Mapping the Third Sector in Rural Scotland: An Initial Review of the Literature

Footnotes

1. See for example Macmillan (2010); Harris and Rochester (2001)

2. For particularly recent data suggesting this is the case in England, see IpsosMORI (2011).

3. See for example: Harrow (2009a, 2009b); Whittam (2009); Vincent and Harrow (2005); Fyfe (2005); Fyfe and Milligan (2003a, 2003b); Milligan and Conradson (2006); Harris and Rochester (2001)

4. Given greater time and resources, this research would have benefitted from: a greater engagement at Local Authority level to identify existing knowledge; a stronger engagement with community development agendas; discussion with and analysis of grant making trusts and funders; direct engagement with large third sector service providers themselves; in-depth review and primary analysis of existing quantitative datasets; and the direct inclusion of the feedback from interviewees and respondents.

5. See for example Alcock (2010); Dachombe and Bach (2009: 17); Grotz (2009); Halfpenny and Reid (2002); Vincent and Harrow (2005: 376).

6. Businesses driven by a social or environmental purpose, with the profits that they make reinvested into that purpose.

7. Scottish Government (2011d; 2010b; 2009b; 2008b); Scottish Executive (2007; 2006b; 2005c; 2004b; 2003; 2002; 2001).

8. See Volunteer Development Scotland (2007; 2006; 2005; 2004a).

9. Further wide-ranging reviews include those of Rochester (2006) and Brodie et al. (2009).

10. See the Scottish Government commissioned report by Granville et al. (2009) for discussion of the use of this definition.

11. Prior to this, there existed 32 Volunteer Centres (VCs) in Scotland supported by VDS (Volunteer Development Scotland), one organisation in each LA sometimes working out of more than one office. This was in addition to 56 CVSs (Councils for Voluntary Service) across Scotland supported by SCVO, again with at least one in each LA.

12. Based on data from: Annual Population Survey in Scotland, General Register Office for Scotland, Scottish Household Survey, Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation and using the Scottish Government six fold urban rural classification and core rural definition. All figures relative to ‘rest of Scotland’.

13. For adults (over sixteen). This question has been the subject of change – including a move away from the use of ‘voluntary’ toward ‘unpaid help’ - over the time period summarised. See for example Scottish Government (2009d).

14. Whilst employing an incomparable definition of rurality, and comparing only ‘rural’ and urban’ rates of formal volunteering, the pattern of higher rates of formal volunteering in rural areas also appears to hold in the case of England and Wales (DCLG 2010).

15. See Scottish Government (2011c; 2010a; 2009a; 2008c). Earlier analysis of the variations in participation by urban/rural category can be found in Scottish Government (2007b) and Scottish Executive (2006a; 2005b; 2004a).

16. Adopting a slightly different methodology and with a sample size of approximately 1,000 individuals.

17. ‘North’ refers to the LA groups of the Highlands and Islands, Grampian, Tayside and Central. ‘West’ refers to the LA groups of South and North Lanarkshire, Glasgow, Dunbartonshire, Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and Inverclyde. East/South refers to the LA groups of Lothian, Southern Scotland, Fife and Edinburgh. (See VDS 2007; 2006; 2005; 2004a).

18. It should be noted however, that it would be helpful to control for deprivation in this analysis. It is generally the case that levels of formal volunteering have an inverse relationship with deprivation levels – as deprivation increase, levels of formal voluntary activity tend to decrease.

19. Bases: Highlands and Islands – 1,918; Borders – 665; Grampian – 1,115; Dunbartonshire – 487; Tayside – 837; Central – 789; Lothians – 802; Ayrshire – 864; Edinburgh – 919; South Lanarkshire - 570; Renfrewshire and Inverclyde – 830; Glasgow – 1281; North Lanarkshire – 613; Fife – 843.. Scotland: 12,533. (Scottish Government 2009c).

20. 11,000 households were contacted with a postal questionnaire. After 100 questionnaires were returned to sender, a response rate of 17% (1,807 individual responses) was reported. It should be noted that it is unclear how this question was asked.

21. 369 questionnaires were returned (from a sample of 1,000) by organisations within the social economy (‘neighbourhood and self-help… community enterprises… other social enterprises’ with purposes separated into ‘social groups… community development groups [and] enterprise groups’) across the Highlands and Islands.

22. On the basis of 120 telephone interviews with voluntary organisations across the HIE area, selected from the SCVO database to replicate as far as possible the profile of the social economy as identified by the SQW report above. This was commissioned by Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

23. Higher self-reported levels of health suggested an increasing amount of both informal and formal volunteering, whilst lower self-reported levels of health suggested that respondents were more likely to be the recipient of this informal volunteering.

24.Access to transport appeared to influence positively the likelihood of more formal participation.

25. Higher levels of education appeared linked to more formal participation.

26. Further, this leads Timbrell to argue that this is a challenge to some existing studies (Shucksmith and Philip 2000; Yates and Jochum 2003) which refer to the problem of volunteer ‘burnout’ in rural areas (where volunteers are asked/obliged to undertake more activity than is sustainable for them). She suggests that whilst the patterns of participation may indeed be distinct: “very intense involvement with just one organisation could be as demanding, or even more demanding, then less hours being spent across a variety of organisations” (Timbrell 2006b: 4).

27. This study undertook a web-based survey (295 respondents), telephone interviews (20 organisations) and focus groups (8 across Scotland) with key stakeholders in the sector – professionals/paid workers, volunteers and community members.

28. McCabe et al. (2009); see also the ‘Beyond flat earth’ project - Mohan et al. (2010).

29. See SVA (2010) and Rocket Science (2009) for information surrounding the ‘Managing Intelligence’ initiative and associated review of existing data collection methods across Scotland.

30. These figures are susceptible to double counting, however.

31. Registered charities, plus housing associations, plus credit unions (SCVO 2003a).

32. “Within rural areas, the Highlands & Islands stand out with a significantly higher concentration than the other rural areas. The high concentration of rural voluntary organisations may be a function of distance, where more organisations are needed for a fewer number of people in order to provide adequate access. Correspondingly, the disproportionately higher organisation count in the Highlands is most probably due to the especially large geographic area covered by this local authority”. Furthermore, the presence of “a large charitable trust” may influence the nature of the Orkney charity landscape (SCVO 2003a).

33. In England, Northern Ireland and Scotland as a whole (the survey, based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 962 with senior figures within social enterprises from a dataset of 5,355 social enterprises, excludes Wales)

34. It should be noted however that this was on the basis of a relatively small sample size of 82 interviewees in Scotland.

35. Defined as ‘voluntary sector charities, plus housing associations, plus credit unions’.

36. See for example the series of ‘Scottish Rural Services’ conferences hosted by SCVO 2001; 2002; 2003b; 2004; 2005 and the ‘Voices from Rural Scotland report (SCVO 2008b)), whilst literature on various initiatives to address this includes SEERAD (2002; 2006) and Scottish National Rural Partnership (2002).

37. Employing a postal survey (sample of 861,322 responses), nine telephone interviews with organisations supporting RCFs and six RCF case studies

38. Classified as charities with an income of £10,000 per year or less.

39. Drawing on the ONS Living Costs and Food Survey

40. Of GCVS’ membership of circa 600 organisations, 61 responded.

41. 38% of those in urban areas felt their area had been affected much more or slightly more by the recession than other parts of England, compared to 25% of those in rural England.