National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill

The UK government is considering a ban on unpaid internships. But could their plans impact on volunteering?

Recently Alec Shelbrooke, Conservative MP for Elmet and Rothwell, introduced a Private Members Bill into Parliament titled the National Minimum Wage (Workplace Internships) Bill. Mr Shelbrooke rightly sought to bring an end to exploitative internships where young people work for private sector companies for extended periods on no pay in order to gain experience and, hopefully, employment.

As with many Private Members Bills, Mr Shelbrooke’s proposed legislation has stalled in parliament, on this occasion being filibustered out at it’s second reading. Why? It seems the government is undertaking an independent review of modern working practices and may well seek to bring it’s own legislation to outlaw exploitative internships.

Until we see any such proposals from government, analysis of what Mr Shelbrooke was proposing is both interesting and could indicate any potential affect on volunteering.

Mr Shelbrooke’s Bill was short and to the point. It would have affected the whole of the UK and the core content sat in three sections.

Section one

For the purpose of this Act, a workplace internship is an employment practice in which a person (“the intern”)—
(a) undertakes regular work or provides regular services in the United
Kingdom for—
(i) another person; (ii) a company; (iii) a limited liability partnership; or
(iv) a public authority; and
(b) the purpose of the employment practice is—
(i) that the intern meets learning objectives or gains experience of
working for the employer listed in section 1(a); and (ii) to provide practical experience in an occupation or profession.

Section two

An intern who enters into a workplace internship shall be remunerated by his employer in respect of his work at a rate which is not less than the national minimum wage calculated in accordance with the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 for the appropriate age of the individual.
Subject to subsection ¹ an employer is not liable for Employers’ National Insurance contributions for an intern undertaking a workplace internship of less than 12 months.

Section three

For the purposes of this Act, section 2 shall not apply if the person is—
(a) a student at a higher or further education institution based in the UK
who is required to undertake an internship or equivalent work
placement as part of his or her course;
(b) of compulsory school age;
(c) undertaking an approved English apprenticeship as set out in the
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009;

So, to summarise, an intern would be clearly defined and would have to be paid at least the national minimum wage. So far so good. However, problems would have come from interpreting and applying the bill.

First, the bill states that it only applies to companies. Whilst the intent is clearly private sector businesses, many registered charities are also registered as limited companies. Campaign groups like Intern Aware have been vocal that unpaid internships in charities are as bad as those in private companies. The Bill as worded would therefore allow registered charities to be targeted by the appropriate authorities.

Once charities become a focus of this legislation the question of volunteering is bound to come up. When I have written previously on unpaid internships I have received comments from social media trolls claiming all unpaid work should be outlawed, including volunteering. So where would Mr Shelbrooke’s Bill have left us?

For some insights let's turn to the House of Commons debate on the Bill. When asked about the implications on volunteering Mr Shelbrooke remarked:

That looks promising until you also read the following comments from Mr Shelbrooke during the debate:

So volunteers won’t fall under the legislation if they just turn up but if a group or organisation seeks to deliberately advertise for volunteers then “that makes a mockery of things”. Also, if an organisation has a large turnover and engages people on an unpaid basis then that is exploiting a “volunteer” loophole.

That is considerably less encouraging, opening up new loopholes that could in theory allow the authorities to decide that any volunteers who are actively recruited to charities and / or who have money to pay people would be entitled to National Minimum Wage! And we haven’t even looked at volunteering in the public sector, or those roles that are really volunteering but the volunteer calls them internships to make them sound more attractive to a potential employer.

Of course, Mr Shelbrooke’s well intentioned Bill seems to be going nowhere now, but it gives an insight into how the government might seek to legislate on the exploitation of unpaid internships. What I hope I have done in this article is show that if and when legislation is introduced into Parliament on the matter it needs much further thought and refinement if it is to achieve its aim without damaging the UK’s long and proud history of volunteering.

What do you think? Add your thoughts to the debate in the comments section below.

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1. An employer may meet Employers’ National Insurance contributions for an intern undertaking a workplace internship of less than 12 months. ↩︎

Volunteer rights and the scope of the Charity Commission

For this posting we are really happy to welcome visiting blogger and our former colleague at Volunteering England, Mike Locke, who shares with us his views on the ongoing issue of volunteer rights following a recent report from the Charity Commission (England & Wales).

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The Charity Commission has recently made clear its position on allegations of unfair treatment of volunteers.  Its Operational Case Report regarding St John Ambulance saw the issue as a matter of the charity’s administration, such that the Charity Commission would only get involved if governance procedures had not been followed or if the case threatened to bring the charity into disrepute.

This may not grab the headlines, but it’s helpful because during the long-running attempts to resolve volunteer rights there has been a question why complaints made by volunteers to the Charity Commission have been regarded as outside its scope.

The actual case here concerning, in its full name, The Priory of England and The Islands of the Order of St John was that the charity adopted a regional structure on grounds of finance, quality and impact, and consistency. However, according to a “senior volunteer” in the Telegraph newspaper in 2011: “If the structure is changed … what incentive is there for local people to volunteer and raise money?” In resisting restructuring, a small number of volunteers were “disciplined”.  The case sounds like the classic dilemma which other national charities have faced of tensions between national and local control – and I’m in no position to comment, only sympathise.

The Charity Commission looked into the case given “ongoing complaints” and found: “It is regrettable when disciplinary proceedings have to be brought against volunteers and we recognise that the events brought considerable distress to those involved. We did not see anything to suggest that the charity acted in a way that would bring the charity into disrepute such that the commission should become involved in these matters.”

The point about disrepute echoes the concern of Lord Hodgson in his review of charity law where he warned that treatment of volunteers could reduce public trust in charities. He thought responsibility should lie with charities’ self-regulation but raised the question whether there should be an independent body for external referral.

Following the Volunteer Rights Inquiry, I chaired the Call to Action Progress Group (2011-2014) when I worked for Volunteering England and NCVO. Our final report reviewed, without finding a consensus, the question of whether there was a need for an external regulatory system or whether that would be disproportionate and the problem tackled through good management practice. We recommended organisations sign-up to the 3R Promise (get it Right, offer Reconciliation and take Responsibility) which had been formulated by the Inquiry.

My perception is that volunteering organisations are more conscious of the problem and widely have instituted good practice – including, to my knowledge, St John Ambulance.

But the issue of volunteer rights won’t go away. A small number of volunteers are unfairly treated, heart-breakingly so, and – at least prima facie – in ways that offend public policy, let alone charity governance.

So, I believe, the question remains whether there is a need for a procedure or institution independent of volunteering organisations? Is the Charity Commission’s position, as clarified, sufficient? And if not it, who might take the role, and how?

Three ways the Keep Volunteering Voluntary campaign may be doing more harm than good

In my last blog post I wrote about the Keep Volunteering Voluntary campaign (KVV) and the misunderstanding propagated by the UK media that the government's new Help To Work scheme is volunteering.

Let me say it again, Community Work Placements (CWP) under Help to Work ARE NOT VOLUNTEERING. They do not meet the definitions of volunteer (freely entered into being the key issue) and even the government recognises this.

Section 2.14 of the guidance for providers of community work placements states that:

If a claimant is already undertaking voluntary work and you can justifiably advise that the work is beneficial to the claimant by helping them to overcome barriers to employment, you may count that voluntary work towards the full time work placement hours. However, if you do not feel the voluntary work is of appropriate benefit to the claimant, you may require the claimant to do the full-time work in the placement you have sourced for them (but must give the claimant at least 1 weeks notice). Please Note: Where a claimant is already undertaking voluntary work you must also ensure you give the claimant 48 hours notice for any required participation/ attendance.

Section 2.16 states:

Please Note: JCP will refer claimants who have insufficient work history or a lack of motivation; therefore we would expect only a minimal proportion of claimants currently undertaking part-time or voluntary work to be referred to CWP.

In other words, volunteering is not the same as a CWP (if it were, no distinction would be drawn) and if someone is already volunteering it is unlikely they would be required to do a CWP. However, this is up to the discretion of the JCP adviser and that means inconsistent decisions will occur as years of past experience have taught many in the volunteering world.

Also, note that there are no other references to volunteering in the entire guidance document.

Despite this clear distinction - Help To Work and CWPs are NOT VOLUNTEERING - the KVV campaign rolls on, arguing that:

"As charities and voluntary organisations we know the value of volunteering. Volunteering means people independently choosing to give their time freely to help others and make the world a better place. Workfare schemes force unemployed people to carry out unpaid work or face benefit sanctions that can cause hardship and destitution.   We believe in keeping volunteering voluntary and will not participate in government workfare schemes.”

In my view they risk doing much more harm than good to the volunteering cause. Here are my three main concerns.


Number one
By failing to recognise that Help To Work's CWPs are not volunteering the signatories and supporters of KVV are showing their ignorance of and / or confusion about volunteering. The voluntary and community sector sector relies upon volunteers and is the main involver of volunteers so surely they should know better - the KVV statement even claims they do in its opening line!

The potential harm here is that KVV could further confuse others about volunteering and CWPs, with the public an media turning against genuine volunteering and not forced workfare.

A much more sensible approach would be for the KVV campaign to focus on educating the media on the difference between a CWP and a volunteer opportunity so the risk of public opinion being unduly swayed negatively towards volunteering is minimised.


Number two
The campaign is probably having having little influence on government. There are two main reasons for this assumption: first, government know CWPs are not volunteering so they can confidently ignore the campaign; second, as I suggested above, the effort is directed at the wrong people - the media should be the focus.

I also worry how the ignorance about volunteering that is on display from this campaign might harm the credibility of bodies who have signed up when it comes to any future campaigning about volunteering that might be needed. I can hear ministers and officials saying things like, "why should we listen to you on volunteering, you don't even understand what it is yourselves?"

Thank goodness NCVO are not signatories!


Number three
The KVV campaign is perpetuating the media driven myth that CWPs are volunteering and so creating the risk anti-workfare campaigners begging calling for a ban on all unpaid work.

Think that's far fetched? Look at this blog from the USA where someone makes the argument that all volunteering is exploitative and should be banned. How long before similar voices are heard on this side of the pond? We already have the risk of threats to volunteering from the ongoing rumblings about unpaid internships. The risk, however small we may think it is, is real and KVV is adding fuel to the fire.


In conclusion let me say that I think people are genuinely concerned about the blurring lines between volunteering and workfare. They have been for over a decade. There are genuine workfare schemes and issues to complain about and fight for beyond Help To Work and CWPs as KVV make clear on their website. I've fought some of this fights myself and will continue to do so in future.

The profile of the KVV campaign and these issues has grown because of media misreporting of Help To Work and CWPs as volunteering. This coincided with KVV calling for support and so we end up with lots of confusion and misunderstanding about what is and is not volunteering.

I genuinely do not think the people and bodies behind KVV are trying to harm volunteering. I am sure their intentions are good and I hope my views above about the potential damage being done are proven to be wrong.  But until we know that for sure I think the volunteering movement needs to consider the Keep Volunteering Voluntary campaign carefully and cautiously, because if I'm right they could be doing much more harm than good.

See also these related blog posts from me:

Is all work experience equal?
Are we alienating a generation of volunteers?
Is all volunteering voluntary?