The Vision Project

TAKING
BACK
CONTROL?
WRITTEN BY JEFF MITCHELL
Jeff is Managing Director of Clean Slate Training & Employment CIC and the Social Publishing Project. He
is a former Managing Director of The Big Issue and author of I’m Ready – 7 Signs That Show You’re Right
For The Job.
38
Social exclusion is, I now realise, a source
of daily celebration around the globe. A
bit like with #metoo, once you see it, you
can’t stop seeing it in social interactions
every day...
Social exclusion has been rightly described as the
injustice that holds people back. It’s the thing that
DHI and my own organisation Clean Slate Training
& Employment tackles, often effectively, person by
person.
We cannot eradicate social exclusion this way,
however. We need something societal in scale. But
I don’t believe social exclusion is part of a system
we live within. It is the system and we have to take
control.
In the UK we’re split. Brexit is just the start of it.
And when you take the ideology and politics out of
it, it’s just symbolic of what happens when people
do choose to take control. But our biggest divide is
by wealth. Social exclusion is a chasm between the
lives of the Haves and Have Nots. Social exclusion
had a large part in the Brexit vote and the Have
Nots lashed out at the Haves because, let’s face it,
austerity only affected those with least and they
want change. They may want out of Europe but to
what end? A better life, surely.
What the Have Nots know is that during austerity,
only the poor got poorer. Meanwhile the super-rich
have increased their wealth (there’s now a growing
divide among the Haves too, just as in Victorian
days). As the BBC recently reported, the richest
one percent tripled their ‘worth’. And as Professor
Sir Angus Deaton said, they did so by ‘taking, not
making’ their money.
“Our fightback against social
exclusion starts with helping
consumers find ways to spend less,
earn more, borrow less and save
more.”
I am a social entrepreneur. I run a not-for-profit,
all-for-social-purpose enterprise that helps people
on low incomes become better off. We help them
manage and stretch their budgets, find work or
better paid work, and get online. It’s a business
because when they do better, we all do better:
Rent is paid so housing is occupied and there are
fewer people sleeping in shop doorways.
Jobs are filled (when there are fewer migrants
to fill them) so we don’t have to wait so long
for a cappuccino. Mental health services are less
stretched so it only takes six months to access
them. And, of course, the benefit bill goes down so
taxes can stay comfortably low for the Haves.
I’m being facetious but I’m describing a business
case that means we get commissioned to help
make society work better.
My epiphany came after launching a money skills
programme in 2018. I’ve run Quids In!, a money
guidance magazine, website and email service, for
ten years but this was the first time we took it into
the room and shared the ideas with real people.
Unemployed people. People out of work because
of mental health issues. Mums who are working
but still turning to a foodbank. Essentially, the
Have Nots.
We talked about how if we don’t keep a tight hand
on our wallet, someone else has their fingers in
it. That includes banks built on people straying
into overdraft as much as it does payday loans
companies and other legal loan sharks peddling
unaffordable credit. It includes weekly payment
stores targeting young, stay-at-home mums and
discretely charging through the nose. And coffee
shops offering online discounts while people
without a loyalty card subsidise them. But while
new regulations are announced daily to protect
customers, there’s more we can do by taking
control. Our fightback against social exclusion
starts with helping consumers find ways to spend
less, earn more, borrow less and save more. And
cut the profits to the fat cats.
THE VISION PROJECT