Do not replace paid roles

It damages the service and the volunteers in it.

Where budgets tighten, volunteers can drift into work that was previously done by paid staff. It happens gradually and rarely by decision: a vacancy is not filled, a willing volunteer absorbs part of it, and a year later the role exists without a position.

The consequences are several. The work loses the accountability and continuity that employment provides. The volunteers carry responsibility disproportionate to their preparation. And the organisation has made a decision about its staffing model without ever discussing it.

It also affects the volunteers' own view of the arrangement. People who discover they are doing a job that used to be paid frequently feel used, and it is a common reason cited by long-serving volunteers who leave.

The line worth holding is that volunteers should add something the service could not otherwise do rather than substitute for something it has decided not to fund, and drift across that line is best caught by asking the question periodically rather than at the point of crisis.

There is a further reason to hold the line on paid roles, which is that it affects the people the service assists. A service delivered by rotating volunteers cannot provide the continuity that some kinds of support require, and the person receiving it experiences a series of unfamiliar faces at a point when familiarity is what they needed.