I’ve been talking with people about climate change for more than thirty years. Recently, one question has started to dominate all others: “what is it that I need to do?” We know climate change is happening, we know it’s serious, and we know we all have a responsibility – so what is it that I need to do? The Funder Commitment on Climate Change arose out of several charitable funders, including the Barrow Cadbury Trust, seeking an answer to that question.

In June 2019, at a gathering of foundation leaders, we heard persuasive evidence not only about the threat from rapid climate change, but also of the opportunities and costs of the necessary transition to a low carbon economy. For over a century, our economy and society has been shaped by the use of fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transport. Ending fossil fuel use therefore involves economic and social transformation. Similarly, moving from today’s agriculture to a more sustainable, mainly plant-based food system will also be a huge change.

In the coffee break, several of us got talking about “what it is we need to do” and the idea of a climate pledge or manifesto for funders was born. I offered to start the ball rolling, and was inspired by the amount of energy and interest it attracted.

Conversations continued over the summer. An early realisation was that the pledge had to be inclusive, and relevant to all foundations, whatever their size, governance or charitable mission. At the same time, it was vital to get beyond vague intentions, and several of the founding signatories rightly pushed for high ambition. We also agreed that the Funder Commitment needed to be holistic, recognising all aspects of our work – programmes, investments and operations – will need to change.

The language evolved through discussion and consultation. Initially known as a ‘manifesto’, we eventually settled on the term ‘Commitment’ as having the right connotations. We sought language that would speak to diverse audiences, mindful of the need to build a broad movement. The final text recognises opportunities, such as new industries and jobs, for example.

The Association of Charitable Foundations generously offered space at their annual conference in November to launch the Funder Commitment. This gave us both a platform and a deadline! The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation provided some seed funding, and Comic Relief supported the creation of a website. The final text, founding signatories and communications came together, all just in time.

On 6 November 2019, the Funder Commitment on Climate Change was launched in a packed room of foundation staff and trustees, with many more turned away at the door through lack of space. By the end of the day, inquiries were coming in from other foundations wishing to add their name. At the time of writing, we have topped thirty signatories, with Comic Relief the latest to join.

So, what have we all pledged to do, and why?

Addressing climate change needs large scale, urgent action. Money is needed for activism, for advocacy, for education, for business development, for practical action, and to support local communities through transition. Some foundations can provide grants, while others can give staff time or other in-kind support. So one element of the Funder Commitment is to commit resources. The slide below illustrates the way it works.

The causes and solutions of climate change interact with many other fields of civil society activity, ranging from housing to the arts, and from scientific research to social change. Foundations have an opportunity to build on their existing expertise and networks, to make productive links across different fields, and to foster positive action on climate in their own priority areas. Another part of the Funder Commitment is about this integration.

Next we come to foundation investments. Climate change is recognised as a risk to investments by the World Bank and Bank of England, amongst others. It is basic good stewardship to recognise and address this risk, and this is what the Funder Commitment requires. There are also many opportunities for foundations to take a more active leadership stance on responsible investment.

While for most foundations, our direct carbon footprint will be small relative to the impact we can have through our grants and investment choices, it is still important and empowering to get our own house in order – to show leadership, to engage stakeholders, and to manage reputational risks. So the Funder Commitment also covers the climate change impact of our own operations.

Every funder, and indeed every NGO, public body and commercial company, will be at a different stage in tackling climate change. This is an ongoing generational transformation, not a one-off task. For this reason, the Funder Commitment opens with a commitment to learning, and closes with a commitment to reporting on progress. What is it that you need to do?

Nick Perks

Find the full text of the Funder Commitment on Climate Change and list of current signatories here.

Nick Perks is a freelance charity and philanthropy consultant.
http://www.nickperks.org.uk/    @Nick_Perks_

Is a growing economy something to celebrate when the benefits it brings are out of reach to many? While the economy grew as a whole in the 2017/18 financial year, the poorest 20 per cent of the population actually experienced a real terms decline in their incomes of 1.6 per cent. Some two-thirds of the jobs created by Britain’s much-heralded, post-recession jobs boom have come in the form of ‘atypical employment’, such as gig economy work and zero-hours contracts. The Government has started to turn its attention to reducing regional imbalances in economic growth, but years of inaction have given them a mountain to climb – the only regions where productivity is above the UK average are London and the South East.

In recent years, policy-makers have started looking beyond usual growth measures (such as GDP and employment figures) towards new approaches that enable more people to contribute to and benefit from economic growth. ‘Inclusive growth’ is the umbrella concept bringing together many of these approaches. NLGN’s latest report, Cultivating Local Inclusive Growth In Practice, supported by Barrow Cadbury Trust, features examples of some of the projects currently being led by councils throughout England. This animation will give you an overview of the project.

The report is structured around NLGN’s new Framework for Cultivating Inclusive Growth. We designed the Framework to be a practical tool to help councils develop their thinking, no matter whether they are just starting to develop a strategy or are in the process of implementing one.

The Framework identifies the groups councils should work with to promote local inclusive growth:

• Employers. These are private, public and third sector organisations of all sizes who employ people in the local area.
• Citizens. These are the people who live and/or work in a local authority area.
• Partners. These are the organisations that work with councils to deliver public services and other projects, such as the NHS, schools and colleges, and companies that have been awarded a contract by the council.
• Places. These are parks, buildings, town centres and other forms of physical space and assets in an area.

These are set against the levers councils can use, with the powers and resources currently at their disposal, to promote local inclusive growth:

• Regulate. This category covers the hardest policy levers at a council’s disposal, including their ability to set rules and regulations to promote inclusive growth. For example, one council uses its procurement process to ensure that only businesses paying the real living wage can successfully apply for council contracts.
• Incentivise. Councils can offer incentives, financial or otherwise, for employers, citizens and partners to behave in a way that is conducive to promoting inclusive growth. For example, one council offers undergraduates and recent graduates of local universities a wide range of paid placement and training opportunities to encourage them to stay in the area.
• Shape. Councils can reshape their area to promote inclusive growth, either literally, through things like redevelopment, or in more subtle ways, through efforts to encourage employers, citizens and partners to promote inclusive growth. For example, some councils have created charters setting out socially responsible business practices and invited local employers to sign up to them.
• Facilitate. Councils can promote inclusive growth in a more ‘back-seat’ facilitative role, by creating the partnerships, institutions and frameworks to enable others to take the lead. For example, one council worked with partners to set up a fund for projects that help local communities access employment, education and training opportunities.

Each section of the report contains many more practical examples and case studies.

We are very grateful to the council officers and think tank/academic researchers whose experiences and insights generously shared with us through interviews and workshops were invaluable to our research. If you have any questions about our research or would like to talk to us about our inclusive growth research, please get in touch with us at [email protected].

In the last year as a board we have also been reflecting on our responsibilities as trustees of a family philanthropic endowment.  We have questioned how we exercise our mandate and fulfil our role in the public domain when our endowment is derived from private wealth and as charity trustees, we are unelected.

We are still governed by a largely family board, descendants of the founders, Barrow and Geraldine Southall Cadbury, but are supported by non-family trustees.  We recognise that board membership is both a privilege and a service and have taken steps to minimise the impact of that privilege.

Firstly, we recognise that this is not primarily ‘our’ money.  It is held in trust for the public benefit and we must approach how we use it with care and humility, consulting and learning from our stakeholders and partners every inch of the way.

Secondly, the staff and trustee board endeavour to minimise the negative power imbalance in our relationships with all of our partners.  We hope, as our stakeholders and partners, you’ll let us know when we fall short.

Thirdly we are committed to enhancing our skills as trustees so that our decision making is informed and responsible.   Our non-family trustees augment our knowledge base and our perspectives. We also now ask family members who want to join the board to gain experience by serving a governance apprenticeship in a front-line charity.

Most importantly though, we consider ourselves to be an integral part of civil society.  We believe we add value as actors, not just as observers or supporters, but in our own right, as all citizens are entitled to.

Over the past few months, as we prepared for the centenary, we reflected with great care on our long term goals and as trustees took the decision to protect the long term future of the endowment.  In order to do this, we will have to reduce our spending from our capital  to ensure that we have an adequate income in the future.  We will do this gradually over our next five year strategic period.  We have started to deliver several programmes now for other funding bodies, and we hope to develop this approach further.

As we embark on a new decade, we’ve also been impacted afresh by the surge of younger people renaming the climate crisis as an emergency.  The Quaker activist John Woolman wrote presciently in the 18^th century “the produce of the earth is a gift from our gracious creator to the inhabitants and to impoverish the earth now to support outward greatness appears to be an injury to the succeeding age”.  In this spirit, last year we became founding signatories to the Funder Commitment on Climate Change and will be working over the coming months to translate that commitment to more action.

And in the midst of political turbulence and social division, I would like to draw your attention to the Decade of Reconnection, orchestrated by a number of our partners and others.  Launching officially in the Spring, its purpose is to make deliberate efforts – all of us – to reach out respectfully to those who do not share our views.  Let us reach out more and listen harder in the interests of a better future.

This blog is the first in a year-long series, drawing on ambitious and clear-sighted thinking and activities from a broad range of our partners, stakeholders and grantees – past and present.  We are also delighted to launch our new animation ‘hot off the press’ which we hope captures how we arrived at this place, and very importantly where we’d like to be in another hundred years.

Erica Cadbury
Chair, Barrow Cadbury Trust

“They should have dealt with things properly. They should have listened to what I had said…I wouldn’t have gone through the things that I went through.” – Sheena

Girls and young women facing the greatest forms of inequality and disadvantage are frequently marginalised, ignored and misunderstood. Girls facing a combination of problems – like abuse and violence, mental health problems, conflict with the law, addiction or having no safe place to call home – are often overlooked in policy and services designed to meet young people’s needs, and we hear little about the reality of their experiences.

Time and again, youth policies, reviews and strategies fail to recognise the different and gendered experiences and needs of girls and boys. The Government’s Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision Green Paper, for example, makes no mention of girls – despite the NHS’s own research showing that young women (aged 17-19) are a high-risk group for mental health problems.

Even where it is recognised that girls face poorer outcomes or face additional vulnerabilities that might mean they face further risk, their needs are rarely given the attention they deserve. The Timpson Review of School Exclusion found girls in care were much more likely to be excluded than those not in care – a much clearer trend than in boys. And despite the Charlie Taylor Youth Justice System noting the extreme vulnerability of girls in custody, the Government has no clear plan to address girls needs in the criminal justice system.

Government and the media tend to report on issues affecting disadvantaged young people as though these primarily affect boys, and in many cases the way girls are affected is overlooked. We regularly see models of provision, support and sanctions built around young men’s lives. This is particularly true where girls are in the minority, such as the criminal justice system and pupil referrals units, or where their experiences might be more hidden, such as with intimate partner violence. Overall this means girls are easier to overlook, which translates directly into what gets measured, how policy is designed, who gets heard and what gets funded on the ground.

We need to shift to a more gendered understanding of ‘risk’ and ‘harm’ as it affects young people and wider society. As girls are more likely to be a risk to themselves than to others, for example by self-harming of developing eating disorders, we often don’t see their pain and struggles. If we continue to only think about externalised behaviours such as getting in fights or acting out in school (in themselves also often expressions of trauma), we fail to see the true extent of problems affecting girls.

Unseen and left without help, girls may go on face other problems, coming to the attention of other services such as children’s social care around concerns about their own children, or as adult survivors of childhood exploitation facing the legacy of trauma. The fact that many services working with adult women say the needs of their beneficiaries are increasing, becoming more entrenched and more complex, suggests we aren’t getting things right at an earlier enough stage for girls and young women.

Sadly, we hear similar experiences to the words of Sheena all too often. Girls telling us that they haven’t been seen, understood or helped to fulfill their potential. Which is why Agenda is launching a new programme of work to uncover girl’s lived realities, and generate solutions for change. By growing the evidence base on girls needs and experiences, working with girls to identify what works and what’s needed, and engaging with those in positions of power and influence to put this into practice, we aim to bring about the change girls tell us they want.

If you work with girls and young women facing disadvantage, we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch with [email protected] to find out more and be part of this work.

Pay for the typical FTSE 100 CEO in 2020 has already surpassed the amount the average UK worker earns in an entire year. High Pay Centre argues that much more can be done to achieve a better balance between those at the top and everybody else, in this blog originally posted on High Pay Centre website on 5 January.

FTSE 100 CEOs only need to work until just before 17.00 on Monday 6 January 2020 in order to make the same amount of money that the typical full-time employee will in the entire year.

The calculation for ‘High Pay Day 2020’ is based on research by HPC and the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, showing that:

• Top bosses earn 117 times the annual pay of the average worker
• In 2018 (latest available data) the average FTSE 100 CEO earned £3.46 million, equivalent to £901.30 an hour
• In comparison, the average (as defined by the median) full-time worker took home an annual salary of £29,559 in 2018, equivalent to £14.37 an hour
• To match average worker pay in 2020, FTSE 100 CEOs starting work on Thursday 2 January 2020 only need to work until just before 17.00 on Monday 6 January – just three working days (33 hours)

High pay will be a key issue in 2020 as this is the first year that publicly listed firms with more than 250 UK employees must disclose the ratio between CEO pay and the pay of their average worker. Under changes to the Companies Act (2006), firms must now provide their CEO pay ratio figures and a supporting narrative to explain the reasons for their executive pay ratios. The first round of reporting will be seen in annual reports published in 2020.

Compared with last year, CEOs now have to work slightly longer to make the median UK salary, after their pay fell from £3.9 million. However, the fact that it now takes them until teatime, rather than lunchtime, on the third working day of the year to pocket a sum of money that half of workers did not earn for an entire year’s work in 2019 rather puts this slight fall into perspective.

How major employers distribute pay across different levels of the organisation plays an important role in determining living standards. CEOs are paid extraordinarily highly compared to the wider workforce, reflecting an approach to business that has made the UK one of the most unequal countries in the developed world.

If we want to raise incomes for low and middle earners, measures that will enable them to get a fairer, more proportionate share of the spend on pay distributed by big companies will be of critical importance.

The decision for the Barrow Cadbury Trust to take another step and become a Living Wage Funder was an easy one for us as we were already a Living Wage Employer. The Trust has a long history of tackling and addressing the root causes of poverty and disadvantage and the Living Wage campaign fits with a number of our over-arching concerns, one of which is tackling gender disadvantage.  A majority of the low paid workforce are women.   Rather than being heavy handed about our grantees becoming Living Wage employers, we try to support anyone we fund if they’re interested in finding out more.  As funders we have both hard and soft power to encourage those we fund to explore becoming a living wage employer.

The process for us to gain accreditation as Living Wage Funder was fairly simple requiring us to make some very small changes.  As much of our funding already goes into long term research, policy and influencing work rather than front line, short term direct services, and funding staff posts, we contribute to only a very small number of low paid roles. So for the Trust there is less of an impact on our grant making than there might be for some of the larger volume funders.

We made some small changes to our application and assessment process adding additional questions, and where relevant we have proposed increased salaries to encourage grantholders and prospective applicants to think about building a Living Wage workforce. We signpost those who want to find out more about becoming a Living Wage Employer to the Living Wage Foundation, but we understand that it is not always an easy thing to do and so also offer to cover accreditation fees for smaller organisations.

We have found that the Living Wage Funder scheme is flexible. We‘re a supportive group of trusts and foundations and are very happy to help funders contemplating signing up to think through the implications. As an anti-poverty organisation, it’s important that we use the resources at our disposal to advocate for and encourage the scheme, and to see how we can enable more charities to become Living Wage Employers.

Find out more on how your organisation can join the Living Wage.

All new markets take time to evolve and mature.  There are constantly new suppliers entering and leaving the field, along with waves of innovation occurring around products and services. The social investment market is no different and NPC has been observing and contributing to its development since the beginning.

We are encouraged by the growth of the social investment market. In the UK, the market was estimated to be worth over £2.3bn as of the end of 2017, an increase of 50% from 2015 and spread across 4,000 transactions[1]. But despite this growth, the market is still not fully functioning—amongst other issues, available financing options are often too expensive for charities and social enterprises (VCSEs), there are significant knowledge and capacity gaps and the market is not as diverse as it could be. This is not surprising in such early days of a market — it’s not going to be perfect from day one.

The Connect Fund was set up in 2017 to improve the social investment market in England — as a partnership between the Barrow Cadbury Trust and the Access Foundation. The fund has carefully identified its role in the ecosystem — what it can and can’t influence — and focuses specifically on strengthening the infrastructure — for example developing shared tools and resources and improving connections and linkages.

Through its provision of finance and support to social investment intermediaries, such as Key Fund or Big Issue Invest, and voluntary sector infrastructure organisations, such as Community Action Suffolk or Disability Rights UK, the Connect Fund promotes collaboration, champions impact and convenes new and existing voices.

For example, the Fund has invested in Singlify — affordable software management for the social investment sector, allowing social investment funds to better manage investment portfolios. And it has supported various regional membership organisations, such as a grant to Medway Voluntary Action to create a social investment champion programme, training local sector leaders to act as advocates and mentors for small local VCSEs wanting to explore and access social investment.

Two years after launch, with £2.2m in grants and investments disbursed to 52 projects (out of an overall £6m commitment), the Fund asked NPC to assess the delivery and progress of its programme to date, hear from grantees on what is working well and understand how it could maximise its impact over the lifetime of the fund. It’s too early for a systematic evaluation of the Fund, but we have published an interim learning report .

Although it’s early days, we found the Fund is making great progress. It is particularly valued by its grantees for its approach — flexible funding, a supportive team and encouraging collaboration and connections between grantees.

And it is contributing towards important outcomes to strengthen the market. The extent of this contribution is clearly harder to assess — what is the Connect Fund’s specific role in, for example, increasing diversity within the market or building trust between VCSEs and social investors?  But we are confident, through surveys and conversations with grantees, that the Connect Fund has played a role in the headway being made. Among other things, VCSE infrastructure organisations have greater knowledge and capacity to support their members around social investment than 18 months ago. ‘Cold spots’ of social investment have been targeted — by region, demographic and sector. And 241 new networks, collaborations or partnerships have been established through the fund.

That being said, the market still has numerous issues that need addressing, most of which relate directly to front-line VCSEs and therefore are harder for the Connect Fund to influence. But areas highlighted by grantees that fall within the Fund’s remit include making more face-to-face connections between organisations, continuing its mission to increase diversity, and working closely with investors around language, terminology and simplifying investment.

More detail on the progress made to date and remaining challenges for the Fund are highlighted within the learning report. We’re excited to see the Fund, in partnership with Access, embed these learnings in the next iteration of its funding and continue its vital role in strengthening the market.

[1] Big Society Capital (July 2018), Size of the UK Social Investment Market

Ade Lamuye, a reporter and immigration campaigner for young undocumented migrants shares her experience of taking part in Media Movers. Ade is a part of We Belong, known previously as the campaign group Let Us Learn.

Throughout the first year of Media Movers I’ve had interactions with extremely influential media organisations, which included a BBC soap, Channel 4 and VICE. Although I did not attend all of them, one memorable interaction would be with VICE and Broadly. This is because one of the editors who attended, Zing Tsjeng, shared with the group her own personal experience with immigration and the hurdles she had to jump through. Also, the environment during the interaction was relaxing because those who attended came ready with questions and showed actual interest past the idea of just getting a story — they came in wanting to know about our individual stories and to get more information.

My experience as a ‘Media Mover’ began with an informal but practical day of introductions and learning how to engage with the media, something we would be doing throughout the upcoming months. Coming into the group as a journalist, I had some idea about how to work with different media organisations but the day gave me the opportunity to interact with the other young people that I would be working with, and it also gave me the chance to understand the importance of self care and ‘peer support’.

Migrants telling their personal stories about immigration and their experience with the Home Office can be such a heavy topic, particularly in the cases where the young people affected are left helpless by their family and their government. Peer support and self care highlighted by the On Road team made me realise how important it is to share with others. We spent months telling strangers our personal and emotional stories, and what was amazing about being part of Media Movers was that the team made it clear you had the power to say no — no to questions you don’t want to answer and no to part of your personal struggles you don’t want to share.

Overall, this past year has been wonderful and it’s provided me with great insight into how to pitch to other media organisations outside of print, and I’ve learnt how to be comfortable sat across from senior members. But most importantly, being a part of the project has taught me that everything takes time and the result may not be instant but you work to make it happen.

Kate Llewellyn, an On Road project manager, who also ran the All About Trans project.

Having run All About Trans for a few years, I was really curious to see how we could start working with young people with irregular immigration status – we had support from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Explore and Test grant, which was a great approach for the pilot. I guessed there would broadly be similarities between the two projects, but wasn’t sure what to expect on the media side of things – would journalists see irregular immigration status as a new, fresh angle and be up for meeting the group, or would they think the experiences were something well-covered already?

Also, there’s always a lot of thought that goes into the best way to explain what it is that people are going through, and although I’d done a stack of reading, chats with people in the sector and consultation with young people who have irregular immigration status, I wasn’t sure yet how we’d go about explaining these experiences to the media without getting stuck on the legal explanations.

It was really obvious though, once the group got together in July last year, there wasn’t going to be a problem bringing these issues to life, and working out how to get this simple explanation across would come quickly. I was struck when we bought the group together for the first time by the energy and spark in the room, and the eloquent way people spoke about their experience.

After the first day of Media Movers, I was excited to get stuck in with this fiery group – made up of 10 young people, coming from organisations and campaign groups including Let Us Learn / We Belong, Brighter Futures, Coram Rights Trainers, PRCBC.

The year went past in a blink – the Media Movers took part in ten interactions with organisations across the UK media including LBC, VICE, Channel 4 News and Creative Diversity, ITN News, ITV, Times, Metro.co.uk and BBC teams. Interactions are what we call friendly and informal meet-ups between the media and people with experience of a particular issue – essentially a good chat that gives media professionals an experience that makes them connect emotionally with the issue at hand. All the while, we ran monthly peer support sessions – mini trainings or discussions, a space that’s always tied to action.

Everyone was a little nervous as we headed into the first interaction, and we had a big chat about how to kick things off with the journalists. With All About Trans, there’s broadly a reluctance to share a personal story off the bat, but the Media Movers were far more relaxed with doing this. My gut was that it would be good to challenge ourselves to be tighter on boundaries – not beginning with a really personal story but giving people the chance to click with each other, whether over a shared hobby or their meaningful item.

I feel like that paid off, as the Media Movers began to see their story like holding a deck of cards – sharing what feels right and relevant and holding back what’s not relevant, or what they didn’t feel comfortable to share, making sure there’s no burn out in the long run. I love it, genuinely, when people say no to me – no, actually I don’t want to do this interaction, no, I’m not okay to talk about that. Seeing people look after themselves is a joy.

With the interactions themselves, it felt like there was an opportunity after Windrush and all the work the sector had been doing – I suspect there was a momentum that journalists felt, making them want to find out more about this little heard of experience.

When we were in the room at an interaction, I was fascinated to see the journalists’ reactions to the group – there were some surprises. When explaining what irregular immigration status is to the Managing Editor of The Mail on Sunday, a Media Mover found out that his wife is a migrant herself and he’d had a pretty good sight over the immigration processes. But there was total shock from a few media professionals the group met with – people who saw themselves as very progressive and in the loop – who had no understanding of the process, in particular the 10 year route.

The disbelief and confusion from the media professionals, a lot being parents of similar aged people, was obvious. It was the everyday that seemed to be moving them – the description of people sitting down to UCAS and realising they can’t apply for student finance, or heading out of school and then not being able to apply for a job. Journalists hated thinking of young people being blocked, and this was no different for the Media Movers.

Coming to the end of the grant, I was desperate to carry on with the project that the Media Movers had built with On Road. It felt like we were on the edge of a bigger understanding of this area, and I didn’t want that opportunity to be lost.

So it’s my absolute pleasure to announce two bits of good news. Not only have we been given support from Unbound Philanthropy to run Media Movers for three more years in London, but we’ve just been awarded funding from the Barrow Cadbury Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust to run Media Movers in the North of England over three years. A bigger announcement on that last one coming soon!

For those of you looking for an addition to your summer reading list, I have a strong recommendation – ‘You are what you read’ by Jodie Jackson.[i] Jackson, a partner at the Constructive Journalism Project[ii] and one of this year’s CJA Media Awards judges, has spent the last decade researching the psychological impact of the news, finding a negativity bias in reporting that leads to a sense of ‘crisis’ and lack of hope amongst readers.

The NCVO Constructive Voices project highlighted the 2019 Digital News Report, which showed nearly a third of people say they actively avoid the news because it has a negative effect on their mood and they feel powerless to change events.[iii] Constructive Journalism sets itself apart from this, remaining critical, but also seeking to foster conversation, hope and action.

Within criminal justice reporting a negativity bias is all too apparent. Of course, the multitude of issues plaguing the criminal justice system invite criticism, and raising the public’s awareness of the challenges is important. But Jackson argues that explaining the possible solutions is also vital.

The 2017 report Reframing Crime and Justice[iv] also highlighted ‘It’s commonly thought that there is little government or society can do to reduce crime. Communications that dwell on the problems of the criminal justice system, but do not suggest solutions, will trigger fatalism.’  The annual CJA Awards help to combat this negativity by promoting the innovative and effective work of Outstanding Organisations and Outstanding Individuals across the country. (The 2019 awards are now open for nominations!)

The CJA also presents an award for Outstanding Journalism. This year we have worked with a group of experts including journalists, CJA members and people with lived experience to refresh the criteria and nominations process and ensure the award champions journalism that drives the conversation forward.

Why have we done this? Talking with CJA members last summer when developing our strategy[v], there was a recurring theme – the need to positively engage with the public debate about criminal justice and to change public opinion:

‘We need to change public opinion – it can be done. Look at public attitudes to smoking 25 years ago.’

‘The general public are key stakeholders. Rehabilitation is a shared responsibility. We need the public to help people re-connect and not be stigmatised.’

‘We need to leverage support from the public, to bring people with us.’

‘This sector tends to preach to the converted, not those who need to be convinced.’

It became clear that a key element of achieving the CJA’s vision of a fair and effective criminal justice system is through influential communications with the public through the media.  Inspired by the Mind Media Awards good practice criteria for mental health reporting,[vi] the CJA’s expert group has developed our own good practice criteria for criminal justice reporting, drawing on constructive journalism and reframing principles. The criteria[vii] include:

• Show what works, not just what is broken.
• Include ‘hidden’ voices and issues.
• Challenge myths and avoid stereotypes, clichés, negative terminology and sensationalism.
• Portray individuals’ experiences authentically, humanely and sensitively.
• Set individuals’ experiences within a wider social policy context.
• Influence and inspire people to think differently, care about the issue and take positive action.

We will promote these principles to the sector and media through our awards and we also plan to work with the National Union of Journalists to produce more detailed guidance on criminal justice reporting.  This is a timely piece of work because of the growing interest in the role of the media on public perceptions of criminal justice. For example, the London Violence Reduction Unit’s new strategy includes an objective to ‘change the message around violence’ as they recognise that ‘the way in which issues are represented by the media […] shapes our views and as a result, can shape our behaviour.’

Our expert group also recognised the growing volume and quality of digital media including blogs, vlogs and podcasts, which often allow individuals to bypass traditional media outlets and to develop their own criminal justice related content. We are therefore excited to introduce a new Outstanding Digital Media Champion category to celebrate and promote the growing importance of these mediums.

The judges for the 2019 Media Awards are: Danny Shaw (BBC Home Affairs Correspondent), Raphael Rowe (Reporter for Netflix, the One Show and Panorama), Penelope Gibbs (Author of Reframing Crime and Justice), Jodie Jackson (Constructive Journalism Project) and Nadine Smith (CJA trustee).

For more information about the CJA Media Awards and how to nominate or email [email protected]

[i] https://www.jodiejackson.com/you-are-what-you-read/

[ii] https://www.constructivejournalism.org/

[iii] https://www.ncvo.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/constructive-voices/about-constructive-journalism

[iv] http://www.transformjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Reframing-crime-and-Justice-a-handy-guide_Transform-Justice.pdf

[v] http://criminaljusticealliance.org/cja-strategy-2019-2022-connecting-change/

[vi] https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/mind-media-awards/2017-mind-media-awards-criteria/

[vii] http://criminaljusticealliance.org/criminal-justice-alliance-media-awards-2019/

In libel-proofing their book, The Secret Barrister will no doubt have entered “Keres & Co” into the search engine to ensure that, in name at least, this firm was their creation. If anything, Keres & Co is the creation of the Ministry of Justice and its subsidiary the Legal Aid Agency.

Over the past decade, criminal defence has transitioned from being an honourable and moderately profitable discipline of law to one reduced to trying to minimise the amount of work conducted at a loss. The 2014 Otterburn report found that criminal law firms run on an average profit margin of 5%. Since then, defence practices have suffered an 8.75% cut imposed by the Ministry of Justice, a downturn in volume due to clients being released under investigation and fewer prosecutions, and a recent trend by the Legal Aid Agency to reduce payments for time spent reviewing evidence. Low fixed fees for police station work put pressure on on-call solicitors to get matters processed efficiently. The prospect of out of hours work ahead of a full day in court is not conducive to wellbeing. The police, unlike lawyers, work on a shift system and so have little incentive to speed things up. And a defence solicitor can spend hours with a client in a police station only for Keres & Co to pitch up post-charge, claiming to have been sent by the family, and sweep the client away with one quick signature. Ultimately it is often more time efficient for on-call solicitors to delegate these attendances to unqualified reps so that they can continue with other fee-earning or administrative duties.

Fees for court work are insufficient too: one stark example is the £330.33 paid to a defence firm if a case goes to the Crown Court but the prosecutor drops charges shortly before the trial. This amount is meant to cover the time spent preparing the case, representing the defendant at the magistrates’ court, instructing experts, visiting prisons and speaking to witnesses. In many cases fixed fees are so unrewarding that firms can only survive by introducing privately funded work, or focussing on large multi-defendant page-heavy cases, both of which take senior lawyers away from standard criminal defence work. Survival is based upon the increasingly bloody battleground of large cases. The alternative is for firms to stop providing standard criminal defence work altogether.

Caught between an increasingly uncooperative Crown Prosecution Service and a Legal Aid Agency determined to reduce payments, firms are getting tired of the ongoing battle to find margins of profitability. Significant numbers of highly regarded firms have taken the view that criminal legal aid work is being devalued beyond viability, paving the way for a two-tier system of large factory firms or Keres & Co type firms. Clients face the unpalatable choice of being passed along a conveyer belt of lawyers and clerks or risking their liberty in the hands of firms prepared to cut corners to ensure profitability.

The Ministry of Justice tells itself that while firms are still prepared to conduct criminal defence work, there is no issue. The auditing process coupled with peer reviews, it believes, can weed out poor quality. In reality, the oppressive regime imposed by the Legal Aid Agency does not assess quality by outcomes or caseloads but by the ability to jump through compliance hoops. Firms choosing to focus on outcomes and genuine client retention are penalised.

The current criminal legal aid contract is becoming unfeasible for firms who pride themselves on high quality provision, leading to the rise of the Ministry of Justice’s own Frankenstein’s monster – firms which put profit before those they represent. It is only when the Ministry of Justice accepts this that legally aided clients will get the robust defence that they deserve.

This blog has been cross posted from Transform Justice 

Their new criminal justice report can be found here.