Voluntary and Community Sector Workforce
3.52 More recently there has been a growth in interest in a so called third sector, the social economy. The third sector includes charities, housing associations and social enterprise.
3.53 There are over 17,600 general charities in South West England employing 54,000 paid workers, representing approximately 2.3% of the region’s total workforce. Of the English regions, only London (2.9%) and the South East (2.4%) have a greater proportion of their workforce employed by charities.
3.54 Based on national data from the DTI survey, social enterprises in South West England are estimated to employ about 57,000 paid workers. As about two thirds of social enterprises are registered charities, one can estimate that, in South West England, general charities and social enterprises together employ about 73,000 paid workers – more than in the advanced engineering, food and drink or ICT business sectors.
3.55 However, the largest part of the voluntary and community sector's workforce comprises volunteers. They include unpaid workers delivering services and involved in the day to day running of an organisation and trustees who have overall responsibility for the governance and management of an organisation.
3.56 The most reliable source of data on volunteering in the region is the Home Office Citizenship Survey which indicates that in South West England about 1.8 million adults volunteer in a formal capacity at least annually and about 950,000 at least monthly. These figures should include the 112,000 trustees of registered charities in the region based on Charity Commission data.