We have taken a different approach to this year’s State of the Sector research. Rather than conducting our usual survey, we set out to gain deeper insights into the persistent challenges organisations have been raising year after year. As such, we conducted a series of focus groups and interviews with organisations and funders across the voluntary sector working in criminal justice.

In this blog, we want to highlight some of the particular issues raised by charitable trusts and foundations who participated in our research. The insights from this funder-specific focus group, illustrated the “very challenging environment” that the sector is currently operating within, and covered a broad range of issues. These included an acknowledgement of prison overcrowding and the subsequent growing visibility of this issue. Discussions also focused on the backlogs in courts, underfunding of probation services, as well as continued concerns about the new Labour government’s approach to criminal justice and whether they will be able to bring about meaningful change.

What funders told us

We heard of the disconnect between funders and the communities that they serve, with a notable lack of lived experience representation. The historical under-funding of Black-led and minority-led organisations was also noted, with one participant explaining:

“[They] really have been far removed from support that would help them to grow and would them to develop even further. The communities most affected are not receiving enough funds.”

This informed one of the report’s core recommendations – that both statutory and charitable funders should ‘ensure their funding processes are culturally competent… and that assessors understand the unique value of organisations led by and for racially minoritised communities.’ By doing so, funders would help to reduce existing barriers for organisations that provide specialist support to groups facing structural disadvantage.

Funders also touched on challenges faced by young people, with one explaining how:

“It’s a really tough time at the moment and youth engagement work is more important than ever.” Yet, the same participant highlighted that: “It feels like the funding for it and the overall support for it is even more kind of stretched than it’s ever been.”

A common theme among funders was that of organisations struggling with capacity, leading to challenges related to staff burnout, as well as broad challenges related to the development of organisations. We were told that:

“It’s extremely stressful as an organisation in this sector at the moment. Extremely difficult.”  

We were also told that: 

“There were a lot of progressive ideas for the development of organisations and (I) feel like some of that has really been lost in the last few years, because people have just been trying to keep their services going.”

This theme was a constant throughout our focus groups, raised both by funders and the individuals and organisations who contributed to the research.

Mitigating the challenges

To mitigate the challenges of capacity and staff burnout, we have recommended that funders should consider ‘how to support long-term funding opportunities.’ This could be operationalised through multi-year funding, which would improve service continuity and reduce financial insecurity – particularly for smaller organisations. The security of long-term funding enables organisations to ‘retain skilled staff, prevent funding cliff-edges, and provide service users with certainty about ongoing support.’

To read more about funding in the criminal justice voluntary sector, explore the dedicated State of the Sector page on our website.