Volunteering stays voluntary: what the Home Office U-turn means for volunteer managers

On 2 November 2026 the Home Office published its response to the earned settlement consultation and dropped the proposal that had worried the voluntary sector most. Civil Society reported that the government has scrapped its plan to let migrants who volunteer in their communities take three to five years off a new 10-year qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the government “will therefore not use volunteering to reduce settlement periods under the new earned settlement model”.

The wider changes set out in her Commons statement still go ahead: the standard qualifying period rises from five to 10 years for most migrants, implemented over the course of 2027, according to the Electronic Immigration Network. For anyone running a volunteer programme the headline is simpler. Volunteering stays voluntary. Nobody should arrive at your door because their settlement depends on it.

The government’s reasons for changing course deserve a close read, because they describe problems every volunteer manager already has to solve. They landed in the same week that the chief executives of ACEVO, NCVO, NAVCA and Charity Finance Group called for an independent review of sector infrastructure in England after a run of closures. The support around volunteer managers is thinning, so your own practice has to carry more weight.

What was proposed, and why it was dropped

The idea first appeared in November 2025. The sector pushed back hard. Asylum Matters organised an open letter signed by 300 organisations, and NCVO wrote to the Home Secretary in February 2026 urging withdrawal, warning that the plan risked turning volunteering into a “transactional requirement”. When the U-turn came, NCVO’s Leigh Brimicombe called it a “big win”. Praxis chief executive Minnie Rahman welcomed it too, while likening it to “straightening a picture frame in a burning building”.

The consultation response set out the concerns behind the change. Volunteering would be difficult to define, evidence and assess consistently. A requirement could disadvantage people with caring responsibilities or disabilities. And it flagged safeguarding and verification questions. Strip out the immigration context and you have a checklist for a well-run programme: define roles clearly, record activity properly, design for people whose time is constrained, and know who is vouching for what.

Write down how you handle requests for proof of volunteering

Even without a settlement incentive, people will ask you to confirm their volunteering: for visa applications, benefits assessments, university admissions, employers and occasionally courts. Without a policy, each request becomes a judgement call by whoever picks up the phone, exactly the inconsistency the Home Office worried about.

A one-page policy is enough. Cover:

• What you will confirm: role title, start and end dates, approximate hours, supervisor’s name, and training or checks completed.

• What you will not confirm: character judgements beyond a standard reference, anything you did not witness, and anything about a person’s immigration status or personal circumstances.

• Who signs: usually the volunteer manager or a named deputy, never a peer volunteer.

• How long you keep records: so you can say up front whether you can still confirm a role from four years ago.

• How you decline: the same way for everyone, in writing, offering what you can, for example a factual letter rather than a character reference.

Add it to your volunteer policy and check it agrees with what you already say about volunteers’ rights.

Keep records good enough to confirm hours anyway

A proof-of-volunteering policy only works if the records behind it are sound, and there are other reasons to keep them. Volunteers ask for references and want volunteering on their CV. Funders want hours and headcounts. Insurers and safeguarding leads need to know who was where and when. Trustees increasingly expect a clear account of volunteer activity in the annual report, and SORP 2026 raises that expectation.

For each volunteer, record:

• Role and the team or site they work in.

• Start date, and end date when they leave.

• Shifts worked or hours contributed.

• Training completed and any background checks, with dates.

• Named supervisor.

Then apply data protection discipline. Collect only what the role needs, tell volunteers in plain language what you hold and why, and set a retention period you stick to. If volunteers check in to shifts on a platform such as Volunteero, hours are logged automatically, so a confirmation letter becomes a quick export rather than an afternoon with a spreadsheet.

Welcome migrants, refugees and people seeking asylum, without the hoops

The U-turn changes nothing about who may take part. Home Office rules allow people seeking asylum to volunteer for charities and voluntary organisations, and like every volunteer they must not be paid beyond reasonable out-of-pocket expenses.

What you can do is make the experience good:

• Clear role descriptions: what the role involves, how long shifts are and what support is available.

• Language support: pair new volunteers with a buddy and keep written material short.

• Flexible hours: reporting appointments, legal meetings and housing moves rarely fit a fixed shift pattern.

• Prompt expenses: for someone on a very low income, a two-week wait for travel costs can mean they cannot come back.

• Ask only what the role lawfully needs: do not ask about immigration status unless a specific role requires it.

• Treat proof requests the same for everyone: your policy applies whether the letter is for a visa, a university or a job.

Design for carers and disabled people

The Home Office accepted that a volunteering requirement could disadvantage people with caring responsibilities or disabilities. That describes many programmes as they stand. Fixed weekly shifts, in person only, with no cover, quietly exclude anyone whose time is not their own.

Offer shorter shifts and let people swap or cancel without guilt. Build remote and task-based options into the programme; our guide to flexible volunteering sets out how. Ask every new volunteer what adjustments would help, and record the answer so they never have to repeat it. These changes widen your pool and improve retention for everyone.

One last point on support. The infrastructure review call followed Reach Volunteering’s near-closure, rescued by nine funders until the end of 2028, the Directory of Social Change entering insolvency, and the loss of several local infrastructure bodies and volunteer centres. These were places many volunteer managers relied on for recruitment, training or a second opinion, and a review, if it happens, will take time to report. Build a peer network with managers in nearby organisations, and write your processes down so they survive staff changes.

The government has decided that volunteering is too hard to define, evidence and verify to be an immigration test. Few in the sector will argue with that, and it is a reminder that defining, evidencing and verifying is your job. Take an hour this month to review your volunteer policy, add a paragraph on proof requests, and ask your team whether your records would stand up to a request made next week.