BritCorps?

In the wake of moves to establish a British ‘Supreme Court’, the introduction of US-style ‘citizenship ceremonies’ and a government minister’s suggestion that we remodel graduation ceremonies along American lines, a frequent question in many of the instant messenger conversations I’ve partaken in has been what’s the next step in the American makeover of Britain?

If this report in The Guardian is to be believed it is a change of emphasis in government volunteering schemes to shape them along the lines of Clinton’s ’ AmeriCorps’.

It is certainly true that encouraging people to partake in volunteering schemes is a good thing. A large chunk of my job this year has involved negotiation and strategic planning to ensure that Reading University Students’ Union is in a position to develop its volunteering programmes and effectively accredit its volunteers. Increased participation in volunteering has been a stated aim of this government for several years and should permeate all areas of public policy.

What concerns me about this report is that it sounds like this new initiative will be yet another change, yet another addition to an area already crowded with orphaned schemes. In higher education, we are still awaiting details of the next round of funding for the Higher Education Active Community Fund, a scheme which has provided funding to universities to develop volunteer work (the fact that this has caused many universities to set up new volunteering schemes while ignoring existing avenues is another issue) but which ends this August. The Millennium Volunteers Scheme is still active, but its profile is very sporadic. There are many other schemes but little in the way of co-ordination.

It may be that the US-style BritCorps will be an excellent addition to the canon of volunteering opportunities in the UK. And certainly there is space for different initiatives for different types of volunteer work. I can only hope that its introduction will coincide with more efforts to appraise existing schemes and to ‘join-up’ volunteering initiatives.