‘If We Can Spend £9bn On The Olympics, We Can Also Afford To End Child Poverty’

Scanning the list of research findings published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the last few weeks, it’s fair to conclude that this representative sample is ambitious.

Schools, governors and disadvantage in England; poverty dynamics; tackling low educational achievement; adapting long-term care for an ageing population; monitoring poverty and social exclusion in Wales; developments in free social care in Scotland; the impact of enforcement on street users; attitudes to economic inequality; poverty and wealth across Britain 1968-2005 and whether mixed communities are the answer to segregation and poverty.

Each year the York-based Foundation, started by businessman-philanthropist Joseph Rowntree in 1904, spends £10m on the funding of social policy research to hunt down and analyse social ills, in the hope that its data will fuel change.

Within the Foundation, Rowntree set up three trusts, which between them cover work on housing, communities and public space, poverty, disadvantage and social care. JRF pioneers new ways of living, with its various model villages (including retirement communities) around the country, including the founder’s original garden village at New Earswick, north of York.

A hundred-odd years after JR’s mission to understand the causes of “weakness or evil” in society, Julia Unwin has taken over the mantle of running what is the country’s foremost social research organisation. She succeeded Lord Best a few months ago, after he been at the helm for 18 years.

She set out her stall immediately, saying that JRF needed to go beyond its currency of research evidence and practice to exert serious influence. “My mission is the one we were set up with, not just to search out the causes of social evil but also to identify ways of changing them. I think that mission is as true today as it was at the beginning of the 20th century.

“We have to understand why people are disadvantaged, why their lives are so difficult, and not just understand in an academic sense, but really try to make a difference. My ambition is to ensure that the evidence we get, from research we fund and from the services we run, together create a really compelling case for social change.”

She says she will be a more visible face of JRF than her predecessor, and that pieces of research will be published in groups with a related thread to create more impact. If the Foundation appears to be scattering its research too thinly over too wide a territory it may cut back in order to maintain its clout.

At its inception, the JRF was concerned about slavery, war, poverty, excessive drinking, gambling and the drug trade.

Tomorrow Julia Unwin will launch an ambitious 18-month investigation across every sector of society, into what we British think are the social evils of the 21st century – the factors that impede our progress and development as a nation.

“Behind a desk is a dangerous place to be,” says Unwin. “A more traditional approach would be to set up a commission of enquiry composed of the great and the good. But we want to do it more unconventionally, talking to residents in our houses, children in schools, people in prisons, across all communities… and ask what makes life difficult for them.

“We will then put what all these people think into the public domain, and say ‘right, these are the bits that we (JRF) will pick up, the elements that fit into our mission on poverty, community and how neighbourhoods work.”

JRF is not a “fix-it” organisation, and its work is absolutely independent of any political or commercial influence. This means that its rafts of meticulous research on every aspect of social inequality tend to find the ears of Ministers easily, and are often quoted at Prime Minister’s Questions.

One of the things she thinks the social evils research will reveal is public anxiety about living in a fractured society. “When Joseph Rowntree set us up, people lived in communities where they were very like their neighbours. We now live in very diverse communities. There are many good things about that, but there are also stresses and strains.”

JRF has made a 10-year commitment to research in Bradford. “A lot of the work that was done after the riots focused on a particular part of the social mix in the city – what was happening to young Muslims. We published a book, giving voice to how young Muslim men felt, rather than just describing it.

“A lot of what we’re now doing is looking at some of the outlying estates, where working class white people are disenfranchised and cut off… We won’t transform Bradford’s fortunes on our own. What we’re good at is making connections, bringing evidence we’ve found in other parts of the country…helping to make a difference.”

With a new prime minister comes new hope for everyone in the voluntary, lobbying and social research sectors that a fresh pair of hands may do something address areas of need that have been allowed to stagnate since the early Blair years. Unwin says Gordon Brown’s immediate commitment to increasing the housing supply is gratifying. JRF has made many dire predictions about the gloomy social implications if young families are driven out of our towns and cities for want of a home.

What else is on her priority list for the new pair of hands? “It was incredibly important to make a promise to end child poverty (as Blair did in 1997). It’s a disgrace that, in the 21st century, there are children without enough to eat. £3.9bn is what we’ve said is needed to end child poverty by, amongst other things, helping their parents into education and jobs that will change lives.

“While we think it’s great that we can spend £9bn on the Olympics, if we can afford that, we can also afford to end child poverty. After making a start, the work has stalled.”

Possibly the most thorny problem for Brown is the ticking time bomb of financing long-term care of the elderly. Unwin’s calm voice and even tempo become agitated on this one. She is persuasive, rather than table-thumping, though.

“We’ve got to find a rational way of helping people to live full and healthy lives for 30 years after they reach retirement, rather than them worrying about how they’ll be looked after if they fall. If I want my father or mother to go into a care home, I want to know it’s there and safe for them and of decent quality we can rely on.

“We’ve done a lot of research on different options for paying for care, some of them involving quite dramatic Government changes, and some involving small changes which would, for example, allow people to use equity from their homes to partially fund their care without incurring penalties.”

As part of an umbrella organisation of other interested organisations and charities, JRF is holding meetings across the country with elderly people and their carers to hear ideas on how care should be financed. Unwin, whose mother was an immigrant from Germany in the 1930s, grew up a “privileged southern girl,” with a social conscience.

“When she came here, British people looked after my mother, although they really didn’t have to. She gave back in working for a charity until she retired, and I was brought up to give, not just take.”

The JRF job represented “an ideal” – work that would tie together all of her previous experience across the public and voluntary sectors. She thinks that if Joseph Rowntree came back now to inspect the organisation he’d see room for improvement.

“From all I’ve read about him, he’d say we could do better. He tried to put his talents at the disposal of people who lived in poverty, and I hope I’ve done that.”