• Antonia Bance
I’m Antonia Bance, and I work for the Corston Independent Funders’ Coalition.
The first question that I always get asked is who or what is the Corston Independent Funders’ Coalition? Well, we are a new alliance of charitable trusts and foundations. Our twenty members are all grant-makers, with years of experience of working in the criminal justice system. Every year they invest millions of pounds in supporting charities working with offenders. Many of the members of the Coalition will be familiar to readers of Learning Matters as long-time supporters of work with offenders – for example, the LankellyChase Foundation, The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, the Pilgrim Trust and the Nationwide Foundation are all members. The full list of members is on our website.
Trusts and foundations contribute more than £2bn to the voluntary and community sector in the UK every year. Trusts and foundations have been engaged throughout the history of the modern penal system in funding voluntary and community organisations who support offenders and their families, both inside prison and in the community. Many approaches which subsequently became part of mainstream statutory provision began as voluntary efforts funded by trusts and foundations.
Now, UK trusts and foundations support organisations working in the criminal justice system to the tune of more than £24m per year. This funding, at its best, enables the development of new approaches which are as yet unproven and supports marginalised groups whose needs are not met by mainstream statutory provision.
In 2007, Baroness Jean Corston led a review of women in the criminal justice system. Her report made the case for a completely new approach to women’s offending. The Corston Report’s recommendations drew heavily from the innovative work of charities in the criminal justice system, much of which was funded by charitable trusts and foundations.
Concerned to see that the approach recommended by Corston was not lost or quietly put to one side, the Corston group of independent funders was formed. As the Coalition, we aim to get ongoing political support and sustainable funding for the full implementation of the Corston recommendations in England and Wales.
And that’s where I come in. I’m the sole full-time employee of the Coalition, and I have responsibility for delivering on the Coalition’s aspirations. My formal role title is the Advocate, and that’s what I do: I advocate for better services for women offenders and women at risk of offending so that fewer women get involved in crime and fewer women end up in prison.
My background has always been in campaigning and policy. My last role was at Oxfam, where I was head of policy and communications for the UK country programme, leading work on poverty, welfare reform and rights at work. Before that I worked on policy and campaigning for YWCA, mainly on teenage pregnancy and violence against women. Outside of work, I’m an elected councillor and cabinet member for my local authority.
I’ve been in post since September 2009. My job, which is for eighteen months only, is to work with others to reduce the number of women in prison, primarily through ensuring political support for transforming how women are treated by the criminal justice system and through supporting the development of a robust sector offering support to women offenders and alternatives to custody.
Obviously, ensuring political support is crucial in reducing the use of custody for low-level women offenders. Policy towards women offenders has been positive for the past few years, yet still the number of women being sentenced to short-term prison sentences is at an all time high: figures revealed in an answer to a parliamentary question last November show that more than 8000 women passed through prison in 2008, with the population at any one time standing at just over 4000. So, helping policymakers to understand the case – in terms of social justice, in terms of effectiveness and in terms of cost – for reducing the number of women in prison is a key part of my role.
Secondly, working for trusts and foundations, the Coalition has an unrivalled understanding of the voluntary and community sector – and a bird’s-eye view of it. In order for women to be diverted from custody and from offending, there needs to be support available for them to change their lives. And for magistrates to have confidence in sentencing women to community punishments instead of custody, there needs to high-quality one-stop-shop women-only provision. Baroness Corston flagged up the examples of best practice in her report; since then, supported by £15.6m from the Ministry of Justice, more than 25 women’s centres have begun to offer one-stop-shop services to women offenders and those at risk of offending. These services, crucially, deal with the needs of the whole woman – whether that be helping her to complete a community sentence, dealing with domestic violence, getting somewhere to live, getting help with alcohol, drugs or mental health issues or building confidence and self-esteem.
Ensuring that these services become widely-accepted as part of the criminal justice and wider social inclusion support available to women offenders and vulnerable women at risk of offending is the second crucial plank of my role. As part of this, the Coalition is running the Women’s Diversionary Fund jointly with the Ministry of Justice, to provide more support to one-stop-shop women’s services. The Coalition will also continue to champion the cause of one-stop-shop women’s centres where it comes to accessing local and national government funding, as well as other sources of funding. We’ll also help the emerging women’s offending one-stop-shop sector articulate why its approach works, and build the credibility of diversion services and community punishments with sentencers.
So, that’s my role. Over the remaining year that I am in post, I will seek to win further political support from national policymakers – whoever wins the election – and push for that to be translated into funding and practical backing for services to help women reduce their offending and get their lives back on track. Please do get in touch with me on info@corstoncoalition.org.uk with any questions or queries about the Coalition or its plans and priorities.
