This blog post by Katy Swaine Williams was originally posted on the Prisoners’ Education Trust website

In conducting this study for Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET) on young women’s education in prison, I spoke to eight very different women, each with distinct, recent experiences of – and leading up to – imprisonment between the ages of 18 and 24. Five of the women were still in prison when we spoke.

It was striking to me how much importance all of the women placed on their education – past, present and future – and how determined many of them were, or had been, to access the best available opportunities in prison to help them make the most of the rest of their lives.

Most of the women were readily able to recall the areas of school life which they had enjoyed and achievements of which they felt proud, whether this was in sport, maths, cookery or psychology. This was accompanied for many by vivid recollections of negative experiences, including bullying and feeling unsupported by teachers, about which they clearly still felt the impact.

Some women described experiences of domestic abuse and coercive control which had had an impact on their experience of school and, in at least one case, continued to pose a risk to them while they were in custody.

For all the women in the study, it was clear that having access to purposeful activity in prison was fundamentally important. Whether through education, sport or employment, this was described as a source of satisfaction, distraction and relative normality, which helped them cope with incarceration.

Time spent inactive, on the wing, was something the women avoided wherever possible. For those who found themselves “stuck on the wing”, this appeared to lead to feelings of desperation and hopelessness.

Common barriers faced by young women

Recent research – including Gilly Sharpe’s longitudinal study Women, stigma and desistance from crime and the Young Women’s Justice project reports – has taught us about the ways in which young women who are often themselves the victims of serious crime or have experienced other forms of adversity (including early contact with the criminal justice system) can find themselves stigmatised, punished and ultimately abandoned by multiple state agencies, including the education system, social care system and criminal justice system. For many young women this builds upon similarly negative experiences during childhood.

This new study for PET echoes many of those findings and underlines how improving young women’s access to good quality education opportunities, both in prison and in the community, could help disrupt this negative narrative.

Like these eight individuals, all young women are different and no single approach to education in prison is going to suit every young woman. There is, however, a strong evidence base indicating common barriers faced by young women, which must form the foundation of future work to develop better educational opportunities for young women in prison.

We know that young women in prison are disproportionately likely to be suffering from mental health needs, often due to childhood trauma and abuse.

We know they are disproportionately likely to be at risk of ongoing gender-based abuse and exploitation.

We know that our understanding of girls’ experience of exclusion in education is under-developed.

We know from work by Milk Honey Bees and others that Black girls experience “adultification” and other harms in the education system.

We know that the over-representation of Black women and women from minority ethnic backgrounds throughout the criminal justice system is particularly acute for young women and even worse for girls. This points to experiences of discrimination which inevitably begin well before the prison gate and is a trend which we ignore at our peril.

There is also more work to be done – informed by insights from young women themselves – to fill gaps in our knowledge and develop solutions. For example, it was not possible in this study to explore the experiences of young migrant women, and this is one of a number of areas that need to be explored further.

Addressing system failures

The experiences of the eight young women in this study point to system failures which the Ministry of Justice’s planned Young Women’s Strategy – first promised in 2021 – must begin to address.

We have recommended that the strategy should include specific attention to improving access to good quality education and employment, informed through co-production with young women with relevant lived experience – including Black women, women from minority ethnic backgrounds and migrant young women – and women’s specialist services.

We have proposed that a more specialised structure should be put in place for young women in custody, modelled on provision for children with appropriate modifications, and filled with opportunities for meaningful and purposeful activity.

Several of the women described the lack of provision in prison to meet their mental health needs, including delays in mental health assessments, and subsequent delays in provision of support. Education helped some young women to cope with this, but the lack of mental health support was also felt as a barrier to engagement. We have highlighted the need for prompt assessments of mental health needs and of any ongoing risk of harm to young women from domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women and girls, as well as prompt provision of support, to aid their engagement in education.

It will be necessary to engage and retain highly skilled staff, with adequate resources, to ensure education opportunities are accessible to young women, that they are used as an opportunity to help improve mental wellbeing and confidence, and that they provide an effective stepping stone to future opportunities post-release – with appropriate ambition for young women’s futures. Having transitional support to continue with education and access employment post-release will also be key.

Barrow Cadbury Trust’s Chair, Erica Cadbury, was one of the speakers at the launch of ACF’s Origin’s of Wealth Toolkit in April.  Here is an edited version of that presentation.  

I was very pleased to be one of the presenters at the launch of ACF’s Origins of Wealth Toolkit.  It has in it a wealth of information and guidance which will help trustee boards,  their teams, and their stakeholders engage with this difficult issue in a positive way, both in foundations and in the wider voluntary sector. 

Trustee boards of foundations are used to making strategic decisions about investing, managing and spending our endowments.  We don’t think of this as introspection but a necessary activity. So is an exploration of the origins of our endowments fundamentally different?  Yes – it is introspective but it is also a vital strategic activity and encourages trusts and foundations to take responsibility for the origins of their wealth, (rather than seeing it as a ‘money tree’). 

Every foundation is unique but all our endowments came from somewhere and that is our commonality.   We are all affected by the generation of wealth and those of us who derive our wealth from 19th and 20th century industrialisation in the UK have to understand that this has its roots in colonialism, as it was colonisation that fed the enormous growth in the British economy in those centuries. 

Colonialism depends on a belief in the right to exploit both lands and people and that right was predicated on a belief in racial superiority.   And as Esther Kosayee says in the Toolkit these “historical injustices and power imbalances persist in society today”. 

Even those whose interface with the  transatlantic trafficking of enslaved African people may appear tangential can use the tool kit to address the origins of our wealth.  

Barrow Cadbury Trust’s exploration began in 2020 with the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.    As a trust founded 100 years ago, based on company wealth derived from long after Abolition, we felt  that as a Quaker heritage trust, with a 50 years + commitment to racial justice we were secure in our historical narrative.  We began from that position. 

But historical events can get forgotten very easily (and conveniently) and we discovered that we were not so immune.  There is a very well-documented series of events in which the main Quaker chocolate makers of the late 19th century were engaged – which involved enslavement on a smaller scale off the coast of Africa.  But it directly involved one of our founders, Barrow Cadbury, and this, once encountered, could not be ignored.  After research and deep discussion amongst trustees, we decided to make an apology.  You can see this and our thinking behind it on our website. 

We, as a team of trustees and staff are now on a journey – we now see things from a new perspective, and we must continue to integrate our discoveries with our present day vision, mission and values, linking our history to our commitment to racial justice and to a more dynamic engagement with anti-racism.  And we have to find the time and ways to do this.   

It is not easy.  It is demanding of trustees, it may challenge the very heart of trusteeship.  It may be emotionally taxing if we are direct descendants of our founders.  But it may also be demanding of those appointed as trustees who do not hold any familial responsibility for the acts of the founders.  But it is definitely worth doing and this tool kit will provide advice and guidance to assist you in that journey.  

As we wrap up and evaluate the Connect Fund, we share some of the learning and resources in the second in this blog mini-series.  

What was the Challenging Power with Participation Fund aiming to achieve? 

This strand of funding aimed to support projects that address specific problems in the social investment sector by challenging power and decision-making. The Fund was looking for projects that: 

• Addressed power imbalances with principles of design justice, prioritising equity, diversity and inclusion 

• Were driven by partnerships designed to impact the wider sector rather than individual organisations 

• Built and disseminated knowledge in the sector and piloted ideas that had the potential to crowd in further financing  

The Fund supported two projects that aimed to increase Participatory Investing. 

Participatory Investing is the process of shifting the power of investment decisions to a broader spectrum of citizens. This strand supported projects that piloted community involvement in investment committees – promoting social investors, foundations and local authorities to invest democratically in their local areas. 

Participatory Investing  

Barking and Dagenham Giving and The Curiosity Society’s project Democratic Money 

Barking and Dagenham Giving worked with The Curiosity Society (TCS) to give ordinary people more control over how money is generated, distributed, and used. The grant allowed BD Giving to extend the work of their Community Steering Group, a group of residents that has led the design of their Investment Policy, by onboarding new members and creating an alumni community. Curiosity Society supported partners in different geographical areas to learn from this model and start to build their own versions of democratic money.  

A wealth of resources emerged from this project: Learn More about UK’s 1st Community-led Investment Fund on Barking & Dagenham Giving’s website, as well as its Participation Framework and Visit Curiosity Societies Democratic Money Landing Page  

Watch Kneading Memories, Rising Futures: a local film about our participatory investment story and I’m an Investor Now to meet the members of the Community Steering Group. 

Who was involved?: an audio story about Barking & Dagenham Giving’s journey 

Chapter 1: Setting up a Community-led Investment Fund  

Chapter 2: How was the money spent? 

Chapter 3: What’s the difference the money has made? 

Shift Foundation & Trust for London’s Impact Custodian Investment Committee 

https://medium.com/shift-design/a-pilot-in-participatory-social-investment-putting-people-at-the-heart-of-decisions-0230111870d0 

This pilot focused on the structure of social investment committees, which predominately favours ‘learned experience’ rather than ‘lived experience’. It developed ‘Vested’ as one of the first participatory social investment projects in the UK explicitly focused on bringing people with lived experience of the social issue together – in this case – youth unemployment in London. The goal for this pilot was to test if people with little to no experience of investment, but personal experience of an issue, can make a meaningful investment decision. Or whether – as can be the prevailing view – social investment is too complex to bring in non ‘expert’ voices. In short, Shift learned that not only is it possible (all of the investments put forward by the panel were ratified by the Trust for London Board) but the approach also opens up opportunities for collaboration and impact beyond traditional investment processes and decision-making structures. Alongside this work, Shift assembled a social investor Consortium of 5-7 organisations interested in changing how they make decisions. 

Read the learning report on participatory social investment alongside open-sourced resources for funders interested in exploring participatory funding approaches. Shift has also published a blog about why community participation is important with recommendations for the sector to take forward.  

Finance By Design 

The Fund supported three projects using co-design and participation in the design process to solve problems in the market. 

Our approach was to ask what if financial programmes were designed not only for, but by and with the people they are supporting? This strand supported projects to design financial products that better meet the needs of charities and social enterprises, by including them in the decision-making process. 

Capacity’s Project Local Authorities Socially Investing 

https://thisiscapacity.co.uk/portfolio/fuelling-change-in-the-liverpool-city-region/ 

Public services are facing their most severe challenges in decades with increasing budget pressures and high levels of demand right across the public service landscape. To meet these mounting pressures, there is an appetite across Liverpool City Region to do things differently. Capacity is an intermediary with the goal to make public services ‘people services’, to take things back to their original purpose – to make people’s lives better – and often that requires thinking and doing things differently. With the support of the Connect Fund, Capacity have been exploring the opportunities and challenges around social investment partnerships with local authorities, and what can be done to increase these to better meet the region’s public service challenges.  

Capacity shared its report exploring the role of local authorities and social investment in making public services people services ‘Fuelling Change in The Liverpool City Region’. 

To read how it can be done, don’t miss the Blueprint & Case example How Local Authority social investment can unlock new approaches to some of the region’s biggest challenges. 

Social Finance’s Project ‘Social Investment: A Catalyst for Transformation in Health and Social Care’ 

https://www.socialfinance.org.uk/work/hsc-social-investment-hub 

Stakeholders at major health charities, hospital-based charities, NHS partners, and foundations agree that whilst inroads have been made into normalising social investment, it remains a mystery to the sector. Following the NHS Confederation’s statement that ‘every Integrated Care System should have a portfolio of social investment’ this project sought to get under the bonnet of ‘but how?’ and provide practical tools to make this a reality. Building on Social Finances’ work on the Care and Wellbeing Fund, the aim of this project is to increase awareness, understanding and ultimately the use of social investment by the VCSE sector. This Social Finance project brought together Heads of Integrated Care Boards and NHS charities to discuss experiences and opportunities for social investment. It has launched a landing page to collate the work and act as an ongoing information hub. 

Repowering London’s project to challenge power with community energy 

https://www.repowering.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/A-Participatory-Toolkit-for-Building-More-Inclusive-Community-Energy-Co-operatives-4-June-2024.pdf 

Repowering London is a community energy development organisation focusing on supporting  Londoners to participate in and benefit from the transition to a low carbon society. It currently supports and facilitates eight energy co-operatives seeking to transform the energy sector through an emphasis on community co-operation and ownership, affordable green energy, and a redistribution of profits to benefit local communities. Repowering London conducted research on their community share offer to broaden, deepen and strengthen membership from under-represented communities. ‘Challenging power with community energy’ recruited and trained two Community Researchers in participatory research methods to enhance their practice of co-design as an organisation and launching, ‘A Participatory Toolkit for Building More Inclusive Community Energy Co-operatives’. 

Although the research has primarily focused on increasing diversity in London-based community energy co-operatives, the approaches and tools are useful for the wider co-operative sector in the UK. This project ties in very closely with a project from Ubele Initiatives who are working with the Community Shares nit which is looking at the demographics of people leading community share initiatives.  

This blog by Anna Garlands at Huddlecraft, was originally posted on Medium in May 2024.

In Spring 2023, Birmingham’s Economic Justice Action (EJA) Network was initiated, with the core aim of bringing folks in the city together to tackle the root causes of economic injustice. In its pilot phase, the Network organisers — Barrow Cadbury Trust, the EJA Advisory Group and Huddlecraft — gathered individuals from impacted communities, community and campaign groups, and civil society organisations to pull focus on the economic systems that perpetuate and amplify inequality in the city.

When we talk about the economy we are referring to complex and interdependent systems related to resources; money, buildings, land, food, energy, people’s time. The economy is about how these resources are used for different purposes, and how decisions about distribution of those resources are made.

The economy is for everyone. We are all part of the economy, and therefore we have a right to input into how it works. Furthermore, we should be able to challenge those in power on their economic choices and values.

“Now I feel a lot more clear on the link between the economy and justice. Seeing how it all interacts has been so helpful. These meetings have taken away some of the fear around the word economics.” Network member

The story so far

The Network meetings began in August 2023, and the Network membership has been steadily growing and gathering on a bi-monthly basis. The key objectives of the Network meetings have been to:

• connect with and relate to one another as learners and change-makers, reducing isolation and creating a sense of community in what are increasingly challenging times;
• learn about economic justice through various angles of approach, including gender equality, racial justice and alternative economic models;
• plot and showcase where positive momentum currently exists in Birmingham, and the organisations, projects and campaigns that are driving change;
• share opportunities to engage with local action, campaigns, training and events that seek to build a more economically just city.

“The training opportunities that have arisen through being here are amazing. The Network has given me confidence to have an opinion and a platform. I don’t come from an organisation, I’m just here and I feel valued in this space.” Network member

Over the course of eight months a total of 96 people have engaged with the Network, and we have gathered together six times.

Each meeting has adopted a lens with which to examine the different intersections of economic justice. We are grateful to the speakers who have presented research, reports and data related to the various lenses, workshopping key themes, and inviting the group to apply ideas and learning to the Birmingham context. Each meeting has felt unique in its own right, and yet there have been common threads woven throughout the series: the opportunity to meet with and learn alongside new and existing connections; the development of a shared definition of economic justice; and the plotting and synthesising of projects and people pushing for progress in the city and beyond.

“It’s not just about the work that we’re doing but actually how we connect with one another, because what we’ve got to build is an ecosystem. We’re not looking for one solution to this, we’re looking for thousands of different solutions that all fit together in a slightly imperfect way. Even here, we’ve got a critical mass of knowledge and relationships and skills that could be a tipping point, that’s the hopeful thing.” Network member

The pilot phase journey

We began our journey with two events — a Taster session and the Kick Off — inviting people living and working in Birmingham to join us to learn about economic systems, to input on what economic justice means to them and to share ideas on the areas or themes that could be focused on in the ongoing meetings. Read more about these events.

Session 1… As we journeyed beyond the Kick Off, we looked at economic justice through the first lens of Community Wealth Building. We heard from Conrad Parke from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), who presented the potential of Community Wealth Building to re-model the economy in Birmingham. Read more about what happened in the session here.

Session 2… The lens shifted to racial justice and the economy in our next meeting. Asif Afridi from brap and Tanita Lewis from People’s Economy presented on this topic, shining a light on the capitalist economic system and its roots in and reliance on the subjugation, enslavement, colonisation and oppression of minoritised groups. Tanita and Asif proposed that anti-racism and reparations equate to racial and economic justice, and with that sentiment in mind we explored what it would take and what it would look like to build a truly anti-racist Birmingham. The importance of holding city leaders and their anti-racist credentials to account emerged as a clear need, amongst others.

We moved from surfacing the learning around this crucial intersection of economic justice, to a dynamic workshop on Movement Ecology, delivered by NEON. NEON offers training for campaigners, organisers, communications and operations teams working across social movements, and their session with us examined the alchemy and ingredients of movement building. NEON presented their three approaches to social change:

1. Personal empowerment: empowering, developing and healing individuals, so that we can move towards a more holistic and compassionate society that will in turn create the foundations for wider systemic change.
2. Building alternatives: alternative institutions and cultures creating change by experimenting with alternative ways of doing and being in the world.
3. Challenging dominant institutions: challenging governments and corporations so we can change life more significantly and for more people than by other means.

The group split up to represent these three approaches, expanding on the merits of each, and driving home the point that we need people attending to all three areas in order to enable effective movement building.

“There is a real sense of how there is absolutely a role for every single person in every single experience and single way of working to change these systemic realities that we all try to survive within, because this economic system just fundamentally isn’t fit for people or planet.” Network member

Session 3… The next meeting adopted the lens of gender inequality and economic justice. We were joined by Mary-Ann Stephenson from the Women’s Budget Group, who offered compelling data that opened our eyes to the glaring economic disparity between genders.

The data shared by the Women’s Budget Group was complemented by a session with Emma Marks from The Equality Trust, and specifically the Community Reporting project. Community Reporting is a storytelling movement that supports people to tell their own stories, in their own ways and, furthermore, to weave these stories together to create a shared tapestry of care and community. We heard from Community Reporters who are trained to gather the stories of people living on the hard edge of economic injustice, and we tried using some of the tools and methods ourselves. At the end of the session we were treated to a moving performance from the Choir with No Name, a national initiative bringing people affected by homelessness together to sing and connect.

Session 4… In our final session of the pilot phase we were joined by Kavita Purohit, who shared the work that CIVIC SQUARE have been doing in Birmingham around demonstrating alternative economic systems. Kavita deftly explained that this demonstration is a critical part of the story when we are looking to influence emerging economic strategy. Economic systems are in obvious decline and when they fail, we will need alternatives to come into play. This is the work that CIVIC SQUARE is driving forward in Birmingham and beyond, with mutual care and community at the core.

In the latter part of the meeting we took some time to evaluate the journey of the Network in its pilot phase, asking the group how the space has impacted them, what they would like to see more and less of, and the actions that have arisen for them personally, as a result of attending the Network. Some feedback from our Network members can be found below.

• “I’ve appreciated the different themes in each meeting, I’ve learnt so much each time. Sometimes I come into the meetings thinking ‘I’m not sure how this fits with what I do’, but there is always so much to explore. It has really shifted my thinking.”
• “There aren’t many spaces in Birmingham where people can come together and have a shared value system. Everyone here is passionate about justice.”
• What has emerged is opportunity. Opportunity to implement change and have a positive impact in Birmingham as a collective unit. I have been to two sessions and I can see how it could all come together. I can see the vision.”

What does the future hold?

We understand that these spaces for community, learning and action are desperately needed in these times, and so we will continue to meet, building the movement towards a more economically just Birmingham.

We have seen impressive turnouts at each meeting, with a steady growth of interest and engagement. Feedback from members shows that people feel empowered by the knowledge they have gained in the meetings, and that a crucial sense of belonging has been cultivated through the development of strong relationships.

Many questions have emerged through the pilot phase, and we are holding the following enquiries (and more!) with curiosity as we move forward…

• Who is missing from the conversation, and how do we engage a Network that is representative of the city?
• How can we influence change outside of the Network space?
• How do we build a truly co-developed and co-led Network?
• Where are the gaps in our knowledge about the economic systems that we live within, and who can help us to plug those gaps?
• What alternative economic models do we want to learn about and test within Birmingham and beyond?

Email [email protected] to receive details and registration instructions. We look forward to welcoming you.

As we wrap up and evaluate the Connect Fund in the coming months, we share some of the learning in this mini-series of blogs.  

Inspired by the work of our grant partners in the Challenging Power with Participation Funding strand we wanted to test out solving problems in the social investment sector with our own participatory model: ‘The Gathering Ideas Fund’. The Gathering is a two-day residential conference bringing together over 130 of the country’s most prominent social investors, infrastructure organisations, foundations and social enterprises. As the Connect Fund has a dual role of providing grants and helping to convene the sector, we saw the conference as a unique opportunity to host the fund, as too often sector conferences discuss the problems and not the solutions. We knew that we wanted the Gathering to have a grant budget behind it, then letting the participants take that control was the natural next step.  

The aim of the fund was to ensure that the challenges and ideas being discussed could be followed up to deliver real tangible outputs. The fund on offer consisted of 5 x £10k Grants to allow social investment funds or intermediary organisations to explore feasibility studies for ideas. 

What were we looking for? 

• Ideas, research or pilots that strengthen the social investment market to be better suited to the charities and social enterprises 
• Developed in partnership with another organisation 
• Budget up to £10,000 

Wellbeing Protocol App  

We worked with an app called the Wellbeing Protocol for attendees to submit ideas and vote on their favourites. The ideas were shared on the app for all to view and voted on throughout the two-day conference. The voting allowed attendees to allocate points using quadratic system based on how much they liked each idea. This worked really well, ensuring a huge amount of engagement from participants, with 19 ideas submitted and a final five chosen collectively by over 100 people. 

The Winning Ideas

Equal Care Co-op Limited Care Shares Legal Framework 

Convene partners to design a transferable share offer capable of widening investor participation into both co-operatives and social enterprises. 

There are currently significant structural barriers to investment in co-operative societies, preventing growth and disincentivising founders to choose the co-operative structure. Equal Care Co-op have identified the problem as a barrier to their own growth and want to solve the market challenge for itself and other organisations. The goal of the project is to design a transferable share offer capable of widening investor participation into both co-operatives and social enterprises.  

New Philanthropy Capital Scaling patient and flexible capital 

Leveraging Trusts & Foundations to catalyse social investment.  

This project aims to address a capital gap within the social investment market by developing an investment structure that enables trusts, foundations, and/or other types of high-impact organisations to work together using the strength of their balance sheets to help lower the cost of capital through credit enhancements and loan guarantees, in order to raise additional long-term capital at scale.  

I For Change Ltd A Security Trustee suitable for Social Investors 

Explore the idea of a Security Trustee for the social investment market.   

As many social investment deals are secured loans where there is more than one investor, there is usually a need for a Security Trustee – a body charged with administrative tasks and realising the value of the security in a default scenario. Where a security trustee has been required, often one of the investors has volunteered to take on the role and accompanying responsibilities. However, experience to date with trusts and foundations, and social investment funds, is that people do not want to do it anymore: they volunteer to do it, experience a default, and say, “never again”. The alternative is a commercial security trustee paid to fulfil the role by the investors. Feedback from The Gathering participants is that they are not entities that ‘understand’ impact, and indeed may be associated with activities that generate negative impact (extractive mining was specifically mentioned). This project would like to explore the possibility of setting up a Security Trustee fit for the domestic social investment market, and disseminate the findings to the wider social impact investment sector. 

EIRIS Foundation Social Investment in Charity Pooled Funds 

Understanding the barriers and opportunities for Social Investment in Charity Pooled Funds. 

EIRIS will build on its existing research regarding responsible investment in charity pooled funds, exploring the current level of ‘social investment’ in charity pooled funds and scoping the barriers and issues that are preventing further social investment. Many charity investments have expressed a desire to hold social investments but various barriers are preventing the growth of the market.  EIRIS would like to research and document these levels and explore solutions to overcome barriers to growth. This significant pool of charity assets could potentially be part of a transformative shift towards more social investment and allow even smaller charities to access social investments. 

Business Under Development (BUD Leaders) Facilitating Black Brilliance – Demystifying Social Investment 

A workshop and materials to demystify social investment for Black and racialised entrepreneurs. 

The aim of the project is to dismantle the barriers faced by Black-led and racialised entrepreneurs to understanding and accessing Social Investment. This will be delivered by designing a follow-on process from capacity building such as a webinar/workshop/interactive web page/video series/downloadable documents. The goals of this project are for a better understanding of Social Investment for Black-led and racialised entrepreneurs, with more social investment opportunities taken up as a result.

Our reflections  

A live conference was the perfect playground for participation. By hosting the fund at a conference we already had our community defined and engaged (well, perhaps cajoled) into participating. As the goal of the fund was to benefit the sector, the attendees were perfectly placed to judge the ideas as they would be the ones affected by the projects. In our pilot we really saw the benefits of using the hive mind for grant making rather than relying on a small team to make decisions on behalf of others. 

Process is still important. The Barrow Cadbury Trust needs to uphold our legal and governance commitments to a high standard. We still needed to complete our financial and regulatory due diligence on the grants being awarded to the organisations but we looked at our own processes to ensure they were as streamlined as possible for the organisations participating. We also wanted to ensure that any reporting required is targeted, flexible to the project and not unnecessarily onerous.  

We would love to see more of this  

The final project reports will be available in June, so we look forward to sharing the findings and resources created from the fund. We look forward to seeing more examples of participation in social infrastructure work, with new technology like the Wellbeing Protocol there are so many more opportunities for decentralised decision-making in social investment and philanthropy – this is just the beginning. 

Ben

Increasingly, foundations are showing an interest in systems change work as a means of achieving greater impact when tackling intractable issues. From our point of view this is to be welcomed. In this report, IVAR and BCT have attempted to explore the conditions needed for this model of working. We offer this for others to sense check whether they have – or even want to develop – those conditions.

Telling the story of Transition to Adulthood (T2A) – Barrow Cadbury Trust’s collaborative criminal justice campaign making the case to policy makers, practitioners and sentencers for a distinct approach for young adults (18 to 25-year-olds) – presented an opportunity to press pause, and do a deep dive. It also felt like a good fit with our wider work on facilitating shifts towards more open and trusting grant-making.

As researchers, the story makes a compelling case for funders to be active in systems change. It might be different and difficult, but the gains can be profound and significant. But there is also much that may alarm those interested. The field expertise required to work in this way; the uncertainty and unpredictability around success; the open-ended nature of the commitment; the complexity of the collaboration – most or all of these are a far cry from traditional grant programmes. It reminds us that systems change isn’t for the faint-hearted, for people in a hurry, or for people who prefer order and certainty of outcome. It’s messy, it’s erratic, and you’re never really sure what’s just around the comer.

Our intention, though, is not just to deter or discourage. Trusts and foundations – with their wealth of assets and their independence – are uniquely placed to support systems change They have the money, the time, and the patience. They can afford to take risks, to shift power, to disrupt. To play a leading role, like Barrow Cadbury Trust, or to be a patient cheerleader. All of these choices – to do it well and thoroughly – are in their gift.

Sara

At Barrow Cadbury Trust we see ourselves as actors in civil society, not just supporters of it. We are rooted in the social justice values of Quakerism, although of all faiths and none. We work purposefully to tackle the root causes as well as manifestations of injustice, alongside coalitions and ecologies of others who share our desire for change.

However, working like this demands a number of conditions which are significantly different to those which many foundations can provide. By setting them out here we hope they will prove useful to others either considering or embarking on this kind of work for the first time. The most important of these is a long time horizon: real systemic or structural change takes many different hands working together over a long period.

Rest assured, we do not think that this is the ‘right’ or the ‘better’ way. It’s a way and it’s our way but there are many ways to assist changemakers and this is just one of them. What matters is that we each do deliberately and consistently what we can do best.

This is a joint blog being co-hosted on the Barrow Cadbury Trust and IVAR websites.

This latest briefing from AYJ has cast a harsh spotlight on the failings of our justice system to address the racial disparities that have blighted many young people’s lives. From an early age, many Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic young people find themselves associated with criminal stereotypes. Labelling young people in this way is incredibly damaging, eroding self-belief and making it harder to move towards a pro-social identity. Once Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic children enter the justice system, they are less likely to be diverted, more likely to receive harsher sentences, and more likely to be sent to custody, sentenced or on remand, compared to white children. 

“Guilty before proven innocent… you kind of learn authority figures don’t actually care.” – (Young person) 

This can create a huge gulf in understanding and trust between Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic young adults and the professionals working in the system.  Sadly, these findings confirm what many of us working in the sector already expected. That’s why I welcome AYJ drilling down into the causes of this crisis, and what needs to change to deliver better outcomes. Too often, we focus solely on what’s not working and forget that we must create a roadmap for the future we wish to see. 

An over-stretched and under-resourced system

It’s clear that even with a diverse workforce, culturally competent training, and the best will in the world, the probation service is struggling to keep its head above water.  A professional quoted in the briefing had this to say: “Record levels of staff sickness, extended sick leave, people fleeing the service in droves – that then exacerbates every other issue we have. We can’t be ambitious, we can’t be progressive, we can’t make many changes if you’re barely able to keep the regime running.” There are many admirable professionals working in the system who want to do better for young adults, but they don’t have the time, resources, or support to implement creative approaches.  Without sufficient investment, the system can barely meet young adults’ basic needs – let alone support them to take steps towards a more positive future.  

Collaboration with the VCSE sector

In this depressing climate, the work of voluntary and community organisations has become even more vital.  Specialist Black and Ethnic Minority-led organisations have an intimate understanding of the communities Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic young people come from and how their experiences inform their behaviour and identity. As the research highlights, these grassroots organisations are well placed to provide nuanced support that recognises these young people’s overlapping needs – support that statutory services would struggle to provide. 

These organisations are also more likely to have lived experience embedded in their staff and support services, meaning they can provide peer mentoring and positive role models – both of which are essential components in facilitating the shift towards a pro-social identity.  

Ring-fenced funding to commission specialist organisations

I believe that we could take this further by developing a model where specialist Black and Minority-Ethnic led grassroots organisations are commissioned to operate services in their communities. Funding would be ring fenced for these local organisations who have the expertise to deliver the best outcomes.  This model could be supported by local roundtables where information and knowledge are shared regularly so that young adults can access support from multiple agencies. Meeting in this way will also help criminal justice agencies better understand how these organisations are well placed to support young adults. Having buy in from all partners will be vital to the success of this model. 

The Newham Transition to Adulthood Hub is a great example of how this approach can work in practice. They have a wide variety of services in one space, so staff can consult each other on individual cases and referrals to different services are much easier and more efficient. Regular spotlight sessions are held where different teams share their expertise and explain how their services can benefit young adults.  

Grassroots organisations excluded from funding opportunities

Unfortunately, the AYJ’s report found that organisations with strong community links and knowledge are effectively excluded from funding opportunities. They lack the resources to compete with larger organisations who can meet the excessive commissioning processes and compliance requirements demanded by the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS.  However, many of these larger organisations lack the knowledge and cultural competence to successfully deliver these services. Shockingly, they often sub-contract their services at a lower rate to the very grassroots organisations that have been denied a place at the table. 

It is crucial that the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS immediately reform VCS funding allocation so that specialist Black and Minority-Ethnic led grassroots organisations can build the capacity of their services – ensuring every young person receives age-appropriate, trauma-informed, culturally competent services that reflect their entire lived experience. 

Authority (FCA) is sending strong signals that it will tackle premium finance, with its Director of General Insurance Matthew Brewis effectively calling it a poverty premium this week:

“It is a tax on being poor. Those who are paying monthly are subsidising those who can afford to pay annually.”

It’s not the first time that Matthew Brewis has talked about the need for action on premium finance being used to charge people more for paying monthly. When we launched our latest report on insurance poverty premiums with the Social Market Foundation (SMF) last spring, Matthew said that the FCA had been engaging CEOs on premium finance. He said that the FCA expected the prices charged for paying monthly to be proportionate with the credit risk for the cost of providing that service. Matthew questioned why some consumers experienced such high rates, saying it was not “really apparent why’s it’s appropriate for APRs at 30% or above charged to consumers”. You can watch him here:

The Association of British Insurers, in turn, said they agreed on the need to collaborate with Treasury and the FCA on some of the issues identified in our report. 

The Shadow City Minister Tulip Siddiqi MP spoke at the same launch event and agreed action was urgently needed. Tulip pledged to make the case for any incoming Labour Government to prioritise tackling how expensive it is for people on low incomes who pay monthly for their insurance: “Too often it’s just more expensive to be poor, which is not how we want the country to be run”.   

What is the impact of premium finance on people on low incomes?

Our latest research with the SMF shows that over half of people in poverty are finding it difficult to pay for their insurance during the cost-of-living crisis – leading some to give up insurance as they prioritise food and energy bills.  

This research described how paying monthly for car insurance can cost £160 more a year than paying everything upfront. These extra costs have a knock-on effect on take-up amongst people on low incomes. Zahada, who has lived experience of this issue, explains how she had to pay monthly for her daughter’s car insurance because they didn’t have all the money to pay upfront. That has cost them an extra 10%, or around £200. You can hear directly from her in this video: 

We want to see action 

We have an opportunity to end this poverty premium for good. There are strong signals from the regulator and, we believe, increasing willingness from industry to collaborate. In an election year, we are calling for political parties to make addressing the poverty premium part of their commitments. We want to see a UK where everyone pays a fair price for essential services and where it doesn’t cost more to be poor. 

———————————————————————————————————————————— 

A call for meaningful action on joint enterprise was made in the House of Lords some weeks ago, amid new evidence that current laws act in a discriminatory way and require a parliamentary response.  Parliamentarians from all three main political parties raised questions following Lord Woodley asking the government: 

“What steps they are taking to address concerns that joint enterprise case law operates in a harsh way against young black men.” 

New data 

The question followed new data on joint enterprise released by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) last month. The data is the first official research in over a decade about joint enterprise, the common term for the set of legal principles that allows more than one person to be prosecuted in relation to the same incident. 

The CPS monitoring pilot, which tracked homicide and attempted homicide in six CPS areas, found Black young men aged 18-25 were the largest demographic prosecuted. Referring to the findings, Lord Woodley said: 

“Black people are 16 times -I repeat, 16 times- more likely than white people to be prosecuted for homicide or attempted homicide under joint enterprise laws. It is absolutely shocking, as I am sure your Lordships all agree. Does the Minister therefore agree that this proves indisputably that joint enterprise is being used in a racist way by prosecutors, and basically as a dragnet to hoover up black urban youth?”  

The CPS findings confirm those of previous studies. Last year research from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, supported by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, found these trends have been consistent over at least the last decade.  

Calls for the CPS to monitor joint enterprise prosecutions date back to a Justice Committee brief inquiry in 2014.  However, the CPS only agreed to monitor joint enterprise prosecutions earlier this year following legal action by the campaign group JENGbA. Their case drew on several Barrow Cadbury Trust funded research publications, including Dangerous Associations and the Usual Suspects.  

Next steps 

In Thursday’s debate, Lord Marks of Henley on Thames questioned the use of racialised ‘gang’ strategies in the prosecution of groups. Several peers also raised concerns about the high threshold for appeal faced by those convicted under controversial laws.   

Pressed about what the government is doing in response to the data, Lord Bellamy conceded: 

“It is an essential part of our criminal law to have a joint enterprise doctrine. The question is: where are the edges to the doctrine?” 

He set out plans for the CPS to extend its monitoring of joint enterprise across England and Wales and to review its guidance on ‘gangs’. Both are welcome. However, neither are new actions, having previously been agreed in the legal settlement reached with JENGbA.   

Helen Mills, Head of Programmes at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, who are currently supported by Barrow Cadbury Trust on this issue, said: 

“We welcome the questions Lord Woodley and other peers are raising about young adults and joint enterprise. They demonstrate significant concerns, and questions about joint enterprise are a cross party issue. This requires the government to step up and commit to a comprehensive inquiry to address whether the current laws and practices underpinning them are fit for purpose, and what a fair, just approach to prosecuting groups looks like. They should not be to be dismissed by government as simply a legal matter to be left to the courts.”