Workplace volunteers prove value of corporate action

Employer-supported
schemes for volunteering involve 1.5 million employees in England
and Wales
giving time worth £1.1bn, according to a government report.

In
all, about a fifth of employees had access to schemes for volunteering, the
report said. Of those, about 40 per cent took part in them, giving about 68
hours a year each. Finance companies were far more likely than companies in any
other sector to offer such schemes, followed by public administration.

The
report, Employer-Supported Volunteering and Giving, also found that 2.8m people
participated in employer-supported schemes for giving.

Home
Office minister Fiona Mactaggart
said: "That business provides the equivalent of £1.1bn in volunteering
shows what a powerful force for change corporate action can be."

Home
Office figures in July indicated that the value of all volunteering to the
economy was £42.6bn last year – up from £34.4bn two years before. The total
number of people doing voluntary work was 20.3m last year, up 1.5m in two years.

By Daniel Thomas

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