As the official UK coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) inquiry proceeds, there is, justifiably, an underlying reckoning at play, a calling to account. There is also a continuing appetite for genuine reflection and learning. With so much of life upended, documenting experiences of the pandemic becomes an important collective act of curation, before we forget all about it. The vital role of voluntary action in different forms, such as neighbourhood-level mutual aid, food and medicine drops, charities supporting the most vulnerable and vaccination volunteers, was a central and celebrated feature of the response to Covid-19. This short book aims to provide an account of how voluntary action was mobilised differently across the four UK nations, and what can be learnt from the experience.
The book describes and reports the findings of an 18-month UKRI-funded study of voluntary action across the four UK nations during the pandemic. The research was undertaken by a large interdisciplinary team of academics, researchers and expert voluntary sector practitioners and involved an extensive documentary review of existing policy literature and emerging Covid-related research, analysis of volunteering data and targeted surveys and elite interviews undertaken during spring and summer 2021. Geography matters for the authors, discussed here in the form of the UK’s devolutionary arrangements. Because public health and responsibility for voluntary action are devolved areas of policy, the pandemic offered an opportunity to explore different responses across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
The central finding is clear and articulated well as the discussion develops: there are striking differences across the four jurisdictions both in the policy frameworks underpinning voluntary action and in how voluntary action was understood, organised and supported. In particular, a distinction is drawn between, on the one hand, a closer partnership relationship between the devolved administrations and the voluntary sector evident in Scotland and Wales (and also in Northern Ireland to an extent, with specific contextual features), and on the other, a more hands-off and diffuse approach adopted in England. The latter has very little by way of a national policy framework and voluntary action is seen as almost entirely separate from government, something to be encouraged from a distance rather than actively supported.
While volunteering trends and patterns throughout the pandemic were similar across the four nations, the ability to mobilise and make use of volunteers varied; a more effective organisation of the response was evident where there was a greater commitment to collaboration and partnership. Echoing findings from other studies, the authors also observe how the legacy of earlier investment in the infrastructure supporting voluntary action enabled more joined up pandemic responses, as well as note the importance of mutual aid, the value of collaboration and the use of digital technology.
Comparative analysis across different contexts and complex policy domains can be challenging. Rather than organise their arguments thematically, the authors have chosen to devote the bulk of the book to individual chapters focussing on each of the four nations (chapters 3–6), book-ended by an introduction, more cross-cutting discussion and conclusion (chapters 1, 2 and 7). This approach is helpful in building a comprehensive picture, and it sort of works. There is a risk that depth and descriptive justice to the situation in each nation are privileged over more extensive comparative analysis, but to an extent this is mitigated by the preliminary discussion and a common structure to each national chapter.
The book was written at pace and finalised in spring 2022, just as many pandemic restrictions were coming to an end. It sometimes reads like an extended research report, a faithful account of the project’s activities and findings, rather than a deeper interpretative analysis and narrative argument. However, it is certainly to be welcomed in getting insights and learning about mobilising voluntary action in the pandemic out into the world quickly; it is a very good place to start for documenting and appreciating different approaches. To understand how its insights fit into broader (pre- and post-pandemic) discussions, readers might also refer to Rose Lindsey and John Mohan’s 2018 book Continuity and Change in Voluntary Action: Patterns, trends and understandings (Policy Press), and John Mohan’s Volunteering in the United Kingdom: The spirit of service (Manchester University Press), published in 2024.
