By Waltraud Pospischil
The overall benefit most charities deliver comes before any small mistakes, as it is not easy for them to keep on top of everything – but at least ‘good intentions’ are assumed by their beneficiaries, funders and stakeholders. In case you also subscribe to Finance Bulletin (thirdsector.co.uk), you will receive weekly updates, some of which include scandals. These are usually restricted to only large scale investigations, but in-between all these reports there are daily incidents experienced by individuals and communities. Taken together, it is perhaps unsurprising why there has been a gradual decline of public trust in charities overall. The Charity Commission for England and Wales “Public Trust in Charities” 2023 report shows that just over half (54%) of people in the UK say they trust charities, while trust is essential for over 80% of donors. (Public trust in charities: What boards need to know – Board Portal Software | BoardEffect UK)
At Arkbound Foundation, 90% of the donations we receive goes into delivering our charitable objectives. As a founder trustee, I sometimes worry about ‘charities’ in general losing public trust – without having a chance to let society know that we are different. We cannot afford running commercials about us in mainstream media, and such costs also redirect resources away from the cause and mission of a charity.
As such, I feel it is important to highlight cases of poor conduct from other charities – particularly for those that claim to represent the same beneficiaries as us, and where all attempts at resolution have failed.
Inside Time or Inside Grime? – My most disappointing encounter with another charity
There are various charities in the UK with objectives dedicated to supporting people in custody in a rehabilitative capacity. One of these, the New Bridge Foundation, has the advantage of running a nationwide publication that reaches into every single prison in the UK: ‘Inside Time’. It was formed following the Woolf Report in 1991, after the Strangeways riots a year before. In his report, Lord Woolf recommended the creation of a nationwide prison newspaper, together with a number of other landmark changes. Shortly after, Inside Time was created under the ambit of New Bridge. The newspaper launches once a month and is made available to all inmates. Inside Time has been financially supported through New Bridge from its inception.
Our founder, Steve Mcnaught, spent 6 years in custody and found great benefit in reading Inside Time, as well as contributing content to it. They even awarded some of his articles and poems with prizes. After his release, he contacted Inside Time to make them aware of initiatives we were running to support prisoners. However, for reasons that were never made known, they never engaged. Feeling let down and unsure why they would ignore initiatives to support other prisoners, whilst at the same time promoting those of marginal benefit from private companies, Steve wrote a complaint to Inside Time.
After waiting in vain for an acknowledgement, the director of Inside Time, John Roberts, responded to the complaint. He commented:
“For you to suggest that discrimination based on what you consider to be an unacceptable length of time to respond to your enquiry, is preposterous and quite insulting. It is far from a ‘logical or reasonable conclusion’ as you suggest. It is a ridiculously wild and baseless assumption.” [Note: people who feel discriminated against should not get downgraded and ridiculed for expressing their experience; it turned out to be the first step towards the full ‘victimisation’ Steve and Arkbound Foundation were subsequently subjected to.]
As the acting Chair of Trustees, I tried to address and resolve the issues. Arkbound Foundation is a small charity that has lived experience of the criminal justice system, as well as being equality and diversity led. I assumed that Inside Time would embrace our charitable objectives and outreach achievements: we support people with personal experience of custody to get their stories told and published, improve their writing skills, wellbeing, employability or career prospects – we also include them as trustees, staff, mentors and volunteers. To my surprise, that never happened.
The next step of victimisation we experienced for having dared to raise the issue of feeling discriminated against occurred on 15th July 2020. John Roberts wrote:
“It is sad that it was able to reach this point because whatever the outcome is, it will be likely to result in, at best a strained relationship between our two organisations for a time at least, or at worst, no relationship at all”. [Note: this is a typical authoritative formulation, related to deterring people from making complaints at all]
Arkbound Foundation embarked on a journey, trying to put conflicts and disappointments aside, with an aim of positively supporting our shared beneficiaries. We hoped Inside Time would act respectfully and with decency. We were not happy with the response received, but still withdrew our complaint; they might have been overworked, stressed, or had other reasons than bias against Steve and Arkbound Foundation.
We also got promised that our article titled “Empowering people through writing” would get published through Inside Time, together with the notice of our writing competition for prisoners (included here). I sent our article to John Roberts to get featured, as promised. It included an invitation to a writing competition on the theme of ‘hope’ (including prizes and getting published through Arkbound) which had a deadline for submissions set for 1st November 2020.
To my shock, it never made it into any of the Inside Time issues. John Roberts tried to find faults with our project, lecturing us without absorbing or comprehending what we sought to achieve and deliver. It came across as direct or indirect ‘unreasonable customer relationship behaviour’ (or discrimination and victimisation) – just like a person in a wheelchair, who still can’t get access to a building after years of fruitlessly asking for it.
Two years later…
In June 2022, Zoe (our Writing Within Walls coordinator) had been able to speak to Inside Time’s writer, Ben Leapman, who was very happy to include something about the project (we were planning our next publication of prisoners’ stories and poems on the theme of ‘endurance’ ).
A week later, Ben suddenly asked to speak to us by phone. He conveyed that the article could no longer go ahead because someone ‘higher up’ blocked it.
Then on 1st July 2022, Steve wrote to John Roberts in an attempt to resolve things- over two years had elapsed since his first complaint. The email noted:
“For many years I looked up to Inside Time. It was my link to writing and the wider world. Indeed, the writings you published by me at the time were testament to how I regarded Inside Time as a support and ally in the ongoing challenge to raise wider awareness of what imprisonment entails. Then, to be released and to help establish the only literature-based organisation and book publisher by a former offender in the UK, I had this elevated hope that Inside Time – a fellow publishing organisation – would support that. Maybe it would even give a modicum of acknowledgment and encouragement. At the very least, perhaps it would engage – even minimally – with my modest approaches to get initiatives of benefit to other prisoners covered.“
[…]
“Is it possible to take a step back from this, just for a moment?
Imagine, for example, if Inside Time had been just a little more supportive. If, instead of totally ignoring and excluding a person it had published across multiple years – belonging to a group it proclaims to help – there had been a different kind of treatment? Perhaps a single sentence of encouragement, and the willingness to fairly consider proposals for content like every other organisation, instead of – at best – demanding payments that are requested of legal firms and 6-figure funded NGOs?
For reasons I will never know, Inside Time decided to adopt a cold, then antagonistic, then outright hateful, approach. But does the present course have to continue like that? “
In ending the email, Steve conveyed a willingness to speak by phone, concluding:
“Despite what has happened, I have respect for your work, for Inside Time itself – and the only thing I wish is for things to be dealt with fairly.”
This email was just ignored.
I reached out to another member of Inside Time’s senior staff, Trevor Grove, on 25th July 2022. I told him: “I was deeply upset to find out through one of our new staff members Zoe, that her email to Inside Time, which didn’t even ask for anything, but simply was an outreach towards making connections, got returned with a note that Inside Time has blocked Arkbound Foundation from any further communications”.
By way of ‘explanation’, Trevor Grove then wrote back on 28th July 2022, noting:
“Our experience of dealing with Mr McNaught and Arkbound has not been a happy one, which explains why our response to an approach from you was not enthusiastic.”
Does ‘happy’ in his opinion entail that no complaints are allowed? In discrimination law it counts as victimisation to get disadvantaged, threatened or retaliated for daring to complain. Moreover, ‘not enthusiastic’ doesn’t quite equate to blocking coverage previously agreed to and then entirely blocking emails from being received.
As a last step, we got in touch with The New Bridge Foundation, the registered charity who owns Inside Time as a subsidiary. Lucy Ball responded on behalf of New Bridge Foundation on 21st September 2022:
“I understand that The Chair of Inside Time has completed the investigation and notified you that they have not found any basis to uphold the complaint. Although Inside Time is a subsidiary of New Bridge, the day-to-day running of the organisation is the responsibility of Inside Time, with no involvement from New Bridge. However, I would like to confirm that this is also the result of New Bridge’s investigation.”
Note that the Director of Inside Time is John Roberts – the person who essentially had blocked our article from being included, after one of the Inside Time writer’s had approved it, and over two years after we had submitted (and then withdrawn) a formal complaint.
Owner or representative?
When we looked into the accounts of Inside Time, we noticed some peculiarities. Over £77,000 per year is given directly to a company owned by John Roberts and his son. The company in question is listed as having assets of £400,000 and includes a number of other services, including property management. This company also has the same address as Inside Time, though does not appear to be paying any rent.
In an apparent sign of blatant nepotism, John Roberts also appears to have appointed his son as Operations Manager for Inside Time. It is not disclosed in the company accounts how much the Roberts’ are being paid, on top of what their company is receiving via Inside Time.
It is to be emphasised that Inside Time is not a private entity. If it were, we would have no cause to complain, nor should we be surprised that there is a single person running it without any recourse to standards, or making profit in the process of running the company. This is not the case. Rather, Inside Time is a wholly owned subsidiary of the New Bridge charity. Their governing document states as a charitable object “TO PROMOTE AND SUPPORT THE EDUCATION, BEFRIENDING AND RESETTLEMENT OF PRISONERS AND EX-OFFENDERS”.
The question arises: if they are to comply with their objective, how is ignoring and then blocking another charity that seeks to support the same beneficiaries anywhere near compatible? Instead of promoting the positive achievement of an ex-offender, we instead were excluded and blacklisted. And instead of impartially investigating a reasonable complaint, we were instead subject to victimisation.
Is this the kind of behaviour condoned by the Charities Commission – let alone the funders of New Bridge?
Last words
I am proud of the Arkbound Foundation managing to still reach out to many prisoners, despite Inside Time’s behaviour. We have published two anthologies after two national prison writing competitions, receiving upwards of 200 entrants. Alongside this we match up aspiring writers in prison with experienced authors and literary agents to develop their work. We’ve been helped by other prison media (though none have the reach of Inside Time), prison education departments, and third sector organisations.
I still feel very aggrieved revisiting the disappointment I had with Inside Time, as a believer in charities and a devoted unpaid representative. I received our late Queen’s award for my voluntary services, and I overall embrace charities for stepping in to support those in need or disadvantaged, without bias or exclusion. Even though it is not in my nature to say anything bad, after my experience with Inside Time, supported by critical reflections in the context that our civic society needs to move forward towards more accountability, I am glad to have finally shed a light on this episode.
Editor’s Note: New Bridge were approached for comment on this article, but did not do so.