CILIPS Council Conversations (continued…)

Category: CILIPS Council Conversations

At our biannual CILIPS Council meetings, representatives from each of our Regional Branches and Special Interest Groups come together to share updates on their committee’s activities, help shape the future of CILIPS event content, and discuss key themes related to cross-sector professional practice.

At our second meeting of 2025, reps reflected on the theme:

CILIPS joins Volunteer Scotland’s Charter Champions

Earlier this year, CILIPS pledged our support for Volunteer Scotland’s Volunteer Charter, which sets out ten key principles that help to underpin good relations within a volunteering environment. 

We invited reps to share their thoughts on:

• What do you think the Volunteer Charter’s principles should/could look like in a CILIPS context?
• e.g. Principle 3: ‘Effective structures should be put in place to support, train and develop volunteers’; Principle 9: ‘Volunteers and paid workers should be given the opportunity to contribute to the development and monitoring of volunteering policies and procedures’; and Principle 10: ‘Volunteer roles should be designed and negotiated around the needs and interests of volunteers, involving organisations and wider stakeholders’.
• How best to celebrate volunteers – like our committee members! – who make such a vital and valuable contribution to the CILIPS community, in ways that are consistent with our policy on the ‘Use of Volunteers’?
• e.g. Principle 5: ‘Volunteers should not carry out duties formerly carried out by paid workers’ and Principle 6: ‘Volunteers should not be used instead of paid workers or undercut their pay and conditions of service’?

• The Charter’s purpose is clearly and admirably to prevent exploitation of volunteers (and/or paid workers) by organisations, but it is interesting that it therefore focuses exclusively on organisational responsibilities, with (except for Principle 10) no equivalent on expectations or responsibilities of volunteers. In a CILIPS context, could this be framed as more of an exchange, articulating mutual responsibilities?
• As explored above during Discussion One, the CILIP Ethical Framework offers a helpful ‘way in’ here, articulating the principles and practices to which we are all collectively committed.
• As also discussed earlier, there is value in foregrounding our Ethical Framework in job descriptions – could this also be done for committee recruitment and, more broadly, library volunteers?
• Bearing in mind our earlier mentions of deprofessionalisation and the organisational risks this poses, it is equally important to remember that volunteers themselves can be highly skilled and professional.
  • As the CILIPS policy on the ‘Use of Volunteers’ articulates: ‘volunteers have long supported and provided highly valuable additional support, working alongside qualified and paid staff, and they should be acknowledged and valued for this role’.
  • Relatedly, it is worth bearing in mind that recruiting, training and supporting volunteers takes up staff time – decisionmakers must recognise this and, as Principle 6 of the Charter states, ‘volunteers should not be used instead of paid workers or undercut their pay and conditions of service’.
• As Principle 5 notes, ‘volunteers should not carry out duties formerly carried out by paid workers’.
  • This can be a concern in libraries and may prove more difficult to define/challenge when the replacement of paid staff with volunteers is more insidious e.g. duties that were once delivered by a paid worker are now, months or even years later, distributed amongst volunteers.
  • A tension is apparent here between ‘remit creep’, where our libraries are increasingly tasked with new and complex societal responsibilities e.g. around health and wellbeing, often without the investment in funding or capacity that we need to support this, and a shift in what were once considered core elements of library roles e.g. archiving and/or cataloguing now being reframed as additional and therefore the remit of volunteers.
• In Council’s experience, volunteering works best when it brings new skills and expertise to the library in ways that enhance and enrich what we are already doing.
  • Examples include everything from therapet visits to pupil librarians!
  • Perhaps volunteers could be re-understood as unpaid contractors or freelancers? See Literature Alliance Scotland’s recent report on best practice for working with freelancers.
• From a CILIPS perspective, committees would particularly appreciate support from paid staff in driving recruitment, freeing up our volunteers to spend their time on committee activities. Watch this space for a CILIPSwide recruitment push!

Email the CILIPS team anytime at admin@cilips.org.uk to share your views and stay tuned for another post in our Council Conversations series coming soon!

The next CILIPS Council meeting will take place in person at the CILIPS office in Glasgow from 2-4pm on Thursday 5th March 2026.

To join us and add your voice to these vital member discussions, please contact kirsten.macquarrie@cilips.org.uk.