We recently invited some of the students we are supporting to come to our offices for drinks and tell us how they are doing. Governors and staff were delighted to catch up with them, and to hear their news. Many said how essential our bursaries, usually over three years, are in helping them stay afloat.

Last year we made grants to 148 Lambeth students, totalling £238,477. They are following courses at a wide range of universities across the United Kingdom. Subjects studied include Chemical Engineering, Medicine, Law, Psychology, Criminology, History and Nursing.

We are developing the support we offer our Walcot Students. From this year, through our grant to Power2, they are able to access careers advice, mentoring and help in arranging placements.  We want to help students to make the most of their time at university so as to increase what is often termed 'social/cultural capital'. Our aim, through our grants and support, is to give our grantees from low-income Lambeth households the best possible chance of gaining properly paid jobs that fit in with their career plans. We're really proud of them!

We are celebrating Living Wage Week

We are currently seeking someone to join us on Mondays and Tuesdays 0900-1700 (14 hours PW) as Estate and Governance Administrator. Starting salary on range of £10,663-£11,282 pa (full time equivalent £26,658-£28,206 pa). Details here

See our Annual Review 2017/2018, Unfinished Business, online.
Printed copies are available on request. We'll be glad to send you a copy. Call us during office hours on 020 7735 1925 or email office <at> walcotfoundation.org.uk

Read our interview with a modern day benefactor of the Walcot Foundation - here

There have been dramatic cuts to London's youth services since 2016 according to a briefing paper by Sian Berry, a Member of the London Assembly. She highlights these main findings for the period 2011/12 to 2017/18

• At least £39 million has been cut from council youth service budgets across London
  
• Overall, there has been a 44 per cent youth service budget cut, with the average council taking £1.5 million out of youth services over this time
• Across 25 councils with like-for-like data, 81 youth centres and major council-supported youth projects have been cut
  
• Across 22 councils with like-for-like data, 800 youth service full-time posts have gone. At least a further £1.2 million is being cut from 15 councils in 2018/19 budgets
• Since 2011, the cumulative amount not spent on services for young people in London is now more than £145m

The briefing shows these figures for Lambeth (the area we serve) -
Change in funding youth services 2011/12-2018/18 -£2,499,000, a reduction ob this period of 53%
These reductions - part of the wider, severe cuts to public spending - have had a major impact on a range of provision that offered support and engagement to young people. The long term costs of this are likely to be significant.

Founded in 2017 by actor and activist Michael Sheen, the End High Cost Credit Alliance formally launched on 20 March 2018 at the Responsible Finance conference in Glasgow. The Alliance seeks fair, affordable credit products for those who need them.  A key requirement is clarity about the true cost of borrowing. In this video, Michael Sheen tells a pub story to show hidden high APR costs...

Our advertisement in Lambeth Talk's Winter edition

The latest data for London's Poverty Profile (from 2016 and 2017) shows a mixed picture. In some ways, London is better off than it was before the financial crisis. Employment rates are ar peak, at least as far back as 1992, at over 73% of the working-age population. This is 4.5%s higher than a decade earlier. This also translates to a record low in the number of workless households in London. However, while the overall poverty rate has fallen slightly in recent years, it remains higher than the rest of the country; and the proportion living in 'deep poverty' has increased.  Follow 'read more'

We were delighted to support Victoria and the social enterprise she established, Iconic Steps.  See her video...

We have posted revised designs for the exterior elevations of the Foundation's proposed Walcot Mews development. More

This latest annual report from the New Policy Institute brings together the most recent data to present a comprehensive picture of poverty in the UK. Key points -

• In 2014/15, there were 13.5 million people living in low-income households, 21% of the UK population. This proportion has barely changed since 2002/03.
• The proportion of working-age adults in employment is at a record high. Full-time employees account for 62% of the growth in jobs since 2010. The proportion of young adults who are unemployed is the lowest since 2005.
• The number of people in poverty in a working family is 55% – a record high. Four-fifths of the adults in these families are themselves working, some 3.8 million workers. Those adults that are not working are predominantly looking after children.

More (external site)

Our Grants Committee recently received a progress report on our Step Up programme - a joint initiative between the Walcot Foundation and Trust for London. Low pay in London is growing and is a major contributor to poverty in the capital. The London Poverty Profile shows that in 2013 there were 640,000 low paid jobs in London, an increase on the 2007 figure of 420,000. LSE findings show that in 2013 23% of London workers earned less that the Living Wage. Despite all this, there has been little focus to date on programmes to help people to escape low pay. The Step Up programme is funding pilot schemes.  The aim is to discover the best ways of helping this large number of our fellow citizens move into better paid work.

The End Child Poverty coalition has published new figures providing a new child poverty map of the UK. The data is available by parliamentary constituency, local authority and ward. Lambeth details can be accessed here.

Among the twenty local authorities with the highest levels of child poverty, eleven are in London. Of the ten London Local Authorities with the highest levels of child poverty, eight are in Inner London. In the table below are Lambeth's Wards. After housing costs are factored in the percentage of child poverty reaches an astonishing 46.17% in Coldharbour Ward. Seven Wards have rates of child poverty in excess of 40%: Ferndale, Stockwell, Prince's, Vassall, Larkhall, Tulse Hill and Coldharbour.