Past Events

It is time for a very different form of democracy. This means more than a few tweaks to the existing democratic system: we need a fundamental recasting of relationship with power, defined as the ability to act. Can the state stop doing change to people and start to work with them, in service of its citizens and civil society? To discuss this critical issue, Lisa Nandy, MP for Wigan, former Shadow Cabinet member and founder of the Centre for Towns will kick off the debate. There will then…

Neil McInroy CEO of CLES, is facilitating the “Community Wealth Building: An Economy For All” workshops in conjunction with Stir to Action. Community Wealth Building recognises that places do not necessarily need to attract new wealth to grow economically and socially. Instead they need to harness existing wealth which comes through, among other things, their anchor institutions, procurement spend, complementary currencies, banking practices, and community businesses. Harnessing this wealth more effectively will bring economic, social, and environmental benefits for their communities. For the last 12…

Economic inequality is increasing the dependance of ordinary people on institutions which do not have their welfare at heart. Yet children, the elderly, and the ill are necessarily dependent; mutual dependence is for everyone an ingredient of trust. We need a new logic of dependence. This is the first in a series of 4 public lectures that Richard Sennett will deliver on Welfare After Beveridge. Richard Sennett (@richardsennett) is a sociologist and Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics…

Basic income can provide the bare essentials of life permanently, or alternatively, could provide bursts of help at strategic moments of need.   An automated world disorients these concepts of basic income, because automation is radically altering the ways people can support themselves by work; new conditions of bare life are appearing in society. This is 1 in a series of 4 public lectures that Richard Sennett will deliver on Welfare After Beveridge.

The classic welfare state did not address itself to problems of consumption; there was not much to consume.  Today, climate change entails profound changes in consumption; everyone will have to make sacrifices, consuming less.  How should such necessary sacrifices change our thinking about the provision of welfare -- whose classic moral logic was to give people more, to expand aspiration, rather than to shrink desire. This is 1 in a series of 4 public lectures that Richard Sennett will deliver…

Losing Control 2019 will bring together change makers from all kinds of backgrounds, sectors and positions to discuss and create bottom-up and collaborative approaches to social change. Individuals, organisations, businesses and foundations are searching for new strategies to improve their effectiveness. We need to let go of traditional ‘command and control’ organisational models and standard campaign techniques in favour of methods that focus on flatter hierarchies, dispersed leadership, collective decision-making and grassroots participation.We need to lose some control. 

Beveridge argued for the primacy of the state in providing welfare.  His critics then and since have argued for more support from civil society, from communal associations, churches, voluntary organisations.  This final lecture shows why obligations to others should be involuntary - and so why state support is fundamental.  The challenge is to cut free of the bureaucratic tangles and institutional corruption which afflict the welfare state today. This is 1 in a series of 4 public lectures that Richard…

Strategic communications that can build public and political will to solve poverty in the UK The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Frameworks Institute, alongside other social change makers, are hosting a unique conference for campaigners on poverty related issues as they share their research and experience of how effective framing can shift the public narrative on poverty. As a compassionate country that believes in justice and society, it can often seen wrong that campaigners have to work so hard to fight against a…