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.

The disproportionate numbers of Black, Asian and Minority ethnic prisoners in our criminal justice system, and the disproportionately worse outcomes they face, have been the subject of numerous reports and reviews over decades.

Despite this, over the last nine months I have attended meetings with a range of organisations and statutory agencies who all agree that this issue remains a serious and significant challenge for our Criminal Justice System, which so far we have failed to adequately address.

These meetings have taken place as part of the independent Young Review into improving outcomes for young black and Muslim men in the criminal justice system, led by Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey, with the support of the Black Training and Enterprise Group and Clinks. It has brought together a Task Group of representatives from the voluntary, statutory, private and academic sectors to explore how we can embed sustainable and practical solutions that address the disparities faced by this group.

Working with the support of Justice Secretary Chis Grayling and the Ministry of Justice, the Young Review has chosen to specifically focus on black and/or Muslim men aged between 18 and 24^[i] because the evidence demonstrates there are critically high proportions of this group at all stages of the Criminal Justice System and reporting the least positive outcomes and perceptions of prison life compared to all other groups.

It is worth noting that disparities in the criminal justice system for this group are part of a complex mix of educational, employment, health and social disadvantage that have characterised many of their lives.  This serves as a warning against making over-simplified assumptions about the connections between race, ethnicity and criminal justice outcomes, and points to the need for a multi-agency, multi-partner approach. However when it comes to race, across all social policy areas, and all sectors, it seems impossible to deny that there has in the past been a lack of will and/or leadership within society to effect real change.

Therefore the Young Review hopes to go some way towards placing these issues back on the agenda to ensure that in the newly configured criminal justice environment action takes place in response to them.

Our aim is not to undertake new research to find new solutions to these issues but to consider how the vast amount of existing knowledge and data on this subject can be applied in the significantly reformed commissioning and service delivery environment introduced by the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. Our interim report, published in January, highlights 5 guiding principles for commissioners and providers:

• Ethnicity, faith and culture has a key role in promoting sustained desistance from crime:
• Leadership from government and statutory agencies is essential to ensure a proactive approach to diversity, inclusion and cultural competence and in the delivery of criminal justice services
• The experience, understanding and knowledge that resides in communities is crucial in supporting offenders to desist in prison and ‘through the gate’.
• Commissioning frameworks must identify and address specific needs associated with young black and/or Muslim men.
• Systematic and meaningful consultation with service users that provides evidence of the reasons for and solutions to the disproportionate numbers of young black and/or Muslim males in the CJS.Despite the insight, robust research and clear and valid recommendations of previous reviews, improving the outcomes faced in the criminal justice system by young black and Muslim men is an ambitious task. Our final report on how we might finally do so will be published in Autumn; in the meantime, you can find out more and read the interim report at www.youngreview.org.uk.

[i] In this report, we use the term ‘young black and/or Muslim’ to refer to men aged 18-24 who identify as black British; black African; black Caribbean; Muslim or mixed heritage/origin where it includes one or more of above.

For the first time in almost six years, Immigration has topped the list of issues people see as the most important facing Britain today, beating the economy into second place.

It comes just a day after the Chair of the Public Administration Select Committee, Bernard Jenkin, reiterated the body’s view that the figures we have on immigration are:

“blunt instruments for measuring, managing and understanding migration to and from the UK, and they are not fit for purpose”

In spite of this, those same figures have previously been described by the UK Statistics Authority as the “best available measure” of net migration “given the existing statistical sources”.

That’s why there were calls from MPs yesterday for new sources to be used – including passenger travel data from the upcoming Border Systems Programme (formerly ‘eBorders’).

We’ve outlined the issues surrounding how reliable our migration figures are in our spotlight, published today.

Full Fact is an independent fact checking organization which  provides free tools, information and advice so that anyone can check the claims we hear from politicians and the media.  020 3397 5140.  [email protected]

Life costs more if you are disabled. From buying specialist equipment to facing higher everyday expenses, disabled people face extra costs in almost all areas of life.

Last week, the Public Accounts Committee reported that the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP), introduced from April 2013 to replace Disability Living Allowance, is facing major problems. As a result many disabled people are experiencing unacceptable delays in receiving these crucial extra costs payments.

From having to buy assistive technology, spending more on heating, buying more expensive transport, to paying more for insurance – disabled people will face around £550 in disability related expenditure. PIP is intended to help cover the extra costs that disabled people face.

Delays in access to the fundamental support provided by government to offset these costs puts disabled people more at risk of financial difficulty. This is especially worrying since disabled people are three times more likely than non disabled people to turn to doorstep loans.

Protecting extra costs payments

In Priced Out, Scope calls for crucial extra costs payments to be protected by a triple lock guarantee, and from the overall cap on social security spending. We set out principles for an improved PIP assessment that ensures that disabled people who need support get it when it is needed.

When we talk about living standards in the UK we often think of growth, wages and prices. The most recent Labour Market Statistics showed that the cost-of-living crisis may be easing – average prices did not exceed average wages for the first time since 2010. But this will not be the case for disabled people who face lower incomes, higher costs and diminishing or severely delayed support.  The issue of extra costs is one that predates the recession for disabled people, and without the right support to offset these costs, a recovering economy will not improve disabled people’s living standards.

But as well as making sure the support is there, where extra costs can be driven down, they should be. Some things can be very expensive for disabled people, and we want to find out why.

Commission on Extra Costs

Huge progress has been made in opening up opportunities for disabled people over recent years. Advances in technology have brought big improvements in independence and participation but all too often these come at a high, sometimes prohibitively high, cost. The inaccessibility of infrastructure and gaps in public service provision can also cause considerable extra costs for disabled people.

Political parties and the commercial sector have begun to recognise disabled people’s collective spending power but Scope, BT and the RCA’s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Inclusive Design  found that there are still gaps in the market between mainstream and disability-specific technology which – if tapped – have real potential to drive down disabled people’s costs and raise living standards.

This year, Scope, supported by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, will be launching a major Commission into the Extra Costs faced by disabled people. Over the course of a year, an independent panel of experts will consider the ways in which the extra costs faced by disabled people and families with disabled children in England and Wales can be driven down by both business and government.

We will be asking disabled people for their experiences of extra costs, and looking for organisations and individuals to submit formal evidence to the Commission. We also want to work with experts and practitioners across all sectors to find innovative solutions that drive down extra costs.

If you would like to get involved in the Commission or want to know more about it, please get in touch with Scope by emailing [email protected].

Ellie Brawn is a Scope’s Public Policy Adviser leading on issues of poverty, welfare and financial inclusion.

Have you ever tried to survive for a week without something you think is essential to life? Chocolate for lent, booze after Christmas, cakes before your summer holiday?  What if you had to live without access to basic financial tools for a week?  Without access to a transactional bank account, so that you could only pay bills in cash and in person?  Without any form of savings so that the simplest set back meant a trip to high cost credit providers? Without insurance so that something lost is lost for good not lost until a replacement arrives?

Access to basic banking facilities is an essential part of modern life, as employers and government agencies move away from cash and cheques towards electronic payments.  Small and micro businesses are also affected by difficulties in accessing basic affordable financial tools, often relying on easy access to bank branches to bank cash safely.

Effective tools for savings, payments, and accessing credit and insurance can help people to climb out of poverty or get through a crisis or emergency without falling into debt.  They can help businesses survive and grow and not slide into bankruptcy should a crisis occur.

The UK has made real progress in ensuring that most adults have, at least, some form of bank account. It is estimated that only 3% do not.  This is broadly in line with European neighbours such as Germany, France and Slovenia.  It also compares well with others such as Poland (30% without access to a bank account) and Italy (29%).  Still the 3% in the UK, some three million individuals, are effectively financially excluded by a lack of access.   And access to other types of financial tools remains patchy.  59% of UK households have savings of less than £5,000 and 56% of the poorest households do not have home content insurance. The reliance by many on pay day loans to get them to the end of every month is well documented.

A recent experiment in America organised by the Chicago based Center for Financial Services Innovation gave a group of white collar workers tasks to perform without using mainstream financial services.  These included buying a pre-paid card and cashing a cheque. Needless to say it wasn’t a happy experience.  The cost of transactions, the time spent in queues and the lack of security of personal data took participants by surprise.

This is why the Community Investment Coalition (CIC) is calling for a radical new approach to financial inclusion.  We believe that every adult, household and business should have access to a basic package of fair and affordable financial tools to help them participate in economic life.  These tools are: a basic transactional bank account; a savings scheme; access to affordable credit; physical access to branch banking facilities; insurance; and independent money management advice. We have launched a Community Banking Charter calling for the provision of these basic financial tools and setting out the steps required to achieve these.

Achieving this radical change does not require radical measures.  Political leadership, capital investment, better local partnership working and asking the main retail banks to step up to the plate are some of the steps needed.

The experience of the American white collar workers is shared by ordinary people every day in the UK.  CIC partner Local Trust commissioned a video detailing how a lack of access to basic financial services impacts on everyday life.

The UK’s emergence from recession will not result in a rush by the financial services sector to move into new markets in poorer communities.  Many people will benefit from economic growth.  But those without access to key financial tools are likely to get left even further behind.  We need radical change.  And it needs to happen now.

Jennifer Tankard leads the Community Investment Coalition (CIC) and is Director of Advocacy and Research at CDF.

A cultural polarisation over attitudes to immigration, according to the authors of the new British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey chapter on immigration published today, could generate long-term political headaches for politicians who adopt a tough anti-immigration agenda in search of public support.

‘Responding to the concerns of voters worried about immigration today risks alienating the rising sections of the electorate whose political voice will become steadily louder in elections to come’, say authors Anthony Heath and Rob Ford. Their BSA report shows that levels of education are a strong predictor of attitudes towards immigration, with an especially stark polarisation between the attitudes of graduates and those with no qualifications. Sixty per cent of those with a degree believe that immigration is beneficial for the economy, and another 16 per cent see it as having neutral impacts, leaving just 22% of graduates who believe that the economic impacts of immigration are negative.

Yet this three-to-one margin in favour of the economic benefits of migration among graduates is reversed among Britons who left school with no educational qualifications: where 61 per cent believe that the impact is negative, 21% see it as neutral, and just 16 per cent believe that the economic benefits are positive.

The political dilemma, according to academics Anthony Heath and Rob Ford, co-authors of the BSA study, arises from how short-term and longer-term political pressures pull in opposite directions.

“Although UKIP competition creates a short-term demand for restrictive migration policies, such policies may cause problems in the longer run. Advocating strongly restrictive immigration policies risks alienating the more liberal third of the population – and given constraints on policy and high political distrust, may not convince the most anti-immigration voters anyway. Moreover, long-term demographic change is moving society in the opposite direction, because the most pro-migration social groups – university graduates and professionals – are steadily growing while the most anti-migrant groups – unskilled  manual workers and those with no qualifications – are in sharp decline,” the authors write.

They note that, in 1989, just 7 per cent of BSA respondents were graduates, while 44 per cent had no qualifications. Now graduates (25 per cent) outnumber those without any qualifications (20 per cent), according to the BSA study. It also reports that those whose parents were migrants to Britain see both the cultural and economic impacts of migration as positive, as do Londoners.

The challenge to business

If the BSA study presents dilemmas for politicians, it presents a significant challenge for business advocates of the economic benefits of migration too. The BSA survey presents clear evidence that graduates have been convinced, while those who didn’t go to university have not, leaving the public as a whole sceptical that migration will have a net benefit to Britain’s economy.

Yet both the content and style of economic advocacy about migration – which often focuses on the factual evidence about positive net contributions – remains pitched primarily to the more elite, educated audience which is already onside. A focus on the arguments and messengers who could connect with those who didn’t go to university –engaging their concerns about migration constructively – will be important if business advocates want to preach beyond the converted, and to seek majority public support.

Joining the club

BSA respondents were also asked how long it should be before migrants have full and equal access to the same welfare rights as British citizens. Most people believe that citizenship is a ‘club’ and that people need to earn entitlements to it. But the BSA findings show that the majority are pragmatic about how this works in practice: only a fairly small niche take a highly restrictive view.
One per cent say that migrants should ‘never’ have the same access to welfare as British citizens. Only a minority of around a quarter believe that the qualifying period for full welfare access should be five years or more. (18 per cent proposed a five-year wait for EU migrants, and 25 per cent proposed that this would be the right approach for non-EU migrants).

Around one in four (37 per cent) of respondents believe EU migrants should have full and equal access immediately (14 per cent) or after one year (23 per cent). In the BSA findings, most people would see two to three years as fair. Citizenship usually takes five years from those outside the EU, but EU membership constrains governments from discriminating between EU citizens.

This belief, that the willingness to contribute is important, goes with another feature of ‘fair play’ – which is that those who do contribute and play by the rules have to be accepted as fully and equal members of the club.

Lack of knowledge

Public attitudes may not always prove highly responsive to policy changes on immigration, where there is a lack of public knowledge, or low trust about policy. Respondents to the BSA survey were asked whether it was true that ‘there is a limit on the number of work permits the government issues each year to migrants to Britain coming from outside the EU who want to come and work in Britain. Most of these permits are reserved for those with better qualifications and English language skills’.

Forty-five per cent knew this was true, but 42 per cent thought it was false, while 14% didn’t know. Those who were most sceptical about immigration were more likely to give an incorrect answer about work permits.

Contact matters

The BSA report also shows that contact with migrants is associated with more positive, rather than negative views, about the impacts of immigration. ‘While socially marginal groups worry the most about the impact of immigration, those most likely to be directly exposed to migration in their daily lives have much more positive views. Londoners, those with migrant heritage and those with migrant friends (all of whom are more likely to have regular direct contact with migrants) have more positive than negative views about immigration’s effects. The most intensely negative views are found among the oldest voters, and those with no migrant friends’, Heath and Ford conclude.

Reaching the pragmatic middle

The challenge for those who seek to make the positive case for immigration – whether they are political parties, business interests, migrants’ rights advocates or universities seeking continuing openness to international students – is to reach beyond these groups who already agree with them and engage the ‘pragmatic middle’ that the BSA survey identifies.

A rejectionist rump would pull up the drawbridge tomorrow. They are unlikely to ever engage with any argument that would still hold some appeal to the growing group who hold liberal attitudes already. Many have found their political home with UKIP, though it remains to be seen how many will stick with Nigel Farage right through to May 2015’s general election.

The BSA survey echoes existing analysis of public attitudes on immigration. This identifies, sitting between the liberals and rejectionists, a ‘pragmatic middle’ who have reasonable anxieties about the pace of change in Britain and what this means both economically and culturally, but who acknowledge that pulling up the drawbridge is not the answer. It is this group who will accept that migrants can ‘join the club’ and be ‘one of us’ – including accessing the British welfare system – but only if they first show their willingness to play by it’s rules: working hard and paying taxes, learning English and joining in with the community.

It’s this group that politicians and others need to engage. Like others, they have had enough of ‘tough’ promises that can’t be kept. As the issue of immigration becomes increasingly salient in the lead-up to May 2015, they will listen to those who make a pragmatic offer on immigration, one that acknowledges and engages their worries but which is both principled and achievable.

This blog was posted initially on the British Future website. 

Founded in April 2013, Citizens UK: Birmingham – a chapter of Citizens UK – is our city’s largest civil society alliance of faith, education, trade union and community groups, committed to training and applying the craft of community organising.

Last summer, we launched a ‘citizen’s listening campaign’ when teams of leaders in each community had thousands of face to face conversations. We heard the real life stories of the people of our city. We built relationships and we built collective power.  Then in October over 200 of us came together to turn these stories into a common social justice agenda and recruit leaders onto action teams. We have 5 specific areas of work: living wage, mental health, jobs, benefit payment delays and public safety. Five action teams have been working hard over the last 6 months to impact change.

On the evening of Wednesday 14 May, 429 citizens from across our membership and diverse communities gathered to do some business at our Public Accountability Assembly. We put our priorities to the decision-making powers in Birmingham. This was not a hustings or an elections debate. We assembled to seek public commitments to our specific social justice agenda.  Our approach is simple and effective.  We believe that ‘90% of an action is turn out’, mobilising hundreds of people from across our alliance to attend. The buzz and energy in the room with so many people added to the sense of unity and reinforced what a milestone the evening was.

Every proposal was preceded by a moving testimony by a person affected by the issue. They were people speaking publicly for the first time in their lives – the youngest were 10 years old.  No multi-slide power point presentations for speakers to hide behind, no jargon and strategy speak.  Any long-winded response not addressing the issue wasn’t going to go down well when compared to the powerful testimony which connected with the audience moments earlier.

And then we put our proposals to the decision-makers to see if they agreed with them. And they all did – with every proposal we put forward.

• We won a pledge from a Clinical Commissioning Group Chair for a world class mental health service for young people, ending the scandal of no access for 16 and 17-year-olds.
• We won the Council’s backing for our campaign to make Birmingham a Living Wage city and a commitment to a roundtable meeting with employers and business leaders on jobs investment.
• We won the Police Commissioner’s backing to pilot the CitySafe scheme in our neighbourhoods. He also agreed to host a meeting with the boss of National Express (re bus safety).
• We secured the Department for Work & Pension’s commitment to take action on benefit payment delays and provide a direct contact point for our alliance to refer cases.

Community organising is about building power and participating in democracy: being realistic in what we demand and winning key victories to improve the lives of people across the city. There is no better example of this than from the many young people at the Assembly who demonstrated their readiness and ability to train as leaders and act in public life.

Email:  [email protected]      twitter:  @CitizensUKBham        facebook:  Citizens UK Birmingham

In Norway, the family is regarded as an important resource in preventing re-offending.  Family visits are encouraged and prisoners are able to spend time alone with their partners and their children. The best interests of the child are considered, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and fathers in prison are encouraged to maintain relationships with their children whilst serving their sentence.

The majority of sentenced men in Halden prison, Norway’s newest and second largest prison, are entitled to a private visit from a partner or friend for two hours, twice a week.  In contrast to Norway, prisoners in England and Wales are normally allowed a two-hour social visit once a fortnight, although prisoners on the basic regime entitlement have fewer visits.  Social visits are closely monitored and are never private.

In Halden, private visits take place in small, individual visiting rooms which contain a sofa, a sink and a cupboard containing clean sheets, towels and condoms. A larger, brightly decorated room is available for prisoners with families. This room has toys and baby changing facilities.  Prisoners, partners and children can spend time together in private without being constantly observed by prison staff.  Commissioners asked whether children are searched for drugs before entering the prison but were told this never happens.  However, prisoners are searched after visits and could lose their right to a private visit if found in possession of illegal drugs.

A small number of people, such as prisoners who have a high risk of violence or visitors who have committed a drugs offence within the last five years, are restricted to closed visits. There are two rooms for closed visits with a one way glass observational panel so visits can be observed by prison staff.

Halden prison has a family visits house, one of two such facilities in the Norwegian prison estate where prisoners and their families can spend 24 hours together. The house, built within the perimeter fence, is well-equipped and homely.  It has a small kitchen, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a large living room with a dining table, a sofa and a television.  There is an outside play area with toys for children.  The patio doors look out onto the garden but it is impossible to avoid the imposing prison walls in the background.

The house is a short walk from the main prison wings and prisoners staying there receive regular visits from prison staff during the 24 hour period. Use of the house is based on trust and prisoners know that if they abuse that trust they could lose the chance to spend such a long period of time alone with their children again.

The visits house is not available to all.  Foreign national prisoners with family in other countries are unable to use the family house.  To be eligible for extended family visits, prisoners have to complete a child development education programme which is only available in the Norwegian language. Fifty per cent of the prisoners at Halden prison are foreign nationals, mainly from Eastern Europe.  Most do not speak Norwegian although some have picked up the language whilst inside. One prisoner on remand spoke of his sadness at not being able to see his children in the Netherlands or even speak to them by phone. Prisoners on remand often face the most severe restrictions on family contact, imposed on them by the courts and enforced by the prison.

For the children of Norwegian prisoners, the family visits house gives them the opportunity to spend some quality time with their dad even if they are constantly reminded that their father is in prison by the ever present view of the prison walls surrounding them.

For more information on the Commission on Sex in Prison visit www.commissiononsexinprison.org