Big Society Contributions – How to do it?
One way of getting people to be involved in the Big Society is to offer tax credits for specific, targeted voluntary or community work or work that enhances the overall look and feel of the place.
Each local authority could create a website with a list of work that needs to be done, where and when to meet and what any particular type of work entails. On the website you can register for any particular type of work using your national insurance number.
The work would need to be organised into group details with someone to oversee from the local authority to ensure best practice and quality standards.
This could be anything from picking up litter in a designated area, to scrubbing off graffiti, painting a fence or helping out at community centre. In short anything that requires labour and contributes something positive to our surrounding community.
Each number of certified hours 'worked' by a volunteer is graded and logged (grading is necessary to ensure quality of work) and at the end of each year the number of hours worked is added up giving a tax credit to that individual.
The credit should be big enough to entice people in but not so big that people try to abuse the system although that will probably always happen.
Why is this idea important?
One way of getting people to be involved in the Big Society is to offer tax credits for specific, targeted voluntary or community work or work that enhances the overall look and feel of the place.
Each local authority could create a website with a list of work that needs to be done, where and when to meet and what any particular type of work entails. On the website you can register for any particular type of work using your national insurance number.
The work would need to be organised into group details with someone to oversee from the local authority to ensure best practice and quality standards.
This could be anything from picking up litter in a designated area, to scrubbing off graffiti, painting a fence or helping out at community centre. In short anything that requires labour and contributes something positive to our surrounding community.
Each number of certified hours 'worked' by a volunteer is graded and logged (grading is necessary to ensure quality of work) and at the end of each year the number of hours worked is added up giving a tax credit to that individual.
The credit should be big enough to entice people in but not so big that people try to abuse the system although that will probably always happen.