I was in London yesterday walking between meetings and got caught up in the parade back from Westminster. What a lot of horses – some nice carriages too. And I didn’t know the crown jewels went for a trip as well. There you go. Anyway, some thoughts on some of the legislative agenda that struck me..

The Equality Bill: I quite like this one as it makes sense to me. One aspect of it is staffing breakdown. Wherever we work we employ people from the locality to deliver front line retailers. So do many of the businesses I have worked with. Good employers tend to approach business in a sensible way and this can be a springboard for employment prospects for some of the most disadvantaged in UK

Welfare Reform Bill: Some good stuff that. Policy makes sense – how it is applied is, of course, crucial and there’s lots of bits where the devil will be in the detail. This is always the case, of course, which is why we all need to get involved to make it work….

Education Bill: It’ll be interesting to see how this develops. The idea of more focus on failing education services is right but my view is this still needs to work through collaboration between schools and other suppliers. I’m not struck by ‘sin bins’ for difficult pupils but I admit I’m not familiar with the detail. Zero tolerance works in some cases but we find with our hardest to help clients that many have such a range of personal areas where they need support, that I’m not sure the ‘sin bin’ approach would do much

Health Bill: the freedoms for PCTs are the right direction of travel, as is patient involvement provided it encompasses users and non-users of services. The NHS has a more systemic issue around the distribution of funding across its entire structure to tackle health inequality. If, as the Bill states, we want to move to well-being and preventative measures alongside world class health care, we also need a fundamental review of how funding flows across the system to get better value and better services

Citizenship, Immigration and Borders Bill: there are some difficult challenges here in joining up with welfare, offending, skills and other initiatives. Once granted immigration, we find many customers who find it very difficult to navigate and engage with mainstream service, so it’s important that a more holistic framework is developed in this area

Savings Gateway Bill: there is some great stuff here that can help some of the most impoverished communities in the UK. One of the big areas to tackle is making sure that the main beneficiaries – the people who really need to be aware of the opportunities here and encouraged to save – have knowledge of this, in a format that suits them, and are supported in accessing and making use of the facilities. This needs focused government investment in engagement – not some glib social marketing company – but real engagement, through a variety of sources including those services already touching those people in poverty (working and non-working) in the UK

Banking Reform Bill: lots to do here and the impact on the consumer – as well as business – is a critical component in this Bill. We are already seeing door to door lenders putting more staff on the street as people at the lower end of the banking customer chain get refused credit. Similarly we are seeing increases in loan shark activity. There are plans to pilot Discretionary Social Fund and these need joining up as well in this area. And of course we need more liquidity to business to support growth and job creation

There is a common theme that sits at the heart of my personal observations on the legislative agenda – the need for join up of initiatives, services and policy. This sits at the heart of what I want to see A4e doing across all its work. Similarly, the more we extend our international footprint, the more we find ourselves tackling similar issues on each of the countries we work. Where we tackle poverty and social/economic development, there are core issues that are very similar and we learn so much as work in different cultures and communities that we can apply elsewhere