Project Overview

With leading charity consultant Richard Sved of 3rd Sector Mission Control, Catherine conducted a review of the governance and welfare support functions of the Architects Benevolent Society which is going through a period of modernisation and development.  This includes changing its articles to reflect a move towards an additional and complementary organisational objective of prevention in addition to relief, with a particular emphasis on improving mental health. Ongoing work with ABS comprises an implementation programme which will determine measures of quality, effectiveness and impact, establish a new committees structure, and support trustees and staff in skills development. This review was informed by the experience of other property benevolent funds, for whom we ran a joint workshop on impact, as well as research by Professor Donald Hirsch for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on the Minimum Income Standard which is used as a guide by many welfare charities.

The London Assembly’s Health Committee wanted to strengthen its work on health inequalities and increase its knowledge, expertise and scrutiny ability in order to hold the mayor to account more effectively. Catherine was commissioned to provide specialist advice in support of this, and successfully identified potential topics of focus and strategic partners to collaborate with the committee on a longer-term basis.  She subsequently worked with the committee and the The King’s Fund to help shape a programme of work including development of a data framework to monitor outcomes, a horizon scanning facility, and a long-list of proposals for possible investigation such as the likely effects of the forecast growth of the private rented sector on health inequalities in London.