Methodology and Sample
NCVO conducted 14 focus groups and seven interviews, bringing together 54 participants from 50 different organisations. Three focus groups took place in person, while the remainder, along with all interviews, were held online. Among the participants were representatives from 47 service delivery organisations and three funding organisations.
Of the service delivery organisations, six operated across both England and Wales, three worked solely in England, and two exclusively in Wales. The remaining organisations served specific regions, including London (11), North West (7), South East (6), West Midlands (7), East Midlands (6), South West (5), Yorkshire and the Humber (4), North East (3), East of England (3), and South Wales (1).
18 of the 47 organisations identified as led by and for the communities they serve - often supporting multiple groups. This included 13 organisations by-and-for people with lived experience of the criminal justice system, eight for families in contact with the system, six for women, five for Black and global majority communities, and one for those facing economic disadvantage. However, this likely underrepresents the scope of work focused on specific groups. For example, beyond the six specialist women’s organisations, an additional eight delivered criminal justice services specifically for women.
Research Aims and Questions
The research aims of this year’s project are:
- To understand the experiences and needs of criminal justice voluntary sector organisations and the people they support – and whether/how this has changed over the last five years
- To develop insight into the barriers to success and areas where support is lacking, in addition to good practice and effective support
- To examine how the context and challenges vary across different regions - across England and Wales, but also particularly London, the north of England, and Wales where Clinks have staff
- To identify region-specific factors that influence the performance and needs of these organisations
- To explore how organisations are funded and how their finances have changed over time.
And, the overarching research questions for this work are as follows:
- To what extent have the experiences and needs of (i) criminal justice voluntary sector organisations and (ii) the people they serve changed over the last 3-5 years? How and why has this changed over time?
- What are the primary barriers to making change in the criminal justice sector for the voluntary organisations in it? And how have these barriers changed in recent years?
- Are criminal justice voluntary sector organisations most lacking support in any areas? If so, where? And does it impact the delivery of their services and activities?
- Are there any successful, impactful practices that have emerged in the criminal justice voluntary sector organisations in the last one to five years? What has worked – and not – for organisations?
- Does locality influence the effectiveness of criminal justice voluntary sector organisations? If so, how?
- Do contextual factors (e.g. political, social, economic, cultural) influence criminal justice sector voluntary organisations? If so, how?
- Has the funding landscape for criminal justice voluntary sector organisations changed in the last 1-5 years? If so, how? And what are the implications of changes in grant-making and contracting for organisations’ operations and service delivery?
- Does the interplay between funding, organisational capacity, and community needs impact the capacity for criminal justice voluntary sector organisations to create effective change?
Considerations
Many of the organisations involved in the research undertook criminal justice work alongside work in other areas. On occasion, some of their comments applied to their work more broadly, rather than specifically to their criminal justice work.
This year, Clinks and NCVO were able to spend more time on recruitment of organisations, including in efforts to reach led-by-and-for organisations. More work could be done in future years to continue to extend, for example, the involvement of organisations by-and-for racially minoritised communities.