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Zafar Khan, the former finance director of collapsed mega-contractor Carillion, has been banned from being a company director for 11 years. It is the longest ban imposed on an executive of a listed company by the Insolvency Service (IS) in 60 years, raising the prospect of lengthy bans for seven other former directors being pursued in relation to the collapse.
Khan, 54, is a former Ernst & Young accountant who joined Carillion’s senior finance team in 2011. He was promoted to chief financial officer in August 2016, replacing the long-serving Richard Adam, though he only remained in post for nine months as the company’s financial troubles prompted a boardroom clear-out.
Carillion then collapsed in 2018, putting thousands of staff out of work and leaving debts of around £7 billion, including a pension deficit in excess of £1 billion.
The government said that Khan’s disqualification was for several reasons, including causing the company to rely on “false and misleading information” that led to a material misstatement of profits in various projects to the tune of at least £209 million. He also sanctioned a £54 million dividend payment that couldn’t be justified because it was based on financial statements that did not give a fair view of the company’s position.
Khan has yet to respond to the announcement. The fact that only his disqualification has been announced suggests that he may have reached an agreement with the IS, perhaps in exchange for a lighter punishment. The remaining directors, including former chief executives Richard Howson and Keith Cochrane, as well as Richard Adam, are due at the high court later this year to defend the IS’s disqualification actions against them.
Khan, Howson and Adam have also been fined a total of almost £1 million by the Financial Conduct Authority for issuing misleading statements to investors about Carillion’s finances. They are reportedly appealing – again, it will be interesting to see whether this still includes Khan.
Carillion was created in 1999 after being spun off from construction group Tarmac. It mainly built and operated government buildings and infrastructure, and appeared to be in good health for much of its corporate life.
It was hard to see how the company could suffer from liquidity issues, particularly when it reported a record annual dividend of £79 million as recently as 2017.
However, Carillion’s fall from grace was swift and dramatic. On January 15 2018 it was placed into compulsory liquidation by the high court, the biggest of its kind in UK legal history.
As well as the loss of jobs, this had huge ramifications for Carillion’s many ongoing building projects, including schools, hospitals and roads – not to mention a facilities management business providing, amongst other things, school meals to children.
The government’s Official Receiver was put in charge of the liquidation, but appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to help oversee the process. This has involved things like completing schools and motorways, transferring hospital jobs and numerous contracts. PwC has earned more than £50 million in fees as a result.
Meanwhile, the 27,000 members of Carillion’s defined benefit pension scheme have seen their pensions reduced, and roughly 30,000 suppliers are likely to have lost most of the billions of pounds owed to them by the company.
The collapse initially triggered investigations by the National Audit Office and by several parliamentary committees. The parliamentary findings did not mince their words, finding that the directors “misrepresented the reality of the business”.
The report described the company’s collapse as, “a story of recklessness, hubris and greed … its business model was a relentless dash for cash”.
There have been previous high-profile actions against directors. The directors of the failed MG Rover group were disqualified for between three and six years in 2011, while the IS brought an unsuccessful case against the trustee directors of the Kids Company charity in 2021.
The difference with Carillion is that the directors face longer bans, and now the former finance director of all people has accepted the punishment instead of waiting for the court hearings. It may indicate that he agrees that the evidence is sufficient to show that he behaved in an unfit manner as a director.
It looks as though the IS has stuck to its guns over Carillion and is potentially heading for a significant success in its efforts to ensure that directors of listed companies do not see themselves as immune from the consequences of poor management decisions.
It hopefully sends a signal that the government is serious about punishing corporate wrongdoing. The big question now is what happens with the rest of the directors.
John Tribe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
At a time of almost constant political upheaval across the UK in the last few years, sometimes it feels that nothing would surprise us. But the astonishing events that unfolded in Glasgow on the morning of April 5 managed to detonate that notion. At the end of the new first minister Humza Yousaf’s first seven days in charge, the Scottish National Party (SNP) was in the global spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Police Scotland announced that they had arrested a 58-year-old man as a “suspect in connection with an investigation into the funding and finances” of the SNP, the governing party of the country. Minutes later the media revealed that person was Peter Murrell, ex-chief executive of the SNP and husband of the recently retired first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
The nature of the specific arrest of Murrell is relatively new in Scots law. He has not been charged with any criminal offence and was released yesterday evening within the 12-hour window police have to charge or free a suspect – pending further investigations.
What this type of arrest does allow for though, is the possibility of searching premises linked to the individual in custody. On cue, cameras showed the rather shocking spectacle of the extensive police presence at both Murrell’s home – complete with screens and a plastic gazebo – and the SNP offices in Edinburgh where he spent 24 years in his leading role.
Although it already seems another era, Murrell entered the Scottish public consciousness relatively recently when he resigned three weeks ago during the SNP leadership campaign over a row with the media about membership numbers.
For someone so entwined in the biggest Scottish political party for so long – Murrell’s first political job was as office manager for ex-first minister Alex Salmond in the 1990s – it is clear that, as new party leader Yousuf said: “This is a difficult day for the party.” However, this was something of an understatement as fleets of police vans pulled up outside party headquarters and a helicopter hovered over Murrell and Sturgeon’s home just outside Glasgow.
It is not fully clear what the police investigation covers and what evidence they are searching for. It was reported last week that the police had passed a dossier to Scottish criminal prosecutor the Crown Office on their initial investigation into the finances of the SNP. A decision to take that investigation further would be made by the independent prosecutor; clearly, given Wednesday’s events, that decision was executed.
The issues around the investigation seem to focus on a specific fund of £600,000 that was raised by the party from members and supporters for an independence campaign that has not taken place.
This is not the first time financial issues have been raised about the funds. There was a discussion internally in the SNP with MP Douglas Chapman resigning as party treasurer in May 2021 because he said he was not given enough information about the finances to be able to do his job. This accusation was rejected by other party officials, as was the possibility of any police investigation into the finances at that point.
It was then revealed last year that Murrell had loaned the SNP £108,000 in 2021. Initially the party accounts did not directly indicate the money had come from him – this was revealed by the Electoral Commission. Some repayments had been made to Murrell, but £60,000 is still due to be repaid.
These may be some of the issues being explored by the police as they are all related to the finances of the SNP, but it is impossible to be specific. The announcement of the arrest came with the warning that the Contempt of Court Act 1981 is now live.
The Crown Office has taken a strong approach with several high-profile and controversial criminal cases in Scotland in recent years. People have been successfully prosecuted for breaching reporting restrictions on live criminal cases on a variety of media. In a statement on Wednesday evening, Police Scotland advised the public to exercise caution if discussing events on social media.
Clearly, though, the shock of Murrell’s arrest has some way to play out and more will be revealed as events unfold. For the SNP, already under fire for the bitterly divisive nature of its leadership contest and the choosing of a continuity candidate for its new party leader, the optics are not good.
Nick McKerrell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Dungeons & Dragons has a longstanding appeal as a role-playing game – or as some players prefer to call it, a storytelling medium. But retaining users in the face of competition is far from easy, despite a recent resurgence thanks to Netflix hit Stranger Things, the uptake in remote activities sparked by COVID lockdowns and an upcoming film adaptation.
To maintain its competitive edge, the owner of Dungeons & Dragons – Wizards of the Coast – is proposing changes to the ownership of the game’s intellectual property and the way it makes money.
The original Dungeons & Dragons gaming licence meant that players could create unique content, such as story lines or maps, which would be developed over several sessions (sometimes years) of play.
The original licence encouraged “dungeon masters” (the players responsible for guiding groups through Dungeons & Dragons sessions) to lead players on creative adventures and to share their story lines with a wider community.
The enduring appeal of Dungeons & Dragons has been the ability to pick up adventures written decades ago and play them while adding unique twists. This could mean a steampunk take on an official story line, for example, or changing the setting from a medieval fantasy to outer space.
Any time these creative versions of the game were shared or produced for profit under the original licence, Wizards of the Coast went uncompensated.
Its original Open Gaming License, published in 2000, ran to around 900 words, and is basic compared to most other game licences.
The new, leaked Open Gaming License Version 1.0a in contrast, runs to 398 pages, and seeks to introduce a set of rules controlling – in the words of Dungeons & Dragons staff – the way large businesses “exploit” the company’s intellectual property.
The owner of Dungeons & Dragons first made changes to the Open Gaming License in late December 2022. This proved hugely controversial, driving some players to leave the game entirely, objecting to this attempt to generate greater revenues by claiming rights over the creativity of Dungeons & Dragons players.
Under the terms of the revised Open Gaming License, the characters developed and storylines created by players could become the property of the game, rather than the community who made them.
Players who have particularly lucrative content creation activities could also now be responsible for compensating Wizards of the Coast for a share of their profits.
Worse still, the new Open Gaming License limits the creation of new content, restricting both play and profit. Players who want to add their own characters and stories have a lot less incentive under the new licence. While the licence lets players create their own storylines and characters, it also renders them responsible for reporting any revenue they make off them.
The new licence imposes “sharing” requirements – what is created by a player becomes licensed to Wizards of the Coast to profit from too. If you created a new dwarf character, for example, it would no longer be yours. You agree by playing the game that Wizards of the Coast can both use it and commercialise it for profit.
This is especially worrying for players who rely on their creations for a revenue stream, such as Dungeons & Dragons influencers.
While these changes may sound restrictive, Wizards of the Coast is clear that little is changing for most players. The reality is that the alterations to revenue reporting will affect only those making over US$750,000 (£613,000) a year from the game. This clarification highlights the distinction between when Dungeons & Dragons is “just” a game, and when it is not.
While controversial, this move aligns Dungeons & Dragons more closely with other interactive games.
For most games, End User Licence Agreements (EULAs) include clauses outlining that users and players have no rights to any of the intellectual property. Commercialisation of game-related content is therefore usually quite difficult.
The changes also reinforce that Wizards of the Coast is stepping up commercialisation and seeking to protect its intellectual property – steps likely to be reflected in developments elsewhere, including a forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons-themed Lego set.
With films and a TV series to follow, it seems that the Open Gaming License revision is the first step in taking control of revenue streams.
Gamers often invest heavily in the titles they play without realising that the companies who develop the games are the ultimate owners. Licence agreements are rarely read.
Game licences are hard to read, easy to ignore and often painful for those they seek to control. Handled badly, they can cause more harm than good and destroy the relationship a game owner has with the community it relies upon.
Without the Open Gaming License first published in 2000, Dungeons & Dragons would probably not have experienced the loyal following of its player community. The attraction of the game – and the licence – lies in the ability to experience it through your own imagination.
The unprecedented alteration in the Open Gaming License signifies that Wizards of the Coast has put profits before players. The owner of Dungeons & Dragons acted to protect its own interests, but in doing so has damaged – perhaps irreparably – the relationship it has enjoyed with its player community.
Kim Barker receives funding from UKRI (ESRC and EPSRC), and the British & Irish Law, Education & Technology Association (BILETA). Kim Barker is a Visiting Professor at the CTS-FGV Law School and think tank, Rio De Janeiro.
Kesrewan* holds herself upright and speaks confidently, even though English is her second language. But she admits that her “heart is beating faster”. Talking to us is reminding her of her most recent failed job interview – one of many since she arrived from the Middle East seeking asylum more than 20 years ago.
Kesrewan, now in her 50s, is a pragmatic woman but she grows emotional telling her story. She wishes she knew why her latest interview for a staff job at the information service where she already volunteers has again been unsuccessful. She would like some feedback on what she did wrong, or how to improve.
Aged 30, Kesrewan arrived from the Middle East as a highly qualified woman with experience as a newspaper editor and librarian. Yet despite her best efforts – taking multiple classes, working voluntarily to maintain her skills, helping out in community organisations – she has always struggled to translate this into meaningful work in the UK.
Given her limited language skills and with children to support, once she gained legal status she initially took on any work she could find, such as cleaning and kitchen jobs. She thinks her employers often preferred that she had no English because she could not complain about the conditions. She says she was “too ashamed” to tell family and friends in the UK and back home about her cleaning work.
This article is part of Conversation Insights
The Insights team generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.
Kesrewan’s story is indicative of most of the 100 women aged 50 and over that we have interviewed for the Uncertain Futures project. All live in Greater Manchester, often precariously. Not all are permitted to work in the UK, but those who do typically struggle to find secure, full-time employment.
New research by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has found that UK firms and public services are much less open to hiring older workers than their younger peers. Its survey of more than 1,000 managers found that just 42% were “to a large extent” open to hiring people aged between 50 and 64, compared with 74% for those aged 18-34 and 64% for 35 to 49-year-olds.
Our interviewees typically work in kitchens, warehouses, or as cleaners maintaining the environments of offices, schools and high-street stores. Others work in badly paid or voluntary care roles, supporting older people and those with disabilities. Most who do get paid are on zero-hour contracts. Many describe having experienced abuse and discrimination.
Kesrewan now seems resigned to her “life in the shadows” – struggling even to secure the kinds of job that the UK desperately needs to fill but which offer little reward and poor conditions. Women like her are largely unseen and their voices usually go unheard – whether because of their lack of English, their employers’ failure to recognise their experiences and skills, or the blind eye that the authorities and general public often seem to turn to them.
“I haven’t done enough jobs – I didn’t have the chance,” she reflects sadly. “Really that’s confusing for me. It wasn’t like me to sit at home and not want to get a job.”
The COVID pandemic was briefly imagined to be a watershed moment for “invisible workers” in the UK and elsewhere. Jobs that had traditionally been undervalued were now understood to be “essential”. The importance of keeping workspaces clean and germ-free was suddenly appreciated. Carers, nurses, bus drivers and many more put themselves at enormous personal risk to keep people safe and society functioning. Volunteers stepped in to help the vulnerable when statutory support all but collapsed. Many people died because of the work, paid or unpaid, that they continued to perform.
Löis, who works full-time while also caring for her mother who has dementia, describes the countless attributes required of carers like her:
You have to be kind, patient. You have to be a good planner. You have to be able to pick up the unexpected, mentally, physically. You have to coordinate the services that may or may not help you.
But Löis struggles with the idea that none of this is recognised as a skill, or as experience which is valued by society. When she asks herself what all of this is worth, she replies quietly: “I’m not sure.”
For Kesrewan too, it is a source of pain to feel so invisible. While she has helped younger, more inexperienced volunteers to secure paid roles, she feels her age is now an additional factor hindering her own ability to get a job. She has applied five times for a paid role in the information service where she has volunteered for seven years, but has always failed at the interview on the grounds that she does not have “sufficient experience”. She feels sad that discrimination based on age – “coupled with your skin colour, your background, your nationality” – is still so prevalent in recruitment practices.
The cruel irony is that there are now severe labour shortages across the UK’s care, health and social work sectors, and in some administration and office support activities. Non-British migrant workers are over-represented in these sectors but, despite the pressing need to fill these roles, they are often non-permanent jobs offering only zero-hour contracts.
The women we meet are keen to work hard in fulfilling roles that support themselves and their families. Some have little understanding or knowledge about retirement and pensions, and many express deep concern about whether they will ever earn enough money to retire. Gemma, 59, says she can see herself “cleaning toilets till I’m 85”, adding:
You’re always scrabbling to pay rent in the private sector – it’s very expensive and precarious. I think I could live on the living allowance [state pension], but I might be living in a treetop in a park to do it.
Many of the women we meet are extremely well qualified, but that hasn’t stopped them experiencing degrading working situations. Azade is 60 and her story is fairly typical.
Qualified with a degree in agriculture from a university in the Middle East and with many years’ experience in gardening and managing farms, Azade arrived in the UK 24 years ago with two little girls – one of whom had been born en route. “Very long travel,” she recalls. “I have my baby on my way as it was a really awkward time.”
Needing to support herself and her children, Azade was only able to work after securing her refugee status, which took two years. She initially sought out work as a tailor but describes the conditions as “slave work – for a very, very small amount of money. But still I had to do it because I am a single mum with two children.”
She went on to study accountancy but has not been able to secure any work as a qualified accountant. Instead she works as an agency interpreter, but describes the unfair power dynamics within this work:
If you are late by five minutes, they charge you £25 – [yet] they pay me only £14 for one hour … If you are late by ten minutes, this would be classified as “did not attend” and they charge you £100.
Equally, if a client cancels a video call at the last minute, Azade does not get paid. This is essential work, assisting people to communicate with state and semi-state agencies about their legal situations and health matters. Yet there is little value or respect attributed to the role, as a result of the unstable nature of the agency’s relationship with its employees.
Other women describe outright discrimination and racism as a regular part of their work. Much of it goes unreported, let alone addressed.
Murkurata trained as a nurse after arriving from Africa in 2001, where she had worked for more than 20 years as a civil servant. She had expected to continue in a similar line of work here, but says when she arrived here she was “shocked … I got no response. Nothing. Nothing. I don’t think anybody looked at my papers. So I went to nursing and loved it, because I was touched by the people I cared for.”
At the same time, however, Murkurata speaks candidly about being undermined in her role by other nursing staff, including those of a lower rank:
I was the nurse in charge. But the carers, because they are white, they want to tell me what to do with my patients … If I tell them what to do, [another nurse] might tell me that she has been there for years and she knows better. They really, really undermine your intelligence and understanding, you know.
She also recalls a number of occasions when her patient would ask for a “proper nurse” on seeing that she was black. The managerial support given to her in such circumstances would vary, she says:
Some managers were very good, but others would just let this happen. So sometimes you just end up not saying it because it’s pointless. Even if you tell them that’s what they a patient is saying, somebody will always say: “It’s nothing, just brush it off … it’s nothing to talk about.”
Murkurata – who is now training to be a church minister – wearily complains that this effectively put the blame on her for such behaviour by patients:
I’m giving this person care and I’m the one who is at the receiving end. I don’t deserve that kind of treatment, because I’m trying my best and just a human being, just like anybody else … But whatever goes wrong, they find a black person to blame for it. When we are in the same ward working, if you leave a catheter not emptied because you are white, it’s OK. But if it’s [a black nurse] who leaves it unemptied, everybody in the ward should know it.
A November 2022 report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted the increasing numbers of UK adults who are struggling both financially and with mental health problems. Many of the women we meet fit this demographic: limited financial security for housing and necessities, reduced standard of living, and poor health and wellbeing (which itself can exacerbate poverty).
Just under two-thirds of the women we have interviewed are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. All are heavily over-represented in shift work and non-permanent jobs in the UK. A quarter of UK adults in “deep poverty” are from minority ethnic populations.
Their lack of financial security may stem from unemployment, poor and precarious working conditions, or a lack of financial provision in retirement. The cost of living crisis – which research shows is being felt harder by people living in the north of England compared with much of the south – is increasing the pressure on them to work for longer (both each day and before retiring), even in very difficult conditions.
Mari, who was in the UK asylum system for five years, describes the feelings of uselessness associated with the inability to secure paid employment – and how this feeling was made worse by the pandemic. Her voice softens and quietens as she echoes: “Long time to stay home, stay home, stay home.”
She fled to the UK from the Middle East without her children because she was facing “great danger” as a newly divorced woman. She had previously worked for more than 20 years in banking, and although she arrived speaking very limited English, was optimistic about the many transferable skills that she could use here.
The reality, she says, has been very different. Throughout her interview she remains stoical as she describes obstacle after obstacle: being refused English lessons after her initial asylum application was declined; spending time in a detention centre and facing potential deportation; “shaking” every time she came into contact with the police; becoming ill and temporarily losing her eyesight to a thyroid disease while waiting so long for her asylum application to be processed.
Mari, who is now in her 60s, has worked hard to overcome all these challenges. She has picked up “street English’” through speaking with friends. Her eyesight recovered and she was granted leave to remain in the UK, but the stress of the limbo she was living in remains with her. Having previously always worked in a respected professional role, she says this period has altered her life completely:
Those five years were very difficult, because they don’t allow any work, just voluntary – no college, no job, no anything. When you can’t go to any job, the first thing is you think you are not useful, you are not able to do anything. This feeling is very bad.
At one point during her interview, however, Mari becomes quite emotional as she speaks about the voluntary organisation which supported her during this difficult time:
Sorry… My life … All my life, it’s thanks to them.
She is talking about one of the 90-odd organisations throughout the UK that provide essential support for asylum seekers and refugees. Mari attributes much of her current, more stable situation to this organisation.
With its help, she has managed to take up voluntary roles which make her “feel good” and give her “hope”. She works as a cook for a local charity as well as helping to care for her grandson and older neighbour, who is 97. But she wants to earn her own money and gain the independence that would come from this. She says she will do anything – for example, “packing at home for retail companies, packing clothes.”
But it is not only community organisations that can have a major impact on the lives of undervalued women such as these. Enlightened employers have an important role to play too – one which could also pay dividends for their companies.
FemmeCapable, 54, embodies the tenacity we see in so many of our interviewees. Struggling with her English and experiencing prejudice in her role as a care assistant – “I faced discrimination a lot” – she retrained herself using every community resource she could find, then established a mobile food business selling barbecued African cuisine. At the same time, she set up a charity supporting women from ethnic backgrounds in her community.
Even when COVID shut down her business, FemmeCapable used her entrepreneurial skills to transform it into a mobile food response team, part-funded by her local council, which provided culturally appropriate food and transport to families in her local area. She was effectively a frontline worker during the pandemic, even though her work was not perceived in this way.
Her enthusiasm, intelligence and drive permeate the interview. She oozes energy to create something and “make it real life”, and to “share it with the public or the world” so it can have lasting value. Yet her nursing contributions have been overshadowed by racist attitudes, and her work in the community has largely gone unrecognised.
FemmeCapable credits her local Council for Voluntary Service for providing all-important support in setting up her business and community organisation, including applying for funding. These services work closely with local councils to help people use their skills and have their contributions recognised – a vital first step in ensuring a better future for older women like FemmeCapable.
However, announcements made in the UK government’s 2022 autumn statement now threaten the existence of these voluntary services. According to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO):
[They] are on the verge of buckling under the compounding pressures of increased demand, skyrocketing operational costs, eroding income, and challenges recruiting staff and volunteers.
Such pressures are exacerbated by increased energy costs and cuts to public services. In a combined response, the Institute for Government and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy noted that public services “not protected in the autumn statement now face day-to-day spending cuts of 1.2% per year on average over the next two years”.
Victoria, 63, migrated to the UK from Africa more than 22 years ago. As her story unfolds during the interview, it shares the trajectory of so many of the other older migrant women we have met: a professional woman spending many years in immigration limbo while volunteering in community organisations to maintain her skills.
She originally came to the UK on a six-month tourist visa, then fell ill with cancer and had to stay for treatment. She applied for an extension to her visa on medical grounds, but the process took over six years to resolve.
Victoria has since attempted to get jobs in banking and finance in the UK, as this is her employment background, but has struggled, she suspects, due to her age and skin colour. She has concerns about retirement due to her fragmented working life, much of which has consisted of zero-hours employment:
I have not worked in this country for long enough. Although I have contributed to a pension, I don’t know if that’s going to be enough to retire on.
However, her story takes a positive turn when she describes a “lightbulb moment” – when she was at last offered a staff job after years of temporary agency work by an employer who is, in her eyes, “different”. She says this employer treats her “like a person”.
Victoria now works full-time as a homeless support officer for a Manchester housing charity. She says, with evident pride, that her employer “wants a workplace that is equal for everyone”, offering personal development programmes and wellbeing support for staff.
It was such a relief to be acknowledged and have someone appreciating you – I must add that this is a white employer and the majority of the workers are white. You can count people of my colour on one hand out of about 500 … But they have given me an opportunity and, from what I have experienced right from the interview itself, they don’t treat me like I am different. You are just a person in a workplace – that’s how I feel, that’s how they place me.
According to the Centre for Ageing Better, there are a multitude of advantages to hiring and retaining older workers – not least, benefiting from their skills, strong work ethic, and experience. They tend to retain business knowledge and networks and, by better matching the profile of customers, can improve services. There are also established benefits to multigenerational teams, both in terms of productivity and in passing on valuable experience to younger colleagues.
Hearing Victoria’s story is a moment for reflection. She shows us there are ways to break the cycle of invisibility; to help these older women’s voices to be heard and their expertise to be valued. But it requires continued financial support for community organisations, and enlightened employers who recognise the skills and experience of older women.
There is encouraging news from Kesrewan, too. After all those rejection letters from the information service, she has just been offered a part-time job as a welfare adviser and outreach worker at a local charity she volunteered with during the pandemic. She can only work ten hours a week, or she may end up financially worse off due to the strict rules of Universal Credit – but still expresses joy that at last her skills are being recognised.
This work for me – it’s life, wellbeing, being fit and active. You see that you have something to offer. You see that they value you. It’s not just because you are working and they pay you. It’s what you can do for the community and others.
For Kesrewan, Victoria and, hopefully, more of the women we have met, the veil of invisibility may finally be lifting.
All names have been changed to protect the interviewees’ anonymity. They were invited to choose their own pseudonyms.
For you: more from our Insights series:
Loneliness, loss and regret: what getting old really feels like – new study
How a photograph uncovered my grandmother’s republican activism during the Irish revolution
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This project has been partly funded by the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing, Manchester Art Gallery, and the ESRC Festival of Social Science. Both authors are members of the Labour party.
The authors would like to thank the Uncertain Futures Advisory Group: Akhter Azabany, Erinma Bell, Sally Casey, Atiha Chaudry, Rohina Ghafoor, Marie Greenhalgh, Teodora Ilieva, Tendayi Madzunzu, Jila Mozoun, Elayne Redford, Charity Rutagira, Nadia Siddiqui, Circle Steele, Patricia Williams and Louise Wong. Thanks also to Suzanne Lacy, who led the participatory art and research project, Ruth Edson at Manchester Art Gallery, and research assistants Tanya Elahi, Lila Nicholson, Amanda Wang, Jess Wild and Robyn Dowlen. And to the 100 women who participated in the research and shared their stories.
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