Indicator assessment
Volunteer activity has risen steadily over the
last eight years, leading to a substantial increase in
volunteer time between 2000 and 2008. The indicator presents an
index of the number of hours worked by volunteers
in seven major UK conservation charities: Bat Conservation
Trust, British Trust for Ornithology, Butterfly Conservation,
Plantlife, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the
Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, and a public body; Natural
England. Between 2000 and 2008 there was a 50 per cent increase in
time spent volunteering, and in 2008 the total time spent was
equivalent to around 750,000 working days, although this is only
part of the total invested across the whole voluntary sector.
Description of trends
The trend for volunteer time spent on
biodiversity conservation shows an increase of about 50% between
2000 and 2008, despite an initial decrease between 2000 and 2001,
which can be attributed to a decline in all conservation activity
due to controls on countryside access during the Foot and Mouth
outbreak.
In broad terms, the types of work undertaken
by volunteers falls into three categories: countryside management;
survey and data input; and administrative and office support.
All categories have risen over the period (Figure 18 (ii)).
Figure 18 (ii). Volunteer time spent in biodiversity
conservation in selected UK conservation charities, shown by
category of work, 2000-2008
Relevance
Volunteer time is one way of assessing the
level of public engagement with biodiversity. Volunteering
for conservation charities is critical to the successful delivery
of many of the objectives of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan – for
example, volunteers collect much of the data used for monitoring
the status of priority species and also work to conserve threatened
habitats.
Background
The indicator is based upon data on volunteer hours supplied by
the Bat Conservation Trust, British Trust for Ornithology,
Butterfly Conservation, Plantlife, Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds (RSPB), the Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust and the public
body, Natural England. Some organisations were able to
provide accurate figures for number of hours worked, others
provided estimates based on the number of volunteers and the types
of activity undertaken.
Only the actual data provided by each of the
organisations is given in the downloadable data tables. Data
were not available for all organisations in all years. In previous
years, the indicator has omitted organisations without a full data
run between 2000 and 2008 because, if included, some years had more
organisations contributing than others – artificially inflating the
figures in those years. For the current indicator, missing values
have been estimated by Defra statisticians, by extrapolating from
the actual figures.
For this reason, and because of the
differences in data quality, the number of volunteer hours were
converted to an index prior to combining. Most organisations
supplied data for calendar years, although RSPB and Natural England
figures were broken down into financial years. Financial year
data was allocated to calendar years prior to indexing. The
indicator therefore shows the increase in relative rather than
absolute number of hours worked by volunteers.
Defra estimates have been used in the index
calculations for Woodland Trust (2000 and 2001), Butterfly
Conservation (2000–02), the Wildlife Trusts (2000-04) and RSPB
(2008).
Further development planned
The indicator is based on a limited number of organisations
that use volunteers. Defra and Natural England are working with the
Environmental Volunteering Group to provide a more accurate and
comprehensive indicator for future updates.