The chief executives of Volunteering England and the Forestry Commission have signed a memorandum of agreement firming their commitments to work together to increase volunteering.
The Forestry Commission, the government department responsible for overseeing the protection and expansion of Britain's woodlands, provides a range of volunteering opportunities from working in education to maintenance, through conservation and office work. The signing of the agreement between the Commission and Volunteering England cements a commitment to expand the range and infrastructure around volunteering opportunities in England's forests and woods.
Dan Sumners, senior policy and communications officer at Volunteering England, advised that the charity had worked with the Commission in the past, on an informal advice and guidance provision level, but this is the first formal agreement between the two parties.
The agreement includes measures to provide "an organisational approach to supporting volunteering within the Forestry Commission", and to "consider working towards the Investing in Volunteering Standard" - the UK quality standard for good practice in volunteer management.
The chief executives, Justin Davis Smith of Volunteering England and Simon Hodgson of the Forestry Commission England, will hold annual meetings to review ways to develop their partnership further and will encourage key members of staff from both organisations to work together.
Forestry Commission cuts
The Forestry Commission outlined an intention to "build new relationships with partners to support delivery and to encourage voluntary groups and individuals to take responsibility for delivery of public benefits", in its corporate plan for 2011-2015.
The plan revealed a significant scaling down of both its number of staff and its number of major offices, reflecting a projected reduction in statutory income from £37.4m in 2011/12 to £26.7m in 2014/15. The Commission projects it will shed around 250 full-time equivalent staff and nine major offices in that period. The restructure is due to the coalition government's streamlining programme for the public sector.
Sumners said: "Volunteering England is keen to ensure, especially given the current financial climate, that the involvement of volunteers in all organisations is appropriate, properly resourced and well managed.
"We are therefore pleased to be working much more closely with the Forestry Commission to not only increase the number of people who are engaged with the environment through volunteering, but to create a better volunteering experience by promoting excellent leadership and a robust infrastructure."
