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.
Barrow Cadbury Trust’s Chief Executive, Sara Llewellin, spoke at a recent event organised by New Philanthropy Capital on campaigning for social change: the role of trustees. In this blog she talks about what campaigning means for Barrow Cadbury Trust trustees, as well as its continuing relevance for the sector.
Why do charities campaign on social issues? From where do they get their mandate and what are the related governance responsibilities of their trustees?
The past year has seen a concerted effort by politicians (not all of them and not all of one hue either) to cast doubt on the legitimacy of charity campaigning. While it’s not for everyone, and must rightly not be conducted along party political lines, it is a democratic entitlement with a long and noble tradition.
It is one of civil society’s fundamental functions to hold government to account. To do this responsibly requires us to generate and facilitate collective debate on ethical matters, as “honest brokers” seeking the well-being of our charitable beneficiaries.
Charity trustees are the guardians of their charitable missions. They are honour-bound to use resources in the most impactful way possible to advance that mission. For some, this means providing emergency services for those in crisis; for others, intervening earlier to prevent future problems. For some of us, it means addressing structural issues and creating a conduit for the voices of marginalised people to be heard in the corridors of power.
For many charities, it makes no sense at all to continually ameliorate symptoms without looking for, and voicing, potential solutions. The suggestion that this is partisan political activity shows a misunderstanding of the role of civil society over time. Our sector has provided this “critical eye” for over a century and in the context of successive administrations of varying political colours.
Boards at the Barrow Cadbury Trust have been supporting work which seeks to improve society at the structural level for nearly a century; it’s nothing new. Our founders, together with others, set up the first juvenile court in the world in Birmingham and then lobbied government until such provision was made mandatory in the Children’s Act of 1908.
Our current board, still one mainly of direct descendants, sets clear strategic aims for each of our programmes of work and sees its role as that of “impact scrutineer”. They ask what is the change we want to see in the world, how will it be achieved and who is best placed to help bring it about? We build alliances for social change and use all our resources (money, clout, brand, intellectual capital, premises, endowment) to strengthen the hands of the change makers.
Our mandate comes from being independent and non-partisan—which doesn’t mean neutral, but being on the side of a better, fairer society. We are part of civil society, not just a supporter of it. We genuinely believe no one tribe, faith or party has a monopoly of good ideas; hence we work to build broad alliances around the advancement of the common good. My trustees think to do less would be a dereliction of their duty.
Charity campaigning is under greater scrutiny than ever, and so I was delighted to speak at NPC’s event, aimed at and attended mainly by charity trustees, on Monday 14 July — Campaigning for social change: the role of trustees — to discuss its continuing relevance and best practice. Discussion at the event centred on the reasons for or against campaigning, the legal environment and good campaigning practice.
A slightly shorter version of this blog was published on the NPC website.
Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) will be co-sponsoring a briefing session in the House of Lords this Wednesday, 16 July, from 5-7 pm. The session is being chaired by Baroness Young of Hornsey, with speakers including Diana Johnson MP, Kathryn Cronin (Garden Court Chambers), Klara Skrivankova (Anti-Slavery International) and Caroline Robinson (FLEX).
In this blog Caroline Robinson, co-director and founder of Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) makes the case for a more effective response to human trafficking for labour exploitation.
As the public’s response to recent strike action on the part of public sector workers shows, it is not always easy to convince people of the need to protect the rights of all workers, British or migrant. It is particularly hard in the face of high unemployment and a struggling economy, when the argument is put that migrant workers are filling roles British workers could take.
Yet, when it comes to debates about modern slavery, there is widespread sympathy and support for the victims, the majority of whom are migrant workers exploited for their labour. This paradox arises, simply put, because victims are viewed as deserving protections whereas potential victims are not. Our job is to make the argument that protections are most useful before someone becomes a victim and therefore should be applied to all workers regardless of migrant status.
In debate on this question, people often suggest that greater labour protections would act as a pull factor towards the UK. Yet, the recent Migration Advisory Committee report on low skilled migration suggests that in fact the opposite is true – that the absence of labour protections creates the demand for migrant workers, ergo labour protections reduce that demand.
But it is not just public opinion that is contradictory: migrant workers also face a confusing policy landscape. On the one hand there are increasing checks on immigration status at work and home provided for in the new Immigration Act and reduced labour protections as a result of the Government’s ‘red tape challenge’; then on the other hand there is Theresa May’s high-profile campaign against ‘modern day slavery’.
Only last month the UK government, in adopting a new Protocol to the international Forced Labour Convention, recognised that greater labour protections serve to prevent acts of modern slavery from taking place. This supports the case made by Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) in our working paper on Preventing Trafficking for Labour Exploitation, that the UK needs a much stronger labour inspection system to prevent people from being exploited for their labour. We know that where gaps in the enforcement of labour protections exist, unscrupulous employers will take advantage of such gaps and exploitation will snowball from minor infringements of employment law to severe exploitation that constitutes modern slavery.
The Modern Slavery Bill offers an opportunity to improve labour protections for vulnerable workers as a means of preventing acts of severe exploitation. The debate around the Bill should focus on why, in modern Britain, workers are still being exploited for their labour in the restaurants we visit, hotels we stay in and on the construction sites all around us.
Yet, so far the Home Secretary has resisted calls for an expanded Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) in this Bill that could serve as an effective labour inspectorate, particularly in high-risk sectors where exploitation is rife. Instead the GLA has been moved into the Home Office, placing in great jeopardy its role to protect all workers regardless of status.
As politicians of all parties declare their support for ending slavery in the UK, there is a unique opportunity to put in place measures that would ensure no worker ends up in exploitation. But this opportunity will be missed if our leaders continue to talk tough on modern slavery without recognising that labour protections for all workers is the first line of defence in this fight.
Caroline Robinson is co-Director and founder of Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX). FLEX promotes effective responses to human trafficking for labour exploitation that prioritise the needs and voice of the victims and their human rights. Caroline is also a founder and Editorial Board Member of the Anti-Trafficking Review, an international open access journal that offers an outlet for dialogue between academics, practitioners, trafficked persons and advocates on anti-trafficking issues.
In February 2014, in response to ongoing pressure from INQUEST and other pressure groups, the Government announced it would hold an independent review into the deaths in prison of young people aged 18-24. This was a significant milestone for INQUEST, who first called for an inquiry into the deaths of children in November 2003, following the prison death of 16 year old Joseph Scholes.
Inquest’s and Prison Reform Trust’s report ‘Fatally Flawed: Has the state learned lessons from the deaths of children and young people in prison?’ found that a large number of young people who had died in custody had been diagnosed with ADHD, had special educational needs, personality, conduct and attachment disorders, as well as other vulnerabilities – some of which have been linked to self-harm and suicide. Staff training was frequently inadequate and they were ill-equipped to deal with these vulnerabilities.
The most crucial recommendation in the report was that the Government should hold an independent review into the deaths of children and young people aged 24 and under in prison, examining not just criminal justice issues but social and public health issues around the journey into custody. The current mechanisms in place to examine these deaths – the investigation and inquest systems – do not have the remit to tackle these crucial, broader, contextual questions.
The Government at first resisted this call, arguing that current systems were adequate. However, in March 2013 the parliamentary Justice Committee endorsed INQUEST’s concerns. The combination of parliamentary lobbying and legal challenge resulted in the government reconsidering its decision and in February 2014 the review was announced, with a deadline of midnight 18 July for submissions.
INQUEST was disappointed that children were excluded from the review and we will be ensuring their experiences are reflected in the analysis as much as possible. We are putting in a detailed submission based on our in depth casework and work with bereaved families as well as our policy and research work funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust. We are asking everyone who works with young people in conflict with the law to do so too. All contributions from organisations working with young people in and out of custody, can have an impact.
The shocking death toll of children and young people (140 self-inflicted deaths in the last ten years) means we need some fundamental rethinking to prevent the deaths of children and young people in prison but also to divert them out of the prison system altogether.
Find out more and submit your evidence before midnight 18 July.
