an equally important context for the Working Group's deliberations.
6. It was clear to the Working Group that there may be barriers to volunteering or becoming involved in the local community, not just in terms of getting involved in the first place, but also of feeling and being effective once participating. There may have been stereotypes attached to involvement, which, while unfounded, may have discouraged people from becoming active. There are certainly barriers of time and money and sometimes people feel that they may not have skills to offer. It is clear that government, at all levels, has a role to play in lifting the barriers to volunteering and community action and in supporting, indeed empowering, individuals and community groups to play as effective a part as possible.
7. The Active Communities Initiative forms part of a wider concern not only to build a more open society and to extend opportunities for participative democracy, but also to strengthen the social economy and to build a more caring, socially just and inclusive society.
8. The Working Group recognises that, along with the giving of time, the giving of money is a vital way in which many people make a contribution to their communities and to society. Research shows that in Scotland more people continue to give more in donations to voluntary organisations than elsewhere in the UK. This is a feature of Scottish culture that we should celebrate and encourage. These donations continue to be the mainstay of voluntary sector income. In addition, the Treasury has recently announced changes to the ways in which people can make tax-efficient donations. The Working Group welcomes this announcement and recommends that a further and complementary initiative be taken by the Scottish Executive, the voluntary sector and other relevant partners to promote planned giving of money.
Scottish Context
9. Within Scotland, co-operative values run deep. We are in very many ways a caring society. The collective responsibility of society manifested in our public services, our voluntary organisations and through corporate social responsibility is well established. But it is a rapidly changing society and economy, with a legacy of often severe deprivation and exclusion, which has left many people behind, for example alienated young people, homeless people, those on low incomes and older people.
10. The establishment of the Scottish Parliament has also highlighted public concern about the nature of our democracy. Scots have been engaging in grassroots and civic participation for many years. Many Scots already engage voluntarily in community activities and single issue concerns and we give generously by way of our time and money to charities both here and overseas. We have strong foundations upon which to build but much still to do.
11. A democratic and caring society needs people to play an active role as individuals volunteering their time for the benefit of others and as members of community organisations that come together for the common good. Both can make a vital contribution to the way we plan, prioritise and improve our public services. Our public services are not designed to meet all our needs or to tackle all our problems. The costs would be prohibitive and many people do not want the State to play such a direct role in our lives. Over many aspects of the quality of community life - caring for our health, the environment, for older people, children or people with disabilities - we have a personal and collective responsibility too.
Definitions
12. The Working Group has used the following terms and definitions:
13. Volunteering and community action can take many forms from philanthropy to self-help, to campaigning and active engagement with public authorities in policy and decision-making. They are an expression of what might be termed active citizenship, whereby people become more active within their communities and society generally, a notion that entails both rights and responsibilities.
Vision for the Strategy
14. Our vision is of a society built around communities of place and of interest, in which it is known and accepted that people can and do freely engage in shared action leading to improved quality of life for themselves and others. Our mission is to create a long-term strategic framework that will make it easier for all those who wish to engage in volunteering and community action to do so. This involves promoting and protecting engagement as a basic right of all citizens in a free and democratic society; developing the means of making it effective; and reducing the barriers to involvement, especially barriers of discrimination. Resources must be committed to ensure that it happens.
Objectives
15. This draft strategy is intended to stimulate debate on volunteering and community action in order to:
This report explores each of these objectives in turn and proposes what needs to be done and by whom.