Do we need a volunteering ombudsman?

Although this possibly is outside the remit of this blog, I’ve been caught up in the discussion about whether the voluntary sector needs an ombudsman (an independent person who helps resolve issues between an organisation and individuals). With recent proposals for compulsory volunteering for young people, I think this discussion is very timely.

Rather randomly, I originally got involved because my colleague, Patrick Daniels, is one of the directors of the Association of Volunteer Managers (AVM), and had launched their new website. He wanted people to try the poll he’d added, and so I did. The question was ‘The case for a volunteer ombudsman is strong‘, and I’d ticked agree because that was my initial reaction.

It turns out that the AVM don’t share my view, and there has been opinions in the trade press and on blogs about whether a volunteer ombudsman is the right way to go. There’s an interesting discussion in this week’s Third Sector (reg. required). I think John Ramsey from AVM makes some valid points about the problems of formalising an external complaints procedure, and the desire to use resources to improve standards rather than to create a system of regulation is a laudable one.

That said, I still think there is still significant inadequacies when it comes to protecting volunteers. Perhaps the argument is about semantics-I’m not sure a volunteering “ombudsman” is necessarily the right term-but I still think a standardised external complaints procedure would be a good idea.

Jon says that research suggests volunteers generally felt satisfied with their volunteering, and I’ve no reason to disagree with that. However, most consumers are probably generally satisfied, but that doesn’t negate the need for Trading Standards, the OFT or media outlets like Watchdog, You and Yours or the consumer rights experts that appear in weekend papers. Without knowing the details of how this survey was conducted, volunteers generally self-identify, so those people who leave having had a negative experience of volunteering may not class themselves as volunteers.

From personal experience, there have been a number of times I’ve left volunteering opportunities as a result of bad practice or what I deemed unacceptable behaviour. What prompted me to leave was not necessarily the negative experience, but a feeling there was little I could do about it that would create change within the organisation. And I don’t think I’m alone in having that experience.

Although there are hundreds of ways to volunteer, away from the big cities it’s likely that there are limited opportunities for someone interested in a particular issue or skill. Therefore, I don’t think it’s as easy as saying if a volunteer doesn’t like the organisation, they should simply leave. Equally, whilst I think the independence of the voluntary sector should be protected; there is a genuine moral concern about an organisation that dominates a particular sector being able to remove volunteers without any form of accountability.

My idea would be to have an independent organisation that conducts an annual audit on the state of volunteering and promotes good practice. They could receive evidence of malpractice from individuals (or other organisations) that helps form their report. In the most severe of cases organisations would be named, and the complaint and subsequent investigation written up in the style of Ofcom’s Broadcast Bulletin. It would detail what the complaint was, a response from the organisation responsible and a commentary from an independent panel (not a judgment as there wouldn’t be a formal code to base decisions on).

In his Third Sector piece, Jon Ramsay says one problem would be the limited sanctions an ombudsman would have on an organisation. But I think it would a massive impact – a commentary that reflected badly on an organisation would be picked up and noticed by their funders, benefactors and the public alike. Look what happened when Intelligent Giving highlighted a lack of accountability at Children in Need. The result was a radical change to its accountability procedures. I do think something similar for volunteering could really make people take their volunteer management seriously.

I imagine it’d be similar to the Fundraising Standards Board, which investigates instances of bad practice around giving money to charities. They have a complaints procedure that comes into play if an organisation’s own system doesn’t produce a satisfactory result. The main downside of the FRSB is that it only investigates charities who are members.

That’s not to say all this should come at the expense of promoting good practice, and there needs to be development of incentives such as those best company to work for surveys (of which Patrick and I work at the best charity to work for, apparently). But assuming that the quality of volunteering is going to rise without fixing what is wrong is, I’d argue, somewhat naïve. Some organisations, with large reserves of money and a good public image, won’t necessarily have the motivation to change unless there is an independent assessment of their volunteering practice.

Image courtesy of dhueur. Used under licence.