Summary
Evidence about how children and families are supported in England reaches the public through a small number of bodies that are not part of government: charities, endowed foundations and university research centres. Four are examined here: the WAVE Trust, the Sutton Trust, the Nuffield Foundation and the University of East Anglia (UEA) in its work on serious case reviews. The NSPCC and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) are noted alongside. None is elected, and each is quoted, commissioned or funded in ways that shape how government is judged.
This piece looks at what each body is, how it is paid for, who governs it, and how its work reached policy. It asks why these bodies are listened to, and notes what the available sources do and do not say about who checks them.
The bodies differ more than the shared label “evaluator” suggests. UEA is commissioned by a government department after competitive tender. The Nuffield Foundation lives on an endowment, as does the JRF. The Sutton Trust was set up by a wealthy founder and later helped to create a government-funded foundation. WAVE advocates for a goal and earns income from training and consultancy. No single credential links them.
The question
Question: why are these bodies listened to when they judge government functioning and service provision, and what, if anything, stands behind them?
The question comes in three parts, kept apart here because they have different answers:
- Standing: what gives each body a hearing (money, history, method, position)?
- Accountability: who governs it, and who checks its claims?
- Reach: how did its work get to policy?
Whether these bodies “pass judgement” on government is treated here as an observation to be tested, not an assumption. Several of them describe their own role in plainer terms: funding research, undertaking research, or advocating for a goal.
What the rules allow
Charities in England and Wales may campaign, including to influence government. The Charity Commission’s guidance, Campaigning and political activity guidance for charities (CC9, updated November 2022), says a charity can seek to influence central or local government on matters tied to its purposes (section 3.9). Two limits are set. Political activity cannot be a charity’s continuing and sole activity, and a charity must not support any one political party (sections 3.5 and 4.1).
On evidence, the guidance says campaign material must be factually accurate and have a well-founded evidence base (section 6.3). Where research is used, trustees are to satisfy themselves that it is of quality and validity (section 6.4). The guidance does not require independent review of that research. Quality assurance is, in effect, the trustees’ own responsibility.
The Foundation and the Trusts below are charities. UEA is a university. The government departments that commission university research apply their own procedures, described later.
The WAVE Trust
What it is. WAVE (Worldwide Alternatives to Violence) Trust is a registered charity (number 1080189). It has been reported to have been formed in 1996. Its objects, in the trustees’ report for the year to October 2024, are the advancement of public education, in particular by reducing interpersonal violence and non-accidental harm to children, and by promoting children’s social and emotional development.
How it is paid for. The accounts to 31 October 2024 show income of roughly £450,000 to £460,000. The income described includes donations, paid training and consultancy projects with named public bodies (a local authority and police bodies are named), conferences, and investment income. The report says a founding sponsor has continued its support and that a consultancy has funded the work since late 2023. The accounts identify no separate government grant income. The Charity Commission register shows five employees and no trustee payments.
Who governs it. Six trustees were in post at the year end, one of whom stood down in December 2024.
Credentials it offers. The report says the charity is continuously researching current solutions and has carried out “significant further research” to validate its propositions. The accounts describe no formal peer review of that research and give no statement of its authors’ qualifications.
How it reached policy. The charity’s 70/30 objective aims for a 70% reduction in child abuse, neglect and children witnessing domestic violence by 2030. Its focus moved to Scotland in 2022. A Commission of Inquiry on the project, chaired by Professor Sir Harry Burns, formerly Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer, was set up by a cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament. The report says 128 of 129 members of the Scottish Parliament support the 70/30 objective. It also describes building cross-party backing among politicians.
What the sources show. WAVE describes itself as educating the public and seeking support for a specific goal. On the evidence of its own accounts, its standing rests on that goal’s backing in Parliament and on the research it says it commissions. Its claims about early childhood rest largely on correlational studies. This essay draws on WAVE’s accounts to October 2024.
The Sutton Trust
What it is. The Sutton Trust is an educational charity. Sir Peter Lampl, a businessman and philanthropist, founded it in 1997 to improve educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds and increase social mobility. The register describes its activities as supporting projects, policy advocacy and undertaking and commissioning research. The Trust has described itself as a “do tank”, in an Oxford event listing of a 2012 lecture by Lampl.
How it is paid for. The Trust’s own pages say it is an independent charity reliant on donors: trusts and foundations, companies and individuals. It states that it does not accept research funding that depends on a particular result, and that funders have no part in choosing projects, methods, researchers or the analysis. For much of its history, most of its funding has been reported to have come from Lampl himself.
Who governs it. A board of trustees. Ian Walsh was appointed chair in November 2024 (register entry).
Credentials it offers. The Trust commissions much of its research from academics. The 2018 report Stop Start: Survival, decline or closure? Children’s centres in England, 2018, which supplies the funding and closure figures used in the YFL essay Sure Start: What Was Promised, What Was Measured, and When It Was Known, was written by G. Smith, K. Sylva, T. Smith, P. Sammons and A. Omonigho. Sylva and Sammons have been reported to have worked on the Oxford evaluation of children’s centres (2015). If so, the same researchers appear both as evaluators of the centres and as authors of a charity report on their decline.
How it reached policy. In 2011 the Trust, as lead charity with Impetus, set up the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), with a founding grant of £125 million from the Department for Education (EEF’s own page). The EEF funds and publishes trials of educational interventions. The Trust’s policy reach therefore runs partly through a body that government paid to create.
What the sources show. The Trust’s standing combines a founder’s money, academic authors, and a track record of creating a government-funded evidence body. It is open about donors and states a rule on funder influence. Whether that rule has been tested is not known.
The Nuffield Foundation
What it is. The Nuffield Foundation is an independent charitable trust. William Morris, Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motors, established it by trust deed on 9 June 1943 (2008 annual report). Its stated mission is to advance educational opportunity and social well-being. It is a different body from the Nuffield Trust, which works on health policy.
How it is paid for. From the income on its endowment.
Who governs it. A board of trustees. Its 2017 to 2022 strategy says the Foundation’s independence brings an added responsibility set out in its original trust deed: it is not simply an academic funding body, though the research it funds must stand up to rigorous academic scrutiny. It also says it expects the research it funds to influence workable proposals.
Credentials it offers. Financial independence, and a funding process in which research is assessed on academic grounds. The Foundation is reported to have founded the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (1991) and to have co-founded the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory and the Ada Lovelace Institute.
How it reached policy. In the material examined, the Foundation funded the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) work on Sure Start, the Lancaster research on recurrent care proceedings, and studies of fathers in child protection by Professor Marian Brandon of UEA, whose serious case review work is described below. The IFS 2025 report acknowledges the funding. In each case an academic or research institute did the work and the Foundation paid for it.
What the sources show. The Foundation’s standing is a funder’s: it chooses what is studied, and does not conduct the studies. The material examined does not describe how the Foundation decides what to fund, or give any independent assessment of its influence. That is a gap.
UEA and serious case reviews
What it is. UEA’s Centre for Research on Children and Families has been directed by Professor Marian Brandon. It has produced a series of national analyses of serious case reviews (SCRs). An SCR is a local, multi-agency review held after a child dies or is seriously harmed and abuse or neglect is suspected.
How it is paid for. Government pays. The department responsible for children’s services commissioned each analysis: from 2006 to 2012 the Department for Children, Schools and Families, then the Department for Education. UEA’s research impact case study for the national research assessment says these projects were awarded by competitive tender following peer review, with grants to Brandon totalling £364,347 across 2006 to 2012. UEA’s research portal lists £188,588 from the Department for Education for the 2009 to 2011 analysis. The case study also notes earlier UEA child protection studies, from the 1990s, funded by the Department of Health and the NSPCC.
Who governs it. A university, with the usual structures. The analyses were run by teams led by Brandon, with Professor Peter Sidebotham of Warwick as a frequent co-author. In a 2005 to 2009 paper the authors declare that they are all involved in ongoing analysis of SCRs, and that the paper was funded by the department. The report states that it does not necessarily reflect the department’s views.
Credentials it offers. Peer-reviewed method and journal publication, access to every SCR in England, and a run of consecutive analyses by a stable team (the case study counts 808 cases from 2003 to 2011). In the 2005 to 2009 paper the team had anonymised data and a short narrative for each case, not the full review.
How it reached policy. The analyses were commissioned by government and were used in policy documents. The case study says the Social Work Task Force interim report (2009) used UEA evidence about supervision. The sixth analysis covered 368 reviews from April 2014 to March 2017, with Sidebotham.
What the sources show. UEA differs in kind from the three bodies above. It is a research provider paid by government to examine the system government runs, and the findings it produced fed back into that system. That is a different relationship to government from an independent funder or a campaigning charity. Brandon’s work also appears on both sides of that line: government commissioned her serious case review analyses, and the Nuffield Foundation funded her studies of fathers.
Others, in passing
NSPCC. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children began in 1884 as the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and took the name NSPCC in 1889. Its Royal Charter is reported to date from 1895, and it has been reported to have been the only voluntary organisation with statutory powers to intervene in child cruelty cases. It campaigns, runs services and conducts research, and earlier UEA studies were part-funded by it.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Joseph Rowntree, a Quaker businessman and social reformer, established it in 1904 to understand the root causes of social problems. The JRF’s own page says its funds began with a donation of shares in the Rowntree company, and that its endowment was reported as worth around £400 million. It has been described as politically neutral and independent of political parties. The JRF’s page also records an apology for the harms of the firm’s historic supply chains. It is an example of an endowed body whose funding history has itself been the subject of review.
What gives each one standing
The material examined points to several different foundations for being heard.
Position resting on money or history: the Nuffield Foundation and the JRF (endowments from a founder’s business wealth); the Sutton Trust (a founder’s wealth, plus donors); the NSPCC (age, a royal charter, and a role in the early statutory child protection system).
Method that others review: UEA (competitive tender, peer review and publication).
Backing from elected bodies: WAVE (cross-party support in the Scottish Parliament for a stated goal).
None of these is a licence to evaluate government. Charity law lets these bodies speak. It does not certify their conclusions.
A separate point, on authorship: the Sutton Trust’s report on children’s centres was written by researchers who have been reported to have also evaluated them.
Who checks them
The material examined shows three things:
- CC9 puts the check on trustees. Charities must have a well-founded evidence base, and trustees must satisfy themselves about research quality. No external reviewer is named.
- Some bodies describe their own safeguards. The Sutton Trust says funders do not influence results. The Nuffield Foundation says funded research must stand up to academic scrutiny. UEA’s analyses went through tender and peer review, according to UEA’s own case study. WAVE’s accounts describe no formal review.
- Self-description is not verification. Each statement above comes from the body itself. No independent assessment has been found of how well any of these safeguards worked, for any of these bodies.
What the evidence does and does not show
Shows: that the bodies are different kinds of organisation, with different funders and different relationships to government; that the Nuffield Foundation, the Sutton Trust and UEA funded or produced evidence on Sure Start and serious case reviews; that the bodies stand in different relationships to the judging of government (the Sutton Trust and Nuffield-funded researchers assessed government programmes, UEA examined a system on government’s behalf, and WAVE advocates for a goal); that charity regulation permits campaigning and expects an evidence base, and leaves quality checks to trustees.
Does not show: that any of these bodies was biased, or that any was reliable. It does not show that money or history makes a body right or wrong. Nothing here is a finding about the quality of their conclusions.
Does not settle: whether a shared standard for “evaluator” credentials would help, or exist elsewhere. No comparison with other countries was made.
In summary
The bodies examined here are listened to for different reasons. The Nuffield Foundation and the JRF rest on endowments from a founder’s business wealth. The Sutton Trust adds donors, academic authors and a government-funded offshoot. UEA was paid by government after tender and published through peer review. WAVE rests on a stated goal and cross-party support in Scotland.
Their work reached policy by different routes. The Sutton Trust helped create the Education Endowment Foundation, which government paid to set up. The Nuffield Foundation funded work done by academics and research institutes. UEA was commissioned by government, and its evidence was used in policy documents such as the Social Work Task Force interim report. WAVE built cross-party backing in the Scottish Parliament.
Charity law permits these bodies to campaign and expects a well-founded evidence base, with trustees responsible for checking it. The safeguards the bodies describe are their own statements. The material examined contains no independent assessment of how well those safeguards work, and nothing here shows that any body was right or wrong.
References
Charity Commission for England and Wales. Campaigning and political activity guidance for charities (CC9). Updated November 2022.
Charity Commission for England and Wales. Register of Charities entries for the WAVE Trust (1080189), the Sutton Trust (1146244) and the Education Endowment Foundation.
WAVE Trust. Annual Report and Accounts to 31 October 2024.
Sutton Trust. Pages on funding and independence; page on the founder.
Smith, G., Sylva, K., Smith, T., Sammons, P. and Omonigho, A. (4 April 2018). Stop Start: Survival, decline or closure? Children’s centres in England, 2018. Sutton Trust.
Education Endowment Foundation. Page on founding partners.
University of Oxford, Department of Education. Event listing: 2012 Oxford Education Society Annual Lecture.
Carneiro, P., Cattan, S., Conti, G., Crawford, C., Farquharson, C. and Ridpath, N. (May 2025). The short- and medium-term effects of Sure Start on children’s outcomes. Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Nuffield Foundation. Annual Report and Accounts 2008; Strategy 2017–2022; Nuffield Foundation at 75.
University of East Anglia. Research impact case study, Preventing child death from maltreatment (Research Excellence Framework). Research portal entry, Biennial Review of Serious Case Reviews 2009–2011.
Sidebotham, P., Bailey, S., Belderson, P. and Brandon, M. Fatal child maltreatment in England, 2005–9. Preprint.
Brandon, M. and others (2008 onward). National analyses of serious case reviews, Department for Children, Schools and Families / Department for Education.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Pages on background, history and funding.
Topics: #EvidenceAndPolicy #CharitiesAndPolicy #SeriousCaseReviews #SureStart #ChildrensServices