39  Around £  14  BIS central bankers’ speeches  References Booth, C, Cameron, D, Cumming, L, Gilby, N, Hale, C, Hoolahan (2014) “National Citizen Service 2013 Evaluation Report”, Ipsos Mori: Social Research Institute: http://www.ncsyes.co.uk/sites/all/themes/ncs/pdf/ncs_2013_evaluation_report_final.pdf Campbell, R and Fujiwara, D, “Valuation Techniques for Social Cost-Benefit Analysis”, Department for Work and Pensions and HM Treasury: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/209107/green book_valuationtechniques.pdf Casiday, R, Kinsman, E, Fisher, C, and Bambra, C (2008), “Volunteering and Health: What Impact Does It Really Have?”. Report commissioned by Volunteering England and carried out by the University of Wales Lampeter. http://www.ivr.org.uk/ivr-news/133-volunteering-health-what-impact-does-it-really-have Centre for Mental Health, (2010), “The economic and social costs of mental health problems in 2009/10”: http://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/pdfs/Economic_and_social_costs_2010.pdf Charities Aid Foundation, (2013), “World Giving Index 2013”: https://www.cafonline.org/PDF/WorldGivingIndex2013_1374AWEB.pdf Coyle, D., (2014), “Measuring economic progress”, VoxEU: http://www.voxeu.org/article/ measuring-economic-progress Deaton, A, Durand, M, Halpern, D, and Layard, L, O’Donnell, G (2014), “Wellbeing and Policy”, Report of the Commission on Wellbeing and Policy (commissioned by The Legatum Institute): http://li.com/docs/default-source/commission-on-wellbeing-and-policy/commission-onwellbeing-and-policy-report---march-2014-pdf-.pdf?sfvrsn=5 Diener, E, Lyubomirsky, S, and King, L (2005), “The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 131 No. 6. http://sonjalyubomirsky.com/wp-content/themes/sonjalyubomirsky/papers/LKD2005.pdf Dunn, E, Aknin, L, and Norton, M, (2014) “Prosocial Spending and Happiness: Using Money to Benefit Others Pays Off”, Current Directions in Psychological Science 2014 http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Dunn%20Aknin%20%20Norton%202014%20CD_bfccfc43-4139-476a-904b-ebcf855ab7c3.pdf Ellis Paine, A., McKay, S., and D. Moro, (2013), “Does volunteering improve employability? Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey”, Third Sector Research Centre Briefing Paper 100 and Working Paper 100.
The OECD publishes a range of well-being indicators as part of its Better Life Index. An un-weighted average of its indicators ranks the UK 12th out of the 36 countries (Figure 1). The UK does well on measures of income, wealth, security and environment, less well on work-life balance, education, skills, and housing (Figure 2). I set out all of this because it has a direct read-across to measuring the societal value of volunteering, to which I now turn. The scale of volunteering You can only measure what you can first define. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines volunteering as:  1  Deaton et al (2014). 2  Coyle (2014). 3  Fitoussi et al (2009). 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  “Unpaid, non-compulsory work; that is, time individuals give without pay to activities performed either through an organisation or directly for others outside their own household”. Within this, there is formal and informal volunteering. The former is done through groups, clubs or organisations and is typically easier to measure; the latter can be through any arrangement and so is often much harder to capture. Clearly, volunteering is work. It also involves producing goods or services outside of your own household. So playing a musical instrument for your own pleasure does not count as volunteering, but playing in an old people’s home does. Driving your children to hospital is not volunteering, but driving your neighbours to hospital is. And so on. Figure 3 gives some more examples taken from the ILO manual.