The Voluntary Sector

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Social Justice – in the Senedd at 2:01 pm on 9 February 2022.

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Photo of Jane Hutt Jane Hutt Labour 2:01, 9 February 2022

Thank you very much for that very helpful question, because we did have a third sector COVID recovery plan. I chair the third sector partnership council; it's co-produced, it sets out our joint priorities and it's got three work streams: support, relationships and volunteering. We've also got the third phase of our third sector resilience fund with over £6.5 million available, and again, I'm sure that you will all be ensuring that your third sector organisations can access that, particularly looking at your councils for voluntary service as a route to that.

I'll just finally say that volunteering is key to this, so we've secured an additional £1 million for our Volunteering Wales grant, and that's got a particular strategic element building on the work and momentum seen during the pandemic. Very interestingly, I met with representatives from Carmarthenshire Citizens Advice today, who say that they're now working with volunteers in west Wales to ensure that they can continue to play their part. Indeed, some of the organisations now are developing remote volunteering, which I'm sure responds to those needs.