Funder collaboration is an increasingly normal part of the way foundations work. Issues as diverse as migration, mental health stigma, early intervention, women and multiple disadvantage, and child sexual exploitation are being approached by funder collaboratives of varying shapes and sizes. It still appears to be a new idea, however, to explicitly set out with the aim of co-creating priorities and actions with those working in NGOs in the field – in other words a genuinely mixed alliance. This is the story of one such alliance, one between race equality organisations and funders.

It started with a call from the Big Lottery Fund, which led to a loose alliance of funders coming together over a shared concern about ethnic inequality and social justice in late 2015. This was a diverse group working on a wide range of issues – health and wellbeing, poverty, criminal justice, arts and heritage, education, extreme disadvantage. The common thread is a concern about the stark ethnic inequalities that are apparent in systems and communities. In the criminal justice system, just to give one example, Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities are over-represented in prison: approximately 25% of prisoners are from a BAME background, compared with being only 13% of the wider population. The situation is worse for under-18s: over 40% of those in secure youth institutions are from BAME backgrounds, up significantly from 25% a decade ago. Despite decades of activism and legislation it is clear that we are not born equal: race and ethnicity still have a substantial impact on life chances and experiences.

Collective dialogue

Rather than funders deciding on a course of action, in early 2016 the funder alliance began a collective dialogue with key race equality organisations, co-creating a number of priority areas. This was and remains a complicated thing – power dynamics are at play, there are questions of who is and is not at the table. Can expectations raised by the coming together of so many funders be met? Are funders really prepared to be open about their processes and to change their practice?

We haven’t resolved these issues but we are still in dialogue, being as open as we can be with each other, building relationships and reminding ourselves of our shared purpose when things get difficult. Our work has started to crystallise around two issues, and jointly we are exploring the development of a strategic communications project, and a co-ordinated response to the government’s Race Disparity Unit (which will synthesise data on racial inequalities in public services).

Hate given licence

The work of our fledgling collaborative was given an added urgency by the Referendum last June and the spike in hate crime that followed it. It is unlikely this represented a sudden upsurge in racist sentiment. Instead it seems that the rhetoric surrounding the referendum, and the post-referendum environment, has made people with racist or xenophobic views feel more comfortable expressing these openly. The election of Donald Trump and the rise of the far right across Europe adds to the sense of a continuing trend and to the importance of renewed engagement with this issue and solidarity with those directly affected.

In our collaborative, the race equality organisations reported on a growing unease and sense of threat felt by BAME organisations and communities. Funders were keen to identify some ‘quick wins’. Together we came up with ideas, which we offer as potentially helpful to others in the funder community who want to show solidarity with those affected:

• Talk about inequalities, race and racism. Mention it on your website. Name it as an issue. Keep it on the agenda.
• Talk to race equality organisations to find out what has happened post-referendum. Reporting mechanisms for hate crime are fragmented so it is not always easy to get a complete picture – supporting existing or new reporting mechanisms, or funding race equality bodies, is helpful.
• Use your convening power to bring people together to discuss the issues highlighted by the referendum and subsequent events and to consider how to respond together.
• Support work that brings people from different communities together in meaningful shared activity or in dialogue. Under the right conditions interpersonal contact is one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members.
• Review your own policies and procedures for unintentional bias against BAME organisations. Increasing your permeability might help with this – consider offering a secondment to someone from a local BAME organisation or inviting a review of your procedures.
• Few trusts and foundations are leading by example: our senior management teams and boards lack diversity. Are there steps that you can take to improve this, or to bring diverse voices into your organisation?

Reviewing our practice

As well as working collaboratively with the race equality sector, the funder group continues with its own separate cycle of meetings, at which we discuss and reflect on our own processes and learn from each other. Members have responded in a range of ways. For example, some have undertaken equalities audits or reviewed our grant-making practices. Several of us have made ourselves more open to BAME organisations through secondments. We are learning to be comfortable saying we haven’t got it right and we want to improve.

All trusts and foundations that want to increase their contribution to race equality are very welcome to join the funder alliance, the funder/race equality sector collaborative or both. We don’t have all the answers but we think working in the spirit of genuine partnership, with all the joys and challenges it brings, is the right thing to do.

For more information contact Cathy Stancer or Debbie Pippard

noppawan09/Shutterstock

The following article was originally published on The Conversation website by Lindsey Appleyard, Coventry University and Shaun French, University of Nottingham.

British governments have been trying to improve financial inclusion for the best part of 20 years. The goal is to make it easier for people on lower incomes to get banking services, but this simple-sounding target brings with it a host of problems.

A House of Lords committee has just published the latest report on this issue, but the genesis of financial inclusion policy can be traced back to the late 1990s as part of the Labour government’s social exclusion agenda. The scope and reach of this strategy has since expanded beyond a focus on access to products and now seeks to improve people’s financial literacy to help them make their own responsible decisions around financial services.

The goal of increasing the availability of basic banking has become a tool for tackling poverty and deprivation worldwide, among governments in the global north and global south and among key institutions. In 2014, the World Bank produced what it described as the world’s most comprehensive financial exclusion database based on interviews with 150,000 people in more than 140 countries.

Muddy waters

However, broad and enthusiastic acceptance of such policy efforts has prompted doubts about the simplistic narrative of inclusion and exclusion. This way of thinking does not capture the complexities of the links between the use of financial services and poverty, life chances and socio-economic mobility. It also ignores the sliding scale of financial inclusion, from the marginally included – who rely on basic bank accounts – through to the super-included with access to a full array of affordable financial services.

You can see the complexity and contradictions clearly in innovations such as subprime products and high-cost payday lenders. They have made it increasingly difficult to draw a clear distinction between the included and the excluded. Mis-selling scandals and concerns over high charges have also shown us that financial inclusion is no guarantee of protection from exploitative practices.

Even the pursuit of better financial education offers a mixed picture. Critics have raised concerns that this shifts the focus away from structural discrimination and towards the individual failings of “irresponsible and irrational” consumers. There is a grave risk that we will fail to tackle the root causes of financial exclusion, around insecure income and work, if policy follows this route.

In the midst of this focus on customers, the government’s role has been reduced to supporting those education programmes and cajoling mainstream banks, building societies and insurers into being more inclusive.

Given the central role that financial services play in shaping everyday lives, a hands-off approach from the state is inadequate. It fails to address the injustices produced by a grossly inequitable financial system. Our recent research examined how the idea of financial citizenship might offer a route to improvements. In particular, we looked at the idea of basic financial citizenship rights and the role that might be played by UK credit unions, the organisations which, supported by government, seek to bring financial services to those on low incomes.

The idea of establishing rights was put forward by geographers Andrew Leyshon and Nigel Thrift in response to the growing lack of access to mainstream financial services. The goal would be to recognise the significance of the financial system to everyday life and set in stone the right and ability of people to participate fully in the economy.

That sounds like a laudable aspiration, but what could a politics of financial citizenship entail in practice?

Drawing on the work of political economist Craig Berry and researcher Chris Arthur, we argue that the policy debate should move on to establish a set of universal financial rights, to which the citizens of a highly financialised society such as the UK are entitled regardless of their personal or economic situation.

1. The right to participate fully in political decision-making regarding the role and regulation of the financial system. This would entail, for example, the democratisation of money supply and of the work of regulators. Ordinary people would have to be able to meaningfully engage in debates about the social usefulness of the financial system.
2. The right to a critical financial citizenship education. Financial education needs to go beyond the simple provision of knowledge and skills to understand how the financial system is currently configured. It should provide citizens with the tools to be able to think critically about money and debt, as well as the capability to effect meaningful change of the financial system.
3. The right to essential financial services that are appropriate and affordable such as a transactional bank account, savings and insurance.
4. The right to a comprehensive state safety net of financial welfare provision. This could include a real living wage to prevent a reliance on debt to meet basic needs and could go all the way through to the provision of guarantees on the returns that can be expected from private pension schemes.

Establishing this set of rights would be a major step towards enhancing the financial security and life chances of households and communities. The weight of responsibility would shift from individuals and back on to financial institutions, regulators, government and employers to provide basic financial needs. As one example, just as people in the UK are given a national insurance number when they turn 16, so the government and the banks could automatically provide a basic bank account to everyone at the age of 18.

The UK credit union movement does make efforts towards these goals, but it cannot fully mobilise financial citizenship rights largely due to its limited scale and regulatory and operational limitations. For the rights to work, they will need the support of the state, of financial institutions, regulators and employers. That would enable the country to build something less flimsy than the loose structure we have right now, which piles blame onto the consumer and relies on voluntary industry measures to pick up the slack.

Lindsey Appleyard, Research Fellow, Coventry University and Shaun French, Associate Professor in Economic Geography, University of Nottingham

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

When analysing the Budget each year it is as important to think about what is missing as well as what is included.  And this year’s Budget was no exception. Speaking on International Women’s Day, the Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, announced funding for a series of ‘women’s projects’. He promised additional resources for domestic violence and abuse (DVA) services, funding for projects to help women returning to work after a career break and money to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of some women winning the vote next year.

The actual money for these three projects was tiny in terms of the national Budget. There was £20 million for domestic violence services over three years, which although welcome, in no way replaces the money lost to the sector through successive cuts to local government, police and health budgets. The barriers faced by women returning to work are complex and structural; it is difficult to see how much difference £5 million for ‘returnships’ will solve them. And, while it is important to remember the struggle of those who fought for women’s right to vote, a better tribute might be action within political parties to increase women’s political representation rather than spending £5 million on celebrations .

Hammond was silent on the far more significant changes for women from April this year as a result of policies in previous budgets. These include limiting benefits and tax credits to the first two children, cutting the first child premium of £545 a year, and cutting some disability benefits by £29.05 a week. These will come on top of earlier changes including lowering the overall benefit cap and freezing benefits and tax credits at their 2015/16 level for four years.

Research by the Women’s Budget Group and Runnymede Trust, funded by Barrow Cadbury Trust, has shown that all the cuts and changes to tax and benefits since 2010 will cost Asian women in the poorest third of households over £2,200 a year by 2020. Black women in the same income group will lose just over £2000, while white women lose £1,459. Women will lose more than men, and the poorest and BAME women will lose most of all. When cuts to services are included the impact gets worse. Lone parents (92% of whom are women) stand to lose 18% of their overall living standard by 2020 as a result of cuts to benefits and services since 2010.

The Chancellor said nothing about these impacts in his budget speech. The Treasury did publish a cumulative impact assessment of changes since 2015 by income, but this does not include any breakdowns by gender or ethnic background.  It is hard to see how the Chancellor can meet his obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty to have ‘due regard’ to the impact of Treasury policies on equality without carrying out this sort of assessment. The Women’s Budget Group and Runnymede have shown that these assessments are possible. The question now is, will the Treasury adopt a similar approach?

Mary-Ann Stephenson is Co-Director of the UK Women’s Budget Group

I have lived and worked in Birmingham all my adult life, the last 10 years almost exclusively providing affordable credit as an alternative to high cost credit, firstly running a credit union and then Fair for You.

It’s a generalisation but on the whole our customers are women, in lower income households, with some caring obligation and in part-time work.  ‘Managing mums’ is a term that has been coined in recent months. I would say these women are sassy, switched on, entrepreneurial, hard working, and not really managing very well at all. Or at least they are until something goes wrong when they need access to fair, affordable and well- designed credit.

I have sat in rooms over the last 10 years, hearing my customers talk about the need for financial education, budgeting and debt advice.  I felt strongly throughout those years that they need better alternatives to the credit options that are currently available.

In 2014, a group of us spent hours listening to mums of younger children in Northfield, Birmingham tell us very frankly and openly about their experience with high cost credit. I went in there thinking I knew what Fair for You would look like, and I came out knowing what it had to look like.

Some amazing people and organisations have backed our work over the last three years, but we never lost sight of what we were told, and we delivered what those people needed.

High cost credit isn’t just expensive – all versions of high cost credit have that in common. But the other common trait is that it is designed for the benefit of the lender, and to take maximum extraction from the customers’ financial household.

The term the ‘poverty premium’ is used to describe  the additional costs  low income households – in other words those who have less consumer power – have when purchasing essential goods and services. Whilst the amount of that premium fluctuates in various situations, it is always consistent that the lion’s share is made up of high cost credit i.e. the additional cost of using credit when faced with emergencies.  And the same households need credit when hit by emergencies, as they have less insulation and resilience to what to other people would be relatively minor emergencies.  There seems little point in measures to address poverty in the UK, without removing the poverty premium.

On 22 March we release the third social impact report relating to the work of Fair for You, a national challenger to high cost credit that directly responds to all of the needs we identified in our research. Now I don’t just have the voices of the mums who came to all of the sessions we ran, I have thousands of voices of customers whose financial situation has been changed because they have access to an alternative.  They prove every day, that they don’t need education and advice, they need better alternatives.

Fair for You is on line, available seven days a week, customer focused and a modern solution that uses multi-media communications including social media. Put simply, credit delivered with dignity and respect, designed to meet the lives of mums – and anyone else – who juggles, struggles and are not really managing at all.

And our customers love it – we are so proud to be rated among the highest financial services in the UK according to Trustpilot.

Please check us out and if you can support our work and our drive to change the way we lend to lower income households, then we would love to talk to you.

Angela Clements is the CEO  of Fair for You

Read Centre for Responsible Credit’s Social Impact Report

www.fairforyou.org.uk

www.fairforyou.co.uk

The Barrow Cadbury Trust is very pleased to be partnering with the Access Foundation for the delivery of the new Infrastructure Investment Fund.  With a fund of £1.8m over three years, the  investments and grants we make will strengthen existing infrastructure, bring new entrants into the sector and extend support to organisations that have not previously been able to access social finance.

The new fund is entirely focused on supporting infrastructure (by infrastructure we mean social investment intermediaries and support organisations, plus the shared processes, tools, networks and partnerships that enable best practice).  Our vision is, over the period of the fund, to facilitate the development of a strong, sustainable, collaborative community of support providers. We will be doing this in three ways:

• Making investments in existing infrastructure support agencies, for example to enable them to increase capacity, skill and effectiveness, grow their business or reach new markets, all in ways that increases their strength, resilience and sustainability.
• Extending the reach of the sector, by supporting new entrants (for example CVSs and other local support agencies) and exploring how support can be extended to geographic and sectoral “cold spots”. This element of the work is likely to take the form, initially, of small feasibility studies to explore provision of social investment support, or perhaps delivering a social investment funding programme.
• Thirdly, we will be looking to strengthen the sector by funding research, development and innovation. We expect to grant-fund or invest in a diverse portfolio which could include the development of new tools, standardised systems of data collection, awareness raising and communications, sharing best practice as well as projects to fill other gaps that become clear over the course of the programme.

Of course the availability of advice and support may not be the only factor preventing access to social finance, so there is scope to explore barriers and develop new solutions: blended finance, developing fresh thinking, developing shared tools and collective learning will go a long way towards accelerating change.

Access chose us to deliver this fund because of our expertise in sector infrastructure, our experience in social investment and our approach, which is to work in partnership with those we fund towards a common goal. Our model of working is to focus on a small number of policy areas, where we have deep knowledge, and try to influence decision-makers and practitioners by building an evidence base, advocating for change and ensuring that people affected by social injustices are heard by those in positions of power.  Those guiding principles will be used in developing and delivering the programme.

We expect to launch the new programme in the summer with a call for expressions of interest for a first round of investments.  The next few years will be an exciting time for all of us.

The new fund is entirely focused on supporting infrastructure (by infrastructure we mean social investment intermediaries and support organisations, plus the shared processes, tools, networks and partnerships that enable best practice).  Our vision is, over the period of the fund, to facilitate the development of a strong, sustainable, collaborative community of support providers. We will be doing this in three ways:

• Making investments in existing infrastructure support agencies, for example to enable them to increase capacity, skill and effectiveness, grow their business or reach new markets, all in ways that increases their strength, resilience and sustainability.
• Extending the reach of the sector, by supporting new entrants (for example CVSs and other local support agencies) and exploring how support can be extended to geographic and sectoral “cold spots”. This element of the work is likely to take the form, initially, of small feasibility studies to explore provision of social investment support, or perhaps delivering a social investment funding programme.
• Thirdly, we will be looking to strengthen the sector by funding research, development and innovation. We expect to grant-fund or invest in a diverse portfolio which could include the development of new tools, standardised systems of data collection, awareness raising and communications, sharing best practice as well as projects to fill other gaps that become clear over the course of the programme.

Of course the availability of advice and support may not be the only factor preventing access to social finance, so there is scope to explore barriers and develop new solutions: blended finance, developing fresh thinking, developing shared tools and collective learning will go a long way towards accelerating change.

Access chose us to deliver this fund because of our expertise in sector infrastructure, our experience in social investment and our approach, which is to work in partnership with those we fund towards a common goal. Our model of working is to focus on a small number of policy areas, where we have deep knowledge, and try to influence decision-makers and practitioners by building an evidence base, advocating for change and ensuring that people affected by social injustices are heard by those in positions of power.  Those guiding principles will be used in developing and delivering the programme.

We expect to launch the new programme in the summer with a call for expressions of interest for a first round of investments.  The next few years will be an exciting time for all of us.

When we set up Treebeard Trust in 2011, we adopted the traditional foundation model: invest the assets for financial return and give away the income to charitable causes. We had a vague sense there was something unsatisfactory about this – such a small part of our assets actually deployed to support our mission – but we didn’t articulate it and certainly didn’t see that there was anything we could do about it.

Then we discovered social investment. It was one of those lightbulb moments, where a solution appears before you’ve actually identified the problem, and we leapt at the opportunity. Initially our target was to allocate 20 per cent of our assets in impact investments (we prefer the term ‘impact’ to ‘social’), with the expectation that it would take us five years to get there. As things stand currently, I think we’ll get there in under three.

We thought it would be a challenge to identify attractive opportunities, but in fact the problem has been the opposite: managing the deal flow. We made our first investment in July 2015 and we’re now up to over twenty, covering a broad spectrum of social issues and asset classes (equity, property, debt etc).

We’re excited by both the social impact they create and the financial returns they should deliver. Regarding the latter, we don’t feel we’ve compromised on our financial objectives one iota – in the current environment of zero interest rates and inflated asset prices, we suspect that the average mainstream investment portfolio carries far more risk than is generally appreciated.

More fundamentally, it has radically transformed how we operate. We no longer think of grant-making and investment as separate functions. In fact, we have outlawed the ‘G’ word altogether. It has a ring of patronage about it, a malodorous whiff of munificence. Instead, every cheque we write is an investment.

That’s not to say we don’t still provide funding to charities with no expectation of financial return, but we now refer to this as ‘impact-only investment’.

All of our investments are now subject to an evaluation framework based on their social impact and their financial risk and return profile. In the case of impact-only investments, there is 100 per cent probability that we lose all our money, and we budget 5 per cent of the trust’s assets for these investments – in line with our historic grants budget.

We allocate another 5 per cent to ‘impact first’ investments, where we expect to get our money back, but are willing to accept below market returns and/or above average risk in return for a compelling social impact.

The rest of the portfolio covers a broad spectrum of liquid and illiquid, equity and debt, high risk and low risk investments. With some, the social impact is explicit and powerful, with others it is limited or hard to discern. But in all cases it is at least evaluated, and to the extent that we can enhance the positive impact of the trust’s assets, without compromising its financial stability, we will continue to do so.

We’ve travelled a long way quite quickly, but we’re still a long way from the destination. The system is broken. A world in which individuals and corporations devote themselves to narrow, parochial goals in the expectation that the public and charitable sectors will clean up whatever mess is left in their wake is not sustainable.

Government finances are stretched to the brink of insolvency and charities, reliant on a donation-based funding model, are wholly ill-equipped to fill the gap. History teaches us that human beings are wonderfully resourceful when their backs are against the wall, and we believe we are witnessing just such a moment.

By breaking down the barrier between philanthropy and commerce, social impact investment has the potential to transform modern capitalism and unleash it as a force for good.

Find out more about how trusts, foundations and charities with investable assets can make social investments via the GET INFORMED – Social investment for boards campaign, launched by Big Society Capital.

Barnaby Wiener is a Trustee with the Treebeard Trust.

Please note, the cross-posting of this blog does not represent endorsement or necessarily reflect the view of Barrow Cadbury Trust.  The blog is cross-posted with the aim of contributing to the conversation on social investment.  

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a common and serious health issue. It affects millions of people and carries an economic and social cost of £15 billion a year nationally. People who have sustained a traumatic brain injury have a greater likelihood of mental ill health and of offending, as well as suffering from many other life difficulties.

Barrow Cadbury Trust and Centre for Mental Health recently organised a roundtable for experts from the West Midlands, hosted by the University of Birmingham, to discuss the implications of recent research about TBI and how support might be improved in the West Midlands region.

Addressing TBI in an effective (and efficient) way requires collective action across public services. No agency or sector can deal with it alone. We need a comprehensive approach that includes prevention, early identification and effective support from early childhood and throughout life.

West Midlands Devolution

The West Midlands devolution deal presents a unique opportunity to take a ‘whole place’ approach to TBI. The Combined Authority has already prioritised mental health and youth justice as cross-sector issues it aims to address across the region. Developing an effective response to TBI would contribute to both and to the overall wellbeing of the population.

Preventing head injuries is challenging but action to reduce risk would include measures to tackle domestic violence (the cumulative impact of physical abuse has been noted as a significant problem for women in prison), to promote positive parenting and to tackle bullying in schools. These also have a major impact on emotional wellbeing and future life chances. Improved support for children with ADHD and autism spectrum disorders can also reduce the heightened risk of TBI in these groups of young people. All of these actions should also reduce health inequalities by addressing the greater risks among people in the most deprived and marginalised communities in the West Midlands.

For those who do sustain head injuries, and particularly those who have experienced multiple traumas, identification is vital to ensure that effective support is offered and adjustments are made to reflect their vulnerability. Schools, hospitals, police stations and prisons can all ask simple questions to screen for head injuries. This can help them to ensure they offer support where it is needed, for example to manage a child’s behaviour in school and avoid excluding a young person whose behaviour results from a head injury where some additional support might be of benefit.

TBI and the Criminal Justice System

It is estimated that up to 60% of prisoners have sustained head injuries. It is therefore vital that the whole of the criminal justice system works with an awareness of TBI and an ability to respond effectively. Liaison and diversion teams, for example, can screen for TBI alongside other vulnerabilities. Prisons can offer all of their staff (including not just prison officers but education and other workers) training about TBI as part of becoming an enabling environment. Specialist linkworkers in prisons have also been found to provide effective support to individuals with TBI. And for people leaving prison, robust support is essential to help them to adjust to life outside and cope with the demands and difficulties they will face.

There are a number of initiatives already in place to build upon: HMP Drake Hall provides all staff with training in working with trauma and supports women prisoners who have experienced abuse and violence. The Geese Theatre Company provides ‘safe spaces’ for prisoners to explore their emotional wellbeing and what would help them to get back in control of their lives. And there are specialist services for offenders in the community, including for women, that offer peer support and help with health issues,  that could provide more bespoke support for those with head injuries.

The significance of TBI is only beginning to be understood. But it is now clear that joint action that brings together local authorities, NHS organisations, schools, the criminal justice system and voluntary and community bodies (among others) will be essential to develop an effective response. From public health teams including TBI in local needs assessments and Health and Wellbeing Strategies to schools providing extra support to children who have sustained head injuries, we can bring about a bigger focus on prevention and early help. And by working across the justice system, we can enable some of the most vulnerable and prolific offenders to get their lives back on track.

In four weeks’ time, amid the pageantry of ceremonial Washington, the 45th president of the United States will be sworn into office. A man who won that office on, among many other horrors, a promise to ‘ban’ (albeit temporarily) Muslims from entering the US.

He may be rolling back on that offensive policy now the Oval Office looms in vision, but the point is telling. Fear of Islam remains real and potent across the west, even a decade and a half on from 9/11.

In Europe the ‘refugee crisis’ and a series of terror attacks over the past two years have flared tensions. Last night’s appalling incident in Berlin has already sparked a torrent of racist remarks on social media, following early reports that the driver may have been from Pakistan. It seems almost inevitable that public discourse will soon return to the sensitive topic of whether Islam is compatible with ‘western’ values.

In recent weeks Chancellor Merkel has joined the chorus of politicians floating support for a burqa ban, showing it is not just ‘populists’ focusing on the issue.

This week Policy Network’s contributors seek to go beyond simplistic rhetoric and policies, concluding it’s time to rethink the way we use terms such as ethnicity, identity, culture and race. Our contributors probe the integration debate – focusing on cases in Britain, France and Germany  – to consider the effectiveness of different responses to public concern. These range from policymaking to acts of symbolism and how politicians choose to react to fear.

These pieces are part of our ongoing project on immigration and integration supported by the Barrow Cadbury Fund and follow a successful recent seminar in London: ‘Inclusive integration: how can progressives promote social cohesion in divisive times?’, the audio of which is now available.

Director of Communications at British Future, Steve Ballinger writes about The Home Affairs Select Committee Immigration Inquiry launched today and how his organisation hopes the decision makers listen to the public’s views on immigration.

Today at Westminster the Home Affairs Select Committee launches a new Inquiry into developing a consensus on an effective immigration policy.  British Future is pleased to be working with the Committee on this Inquiry.

The Committee will conduct a series of regional meetings across the UK, meeting with a cross-section of the public to hear their views, starting in early 2017.

Accompanying the Home Affairs Select Committee hearings in each region is a ‘National Conversation,’ coordinated by British Future.  This project will consult the public through a series of citizens’ panels in every nation and region of Britain, together with online surveys and in-depth opinion polling, feeding the results into the Home Affairs Select Committee Inquiry to provide a more detailed picture of public attitudes to immigration in Britain and the common ground on which people can agree.

The National Conversation aims to find out what the public thinks about who we admit to the UK and how we make immigration work for local communities, new arrivals to Britain, employers and workers.  We want to know what the public thinks about integration and how best to make sure that newcomers become successful members of local communities.

British Future’s research over the last five years into public attitudes to immigration and integration has consistently found that the majority holds balanced views on immigration, which polarised public debates often fail to reflect.  When they are engaged properly, people have constructive contributions to make to the immigration debate and there is considerable potential to find common ground.  That is why this Inquiry is so important.

We want decision makers to hear the public’s views and to be informed by them in their policy making.  Our collaboration with the Home Affairs Select Committee will provide an opportunity to do this.

The Inquiry launches today and we look forward to working with the Home Affairs Select Committee.