London's voluntary sector raises £1.48 billion per year, of which some 42% (£620 million) is earned income. Recruitment and retention of paid workers, volunteers and trustees is a severe problem in London where 20% of the total sector paid workforce is concentrated. High workforce turnover is attributed to limited job security due to time restrictive projects and short-term contracts, movement to the public and private sectors and lack of skills.

There are urgent skills gaps in the voluntary sector including:

• management skills
• ICT
• fundraising
• professional, specialist and technical skills related to area of work

There is also a distinct lack of an organisational learning culture and a significant resistance to training, in particular:

• lack of accreditation particularly around specific areas of expertise
• no mechanism for non-accredited learning
• lack of suitable courses
• negative perceptions of NVQs
• lack of resources for learning support and travel
• concern about quality and relevance
• difficulties in evaluating achievement and impacts of training developments

Source: VSNTO 2003a and VSNTO 2002

There are over 28,000 voluntary sector organisations in the South East, employing an estimate of 110,000 staff and involving more than 600,000 volunteers. Most organisations deal with community cohesion, health improvement, neighbourhood renewal and rural revival, and education.

Source: RAISE/LLSC 2004

There are about 20,000 to 48,500 organisations with a paid staff of between 45,000 to 92,000. About 2.2 million people work as volunteers. The sector contributes between 0.95% to 2.5% of the region’s GDP.

Key skills gaps include:

• obtaining and managing funding
• organisational development
• inter-personal skills
• regulatory issues
• ICT
• Entrepreneurship
• management development skills

As income in the sector is often short-term and related to specific projects, there is a tendency for training provision to be funding driven rather than needs driven. In addition to that, many key stakeholder indicate that too much emphasis is being given to NVQ provision. It is also felt that training provision does not offer progression routes and higher level training for more experienced workers and volunteers.

Source: Milburn Trinnaman La Court 2004 and Voluntary Sector Report 2002

Suffolk's voluntary workforce has similarities to the national picture, but is made up of smaller workforce numbers in each organisation. Conditions of employment in the region are not conducive to longevity and stability of the voluntary sector workforce. The Suffolk voluntary sector workforce was estimated at 13,850 in 2002 which represents almost 4% of the total workforce of Suffolk. Approximately 24% of organisations in the region rely on just one full-time or part-time staff member.

Local drivers in the workforce are:

• low unemployment
• more demanding applicants
• demographic changes
• increasing impact of Government policy and legislation 

Trends in the voluntary sector in Suffolk include an increase in the number of posts, shortages of suitable applicants, growing professionalisation within larger voluntary groups. Workforce mobility presents both problems and opportunities particularly within the voluntary sector.

Suffolk's voluntary sector has a well-qualified workforce, with 59.5% having GCSE or higher levels of qualification. 16.7% of the workforce with professional qualifications compares favourably with the 15% of managers in the private sector who have management qualifications.

Source: Moore and Witthames 2004

Approximately 28,000 staff are employed in the voluntary and community sector in the East Midlands. Key issues affecting the East Midland’s voluntary sector include:

• planning - the voluntary sector is struggling in producing training plans and analysing training needs
• skills gaps include health and safety, ICT, team working, customer care, supervisory skills, first aid, partnership working and management skills such as budgeting and planning, personnel management, marketing, communication and awareness of legal issues, and management skills
• lack of Job Security and Career Development due to short term funding and lack of promotional opportunities
• lack of Skilled Trustees particularly with appropriate management skills
• expensive provision
• lack of time and cover due to limited numbers of staff in small to medium organisations
• poor relationship with Learning and Skills Councils
• no mechanisms for recording work and communicating good practice

Source: Jordan and Newbury 2004

Regional Action West Midlands (RAWM) was established in 2000 as the regional strategic network for the West Midlands voluntary and community sector. The RAWM website has news on the sector and information on employment issues.

Click here for a report on the voluntary sector and its provision of counselling in Scotland (2002) written by th Counselling and Society Research Team at the University of Edinburgh. The summary of key findings stated that there are 2,100 counsellors working in the 204 voluntary sector agencies in Scotland delivering 189,000 face-to-face counselling per year to 37,000 clients. It was also found that 76% of voluntary sector counsellors in Scotland give their time and expertise without payment.

   For further LMI on Scotland go to the Careers Scotland website.

* Organisations that had not sent returns to the Charity Commission for at least 3 years

** Organisation that had zero income recorded in their last return

Source: NCVO 2004