Joseph Rowntree (1836–1925) was a businessman and philanthropist who, with his son, developed the Rowntree confectionery company from its modest beginnings as a cocoa works in York. One hundred years ago, Joseph Rowntree endowed the three trusts that bear his name to combat the social evils of his time and to look at the root causes of social problems, rather than treating their symptoms.
One hundred years on, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) went out to the general public and the 'unheard voices' in our society to find out what they believed were the social evils posing the greatest threat to British society in the 21st century.
"Thinkers" of our day were then commissioned to write indepth responses to the main issues raised in the consultation, and a series of public lectures were held in different parts of the UK in autumn 2008.
Challenging political discourse
What the JRF's social evils project shows clearly is that there is a real willingness in the UK to engage with the big serious questions of our time. Respondents identified the social evils that we face, but they also identified the vibrant, optimistic and innovative response possible through a new, more engaged and far more challenging political discourse.
The entire project ran from July 2007 to July 2009 when the book, Contemporary Social Evils, was published. The full responses to the consultation, and essays, can be seen online.
We are publishing this pamphlet to add to this debate and bring it to people who can use the ideas to make a difference.
Each of the contributors in our pamphlet was asked to respond to a specific issue identified by the consultation, in relation to their own area of knowledge and expertise.
David Halpern (Institute for Government) begins our pamphlet by looking into the prime minister's red box to identify current and growing social evils. There are four kinds of 'evils' in the box: public concerns; exogenous evils (for example global warming); 'political' projects (like reducing child poverty) and administrative concerns' (for example the UK economy, accountability gaps). He discusses how these social evils can be prioritised.
John Shipley (Newcastle City Council) discusses the effects of fear and excessive surveillance. Stuart Etherington (NCVO), explains why he believes that "a thriving civil society is an essential precondition for confronting today's social evils".
The JRF project heard a lot about the family – family 'breakdown' and 'collapse' – but Mary MacLeod of the Family and Parenting Institute explains why she believes that the family is a very resilient institution and why it is "something to rely on as we face the consequences of this recession".
The decline of the community
Steve Houghton of Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council talks about worklessness; and Rob Whiteman of LB Barking & Dagenham discusses the impact, and the reality, of the decline of the community. Stephen Greenhalgh (LB Hammersmith & Fulham) explains why he believes that we should be providing social housing rather than last resort, welfare housing.
Jo Farrar of Bridgend County Borough Council looks at the "problem'" of young people – are they menacing "hoodies" or victims? She says that we need to stop categorizing them; instead, we should be supporting them as "individuals who have great capacity to help others and a real desire to make a difference".
Irene Lucas (South Tyneside Council) urges us to focus on building social capital to help strengthen local democracy, giving it a real mandate to deliver change.
Paul Kelly from ASDA calls for businesses to take more responsibility and find solutions to the challenges that society faces, and Fiona Ellis (who ran the Northern Rock Foundation) believes that charities collectively "can fight social evils by speaking truth to power".
Paul Corrigan follows up on Rowntree's work on the health of the public comparing the situation 100 years ago with today.
Martin Narey and Anne Pinney of Barnardo's examine the crisis we are facing in youth unemployment (the NEETs), particularly the thousands of 16 and 17 year olds who have left education and are trapped in unemployment.
Finally, David Clark (SOLACE) uses the example of the recent scandal of MPs' expenses to show how great the distance is in this country between the governor and the governed: "Allowing such distance to be established', he explains, 'may well be a social evil in itself, and it is certainly a fertile ground for other evils to develop'.
We hope this pamphlet will generate useful debate and that you will refer others to it: it is available to download from the web at: http://www.solace.org.uk/sfi.asp
We are extremely grateful to our contributors and to Jo Benfield from SOLACE for all her hard work on this pamphlet.
Sir Michael Bichard is editor-in-chief of SFI.
Julia Unwin CBE is Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. She is a member of the Ethics Committee at the University of York and a governor of the Pensions Policy Institute.
