Rates of formal volunteering in Scotland have continued to decline since the Covid-19 pandemic, new government figures have revealed.
The Scottish Household Survey, which was carried out through face-to-face interviews with about 10,500 households in Scotland, asked respondents about any volunteering they had participated in over the last 12 months.
Just 22 per cent of people asked had participated in formal volunteering over the last year, the survey found. This was compared with 26 per cent in 2019, pre-pandemic.
The figures also show a long-term decline in formal volunteering rates, having dropped by nine percentage points since 2011.
But rates of informal volunteering, which is defined as giving unpaid help not via an organisation or group, remain consistent with the latest comparable pre-pandemic figures. For the 2022/23 period, 36 per cent of respondents said they had undertaken either informal or a mixture of formal and informal volunteering – the same figure as in 2018.
The figures from respondents living in the 20 per cent most and least deprived areas of Scotland show that volunteering rates were lower in disadvantaged areas.
Of respondents living in Scotland’s least deprived areas, 51 per cent had done some form of volunteering, compared with just 37 per cent of those in the most deprived areas.
Those living in lower income households also volunteered less, the figures show. Just 34 per cent of respondents with a net household income of less than £15,000 a year had volunteered in the past year, compared with 52 per cent of those with a net household income of more than £30,000 a year.
Volunteering was also more common in rural areas, with 51 per cent of those living rurally having volunteered over the past year, compared with 44 per cent of those in urban areas.
Volunteers living in rural areas were more likely to do so for local community or neighbourhood organisations than those in the rest of Scotland, the survey found.
Disabled respondents were less likely to have undertaken any type of volunteering, with 43 per cent of disabled respondents having volunteered in the last year compared with 46 per cent of non-disabled people.
Volunteer Scotland, a charity set up to support the work of volunteers, posted on X (formerly Twitter), describing the fall in formal volunteering as a “worrying decline”.
It said: “We are concerned by the Scottish Household Survey results, published today, showing a significant decline.”
It said these results were not a surprise, saying: “Our recent research has shown that the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis have had a considerable impact on people’s capacity to volunteer.”