Dame Julia Unwin, reframing the discussion on poverty in the UK

If you’re looking for inspiration about making a difference in today’s society, look no further.Dame Julia Unwin was Chair of the Inquiry into Civil Society Futures, which published in 2018. In the same year she wrote a report on The Role of Kindness in Public Policy for the Carnegie Trust. For ten years she was chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, where she was the driving force behind the 2016 report “UK Poverty: Causes, costs and solutions.” Julia thinks that we need “a fundamental rethink and recognise that we’re here to serve people in poverty, to serve people who are disadvantaged, to serve people who haven’t been given a fair chance.” That is not just about asking people questions, but also listening very carefully.Julia started her working life as a Field Worker for the Liverpool Council for Voluntary Services. Other roles have included Community Liaison Officer, Director of the Homeless Network, Chair of the Refugee Council, and Charity Commissioner. Julia says that most of her working life is the result of “accident and opportunity mixed with a bit of curiosity.” She’s always sought to work where she could affect social change, “but to pretend there was a plan would be to mislead you.”The report on Civil Society Futures contends that “Civil society risks becoming irrelevant if we do not change”: Julia believes that new ways of organising are emerging constantly in communities, for example the response to the recent flooding in the UK, and there is a risk to the established institutions if they don’t recognise the new ways of operating. Civil Society Futures has provided “a roadmap for how we can behave differently and how institutions and organisations can adapt their practices, behaviours and attitudes.”Julia maintains that local government has always been dependent on the network of association that naturally arises within any community. It’s a recognition of this that has made ‘The Wigan Deal’ a success, yet it is perilous to imagine that such networks are inexhaustible. She is concerned that there is a tendency to use the same procurement approach for all local authority services, and that the approach that works for IT and cleaning may be ill-suited to civil society relationships, with the consequence that the authority risks being further distanced from the community.The Wigan Deal and similar initiatives in the NW have positioned local government as a resource for the community, and not the community as a resource for local government. The deal embodies a new relationship for those organisations which are (to use a 70s turn of phrase) ‘outside the state.’The Wigan Deal and similar initiatives have also ushered in a different style of leadership, one which requires courage and flexibility, and the ability to follow as well as lead. Julia would contend that the success of such arrangements depends on a network of leaders rather than a single leader. The deep connections that people make with one another are essential to those networks. However, there are developments that militate against the new way of leading is that leaders don’t always have the permission and the space to lead on account of social media for example. Julia is “a huge optimist” – humans have always been at our very best in difficult times. “The Sheffield civil society that you can see outside of this office was created in the heat of the industrial revolution when people’s lives were utterly miserable…” She says it is “important that we have the tools and the self-belief to think that we can do something about it.”Julia sees the declaration of a climate crisis by the Government is a tipping point in the realisation (though it may not be a tipping point in action yet) that there is an issue to be faced. She would contend that the last general election was a tipping point that reflected the deep despair and anger in some parts of England.Julia would agree...