DWP backtracks on volunteers' lunch allowance
Howard Lake | 25 August 2006 | News
The Department for Work and Pensions has changed tack and decided that volunteers on benefits no longer have to pay for their own lunch.
The department has been under pressure from Volunteering England and a number of other people in the sector to reverse its decision to offset lunch charges against benefits. Volunteers on benefits have always been able to claim out-of-pocket expenses such as travel, but meal costs were not included in this, meaning that people had to pay for them out of their benefits.
Almost 90 MPs had signed up to Diane Abbott’s early day motion to have meal costs included, many people wrote individually and Volunteering England set up a Right to reasonable expenses lunch campaign. Head of information at Volunteering England Mark Restall said this was a victory for the sector as a whole.
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The DWP said it was unfair to be penalising volunteers on benefits and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton said We do not want a situation where individuals are put off from volunteering because they cannot afford to buy something to eat.
The Department has not put a date on the changes but Hutton said it would be working solely with charities and volunteering organisations to implement the changes quickly and as smoothly as possible.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.