TimeBank has introduced a fresh approach to gaining volunteers. Here, former adviser to Scotland's first minister and TimeBank chief executive, John Rafferty, explains his vision to Reg McKay

Failing to get a place on a social work course is not the most obvious route into social care but that is how John Rafferty started his career. Now he is the chief executive of TimeBank, the latest voluntary organisation bringing a new concept to volunteering and social care.

An initiative established by ONE20, a charity set up by Jane Tewson (co-founder of Comic Relief), TimeBank is a movement designed to make volunteering easy throughout the UK. The aim is to show that sharing your time, skills and interests with others can benefit everyone.

Linked with the media and supported heavily by the BBC, TimeBank hopes to capitalise on initiatives such as Comic Relief and Children in Need except by encouraging volunteering rather than cash donations.

"Time-giver is a phrase which will get into everyday vocabulary," Rafferty says, reflecting the organisation's positive approach. "The people who will benefit are the most vulnerable in society - people with disabilities, the elderly and the isolated."

Almost 40 per cent of the UK's non-volunteering population, he claims, say they would like to get involved. TimeBank's role is to show people the issues and make it easy for them. "Eventually we intend to have time banks in every area and in places of daily use like supermarkets," Rafferty says.

University degrees followed by research into the effects of hospitalisation on those with psychiatric illness first gave Rafferty a taste for social care. Unable to get a place on his chosen course, he trained as a psychiatric nurse at Leverndale, one of Glasgow's large hospitals.

"Almost to my surprise, I found that I enjoyed it tremendously," he says, describing the first of a series of unlikely moves. By 1978 he had made a move to social care, becoming the director of the volunteer centre in Glasgow. "It started with a couple of staff and grew like Topsy," Rafferty says with clear understatement. Within 10 years, unashamedly taking advantage of every government sponsored scheme, the centre was responsible for almost 2,000 employees.

Then he set up the Scottish Foundation. Ahead of its time, the organisation established and part-owned businesses that ploughed their profits back into voluntary groups and social care.

Cardinal Thomas Winning spotted Rafferty's business acumen and organisational skills, recruiting him to overview the archdiocese's social services strategy. A £12 million deficit did not deter him from taking the post, quickly devising a five-year plan.

"Within three years the organisation was on a level financial footing," he declares as if the whole episode was about balance sheets and belying the considerable achievements in the development of services.

His task complete, Rafferty moved on to become the first Scottish director of the National Lottery Charity Board. Emphasising that his brief included UK responsibilities, it is with an obvious hint of satisfaction he declares: "In the first year, we distributed £100 million to voluntary organisations throughout Scotland."

Then came a move that was to prove bittersweet. With devolution, Rafferty became the principal special adviser to the first minister in the Scottish parliament, Donald Dewar. It was an appointment that was to end suddenly in 1999 under controversial circumstances. He still smarts from that episode and the considerable media coverage but can look back on the positive: "We set up a parliament that worked and succeeded in forming the first coalition government in the UK since the war. An exhausting time but extremely rewarding."

Before long, Rafferty's skills were sought again and he took over the reins of TimeBank. Rafferty has come a long and interesting route from Leverndale psychiatric hospital. Speak with him for a short while and the satisfaction he gets from his work is apparent - a satisfaction he believes others can gain from volunteering.

"We will encourage people to be selfish in that sense," he says. "TimeBank will be the only bank you get more out of than you put in."