Time credits: the alternative currency enabling volunteers to take action in communities

Time credits offer an alternative way to reward work that is traditionally unpaid, as Hazel Sheffield reports

Stephen Ricketts (left) started the Llanelli Visually Impaired Bowls Club in Wales after he unexpectedly went blind (Courtesy Photo)

Stephen Ricketts was 50 when he looked down at his dinner plate one night and found it had disappeared.

Mr Ricketts would later find out that he has hereditary condition that causes blindness. Overnight, it robbed him of his confidence and his work as a commercial tyre fitter. He became housebound, unable even to make a cup of tea, and so depressed that one evening he found himself on a bridge near his home in Llanelli in Carmarthenshire, Wales, contemplating suicide.

That was four years ago. Now Mr Ricketts is helping other people suffering from disabilities and loneliness with the Llanelli Visually Impaired Bowls Club. The bowls club has flourished since Mr Ricketts founded it in 2016. This year, they are raising money to attend a national championship in Weston-Super-Mare.

Mr Ricketts is also working with the local Men’s Sheds charity and Street Buddies, a volunteer scheme for residents to get involved in the community. For some of this work, he is paid in time credits, a form of community currency that can be exchanged for tickets to concerts and access to parks and leisure centres.

“It’s given me a real boost,” he says. “It’s a way to pay people for help without using money and it makes me feel really good, because I’m giving something back.”

Time credits in the UK are issued by Tempo (formerly known as Spice). The charity was founded in 2008 at the the Wales Institute for Community Currencies. In their original form, time credits were an experiment to help rebuild the ex-mining communities of south Wales.

Time credits offer an alternative way to reward work that is traditionally unpaid at a time when local authorities are relying on communities to step in and provide care for the lonely and vulnerable. They should never replace paid work, but time credits might give meaning or value to an exchange with a person with disabilities, mental health or addiction issues who could struggle to take part in the monetary economy.

In times of crisis, such as in Argentina at the turn of the millennium or during the Greek financial crisis, barter economies and community currencies can facilitate exchanges between people when the monetary economy fails.

Some 50,000 people have since earned 700,000 time credits since 2008. Mr Ricketts says the scheme has huge potential in areas of low income by helping community groups give back to volunteers. Families awarded time credits can use the scheme to take advantage of daytrips and leisure activities that might otherwise be beyond their reach.

“I have seen the potential of them for families with low incomes,” he says. He has been known to give some of his own time credits to people when he sees them counting the pennies to buy a cup of tea.

Mr Ricketts always keeps some time credits in his pockets. Given his condition, that can cause confusion. “They look and feel like the new plastic fivers,” he says. “Because I can’t see I have been known to try and pay for a pint with time credits in the pub.”

Similar schemes around the UK encourage people to swap their time or labour for time in kind. In Hull, the HullCoin rewards people for getting involved in community action with a digital currency that can be used to get discounts with local businesses. Many cities also have a time-banking network co-ordinated by Timebanking UK. Time-banking is rooted in the idea that every person has something to contribute to their community, regardless of their circumstances.

Ian Merrill worked in health and social care for 20 years before he became the chief executive of Tempo in 2017. He says time credits are a way to enable people like Stephen Ricketts to take a role in their community by recognising the efforts that go into volunteering. The scheme also gets new people into volunteering. Half of people earning time credits have have volunteered before.

“People volunteer for its own sake and that’s fine,” Mr Merrill says. “But we know that time credits bring people into volunteering who wouldn’t already do it.”

Mr Ricketts says he uses time credits at bowls to thank personal assistants for extra jobs, like making a round of tea, putting out biscuits for the players, or cleaning up afterwards. “After a bit of time, I found out the assistants had children and they were taking them swimming, so when they wanted to take their family out to a leisure part or a theatre, I gave them the time credits to cover it,” he says.

Volunteers can currently spend their time credits golfing at Pembrey Park in Wales, learning to paddleboard in Essex, or on hair and beauty treatments at participating salons. They can also be exchanged for short courses at some college and classes to learn how to act or how to cook healthier meals.

Simon, whose last name is withheld, earned his first time credits with the Haringey Project, which helps people with mental health problems or substance misuse. He earned credits volunteering with gardening when he lived in St Mungo’s Hostel for two years. With the credits he earned, he took his mother on outings to Tower Bridge, Keat’s House and Kensington Palace.

“I’ve taken my mum to places she’s never been to before,” he says. “I went on lots of trips with time credits this August, it was the best August of my whole life.”

Tempo is now looking at harnessing technology to bring time credits to more people. Mr Merrill says time credits could become ever more important in the UK during tightened economic circumstances. “Time credits enables people to address needs in their own communities,” he says. “If they can help unlock capacity and create connections that weren’t there before, those are good things."