Pre-budget report includes plans to recruit millions of volunteers
In his pre-budget speech yesterday Chancellor Gordon Brown MP announced plans to recruit millions of volunteers, most of them young people, to reinvigorate disadvantaged communities.
Every local authority will receive £500,000 to set up a young people’s fund for distribution by young people on “amenities and activities run by young people”, according to Mr Brown.
The Chancellor had already announced a national youth community service in the March 2005 budget, focused on 16 to 25-year-olds. “It will fund gap years volunteering in Britain and abroad for young people who otherwise could not afford this,” explained Mr Brown.
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The plans are the government’s response to the Russell Commission on encouraging volunteering.