Personnel and Volunteers

The Protection of Freedoms Act was passed into law on 1st May, with the first commencement orders enacting measures in the Act from early July.

The legislation includes the scrapping of the Vetting and Barring Scheme and the creation of a new Disclosure and Barring Service "to oversee a scaled-back barring regime focused only on roles working most closely with vulnerable groups". Details of implementation timetable etc when we have them.

The new Saltire Awards, for Scotland, are designed to recognise the commitment and contribution of youth volunteering to voluntary organisations.

Supported by the Scottish Government and Voluntary Action Scotland, but delivered at a local level, they will enable young volunteers to record the skills, experience and learning they gain through volunteering placements. The website still has some information to come, http://www.saltireawards.org.uk.

The i-volunteeer online social network for volunteers has moved on from its 18 month pilot stage to become ivo, http://ivo.org.

"ivo is about sharing experiences, offering advice, finding things to do, finding volunteer help and voicing opinions about anything and everything to do with making a difference."

Umbrella body Volunteering England is warning that the recent loss of core local authority funding to Volunteer Centres could lead to fragmentation of the network and undermine the vital support they provide to the local community. VE news release.

The Charity Finance Group's latest Salary Survey has found that average pay for finance and accountancy staff in smaller and medium sized charities has fallen or remained static since last year, while salaries in the largest charities have increased slightly. However, larger charities are also significantly more likely to have made redundancies in their finance and accountancy teams.

Employment relations body Acas has issued its advice for employers to plan for the impact of the Olympic Games, consider more flexible working arrangements to minimise potential disruption, and manage staff expectations.

See http://www.acas.org.uk/olympics, news item at http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3781.

An official Business Link online toolkit for first-time employers may well be of use to voluntary organisations just moving to engage their first staff member(s).

The five steps give some basic information and links for more. See http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/employ (official news release http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/detail.aspx?NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=424182&SubjectId=2).

The Institute of Fundraising has published a guide to managing fundraisers, covering recruiting, developing and retaining them.

It follows feedback from members that the fundraising function is often misunderstood at organisational level, and the guide is aimed at both managers and individual fundraisers to help implement best practice. Download 'Managing Fundraisers' (pdf, 2MB).