Key findings
• There was a continued increase to in-person service delivery, with most services delivered face-to-face.
• The number of staff employed by voluntary organisations generally rose.
• Increases in staff numbers was mostly due to an expansion of service provision.
• Focus group participants said they were making staffing changes to mitigate the impact of increased costs, such as through making redundancies, not filling vacancies, or widening responsibilities.
• Volunteer numbers broadly remained stable, and they were mostly involved in the direct delivery of services.
• Almost all organisations involved people with lived experience, including by consulting them on service design and delivery, employing them as staff and senior leaders, and recruiting them as volunteers.
How services are delivered
During the height of the pandemic, organisations needed altered service delivery in response to public health measures. For many, this meant adapting services for remote delivery, or altering the shape of in-person services. In 2022 , we saw a significant return to in-person delivery.
Continuing the trend seen since last year, 60% of respondents said their organisation had increased in-person service delivery, with 41% significantly so. Only 8% said they had increased their remote service delivery. This led to 78% of organisations reporting delivering all or more than half of their services in-person in 2022-23.
While it is not surprising to see most services being delivered in-person, it is surprising to see a sizeable number of organisations continue to report increases in face-to-face service delivery. This could suggest some services that switched to remote delivery during the height of the pandemic have been slow to return to in-person delivery, or that new services are being opened with a face-to-face delivery model.
Staff and volunteers
Organisations largely reported increased staffing levels in 2022-23, compared to last year - 45% said numbers had risen and 16% said they had gone up significantly. In addition, 32% said the number of staff had remained about the same. Only 17% said staff numbers had fallen.
Of those organisations with an income over £500,000, 54% reported an increase in staff numbers. Of organisations with income under £500,000, 43% reported increases in staff numbers and 39% said numbers remained the static. A majority of organisations operating in Wales (53%) reported an increase in staff numbers
Almost all (94%) attributed increased staffing to increased service provision. Most also said it was due to receiving new funding (61%) and in response to increased service user need (55%).
Where respondents reported a decrease in staff numbers, this was mostly put down to a contract, grant, or service reaching its planned end, making redundancies, or a lack of applicants or suitable applicants for roles.
Some focus groups participants reported staffing changes to soften the impact of increased costs. For some this meant making redundancies, where for others, it meant carrying vacancies where staff had moved on. One smaller organisation also reported widening existing staff’s roles to fill resourcing gaps.
‘We’ve slightly reduced the size of our staff team to make sure that we can manage within the income that we have.’
- Large organisation
‘I’ve had a shift in my role where it’s been more community partner focussed. I’ve also been taking that step across into funding applications as well to try and prioritise those.’
- Small organisation
Volunteer numbers remained stable compared with 2021-22 (43%), but 37% of organisations who hired volunteers did report an increase. Only 18% reported a decrease in volunteer numbers.
Any increase was mostly due to increased service user need (56%) and an expansion of service provision (53%). A third of respondents also said they had seen an increase in applicants for volunteer roles. For organisations who had seen a decrease in numbers, they tended to identify a lack of applicants, or suitable applicants, as the main reason for this.
Volunteers undertook a range of roles for the organisations they worked with. The most common roles were:
• Directly supporting the delivery of services, such as providing advice and guidance or facilitating activities (81%)
• Indirectly supporting the deliver of services, such as befriending people using the service or helping with transport to/from a service (54%)
• Supporting the administration of the organisation, such as undertaking clerical work or handling money (53%).
Lived experience
Almost all organisations (98%) involve people with lived experience in their work. The most common ways of doing this were:
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Consulting with people who have lived experience or who have accessed the service about the design and delivery of the services (73%)
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Having people with lived experience as staff (69%)
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Making efforts to recruit people with lived experience as staff (57%)
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Having people with lived experience as registered volunteers (55%)
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Having trustees and/or senior leaders with lived experience (53%).
In addition, nearly one-in-ten (9%) or organisations supported a trustee disqualified by a criminal record to apply for a waiver, whether successful or not.
Despite the many positive ways in which the voluntary sector is working with people with lived experience, only one-in-four organisations said they do not ask for disclosure when recruiting staff and/or volunteers, unless the role requires undertaking regulated activity or requires prison vetting. This stands in contrast to the seven-in-ten organisations who report employing staff with lived experience, and the majority who are making active efforts to recruit people with lived experience. There is scope for more investigation about how the voluntary sector manage the recruitment of people with lived experience, including people with past convictions, to gain a better understanding of the people working in the sector and best practice through the recruitment process.
Arts activities were also delivered in a range of settings. The most common locations were prisons (74%) and other community settings/groups (66%). These were followed by arts/cultural settings (55%), and academic settings (39%).
Most organisations and practitioners delivering arts activities did so to groups, most commonly of between two and 10 people (62%), or between 11 and 50 people (56%). Just one-in-ten provided one-to-one activities.
Compared to the previous year, 46% of respondents said the number of people per session or activity had increased, with 18% saying the number had increased significantly. In addition, 44% said the number of people per session or activity had remained the same, and 10% said numbers had decreased, but none said they had decreased significantly. This increase in group sizes raises an important question about further impacts of increased demand for services, rising service user need, and higher operating costs, as organisations try to balance their provision and available resources against the people who would benefit from their services.
Organisations and practitioners delivering arts services in the criminal justice system are a crucial part of the wider voluntary sector working in criminal justice. More information about their work and the support available to them through Clinks can be found on the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance (NCJAA) webpages. The NCJAA is embedded in Clinks and provides a network to promote, develop, and support high-quality arts practice in criminal justice settings, influencing and informing government, commissioners, and the public.
