We won a fairer deal for volunteer drivers
By David Kelly, our Head of Policy and Campaigns
It had been a long time coming.
After more than four years of campaigning – and countless meetings, letters, budget representations, briefings and social media posts later – we watched as the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose to address the House of Commons on 21 May 2026.
In her Middle East Economic Update and Cost of Living Statement to MPs, Rachel Reeves MP announced a major uplift to the Approved Mileage Allowance Payment (AMAP) rate, securing the change for which CTA had been advocating and lobbying alongside our members and partners.
Reimbursing volunteer drivers
The AMAP rate is used by organisations across the UK use to deliver tax-free reimbursements to volunteers and employees who use their own vehicles in the course of their duties. It is critical for the Community Transport sector, particularly community car schemes, it is widely used as a benchmark by organisations to agree the level of volunteer reimbursement and/or to set passenger fares. It is the ceiling at which volunteer drivers can be reimbursed without any impact on their tax obligations or benefit entitlements.
But the AMAP rate for cars of 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles had been set way back in 2011. More than a decade-and-a-half later, after years of inflation and major fuel price shocks caused by wars against Ukraine and Iran, the outdated 2011 rate was no longer tenable.
While the AMAP rate was unchanged, the motoring costs which it was supposed to cover – including fuel, insurance, equipment and repairs – had increased by at least 58%, according to calculations by the RAC Foundation.
CTA members across the UK were telling us about the damaging impact of the 45p rate, as they increasingly struggled to recruit and retain volunteer drivers, who were worried about being left out of pocket during a cost-of-living crisis.
At one point, 65% of Community Transport operators were facing lower levels of volunteer recruitment and retention. Nearly a third told us that they had been forced to cut back lifeline services which older and disabled people relied upon to travel to hospital appointments or the shops.
It was clear that the 2011 AMAP rate was no longer fit for purpose and needed to change.
Our campaign
We responded by launching our AMAP campaign for A Fair Deal for Volunteers in early 2022. We gathered data, evidence and views from our members and pulled together a coalition of leading voluntary sector organisations, like NCVO and the Royal Voluntary Service. Together, we spoke out for more than 1.7 million volunteers directly involved in transport-related volunteering across the UK.
We developed our ask for an ‘urgent, fair and transparent review of the AMAP rate to ensure it accurately reflected the real costs of motoring’, which we took to the Chancellor and HM Treasury officials, as well as MPs from all parties. Producing an official representation with new data and refreshed arguments to submit for consideration ahead of the Spring or Autumn Budget process quickly became a biannual tradition.
We also mobilised our movement to advocate for change, encouraging and supporting CTA members to write to their own MPs and the Treasury with templates and guidance. Hundreds of you joined in our campaign to increase the pressure on Parliament and Government to act.
Meanwhile, other sectors and interests joined the fight, with high-profile employer representative organisations like the CBI and influential trade unions like Unison calling for an AMAP review.
In the end, all of this hard work paid off. We strongly welcome the Chancellor’s decision to increase the AMAP rate for cars (and vans), which will enable volunteer drivers to be reimbursed tax-free up to 55p per mile. We want to thank everyone who has been part of our campaign to end the outdated 2011 rate.
What's next?
However, there is still work to be done, as Community Transport now needs the financial resources to implement the new AMAP rate.
Central, devolved and local government should deliver uplifts to grants and contracts which cover the additional costs. Voluntary organisations’ bids for grants and contracts for 2026/27 were based on the previous rate of 45p at a time when their budgets are already being squeezed by inflation and rising demand.
We’re urging the Chancellor to address this at the earliest opportunity or in the next Budget.
Lessons for the future
There are, in my view, three key lessons we should take from this experience.
Firstly, campaigns take time. It takes time to gather evidence, identify supporters, construct a compelling argument and then build momentum. When we started out, Rishi Sunak was Chancellor. By the time the campaign was successful, we were onto our fifth occupant of 11 Downing Street!
As Max Weber once wrote: ‘Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards’. In other words, there’s resistance to change, change can be slow and securing change requires persistence. We will need to exercise this same kind of strategic patience once again if we are to secure changes to D1 licensing rules.
Secondly, the broadest coalition of interests is the most compelling. The Community Transport movement is strongest when we work together and speak with one voice. The voices of our members are powerful. Nevertheless, having representatives of volunteers, employers and employees all on the same page with the same ask, demonstrated consensus and made it much harder to ignore.
Thirdly, context matters and can be decisive. The cost-of-living crisis and conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East created significant fuel price rises and political pressures which would be hard for any politician to ignore and beyond the control of any campaign.
To quote Harold Macmillan’s well-worn aphorism: “Events, dear boy, events.”
Further information
You can look back at our campaign, or access AMAP-related advice, information and resources, here.