The Committee on Voluntary Organisations was set up and jointly financed by the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust and the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust to review the role and functions of voluntary organisations in the UK over the remainder of the 20th century. The Committee was appointed on 1 October 1974 and was composed of members from all over the UK but with none 'carrying a banner, political, geographical or professional' (according to the published report, p.9). Members of the Committee, serving as individuals rather than as representatives of any bodies or organisations, set about gathering their evidence from both questionnaire and discussion. In response, over three hundred submissions of written evidence were received, and over ninety interviews were held. The records of the Committee were made available to researchers by the Trustees of both Trusts, and copies were deposited at both the British Library of Political and Economic Science (BLPES) in London and at Edinburgh University Library. The Committee on Voluntary Organisations ceased to exist after the report - The future of voluntary organisations - was published in 1978. Sir John Wolfenden (1906-1985), the Chair of the Committee, had also participated in the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, 1954-1957.
From the guide to the Records of the Committee on Voluntary Organisations, 1974-1978, (Edinburgh University Library)
