Coronavirus (COVID-19) volunteering - third sector perspectives: survey report

2 Profile of the survey respondents

In this section, we present data about the profile of the two main groups of respondents to the survey: volunteer-involving organisations (VIOs) and infrastructure organisations.

We asked survey respondents to tell us about their organisational location, the geographical scope of their operations, the sector they operate within, and their organisational income.

2.1 Geographical spread of survey respondents

2.1.1 Volunteer-involving organisations

Table 2.1 shows that the majority of organisations responding to the survey for volunteer-involving organisations (VIOs) defined themselves as 'operating within a local community or communities' (38%) or a single local authority (21%). Around 15% were operating nationally across Scotland, 15% across more than one local authority in Scotland, and 7% UK-wide. SCVO estimates that 78% of Scottish voluntary organisations work 'locally',^[8] suggesting that this survey sample over-represents the voices of regional and national organisations to some degree.

Figure 2.1 shows the geographical areas of operation of the responding VIOs. There was a reasonable spread of responses from organisations operating across Scotland's local authorities. As would be expected, higher numbers of VIOs said that they worked in more urban areas – where there is higher density of third sector organisations – such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen City (7%, 10% and 8% of responding VIOs respectively). VIOs in Aberdeenshire (19%) and Highland (12%) were particularly strongly represented in the sample, perhaps because organisations in those areas were more active in promoting the survey. Overall, there was reasonable coverage of urban and rural areas across Scotland.

2.1.2 Infrastructure organisations

Among the infrastructure organisations, there was a good response across local authority areas, with at least two infrastructure organisations responding from 20 out of Scotland's 32 local authority areas, and at least one response from 30 out of 32 local authority areas (Figure 2.2). There were two responses from infrastructure organisations with national scope.

2.2 Organisational type and sector of respondents

2.2.1 Volunteer-involving organisations

We asked volunteer-involving organisation (VIO) respondents to tell us which sector or sectors they work in (Figure 2.3). VIOs could choose as many sectors as applicable.

As shown in Figure 2.3, overall, all major sectors were represented in the responses. There were a higher number of responses from organisations working in the areas of mental health and wellbeing (44% of responding VIOs); children and families (35%); community development (35%); older people (33%); younger people (31%) and disability (26%). Notably, organisations that responded to the survey were often working in sectors representing particularly high areas of need during the pandemic. Fifteen percent of the respondents chose 'other' to describe their sector. Some sectors included in the 'other' category included food provision, transport, and drug and alcohol responses.

According to recent data from SCVO, around 34% of third sector organisations in Scotland work in the area of social care; 21% in culture and sport; and 13% in community, economic and social development, and these are the top three sectoral areas. Although it is not possible to map the survey data directly to the SCVO categories, we did have a strong response rate from organisations working in each of these three areas.

When asked to describe their organisational type, 69% of the VIO respondents said that they were a third sector or voluntary organisation; 15% said that they were a community group or 'mutual aid' group; and just 3% said that they were a social enterprise. It is estimated that around 18% of registered Scottish charities are thought to be conducting social enterprise activity,^[9] which suggests that social enterprises are relatively under-represented in this sample.

2.2.2 Infrastructure organisations

As shown in Table 2.2, of the responses from infrastructure organisations, 54% were from third sector interfaces (TSIs), with 28 of Scotland's 32 TSIs responding to the survey. Twenty-one percent of responses were received from local authorities, 6% from health and social care partnerships, and 20% from other infrastructure organisations. These 'other' responses included community councils; local development trusts and partnerships; and network organisations.

2.3 Organisational size

We asked VIO respondents to tell us their organisational annual income, as a proxy measure of organisational size. Figure 2.4 shows the spread of responses. Forty-seven percent of all responses came from organisations of medium size, with incomes over £25,000 up to £500,000; 14% of responses came from organisations with an income of £10,000 or lower. The most recent data on registered charities in Scotland indicates that 39% of registered charities in Scotland have an income of less than £10,000, which suggests that these smaller organisations were under-represented in the survey sample . Eight percent of responses were from large organisations with an annual income of more than £5 million – these largest organisations account for just 2% of all registered charities in Scotland, indicating that larger organisations are over-represented in our survey sample.^[10] This is to be expected given that smaller organisations often have few or no paid staff, while larger organisations are more likely to have staff capacity to respond to surveys such as this one.

2.4 Survey coverage: conclusions

Overall, although the total number of survey responses is small in comparison to the total population of third sector organisations in Scotland, the VIO response gives strong representation to the three largest sectors according to SCVO (social care; culture and sport; community, economic and social development). The geographical coverage is also reasonable, albeit with some skewing towards certain local authority areas.

When compared with the whole population of registered charities in Scotland there is some over-representation of larger organisations (by income) and national/regional organisations; and under-representation of smaller, and more local organisations.

In the infrastructure organisation survey we had responses from 28 of Scotland's 32 Third Sector Interfaces, such that their voices are strongly represented in the infrastructure organisation findings. The response rate from local authorities was less strong, at 11, or 21% of the 52 responses, or roughly one third of Scotland's local authorities. When reading the data from the infrastructure organisation questionnaire, it is important to bear in mind that the majority (54%) were from third sector interfaces. There were two local authority areas for which no infrastructure organisation response was achieved.

Overall, while there are some gaps, we think that the survey evidence can give us a reasonably robust picture of the situation for volunteering in Scotland during the pandemic and beyond.