Letter: Real volunteers

I am usually happy to read Bill Jamieson's sagacious prose on all matters economic but I was taken aback at his implication that the third sector, which includes most Scottish charities, is some kind of black economy dishing out cash-in-hand payments to shadow employees (Comment, 11 November).

This is certainly not the case in WRVS. Our 10,000 Scottish volunteers are just that, and I am not aware that it is a problem in the sector more widely. Statistics from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations show there are 137,000 employees in Scotland's third sector, all of them legitimate.

Andrew Jackson

WRVS in Scotland

Mansfield Place

Edinburgh