Westminster City Council

Programme level case study

Westminster City Council was a founding member of Time & Talents for Westminster in 1996 and has had a strong strategic involvement in the programme ever since. As a key funder of Volunteer Centre Westminster, its relationship with Time & Talents grew over time; with a Council representative sitting on our Employee Volunteering Advisory Group and regularly attending Time & Talents events. Through this the Council began to build an internal case for walking its talk and showing leadership to local employers through corporate citizenship.

Initial scheme development

Initially, Time & Talents for Westminster supported the Council in looking at challenges to launching an ESV scheme:

Many staff living outside of the City of Westminster, with the concern that staff might prefer to contribute to their own areas
Maintaining impartiality while funding a wide number of community organisations across Westminster

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Mike More, CEO of Council, and other senior team members volunteer at a local school

Through discussions we were able to provide support to look beyond these two challenges and to encourage initial funding for a part time role to set up the ESV scheme. In January 2009 we began to work closely with the newly appointed Third Sector Policy Officer to develop the scheme. This entailed:

Regular planning meetings at City Hall
An ESV strategy focusing on:

Worklessness and Enterprise
Strengthening communities

Volunteering options designed to fit strategic areas along with competency matrix
Collaboration with selected community organisations to initiate sustainable partnerships
ESV policy development to include volunteering expenses policy, responsibilities, support, insurance, health and safety, and information on CRBs
Committee meetings, where Councillors championed an increase of annual ESV allowance from one day to two days (16 hours) to be matched by the volunteer’s

own time – which was a particularly notable success during a period where a significant number of redundancies had just been made
Bespoke online registration system for staff to express interest and select project from menu of options
Creation of new scheme including clear process for staff, and internal marketing, such as postcards and flyers

ESV scheme launch

Using Time & Talents is a brilliant way to find out about local needs. Our membership is very good value for money for what we get out of it.”

Lizz Main, Senior Policy Advisor, WCC

In June 2009 the Council launched its ESV scheme in National Volunteers’ Week with both the Leader and CEO involved. Volunteer Centre Westminster’s CEO spoke and the Time & Talents team ran a stall in the Lord Mayor’s Parlour to discuss volunteering options with staff. Several charity partners also accompanied us to advertise specific opportunities and promote their organisations. A few days later we organised a senior team, including the CEO, to tell stories without books to the children at a primary school in a deprived area. Photos and an article were featured by the local press.

Related Case Studies

Storytelling without books

Following Westminster City Council's ESV scheme launch, Time & Talents has supported the Council to

Develop stronger relationships with local organisations through a series of visits and meetings
Brokerage support for a wide range of ESV projects for solo volunteers and teams, and organising evaluation/feedback from staff and community organisations after projects have happened
Helped the Council to exceed target of 50 members of staff volunteering in a year
Case study write ups

Volunteers have engaged with the community in teams and many as individuals who focus on community needs like helping charities who support older people, or volunteering as reading helpers in schools with a high number of EAL (English as Second Language) pupils.

For Lizz Main, Senior Policy Advisor at Westminster City Council “Using Time & Talents is a brilliant way to find out about local needs. We find that the membership is very good value for money for what we get out of it.”

Latest volunteering opportunities