What the scheme owes you
Volunteer insurance is the scheme’s responsibility and never yours, and there are two covers to ask a mentoring or befriending scheme about before you meet anybody: public liability, for a claim brought by the person you support or by a third party, including a claim that you were injured through the scheme’s own negligence; and personal accident cover, which pays for injury to you regardless of fault and is the one most often absent.
A volunteer being asked to commit a year, who wants to know what the scheme commits in return before signing anything.
Whether the role stays open to people who are not comfortably off. Unpaid expenses filter volunteering down to those who can absorb the cost.
A volunteer finds out after an accusation that nobody checked whether the insurance covered home visits, or after six months of unclaimed bus fares that there was never a form.
Ask which of the two the scheme holds, and whether the policy was written knowing volunteers make home visits alone.
Employers’ liability is a third policy and it is not the one to ask for. Employers’ liability compulsory insurance covers employees, and a scheme staffed only by volunteers has no duty to hold it. It does not extend to a volunteer unless the policy wording expressly names volunteers as covered persons.
What volunteer insurance covers, and the gap most schemes have
Volunteer insurance covers the scheme’s liability, not your possessions and not your car, and that is where volunteers get caught out. Public liability responds when someone claims you caused loss or injury, and normally also when you are hurt through the scheme’s negligence, provided the insurer was told volunteers exist and what they do.
Your own car is separate and yours to sort out. Ask your motor insurer, in writing, whether driving in the course of volunteering is covered and whether carrying the person you support changes anything. Some treat it as ordinary use, some do not. The scheme’s insurance does not insure your vehicle, and premiums are not something any scheme should be quoting you.
A real induction, before you meet anyone
A real induction happens before your first meeting, is free, is recorded against your file, and covers the people you will actually meet. Five things have to come out of it: the written safeguarding policy and the designated person’s name, the reporting route including who to ring outside office hours, the boundaries in writing with a version the person you support has also seen, the lone working procedure and how the scheme knows where you are, and confirmation that your criminal record check is complete, meaning a DBS check in England and Wales, PVG scheme membership in Scotland, or an AccessNI check in Northern Ireland.
Records are part of it. UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 set no fixed retention period, so the scheme must decide one, write it down and justify it. Volunteer files are commonly kept six years after the volunteer leaves, session logs and match records six years after the match closes, and anything touching a safeguarding concern about a child for decades: the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse recommended 75 years.
A named contact, and supervision that happens anyway
A named contact is one person with a name, a direct number and a stated deputy, not a shared inbox, and if nobody can tell you who to ring on a Saturday, do not accept the match. Supervision is a scheduled conversation that happens whether or not anything has gone wrong, because supervision that only follows an incident is an investigation. What predicts whether you get either is caseload: one full-time coordinator holds roughly 30 to 50 active matches, fewer where referrals are complex. Coordination is where 60% to 80% of the cost of a match goes, and it is what the scheme buys with the £700 to £2,500 a year a match costs, a band whose width comes from referral complexity, coordinator hours and volunteer travel.
Out-of-pocket expenses, paid without argument
Out-of-pocket expenses are reimbursed at actual cost against receipts, and a scheme that makes claiming awkward has a policy problem rather than a budget problem.
| Expense | How it is reimbursed | What to keep |
|---|---|---|
| Public transport | At actual cost | Ticket or app receipt |
| Car use | Per mile, with HMRC’s approved mileage rate as the reference | Date, route, mileage |
| The activity | Within a limit set in advance, often covering the mentee’s share | Receipt, and the limit in writing |
| Phone calls and data | At actual cost, or a scheme-issued phone | Itemised bill |
HMRC sets the approved mileage rate most schemes use, and it changes, so check the current rate with HMRC rather than trusting an old handbook. Reimbursement of actual costs is not earnings, but a round sum paid regardless of what you spent can be treated as earnings, creating a tax question and putting volunteer status in doubt. That is why schemes reimburse against receipts. If you claim a benefit, check your position before the first payment.
A proper ending, planned from the start
A proper ending is designed at the first meeting, not the last, and it belongs to the scheme rather than to you. The reason is the one behind the twelve-month ask in youth mentoring: matches ending before three months are associated with outcomes worse than no match at all, reported by Grossman and Rhodes in 2002. Expect a date set in advance, a final session treated as one, and a plain answer about what happens next.
The volunteer
- Claims expenses promptly and with receipts, including the small ones.
- Reads the expenses policy and the boundaries document first.
- Attends supervision, and raises the dull concerns as well as the alarming ones.
- Gives notice when stopping, so the ending is planned rather than announced.
The person supported
- Never pays for the volunteer’s travel, coffee or activity.
- Has a named person to complain to who is not the volunteer.
- Is told in advance when the match will end, and by whom.
- Is offered something afterwards, even if that is an honest nothing.
The scheme owes both of them six things: insurance written knowing what volunteers actually do, induction before the match starts, a named contact with a working number, scheduled supervision, expenses paid within a stated number of days, and a planned ending. A scheme offering none of these is not under-resourced, it is not yet a scheme.
The checklist to take to a scheme before you sign up
Take these eight questions to the scheme before signing anything, and write the answers down rather than trusting your memory of a friendly conversation.
- Ask which insurances are held, and whether the policy names volunteers.
- Ask when induction happens, and confirm it precedes the first meeting.
- Ask who your named contact is, and who deputises.
- Ask how often supervision happens.
- Ask how expenses are claimed, at what mileage rate, and within how many days.
- Ask how many active matches the coordinator holds.
- Ask how long records are kept.
- Ask how the match should end, and what happens if you must stop early.
You are told the scheme does not do expenses
Ask for the expenses policy in writing, and if there is none, treat that as disqualifying. Keep claiming rather than absorbing the cost, because the volunteer who absorbs it sets the norm for the next applicant who cannot. The coordinator’s part is to budget expenses as a running cost of every match.