Voluntary and community sector employs 29,000 people

Embargo: 2.00pm on Monday 21 November 2005

The voluntary and community sector is a major employer in Northern Ireland with 4,500 organisations and a workforce of 29,000 people. This is more than the construction sector (24,800 employees); transport, storage and communication (20,800); and financial intermediation (11,200).

New research published today by NICVA shows that 76,000 people volunteer on a formal basis in voluntary and community organisations and well over 200,000 people are engaged in some form of volunteering.

"State of the Sector IV shows that the voluntary and community sector provides valuable services to the public across a huge range of activity, including health, education, disability, the environment, children, older people and building good relations," NICVA chief executive, Seamus McAleavey, told the launch.

"It is a common fallacy that the sector is the creation of European Union funding, especially through Peace II. This research shows that this is not the case; indeed less than £1 in every £10 comes from the Peace programme. It is a valuable source of money for new initiatives but it is far less important as a source of money than the government and the general public.

"Many organisations existed even before the original Common Market and the reasons they were created continue to be valid. For example, we still have serious ill-health, educational underachievement, poverty and inequality.

"The voluntary and community sector improves the quality of life for everyone through better housing, artistic and cultural work, child protection, care of the elderly, protection of the environment and many other valuable services. These are not significantly dependent on Peace money," Mr McAleavey added.

Mr Alan Shannon, permanent secretary at the Department for Social Development told today's event: "The publication of State of the Sector IV provides all of us with a resource which is both valuable and versatile. This document contains detailed information on the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland and I welcome the fact that this provides us with a baseline for future measurement of government funding.

"For a number of years NICVA's research reports have been the main source of data for the voluntary and community sector and it will continue to be a valuable tool. You have also worked with us on the development of the Funders Database which we appreciate greatly. This database is unique in the UK. It has brought together, for the first time, details of all payments made by government to voluntary and community organisations and at present there are some 6,500 organisations registered on it."

The research is published today in the fourth of a series of compendiums published every three years. State of the Sector IV reveals that the sector has a total income of £615 million, a decline of around £73m in real terms over the previous three years.

Although there is much publicity about European Union funding, especially the Peace II programme, this source of income makes up £58m, less than 10% of the total. Government money accounts for just over one third of funding for voluntary and community groups (£216m) and the total amount was less than in 2002. Donations from the public (£200m) make up almost as much as the government.

Donations from business amounted to a bit over £10m, 1.7% of the sector's income; this is a decline of £2m compared with three years ago. The top 50 Northern Ireland companies contributed only 0.03% of their annual turnover to charity.

State of the Sector IV shows that voluntary and community activity is not evenly spread across Northern Ireland. Almost a quarter of organisations are based in Belfast, home of most headquarter bodies, and Derry, Armagh, Fermanagh, Craigavon and Coleraine also have a high proportion of groups. At the other extreme, less than 1% of all organisations are located in Larne and Moyle and the figure is only slightly higher in Limavady, Carrickfergus and Ballymoney.

The report contains sections on attitudes of the public to charities and views of people working in the sector; access to and use of information technology, expenditure patterns, assets and liabilities and other topics relevant to the charity sector.

A new innovation is that detailed information will be put on the internet about the sector generally and some large sub-sectors (such as education, health, women, community development, the environment, older people and the arts, culture and heritage). See www.communityni.org and www.nicva.org.

State of the Sector IV is available for £10 from NICVA, 61 Duncairn Gardens, Belfast BT15 2GB; 028 9087 7777; nicva@nicva.org.

For media enquiries please contact Paul McGill at NICVA, 028 9087 7777; 0772 1746 805 (m); paul.mcgill@nicva.org.