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.

We are an accredited Living Wage Employer. This week the Living Wage in the UK has increased to £8.45ph, and in London to £9.75ph. Find out more from the Living Wage Foundation

Click image to be taken to online version.  We are glad to supply hard copies: please call the office

A report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and conducted by Heriot-Watt and Loughborough Universities claims that the effects of poverty in the UK cost the average taxpayer £1,200 a year, and the UK £78bn in total. It identifies -

• £29bn on treating health conditions associated with poverty
• £10bn on schools providing initiatives such as free school meals and pupil premium for poorer students
• £9bn on the police and criminal justice systems dealing with the higher incidence of crime in more deprived areas
• £7.5bn on children's services and early years provision, such as free childcare for deprived two-year-olds
• £4.6bn on adult social care
• £4bn on housing
  

For more, follow this link to the JRF site

Moti8 - a project we have funded over the last 5 years - has won Business In The Communities (BITC) Inspiring Young Talent Award 2016. We are delighted, and send our congratulations to everyone involved. "Were extremely pleased as this has been the biggest recognition of the project to date and this would not have been possible without the support of the Walcot Foundation. We took young participants who have benefited form the project over the last 6 years to the awards help at the O2. The event was attended by over 1600 people which include The Prince Of Wales" said Hifzul Khahir, Senior Programme Co-ordinator.  More

We have updated our page describing our recent experience of seeking new Governors. We found it wholly positive and encouraging and wanted to share what we discovered.  More

Highlights from our grantmaking last year:

• We fully spent our grants budget of £1,980,000
• We undertook 418 grant assessments and evaluated 139 monitoring reports
• The Governors reviewed the 2013-16 Governor Priorities and adopted revised priorities for 2016-2019. As part of this exercise we widely consulted other parties, including via two focus groups and an online survey. Thank you to everyone who help us in this
• We launched the jointly-funded Step Up programme with six projects piloting different ways of tackling in-work poverty
• We developed and launched a new programme of grants supporting BME students at Russell Group universities (Miranda Townsend Scholarship programme)

We are working on our Annual Report and also on our Annual Review. Once available, we'll post details.  We're really grateful to everyone who helps us in our work, and especially to our many grantees.

Measuring the impact of our grants is not straightforward.  We've just added this page, which explains our approach.

On 3 March 2016 the Governors adopted revised grantmaking priorities for 2016-2019. This follows are careful review in which we consulted with partners and grantees. We publish priorities to help potential applicants by giving a sense of the activity we are likely to fund  (though the Governors may make exceptions in cases where a project does not fit our priorities but does offer the prospect of helping our target groups).  The 2016-2019 priorities can be seen here.  Thank you to all those we consulted as part of the exercise and who gave generously of their time and expertise.

A report published today from The Equality Trust ('The Aspiration Tax: How our social security system holds back low-paid workers') shows the high marginal tax rate faced by low income, working parents receiving tax credits and how this rate will increase under the new social security system of Universal Credit.  Visit their site.