The high court did not need to do anything fancy to find that restricting books for prisoners is unlawful.
Nine months of campaigning by the Howard League, together with English PEN and numerous authors, culminated in a fine legal judgment last Friday. The case was brought by fearless public law lawyer, Sam Genen, with barristers Annabel Lee, Victoria Butler-Cole and Jenny Richards.
Mr Justice Collins was asked to rule on whether the restriction on books to prisoners was lawful. He was provided with a web of complex legal arguments based on human rights and the Equality Act 2010. In the end, he decided the restriction was unlawful quite simply because the policy’s effect was contrary to what the justice secretary said he intended.
Our law, built up case by case over time, says that a policy will be unlawful if its effect is contrary to the expressed intention and objectives that it was supposed to promote.
In the case of books for prisoners, the secretary of state and the deputy prime minister had said that there was no book ban. The deputy prime minister went so far as to say: “If there was a ban on sending books to prisoners, I would be the first to demonstrate outside the local prison. It would be ridiculous. It’s outrageous…..Education and training, reading and learning are a critical part of [rehabilitation].”
Yet a forensic examination by the high court found that the policy clearly resulted in a restriction in books, that access through the library services was not sufficient to make up for not having your own books, whether for reference, such as Brewer’s Dictionary or a compendium of a particular author’s works, to be dipped into frequently. The court adopted the desert island philosophy in finding that “possession…can matter as much as access”.
He therefore found the privileges policy unlawful to the extent that it banned books. This simple judgment is unimpeachable. It is not based on human rights or equality but on old-fashioned common sense. The government refused to reflect on the obvious truth that books are not a privilege and learning is central to its own ‘transforming rehabilitation’ agenda. It refused to accept the simple truth that the policy had the effect of banning books. It refused to change the policy of its own accord.
Instead, it took a fully contested judicial review at taxpayers’ expense, with the prisoner’s lawyers acting pro-bono, to enable a high court judge to unravel the spin from the reality of prisoners’ experiences and determine the justice secretary’s policy unlawful on the basis that it was quite simply the opposite of what he said he wanted.
No wonder then that the justice secretary is so keen to restrict the ability of individuals and public interest groups to speak truth to power through the courts. In the House of Commons last Monday, he revealed an astounding lack of knowledge of the way the law works, compounding his disregard for it in the case of books for prisoners. He accepted he was “baffled” by attempts by peers to preserve judicial discretion and sought to reverse them.
Peers have a final chance this Tuesday to defeat the government’s current attempts to restrict judicial review cases. Let’s hope they take it.
Laura Janes is acting legal director at the Howard League for Penal Reform. This blog was reproduced with kind permission of Howard League for Penal Reform.
“We should keep business out of politics” Professor John Kay from the London School of Economics told a High Pay Centre event on 19 November . “We can’t ask business leaders to determine what is good for the public.” Professor Kay was speaking at the launch of a collection of essays the High Pay Centre has published on corporate power entitled “Whoever you vote for, big business gets in.” Professor Kay pointed out that the opinions reflected in the corporate lobby are generally those of the business leaders, not the workforce as a whole.
In recent years, the views of big business have had huge sway at Westminster – often driving the political agenda on to territory that is at odds with the views of the voting public. There are numerous policy issues from taxation to relations with the EU to immigration to cutting the gap between rich and poor where business has an agenda that is different from public opinion.
At the High Pay Centre, we focus on excessive executive pay and the enormous gap that has opened up with the rest of the workforce. Our polling suggests that an overwhelming majority of people support proposals to cap bosses’ pay at a fixed multiple of their lowest-paid worker. However, whenever we press policymakers on this issue, they defer to the business lobby.
Some of our recommendations for tackling top pay came into law last year, but they were mostly watered down by corporate opposition.
Our experience with policies over top remuneration prompted us to look at corporate power in more detail and the impact this has on democracy. In our collection of essays, Richard Murphy from Tax Research UK, presents evidence to show that tax policy is driven largely by corporate interests. For example, on the board of HM Revenue & Customs, the UK’s tax authority, there are five non-executive directors all of whom come from a corporate or financial background, with no other interest group represented. “The result is that … a key element of democracy has been captured for the benefit of a limited but very powerful group in society.” Mr Murphy believes democracy is threatened by financial interests driving the tax system. “This is why, for example, the UK’s budget deficit is being closed by cutting spending and not raising tax.”
Tamasin Cave from Spinwatch, highlights the investment made by businesses in lobbying parliament. “Lobbyists regularly shape public debates through the media, feeding it information they want politicians to see and keeping out inconvenient facts they would rather they didn’t.”
Trust in business and politicians among the public is at record lows. One of the reasons for this is that the public has lost faith in MPs to protect us from rapacious corporations. In a poll conducted for the High Pay Centre in April, 74% of respondents – from all political persuasions – agreed that big business has too much power over government.
The power of big business needs to be tackled if we are to restore people’s faith in our politics and economy.
Download the essays Watch the High Pay Centre video http://youtu.be/4ER9qYEoZDE
Have your say on twitter #CorporatePower @HighPayCentre
The Community Investment Coalition (CIC) campaigns for a radical re-shaping of the provision of affordable financial services in deprived communities. This will reduce reliance on high cost credit, support innovation and competition in financial services markets and give people the financial tools they need to participate in the economy.
Key to achieving this change is increased transparency and public accountability of financial service providers to support consumer choice and allow effective intervention in under-served markets. For this reason, we have championed the need for disclosure of bank lending data at a geographical level. Our campaign is supported by a range of politicians and organisations, including the Church of England.
In its final report, Changing Banking for Good, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards stated that: ‘Increased disclosure of lending decisions by the banks is crucial to enable policy makers to more accurately identify markets and geographical areas currently poorly served by the mainstream banking sector’.
In 2013, a voluntary framework for the disclosure of bank lending data was agreed, with the first tranche of quarterly data released in December that year. So nearly one year on, with four sets of data released, what do we know? A new report ‘Tackling Financial Exclusion: Data Disclosure and Area-Based Lending Data’ by Coventry and Newcastle Universities is the first significant analysis of the data. Commissioned by Big Society Capital, CIC, Citi Community Development and Unity Trust Bank, the research found that currently, the lending data is limited and publication at postcode sector level increases the technical requirements and costs of meaningful analysis. The data does provide for some analysis of regional disparities of lending. For example:
- Median personal lending per adult in Great Britain in 2013 was £602. Lending per adult in the lowest 10 per cent of postcode sectors was around two-thirds of this figure or less, whereas in most of the highest 10 per cent of postcode sectors lending per adult was around a third or more above the median figure. Data suggests that average personal lending tends to decline as the area’s deprivation level rises.
- Average median SME lending per business in Great Britain in 2013 was £47,072 with lending per business in the lowest 10 per cent of postcode areas below £35,000 and in the highest 10 per cent of postcode areas lending per business was over £68,000.
But this is not sufficient to support effective intervention to tackle under-served markets.
The study concludes that although the UK is now a world leader in disclosing area-based lending data, the existing data sets need to be strengthened and broadened to allow detailed and insightful analysis of which of the UK’s communities are under-served by the UK’s main high street banks.
The Parliamentary Commission, commenting on the voluntary framework, stated that ‘It will be important to ensure that the level of disclosure is meaningful..’ and that ‘the devil will be in the detail of the disclosure regime’. CIC has always and continues to welcome the significant step in bank transparency represented by the existing framework. But we believe that the quality, detail and type of data disclosed needs improvement for it to be able to identify markets and areas poorly served by the UK’s banks.
Jennifer Tankard is Director of the Community Investment Coalition
The biggest levers for real social change are in economic development. Whether it be campaigning for a living wage, getting social value into public procurement, or taking the principle of maximising the local reach of prosperity into how we operate our economy.
The idea that prosperity could be localised led to our work this year to generate practical changes locally, based on the findings of last year’s research into the social outcomes of a more localised approach to economics. There is a need to appeal not just to those of us for whom social issues are our bread and butter, but also to those whose primary role is mainstream economics and who tend to dance to the trickledown tune – that any growth is good growth, and the faster the better, with the question of ‘who benefits?’ being overlooked.
The Localising Prosperity web resource is Localise West Midlands’ attempt to capture this wider appeal. It describes the ‘virtuous circle’ relationship between more locally owned businesses, more local power, better social outcomes and more widespread prosperity. It outlines how this virtuous circle can be fostered through economic interventions, procurement and community activism. It gives some tactics and guidance for these different audiences, and some inspiring case studies and evidence for how effective this model is from the UK and abroad.
We’ve been working with Right Care Right Here, an excellent health sector led partnership across Sandwell and West Birmingham with a strong awareness of the need to tackle the broader social issues that affect health, such as housing and employment; the procurement process is as important as A & E is as a tool for looking after local people’s health.
We’ve also been working with locally-owned businesses to develop a model for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to win business in the retrofit sector (the transformation of buildings to make them more energy efficient), with the aim of localising prosperity and encouraging social inclusion – learning from case studies of business co-operation in Italy and Spain.
These Black Country and Birmingham collaborations have been very encouraging. The Black Country has a ‘needs must’ track record of work on localising prosperity; Birmingham perhaps less so – its global/second city status historically giving it a rather blinkered fixation on inward investment, conferences and iconic buildings. But more recently, Birmingham has been rediscovering its own potential for generating prosperity. The City Council has seen the need to use new levers to ensure greater fairness within its economy as welfare or grant safety nets are removed. One of its innovations is the Birmingham Business Charter for Social Responsibility, to which its supply chain is required to sign up with its own individually tailored action plan. The Charter requires socially responsible behaviour including commitments to buying and employing locally. From our perspective the real strength of the Charter is its demonstration that if we all share this commitment, we will all prosper.
Leading on from these innovations in the West Midlands area, and mindful of devolution developments across England and of case studies from abroad, wouldn’t it be brilliant to form a ‘Lepa-like’ – a Localising Everyone’s Prosperity stakeholder partnership for the conurbation, with explicit social objectives, and built on local private sector commitment to the area? Matching up local business needs and skills; encouraging local financing models and buying local commitments, at the same time as basing our sense of identity on the enterprise that we own and making work for our collective benefit.
This month I turn 21! In my British years, that is. I made a journey from broken hearted, disillusioned refugee journalist from war-torn Sarajevo in 1993 to passionate advocate for the rights of refugees and migrants and 2014 Churchill Fellow.
According to the latest research by British Future, I, as a naturalised Brit, here for more than 15 years, am also that mythical creature, who according to their polling is trusted by the British public more than any politician of any political party.
I was lucky to survive the worst war and destruction Europe has seen since WW2. I was lucky to find refuge in Britain, amongst people, who despite often harsh policies and negativity around the issue, welcomed me into their lives and families and helped me not only to survive, but also to thrive. I worked hard to educate myself, to work and to contribute to my new country. I love living in London, even though I was forced to leave my country. That does not mean I love Sarajevo or Bosnia less, it just means I belong here now and I want to see London and Britain be the best it can be.
In our approach to refugees and migrants as well as in the way we conduct the immigration debate, for many years now we have not been at our best. It was painful to see the introduction of the Azure card for asylum seekers, while they were prevented from working or studying. I felt angry, guilty and powerless. Despite the passage of time, this is still very personal – it was happening on my watch and if I were to arrive now, my life would be on hold, in administrative destitution or even worse – indefinite detention. With many of my colleagues I feel overwhelmed by negativity and the inhumanity of it all. I felt we needed to do not only more but something different, something positive. We also needed to tell a different, more positive story.
In 2012 we set up Woman on the Move Awards to recognise and celebrate inspirational migrant and refugee women who make contribution to their communities. It worked! I am proud of our amazing winners: superwomen who even Nigel Farage would want to have as his neighbours!
But we have not been able to overturn the tide of negativity partly whipped up by the tabloid press peddling myths of scary immigrants and partly based on real concerns that people experience in their daily lives of which visible immigrants are increasingly both symbol and consequence. So I looked for a success story somewhere else. While we are trapped in a vicious circle of circular debate on numbers and entitlements, our special relations in the US were doing something very interesting. Don’t get me wrong, there were some exciting developments over here, namely the work we did with Citizens UK on the Independent Asylum Commission and on the campaign to end detention of children for immigration purposes. But the DREAMERS were making progress I had not yet seen anywhere else. It was HOPE and CHANGE all over the place! And for real!
I was lucky again as I won a scholarship to travel to the US for two months this summer to learn more about how they did it. I was able to do this due to the generosity of The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, which funds British citizens, (like me) to travel abroad and learn about best practice in the area of their personal interest and bring it back for the benefit of others, their profession and community in the UK. This just one of those things that makes Britain great!
I covered 15,000 miles from London to Alabama, Atlanta, Illionois, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, New York, Massachusetts and Washington State. I met more than 200 people organising for immigrants’ rights and achieving the impossible: Chicago police refusing to implement Federal orders to hold people on immigration charges. Massachusetts’ gubernatorial candidates all agreeing that undocumented migrants should have access to drivers licenses and the city of Seattle tolerating labour exchange of undocumented immigrants and funding safety at work training for them.
Wherever I went I learned something inspiring and felt empowered and encouraged that positive change is possible. These are just a few examples of things I have learned. I also learned that America is not the promised land and there are some real problems. This administration has deported more than two million immigrants, and split as many families. But this has just increased the resolve of immigrant campaigners to work harder and they are about to reap the benefits of their hard work. An estimated 11 million of undocumented immigrants are about to become documented. And I wanted to learn how did they get to this place.
I have asked all my new friends all over the US, if they had a magic wand, what is the one thing they would wish for, and every single one of them, from large national coalitions to small local community groups told me: immigration reform. When I asked them if they think they will get it – they all, without an expectation told me that it is just a question of time. I was impressed by their confidence, but having seen how they work, I too had no doubt they will succeed. And it is the ‘how’ that is the most impressive.
There were in the past attempts to deliver immigration reform in the US, but it only started happening when immigrants organised. Firstly young people made the progress for themselves, and now they are fighting for their families. It is hard to put into words the power of organised people, mobilising and registering new voters, drafting their own legislation and using their democratic powers for better society. They will get their reform by the executive order because the Latino vote is no longer a sleeping giant.
We have a long way to go in Britain. The Forum has for many years been a proud member of Citizens UK a broad based community organising alliance. We are working together with schools, churches, mosques, synagogues and charities to make Britain a fair, just and better country. We are spearheading the Citizens Sanctuary campaign to ensure the end of indefinite detention, welcome more Syrians in the UK and reduce the income threshold required from those who fall in love with foreigners.
The Forum has in the past year made progress in bringing organising to migrant and refugee communities. We are working hard to ensure new citizens register to vote and have a say in our democracy.
On Saturday 15th November we tasted the flavour of organising and movement building with our colleagues who work in the refugee and migrant world. Over the last year we worked with colleagues from around the country to organise the first Sanctuary Summit in Birmingham, attended by more than 400 people from more than 100 organisations.
I am very excited to have been involved in drafting the set of principles and asks we now call the Birmingham Declaration, which has already been signed by more than thirty organisations. This is the first time we as refugees, migrants and advocates made a proactive step for positive change. Yes, we have a long way to go to see fairer and more humane immigration policy and debate, but last Saturday in Birmingham we made that first step towards a better, organised, fairer future. I am asking you to join the list of supporting organisations and take the Declaration to your church, school, union, community, ask them to sign it and take the stand for positive change together.
May the force be with us!
http://online.wsj.com/articles/program-offers-reprieve-for-some-immigrants-1409933293
Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) has taken its next step. We now know who the preferred bidders are, and where they will work. These new partnerships are going to herald a significant change in how ‘offender management’ is carried out.
The Ministry of Justice statement on preferred bidders, which came out on 29th October, listed by my count, 14 charities, seven private sector organisations, and two public sector mutuals. This doesn’t give us a true picture of all the providers in the various supply chains, or the extent to which they will be involved in delivering services. It also doesn’t clarify who the primary contract holder is – though it’s unlikely to be a voluntary sector organisation.
What we do know is that this process is liable to change. As of 6 November GEO Group UK withdrew from of the competition because they had “not been able to reach an acceptable agreement” with the MoJ. This means that the GEO Mercia Willowdene partnership is no longer the preferred bidder for Warwickshire and West Mercia CRC. EOS, which is part of Staffline Group plc, are now in discussion with the MoJ and are said to be speaking with Willowdene Rehabilitation (social enterprise) and the staff mutual Mercia Community Action who were formerly in partnership with GEO.
What role will the voluntary sector actually play in delivering services?
It’s clear we need to progress the conversation we have been having around TR. A lot of our focus has been on the commissioning process, and rightly so. The discussion needs to turn to what services the voluntary sector will deliver, what sort of a strategic role they will get, what the volume of work will be, and what payment mechanisms are established to pay them. Close scrutiny of the eight new partnerships will be essential.
The voluntary sector organisations listed in the partnerships announced last week are mostly large (by criminal justice standards) Nacro, Addaction, CRI, and Shelter, and you would expect them to be delivering a significant element of the offender management, but at the moment this role hasn’t been defined. There are also some medium sized organisations such as St. Giles Trust and P3. We must not forget that there are also some comparatively small organisations listed in those partnerships, for instance, A Band of Brothers, Thames Valley Partnership, and Willowdene Rehabilitation Ltd (if they can secure a new partnership). The roles, services, and volume of work that all these organisations undertake will doubtless be incredibly different.
It seems apparent that the MoJ understand the vital role the voluntary sector plays in resettlement and rehabilitation. It makes me ponder, not for the first time, whether any of these partnerships would be able to deliver any of the services they bid for without the expertise and professionalism of their voluntary sector partners.
Why didn’t we get a voluntary sector lead preferred bidder?
I know that many are disappointed that we won’t have the chance to see how the voluntary sector would have done things differently. It has been well publicised that organisations like Catch 22, Home Group, and Turning Point were not successful in becoming listed as preferred bidders, despite a committed effort.
Clinks is disappointed too, and we want to make sure that we know why there was no voluntary sector lead preferred bidder before we can progress on our members’ behalf; we need to know the facts. Some of the reasons why it was difficult for the voluntary sector to bid as lead providers in the first place are well documented in our early (and ongoing) responses to TR e.g. the size of the contract package areas, the financial backing, the financial risk, the introduction of payment by results, and some more ethical considerations about the role that charities should take in delivering orders of the court, and some of the risks often raised in relation to partnering with large private sector organisations. But in the end we don’t know what factors really determined the outcome.
What about the 13,500 other voluntary sector organisations that work with this client group?
We should be clear that the voluntary sector in criminal justice is made up of a small amount of large providers, a slightly larger amount of medium sized organisations, and a vast amount of small ones (See research by TSRC). We know that the bulk of the voluntary sector’s work is at a very local level, in local authorities and neighbourhoods. How these organisations will be involved and engaged in the newly emerging Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) is anyone’s guess at the moment.
The MoJ has spoken about 300 material subcontractors in the bids, with the majority of these being voluntary sector organisations. They have also pointed to the fact that 700 voluntary sector organisations have registered as potential providers with the MoJ. A further 500 organisations have registered on Clinks’ Partnership Finder. Even if we combine all of these databases it only represents a small snapshot of the sector, and it doesn’t tell us anything about how they will be engaged.
For Clinks, the test of these new CRCs will not only be whether they positively impact on reducing re-offending, but also the extent to which they can address the diverse needs of their service users, and how they’ll work with specialist services to make a real difference. We know that the sector offers a wealth of expertise in a number of areas, which include (but are not exclusive to) women’s services, the needs of Black, Asian, and minority ethnic service users, older people, people with disabilities, and care leavers. In Clinks’ recent discussion paper ‘What does good rehabilitation look like?’, we found that the voluntary sector’s role in providing specialist and flexible services is key to improving the lives of people in the CJS.
A longer version of this blog was originally posted on the Clinks website. Clinks is a member of the T2A Alliance. It supports the voluntary sector in Criminal Justice, providing information and voice to the sector, as well as working to bring about positive change for people in the Criminal Justice System. Find out more about their work by going to their website.
This week is Living Wage Week. The Living Wage Campaign calls for every waged person in the country to earn enough to provide their family with the essentials of life. The Living Wage hourly rate is calculated according to the cost of living and set independently every year. Launched by Citizens UK in 2001, the campaign so far has been responsible for generating £210 million of additional wages, lifting more than 40,000 families out of in-work poverty.
The new Living Wage rates for 2015 have been announced today. In London the rate is now £9.15 an hour – a rise of 4% from £8.80 per hour. Outside London the UK Living Wage rate has been set at £7.85 per hour – an increase of 2.6% on the 2013 rate and 21% higher than the national minimum wage of £6.50 per hour – improving the take home pay of low-paid workers across the country who are employed by over 1,000 Living Wage accredited organisations.
The Living Wage Foundation, which accredits companies and organisations as Living Wage employers, can count companies such as Barclays, KPMG, Aviva, Nationwide, HSBC, Legal & General, as well as Oxfam, Save the Children, the TUC and Transport for London, in its ranks. Of course there are still a majority of large corporations and companies who do not pay the basic Living Wage to their workers, or ensure that the supply chain companies and providers they work with – cleaning staff, caterers, security firms etc. – pay a Living Wage.
For Barrow Cadbury Trust, with our long history of supporting equality issues and gender disadvantage (a majority of the low paid are women), not to mention the rights of migrant workers – many of whom will be on low wages, it went without saying that we would apply for Living Wage accreditation ourselves. This proved tricky, however, because our cleaners are not direct employees. Eventually we were able to negotiate to pay them at the London Living Wage rate, after taking advice from the Living Wage Foundation. So now we have our accreditation! Our next task is to persuade the other tenants in the building we occupy that they should commit to Living Wages and to speak to all the companies in our supply chain to find out if they are Living Wage employers.
As a foundation we see engaging with our grantholders and prospective applicants on the importance of building a Living Wage workforce as crucial. But we understand that it is not an easy thing to do, even if it is something we should all be working towards. Keeping the pressure up and our foot on the accelerator is essential. Despite more than a thousand employers signed up to the Living Wage we cannot afford to rest on our laurels.
The Trust will be working with other funders interested in supporting the Living Wage to develop and share good practice on being a Living Wage funder and employer, as well as supporting grantholders such as Citizens UK and Share Action – the latter working to influence and raise awareness amongst shareholders.
The research to back up the benefits of the Living Wage is all there. The report funded by Trust for London in October 2012 on the Costs and benefits of the London Living Wage is one. The Resolution Foundation has also published a report Beyond the Bottom Line: the challenges and opportunities of a Living Wage. And if you go to the Living Wage Foundation website you can read some personal accounts of just how peoples’ lives have benefitted from the Living Wage.
Sara Llewellin is the Chief Executive of Barrow Cadbury Trust.
Debbie Pippard reflects on the lessons learnt from The Foundry initiative
What did we learn from our experience developing The Foundry – a new human rights and social justice centre which has opened recently in London?
One of the first things the founding organisations – Trust for London, the Ethical Property Company, the Barrow Cadbury Trust and LlankellyChase Foundation did was to establish a ‘special purpose vehicle’ in 2011 to develop and run The Foundry. Then we raised more than £11m in finance; bought, refurbished and extended a building, secured tenants, and created a centre that will provide a focus for social justice and human rights activity.
The Foundry will provide work and meeting space to organisations working on human rights and social justice issues. Set up as a social investment initiative, it is funded through a combination of equity investment and loans from independent trusts, the Ethical Property Company, banks and financial institutions. We also intend it to be an asset to the local community and those from further afield, who will be able to use the cafe, visit exhibitions and events, and take part in a programme of learning activities.
So looking back over the development period, what made it all come together, and what lessons have we learned?
PARTNERSHIP AND SHARED VISION
Undoubtedly it helped that the founder organisations knew each other well, had worked closely together, and were experienced and trusted partners. This made it easier to create a shared vision, and has helped us through some tough moments.
This shared vision was established right from the start and has guided our thinking on all aspects of the project; from the building design, to the planning, and to the associated education activities that will take place in the centre, to the detail of our performance framework.
THE RIGHT PROPOSITION
And in a difficult economic climate, we were helped by having an investable proposition – a property-based development in the capital city, led by organisations with extensive experience in property investment, management and mission-related investment. These factors, combined with the clear social mission of The Foundry, enabled us to confidently approach other investors.
The lead partner in the management of the project, the Ethical Property Company, has over 15 years experience of developing and running shared office spaces with a social mission. Our advisors, particularly the architects, shared our enthusiasm for the project, and were chosen both for their architectural vision and for the added value that their experience of building and managing shared space brought to the project.
FUNDRAISING AND MISSION DELIVERY
Undoubtedly the fundraising element of the project was our biggest challenge. We started the project as the global financial crisis was unfolding – and had to decide early on whether or not to press ahead. But Trusts and Foundations have the benefit of the long view, and we were confident that in time the market would pick up and we would be able to provide a return on investment.
Initially we hoped to raise most of the investment through equity. However, in an uncertain climate most investors preferred the security of a loan rather than the higher risk equity investment. So we ended up with a more complex combination of loans and equity than we really wanted. Because raising the funds was more complex than we thought it would be, we had to renegotiate ‘heads of terms’ with our primary lenders at a late stage – a difficult process for all sides. One lender withdrew, but others stepped in to fill the gap and allow the building work to get under way. The complexity of the financial arrangements and the need to meet the differing due diligence requirements of different primary lenders was costly both in time and money; it would be good to see more convergence so that less precious social investment funding is spent on legal fees and more is available for delivery of the mission.
BEING BOLD
And we had to be bold. Finding a suitable building was challenging. Our initial preference was for an area in East London, but prices were rising rapidly and were a little out of our reach. We widened our search and found a building while we were still some way off our funding target. A decision had to be made whether to buy, and risk not being able to raise development funds, or continue fundraising and risk losing out in a price bubble. At the same time we had to assess the risks of not being able to find enough tenants to fill the building. Fortunately market research indicated that there would be sufficient demand for space, and, as it turned out, by the time we opened, almost all space had been filled.
LESSONS
So what could we pass on from our experience to anyone thinking of embarking on a similar project?
- Make sure you have a strong partnership, with a shared vision and values and effective leadership from the Board
- Choose your delivery partners carefully. Ensure they share the vision and understand what the project is trying to achieve
- Carry out market research at an early stage to ensure the proposition is viable and will provide both sufficient financial return on investment and a clear social mission
- Ensure you understand the ‘risk appetite’ and return requirements of investors
- Develop a good performance framework to enable reporting on the extent to which the project delivers its social mission.
- Have flexibility in putting together the funding package, but be prepared to turn down offers if the required returns are too high
- Maintain your vision throughout the development stages
- Be prepared to take measured risks
- Celebrate your successes as you go along.
This blog was originally published by The Alliance magazine: www.alliancemagazine.org.
Debbie Pippard chaired The Foundry project and is Head of Programmes at Barrow Cadbury Trust.
Hands up who understands what is meant by the expression ‘social value’? If you work in the third sector and social enterprise sector you’ll either be grappling with how to implement and monitor it or sticking your head in the sand and hoping it will go away. But for the time being it is here to stay and we have to make the most of it.
For the past two years Birmingham & Solihull Social Economy Consortium (BSSEC) has been delivering a Barrow Cadbury Trust-funded project aimed at identifying meaningful ways of implementing the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012. The Act, for those of you not familiar with it, requires “public authorities to have regard to economic, social and environmental well-being in connection with public services contracts; and for connected purposes”.
BSSEC has worked jointly with Birmingham City Council and other public service commissioners to support the implementation of social value, providing briefings, resources and free workshops for social enterprises and trading voluntary organisations to help improve their ability to compete within the terms of this new legislation.
LOCAL AUTHORITY PROGRESS
Many local authorities have made good progress in putting in place practical arrangements to embed social value-based approaches in their commissioning and procurement procedures.
But they are not implementing social value as a stand-alone policy. Rather, it is being utilised as part of a wider response to the current pressures under which local authorities are operating – government spending cuts, decommissioning services, making efficiency savings, reducing the demand on services, and becoming primarily service commissioners rather than service providers. Efforts are also being made to align social value with existing corporate priorities, processes and key policy drivers and the following have become central to shaping social value priorities amongst councils:
- Targetted employment, apprenticeships and training opportunities.
- Strengthening local economies and ‘making the local pound work harder’.
- Avoiding ‘exporting jobs’ as a consequence of buying outside of authorities’ catchment areas.
Local authorities making the most progress on social value are taking bold approaches that go beyond the minimum requirements of the Act. Rather than applying social value only to service contracts above the EU procurement thresholds, which is all the Act requires, they are applying the legislation as widely as possible, to both services and goods, to all contract values, and to all providers.
Evidencing and measuring social value remain the least developed parts of the process and most authorities (and social enterprises, for that matter) are adopting a ‘wait and see’ position on measuring social value. There are a number of reasons for this:
- It is still very early days and few contracts have progressed to the point at which evidencing requirements can be reviewed or checked for effectiveness.
- Providers and purchasers lack not just standardised methods for measuring and reporting social value, but also a shared language for articulating social value.
- There is still some doubt regarding not the just the type of evidence commissioners want, but also what they wish to measure and report.
Reduced staff capacity within local authorities also means that too little is being done to assess whether transferable evidencing and monitoring methods might already exist in other parts of their organisations.
KEY ISSUES FOR SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
Many social enterprises don’t know where to start in adopting a social value measurement method. They don’t know what information to collect, what to measure, what information commissioners will find most meaningful, what method is most suited to their size and type of organisation, or what the costs of implementation might be. The bewildering array of courses, methods, tools, consultancy offers and proprietary systems purporting to measure social impact and social value make it virtually impossible to make a decision. Two recently launched websites alone – Inspiring Impact , which is backed by the Cabinet Office, and the Social Value Hub , which is an initiative of Social Enterprise UK – contain hundreds of outcome measures, impact tools and reports.
Fortunately for us, the Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance (CCEG) is currently undertaking work to assess how public authorities are implementing the Act and by Autumn 2014 there should be an ‘official’ UK social value portal which could include guidance and recommendations.
DEFINING SOCIAL VALUE
For many social enterprises the problem is not so much measuring social value but articulating and describing their social value. Many social enterprises struggle to describe what they do and the social benefit they deliver. They lack a defined, agreed corporate statement regarding their social value that is understood and used by all staff at all levels throughout the organisation. Achieving this is not the icing on the cake, but it is a good starting point and would help many to begin the process of identifying a suitable social value framework – including appropriate social value indicators and evidence – specifically for that organisation.
Our experience suggests that those enterprises fewer than around 25 staff are struggling because they don’t have enough staff to dedicate sufficient time and effort to social value and impact measurement.
There is a risk that a disproportionate burden of data-gathering and evidence will fall predominantly on the shoulders of suppliers. This would severely disadvantage smaller social enterprise and third sector providers (and smaller SMEs too). The Third Sector Research Centre recently published a report voicing precisely this concern.
PARTNERSHIP WORKING
Whatever regimes for measuring and reporting social value local authorities adopt must be proportionate and ‘do-able’ and should ideally be a joint effort between public service commissioners and the sector. Anything over-complicated or disproportionate is likely to erode rather than create social value. This makes continuing work to support social enterprises and trading third sector organisations in their social value practices of even greater importance.
Social enterprises and third sector organisations in Birmingham should take this early opportunity to sign up to the Birmingham Business Charter for Social Responsibility. The Charter is still in its infancy and early adopters are likely to be able to influence both it and the subsequent monitoring that will be required from businesses reporting against their Charter action plans. While the Charter is not solely concerned with social value, it has become Birmingham’s main tool for a social value focus and guidance. Social enterprises should get cracking and start signing up to the Charter – they shouldn’t leave it to the private sector to lead on the Charter, as is the case at the moment.
Work, for single parents, isn’t easy at the best of times. As both the main carer and main earner supporting their family, it can be tough to find a job that allows single parents to juggle childcare as well as pay the bills. But new research from Gingerbread shows that single parents are now also battling low pay, insufficient hours and job insecurity in today’s job market. The end result is that work is failing to provide the majority of working single parent families with the income they need.
No pay, no gain
Our latest report, The long road to recovery, reveals the gulf between a recovering economy and the real-life experiences of working single parents. Around two in five working single parents surveyed are low-paid. A quarter had experienced a wage cut in the last six months alone. And 30 per cent had experienced unpaid overtime in the last two years, for the first time.
“I am earning less per hour than I was four years ago”
Pay aside, many single parents simply can’t find the working hours they want and need – the proportion of single parents working part-time when they want full-time hours has doubled since 2007. Over half of non-working single parents surveyed said inflexible hours stopped them from applying for jobs all or most of the time.
And now single parents must deal with the job insecurity that has emerged since the recession. Around a quarter of non-working single parents said they’d left their last job due to hours or wage cuts, a temporary job ending or redundancy. And once out of work, the support provided is often focused on job search targets, rather than meaningful support to help single parents back into sustainable employment.
“I found myself just applying for jobs…that I’d already been rejected for, just to meet the quota they had set me”
Single parents are doing all they can to keep their heads above water, with many working multiple jobs and long hours to cover their bills. But, in the face of a long-term fall in wages, rising living costs and recent welfare cuts, it can feel like a losing battle. And no wonder, when single parents now need to earn more than twice as much as they did in 2008 to meet a basic standard of living.
A call for action
It’s clear that work is no golden ticket out of poverty. We cannot dismiss the problem of low-paid and insecure jobs as a rite of passage, just the first step on a long-term career path. As the Resolution Foundation found, people are too often trapped in jobs that offer little pay and no progression. Single parents have been disproportionately hit by welfare cuts and there may be more on the horizon. As the safety net is pulled away, we need action now to ensure single parents can support their families. Gingerbread wants to see the government improve support for single parents getting back to work, moving away from the ‘work-first’ approach that pushes single parents to take any job. We need stronger in-work financial support to soften financial barriers to work. And the government must work with employers to promote flexible working and tackle low pay and job insecurity. The government wants to ensure the economy grows and to reduce welfare spending – when getting just 5 per cent more single parents into the workforce could save over £400m, why not make them part of the solution rather than risk isolating them further?
“I work 24-hour shifts and longer very often…I’m missing all the little important parts of my little girl growing up and it breaks my heart! All this and I still fail to make ends meet…my cupboards are bare”
Sumi Rabindrakumar is Gingerbread’s Research Officer. Paying the Price is a research project being carried out by Gingerbread, with funding from Barrow Cadbury Trust and Trust for London. The Long Road to Recovery is the second report from the project; you can read the report at www.gingerbread.org.uk/payingtheprice.
