No help for volunteers as Outreach takes budget cut

The Imperial Volunteering Centre (IVC) is to be almost entirely scrapped due to funding difficulties caused by a cut by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and also a large reduction in the Outreach department budget. Heather Jones, Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) and Minna Ruohonen, Head of the Volunteering Centre, expressed their concern about the effect on volunteering activities of the cut, which the College blames on HEFCE.

The Volunteer Centre was founded in 2002, as part of the Imperial Outreach unit, by Minna Ruohonen in order to provide opportunities for college members to volunteer in the wider community. Rather than directly organising volunteer projects, it acted as a ‘brokering agency’: advertising and matching up volunteers to appropriate projects. Up until now, the mission of the Volunteer Centre had been “to utilise Imperial College’s expertise and resources to provide voluntary activities which offer valuable development opportunities both to the College and the wider community”.

[The closure is a] sad reflection of what the College values Heather Jones, Deputy President (Clubs & Societies)

Deputy President Heather Jones expressed her sadness at the cut, saying it was a “sad reflection of what the College values.” She believed that “they [College] didn’t need to fully pass [the government] cut onto the volunteer centre”. The Outreach Centre however, made it clear that while they thought the Volunteer Centre was ‘very important’, the combination of government cuts and reduced College funding to the Outreach department meant that they were unable to save it.

Professor Julia Buckingham, Pro Rector, Education and Academic Services, who is responsible for the Outreach Department said, “It is vital that students with ability feel there are no barriers to them coming to university... While these are difficult times, there is no question of this ethos losing its place as a College priority.”

While these are difficult times, there is no question of [Outreach] losing its place as a College priority Julia Buckingham, Pro-Rector

Throughout its history, the Volunteer Centre has received various sources of government funding. Most recently the centre was funded by the Teaching Enhancement and Student Success scheme, TESS, offered by the HEFCE, Higher Education Funding Council for England, which has seen it’s budget cut this year. Imperial Outreach was first made aware of problems with the funding nine months ago, but was only made aware of the scale of the impact of the withdrawal of TESS funding, two weeks ago.

Melanie Thody, Head of the Outreach Department, told Felix that she had hoped that she would be able to save the the Volunteer but the reduced funding to her department, compounded by the direct withdrawal of government funding to the Volunteer Centre made it too difficult. The Outreach department is currently ‘under review’ by the College senior management. Melanie Thody said “like all departments, we have to tighten our belts. It’s going to be tough, but other departments are suffering too.” This term already has seen the restructure of the Plant Sciences research group and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS), which was evicted from its premises at 53 Prince’s Gardens. The future of the IMS is still uncertain as concrete plans for its continuation are yet to be released.

As a result of the cuts to the Volunteer Centre, one member of staff faces the risk of redundancy, though it is hoped that they will be successfully reassigned to a different part of the college.

Volunteering has always been an integral part of life at Imperial College London. With so many diverse schemes being offered through the Outreach centre such as ‘the Pimlico Connection’, ‘exscitec’, and many others; it is fair to say that students and staff from Imperial play an important role in the wider community. Volunteering is also beneficial to the volunteers. Employers are finding it increasingly difficult to differentiate between candidates, so as well as gaining valuable experience and learning new skills, students can use volunteering to ‘stand out from the crowd’.

It also has a positive impact on students well being; leading to a more enriched experience at university. In a study done on students at various London universities including Imperial by the IVC during the academic year 2009/2010, it was found that 56% of students believed that volunteering had increased their “sense of being part of my university”, 49% of students felt that volunteering had “benefited their learning in one way or another” and 89% of students felt volunteering “increased their opportunities to meet people from different backgrounds”.

Minna Ruohonen, head of the Volunteer Centre, stressed that it was not shutting down completely, but did concede that the brokerage service which is being closed, was “a lot of the main part” of the IVC. She explained that “It’s not a complete closure, but it’s affecting our services quite dramatically, because we cannot anymore give volunteers direct links to local community projects”. Members of the college will still be able to access schemes such as ‘IntoUniversity’ and ‘CV2012’, though the majority of the opportunities which the Volunteer Centre offered are now gone.

The closure of the service is something that Ruohonen personally finds very emotional. She expressed her sadness at the closure of the centre because “it has been a closure that has really hurt my heart, in that the centre has been something that I personally set up, developed, and was something that I was really passionate about, and I was seeing that it actually served a purpose.” She added that “For me and the whole of Outreach, it has been quite painful journey to actually close the brokerage service and go through further redundancy, but I personally hope that people will use the remaining parts of the Volunteer Centre, and continue volunteering one way or another.”

As part of the brokerage service the IVC provided an online search engine that volunteers could use to search and apply for volunteering opportunities. With options to filter projects by preferences, time commitment, skills, and over 100 projects to search from since it was last updated; the brokerage service had been an invaluable part of volunteering at Imperial. This is especially true for international students who have just arrived in the UK and know little about the infrastructure and necessary steps needed to start volunteering in the UK. The service will continue to be available until the 22nd of November.

The College expressed its regret at the loss of the Volunteer Centre’s brokerage service but said that it was forced to review its activities as a result of the “significant financial challenges which are having a direct impact on every university in England.”

Ruohonen highlighted the effects that the closure will have on volunteers who are international student, explaining “I think it will now be much more difficult for international students to find those projects, especially in their first year. I believe this will directly influence their student experience and their whole studying experience, because if you have a lot of extra-curricular activities, and enjoy it as well, it then affects your studies, because you are happy.” International student Nina Hartwich, explained that “the service provided by the Volunteer Centre was very useful and helped me to start volunteering in a country and city that was new for me.”

Students and staff across Imperial will be deeply affected by the closure. Deputy President Heather Jones said “we won’t be able to plug the gap [left by the Volunteer Centre]. Our students are highly skilled and it’s very sad for students and volunteer organisations that they won’t be able to volunteer those skills like before”. With the Volunteer Centre prophesising that “it is going to be more difficult for volunteers to find volunteering opportunities”, it is clear that the number of volunteers will dwindle.

A College spokersperson said that they are “exploring alternative ways for partners to access those staff and students who wish to volunteer with community organisations,” and recommended the Volunteer Centre Westminster and the Volunteer Centre Chelsea and Kensington. They went on to say, “the College remains committed to supporting volunteering as a matter of policy, with almost 250 staff and students currently registered as volunteers who are actively volunteering their time this academic year

The Volunteer Centre is not the first victim of the fiscal contraction going on at Imperial. This year alone the Life Sciences department have had to make difficult decisions and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences faces an uncertain future after being booted from their building at 53 Prince’s Gardens. In recent years we have also seen the closure of many of the Humanities Department’s services. It is obvious that we will see similar closures and departments ‘under review’ (to use their coded language) in the coming academic year.