Andy Cook | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:13Andy, thank you for joining me. well i would say i've heard i've seen all the others saying it's great to be here i'm terrified to be here i've seen all the rest of the people you've interviewed they're amazing oh but so are you and i always say i'm looking forward to the conversation but i'm really looking forward to this conversation partly because we've got to know each other well and there's all sorts of conversations we're going to bring into filming today but let's start with who is andy kirk yeah again i tried to revise this question a little bit i asked my daughters what on earth would they say they said well just say that you're a leeds fan and that'll do and yeah which i am I don't know.

0:44Who am I? I am someone... Hence the croaky voice. Hence the croaky voice for listeners I've been celebrating over-indexing on Leeds United's promotion. Who am I? I am just someone who is desperate to make it count, to make whatever I'm involved in count. So yes, I'm a father, most importantly, to three fantastic daughters. I'm a husband to an amazing, long-standing, suffering wife. I'm a great supporter of Leeds United. and then in my my day job that takes over my life is I am chief executive of the centre for social justice where we are desperate to make it count for those that are relying on us we try and take the voices of those most struggling in this country and try and drive ideas towards helping them be all that they're meant to be into government and into wider culture there's so much passion and purpose in everything you said there we're aligned so much on a mission basis and also dads to daughters, right?

1:39That's probably why we get on so well. Where has that passion come for trying to make a difference? Is that through your upbringing or early influences? I have no idea. I grew up in Leeds. I kind of had an amazing family, mother and father, who just loved me. I think that's one of the key things. I've kind of felt loved into being able to be free and go after stuff in lots of ways. and then I kind of ended up not feeling kind of that content with the normal cycle of life you get a school you get shipped to university whether or not you want to go or not little political statement there you end up thinking about what your next kind of job is and you're in the rat race of life and there's always something that slightly wanted to do a bit different but I can't say I had a grand plan and then we had a bit of tragedy that hit the family my father unexpectedly and tragically died and that I think shaped something in me to go and try and help those that had never experienced that kind of love and care of having a mum and a dad like I had in my life so there's maybe something in that as well.

2:44Absolutely and that took you into charity right didn't it? Yeah yeah so I ended up in moved further down the M1 away from Leeds was in Sheffield for a bit and then ended up in Loughborough and much to my mother's horror she said that I was starting to lose my accent and drink shandies rather than proper pints and ended up in and around Loughborough working on a team called Extreme Team that went into a state and worked with the most fantastic kids who were really struggling in different ways very kind of impoverished and that led me and a friend to say let's do something together here and we set up a charity to try and help a load of the lads and lasses we were meeting on a day-to-day basis try and kind of release them realize their potential of which there was bags of it and we said right we need to get them into jobs we need to get them to see who they're meant to be and we created a charity to do just that yeah and that clearly was super passionate mission driven again and you could see the impact you're having but sitting here now you're the chief executive of the center for social justice so tell me about the transition there well yeah i mean i still don't know what they were doing in employing me to be honest.

3:47The Centre for Social Justice is a think tank that operates in Westminster. It aims to try and kind of take the experiences of those most struggling and learn from them and plot ideas to help change what they're going after. The unique thing about what it does or what we do should I say is it's got a small army of charities across the country or should i say a large army of small charities across the country 700 of them and regional offices that goes and listens to what they're really saying about the poorest in this country not what whitehall says not what westminster says not often what big charity says but what is actually happening underrepresented underrepresented but also not just the problems i mean goodness me we can tell the problems till we're we kind of till the time stands still actually what are the ideas and one of the founding principles of the CSJ was that someone is always solving these problems somewhere our job is to just go and find it so whether we're in Hartlepool whether we're in Birmingham whether we're in Bristol or any other place beginning with a B that I can't think of now we go and listen to what's being solved there try and bring it back to Westminster and say just do more of this invest in this or learn from this in a policy shaping way.

5:04So the way I got into it is that I was one of those people doing that in an area in Leicestershire, in Loughborough, in Derbyshire, in Nottinghamshire, the charity grew. And I got in bed with the CSJ and I kind of loved what they were trying to do, listening to real experts out there, bring it back and get it going proper. I love that. How do you go about finding these people that are making a difference? What's the team element of that? So there must be researchers, as there must be people that are sent out to find these people. Yeah, well, we've kind of split our employee with our organisational dynamics.

5:39But we've got the CSJ Foundation now, which has got regional offices all across the country. Now, regional offices, probably quite a kind of dramatic way to describe it. We've got a person in a region with a car and sometimes a dog whose job it is to go out and find the best thing that no one's seen. In this country, 84 % of giving goes to 4 % of the charities. We're trying to burst that bubble because often the best stuff is going on locally and no one knows about it. So we've got regional guys, very simply an infrastructure, who go out and listen, find the best social entrepreneurs, find the game changers that are out there.

6:17They kind of bring it together and we then kind of gather, find ways to gather their evidence, gather what they're saying, gather their ideas. And we feed that into the CSJ mothership, so to speak, the policy making machine. And from there, we create papers and ideas, and we lobby government to try and enact them. So let's take the recent Lost Boys report. Phenomenal. It's been a zeitgeist timing with Sir Gareth Southgate's, Dimbleby Talk, and Adolescents, the Netflix fiction series. But ultimately, it's got everyone talking about a clear problem with young boys not feeling included and lacking confidence.

6:58and the actual impact that that's having on parents not the connecting to their to their own children and to boys in society so you put that together you give the data and the stats and you put that out there what's next what follows that well let me say where that came from first because that kept that is such a good example you're such a good host finding those examples but a great example of something that that worked really well our small charities for ages were saying why is no one talking about boys the biggest issue we're seeing coming through in the employment charities that we have the education charities where kids are out of school in record numbers absent from school in record numbers were coming to us saying we've got a problem with boys every time we hear the political the politicians talk about it or big new strategies the strategies for women and girls quite rightly I've got three daughters I'll get mullered if I get home and say that's not important it totally is but where is the stuff for boys and our small charities are the ones telling us that in lots of ways we listened to them we heard it from enough people we said we should look into this so what we decided to do was bring all of the data let's crunch numbers and generally put it out there for conversation about what is happening to our boys and that was on behalf of these 700 small charities that we feel that we try and work for so that's how it kind of started from our kind of point of view.

8:21And then absolutely Gareth is amazing, did this amazing speech on it. And then adolescence came down. So it kind of kept the momentum. We'd like to claim all of it, but we can't possibly. No, but crucially Gareth came to you before he did the talk because he knew you had the information. So he can actually factually base his powerful talk on information that you collected. Well, that was quite, yeah, we work with lots of different people and Laurence Delaglio was kind enough to kind of make the introduction it was quite funny because i've been mistaken for gareth southgate in certain smoking areas of pubs in my history so it's quite nice working with my doppelganger but he's gone out and kind of driven it forward in that way and we did very little in reality other than kind of offered up what we were learning and he went and absolutely and actually was very brave in some of the things we're saying in that way so that's just been fantastic but as ever the job you know you ask about the kind of impact it's been great to open up a conversation and I can't tell you the amount of letters that we've had and all that people saying thank you but for us you know we're not interested in just creating a conversation it's about impact the whole organization you know I get analyzed kind of every quarter I go to my board on how much impact legislative change or policy change have we made as an organization that's what we're about in that way.

9:38So in a way, the job is not even 10 % done yet. It's about now finding the ideas and driving them forward, getting people to kind of take hold of them, both in politics as well as in culture and in business. And that's what we'll be focusing on for the next years, not for the next few months in that way. And we're kind of, this is the actual hard yards. Everyone can show where there's a problem, but how do we bring people together to drive the solution? And honestly, I don't have the answers on that yet, but all I know is that there's some really exciting stuff. No, and I get that because that's in play.

10:07So actually now that's really interesting to know how you're so accountable, those quarterly kind of targets, reviews, if you like. So do you have tangible kind of examples, if you like, where you can see the CSJ and your team have made a difference where you've identified and researched something that was clearly of interest that you wanted to change and then you can see the changes? Yeah, totally. I mean, there's loads of them. We average about a third of our ideas year in, year out get taken up by government. And then if government leans into something, a whole market area opens, investment goes, philanthropy happens, charities start working.

10:43So it's super powerful. Yeah, it really is. You're making it visible. So you're effectively teeing it up. Gareth is a good example. Back to Nossberg, so you provide information, but then he can have the whole audience of the country, if you like, listening to stats. Totally. And, you know, our primary target is government in that way, and they can certainly shift a dial. And so there's been some amazing things done over the years. The Modern Slavery Bill came through the CSJ. That all came from small charities saying, why aren't you doing anything on modern slavery? It was well before my time.

11:13I can take no credit for that in any way, shape or form. How about 2015? Yeah, yeah, under Theresa May, and she really drove that forward. There's a whole big swathe of work called Housing First, which has been piloted in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. which all came from again small charities saying we've got no proper offer for those that are homeless in kind of changing the dial of giving them a house first hence housing first rather than making them prove that they're house ready that's now we won 28 million to pilot that in three different areas it's now coming to the end of the pilot and we're making a big case with people like Andy Burnham in Manchester for this the national rollout so there's real tangible policy stuff for those that are most struggling.

11:55I would say another area we've worked heavily on, but nowhere near kind of solving yet, is this whole thing of ghost children. We were the first to identify the amount of young people dropping off the school role, again through our small charities saying no one's talking about this was post-pandemic, that, you know, pre-pandemic there was about 60 ,000 kids that were out of school more than they're in it. We're now at 173 ,000. this thing is getting worse and worse and worse and so again I'm offering that up as we have constantly risen the public knowledge of that the political knowledge but as yet we've not driven through the solutions and that's the type of stuff that keeps me up at night because that's what we're there to do.

12:35Yeah that's powerful do you know the root cause of why so many children are not turning up? There's lots of different reasons that we're seeing one of the fascinating things that some other group did some amazing work on in seeing that three in ten parents now no longer see full-time school as absolutely necessary which is a really interesting culture shift no doubt which was exacerbated massively by the pandemic and by the strikes after that whereby people thought hang on schools can just close willy-nilly like this and the students saw that and did we cope all right when they were off the answer to that and the poorest was an absolute firm no But for middle England, it might have been, all right, it was quite nice this way, sitting in my garden, my kids were around, but in lots of other ways, it was devastating to young people, devastating.

13:23And so there's a culture shift in the mindset, I think. There's definitely then loads towards young people's mental health, people going out into school and all the rest. So there's something really quite deep going on there, as well as something that needs to shift practically. I've got so much going on in my head there, even as a parent myself, when you start questioning what is and isn't being taught in schools. But you still know that in your heart that children have to have discipline and go to school to be educated. I suppose there's a whole another conversation of should they still be learning to use a Bunsen burner and learn algebra when they could be learning all sorts of other things in real life.

13:59Oh, you feel like you're a Bunsen burner. How else would you be able to do some of the games that you used to do? Exactly. I love that. That's a whole conundrum. There must be so much that you get involved in. is there one particular thing whether it's close to the csj's part or or yours where you see a real crisis so my point being you have a whole hopper being fed of i think you described it as the sort of 20 of society that's not catered for not looked after and is underprivileged is there one key area where you're like this just absolutely has to change this is this is no longer sustainable but you can have two yeah family and work have always been the guts some of the two main things going on and i would say the thing that came out about the lost boys which we're trying to figure out how we bottom out is the the fatherlessness that's happening in this nation right now two and a half million young people without fathers in and around them that's a really interestingly scary start that's personal personal to me in that way i can feel that from you yeah knowing how big that is and this isn't about demonizing anyone it's actually in fact the amount of mums we've had right to us to say yes this is such a big thing for us that and i don't know what a lot of the answers are there but there's something about mentorship something about significant adult that young people are missing right now in lots of ways i would say one and secondly work i mean again personally it was always drilled into us about working and about jobs and about different things i could count you all the different jobs we did right from being nippers in that way but something about the discipline of work about that first pint on a friday being you that's bought it in that way something that's about dignity of work and right now we've got you know 2 000 people a day dropping out of the labor market due to uh inactivity due to sickness in that way there's a yet work is such a powerful thing and yet people are seeing some jobs that they don't want to do anymore are being spoken about about whether work's a good thing in of itself I think those two things are really kind of troubling us as a nation right now totally is there also a correlation to role models so I'm looking at you and I'm genuinely thinking you are an amazing role the way you're where you're coming with the passion you got for your work I can tell that you love your family and they are they are your heart but then you go out to try and achieve everything you're doing with the CSJ to make that difference and that impact.

16:25So to come back to that whole role model scenario, people in the workplace and people, if you like, on social media and putting messages out there from a family point of view, has that all gone wrong? Because we've had Andrew Tate over the last few years creating a culture where he's putting out an awful message in a very cool way that's influenced the boys. Where do we get back some influence on role models that puts back that dignity, that pride into actually being a boy, being a girl and championing the people that really should be. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's ever been the case. Remember back in the day, you know, when you and I were growing up pre-war, you know, the big argument would have been our role models are footballers who are all going out getting smashed and not particularly healthy role models, perhaps.

17:12That's come full circle and beats one. So there'll always be public problems in who the role models are, without a doubt. But there's been definitely, I think, a change of local role models because those touch points locally, we've decimated youth clubs, we've decimated over the last number of years. You used to have church groups and where I'm from, you'd have union groups and bands and those kind of things. These areas of communal gathering where lots of different people would be in, sports teams and all the rest, have been decimated in lots of ways. So you'll always have the top-level role models.

17:50absolutely and I think in a funny way the footballers have come full circle now and they're kind of seen as fairly healthy ones to go and have a look but I would say it's more about localized ones I remember for me Kev Pease who was a plumber a local lad who I used to play football and he was in this for I just looked to him and he gave me some work experience with him he did all of that and I wanted to please him I wanted to impress him I wanted to learn from him we used to go watch Leeds United together people like that that I wouldn't have ever met him if it wasn't for the kind of church group I was in or football team I was playing for I think we've decimated something of our community uh foundations in that way and I think the best way to get that back get the youth workers back out there again get the kind of sport out there again such a powerful tool that we never use properly in this country we could absolutely drive this into areas and and get people playing in just learning the discipline of sport but meeting older people who are good people to follow.

18:47So I totally believe in role models, but I think it's local role models we need. Real life, real people. Proper people. And I know that we were talking about some awards that you have in October and you go out of your way to try and find the sort of trailblazing mission-led entrepreneurs that are making a positive social impact and you've never heard of them. Totally. Role models. Role models. And do you know what? This is one of the best things we do, totally and utterly. It's how I got involved in the CSJ. It's been running for 20 years when it was founded by Ian Duncan Smith the whole central point of it was to go and find the people that are solving problems and go to small charities the kind of little platoons that are out there every year we find the best ones that we've seen across that year we do a whole judging process and we take them down to west uh westminster i remember it well i put on my pinstripe suit and a splash of brute aquatonic and you get onto the main stage and you've got we give them some money We listen to their story.

19:44We have the good and great gathered there from the political media and a few decent celebrities there. And we say these are the heroes. And do you know what it does? It finds role models absolutely. But it also instills hope. Do you know what? Someone is solving these problems somewhere. Every time you turn on the blooming radio or if you still turn on the radio, it's all about the **** that's there. Of which there's a lot. But I tell you what, there's a lot more hope out there. And it's found in these little guys. and these guys that never put their head up because they're in Blackpool running youth centres or they're in Newcastle working on a football project.

20:16We go and find them and we try and lift them up. This is awesome. And again, that energy coming from you is so strong, the passion. And I've met a lot of your team as well and I've felt that. In context of social media, there's an element there that can be used as a force for good or it can be a very destructive energy, if you like, and can give the wrong information to people that then sort of doom scroll addictive algorithms. Is there anything the CSJ is doing there to try and research and help? Because that's a massive conversation among parents, colleagues. Just wonder where that sits. Yeah, huge.

20:54We did a huge report on mental health, interestingly, and the mobile phone thing comes up massively about, and social media in that sphere, actually, about how significant that is to young people. We've looked a bit on how, again, on the over-medicalisations, the term that's used of some of those issues versus the kind of, these kind of gifts that people have been given, how do we draw out the gold in people rather than kind of stop all the, we see it as stopping something in that sense. And on the mobile front, absolutely, we're going to have to learn how to bring the best out of that stuff and protect where we need to protect at the same time.

21:34So we've done some big papers on that because that is a lot of the stuff that people talk about but interestingly for our small charities they'll talk about it as the more personalised side so if all the social media and the looking at screens is happening there we should double down on what the personal side is going on, where's the sport going on, where's the activities, is school an engaging place and a fun place for people so we try to look at that stuff as much as anything else. Are there any kind of blockages or challenges that you've got? Because it feels like you've got the support of the government and you have that reach into different pockets where you need to.

22:11And then you've got, you're going out and hunting the opportunities that need addressing. And so is there any blockages where, for example, you have any resistance from governing bodies or, you know, companies giving information and why? Yeah, well, I would very kindly say we have the support of government. We should have more support. There's two things in this world that you don't want to know how they're made. One is sausages and one is laws. And half the time we're trying to help make these laws and it's just carnage all over the place because it's politics and it's policy. So we always want more ideas out there to try and shape what they're doing, more contacts into there to drive it forward and more ability to get it into public domain so that politicians react.

22:55Is that the way you get traction? So you need to send it into the public domain that forces government? Yeah, both happen. Sometimes you force government that way because they think, oh, they're all going this way, so we'll go that way. Other times you're working behind the scenes and say, hey, just you need to do this for whatever reason. So we do it both kind of ways. That's fascinating, because there's certain times where I guess you make enough noise, they can't ignore it. there's other times where you're like we don't even want them it's not going to look good on you if there's a load of noise here when we need to change this now totally and actually often that's what i would say as well some people will do campaigns in order to be seen that they are doing campaigns when actually the most impactful thing you can do is work with someone behind the scenes and don't get me wrong every now and again we press the button to make a big story because you know you need to shift something and get people thinking a different way but that's not all the time that we do it try and work with people try and alongside people in that in that sense so yeah we'll do both talking about Andy yourself so humanizing you you've got an amazing team you've got your family but you have clearly got huge energy for this what do you do to get away from clearly a very consuming role where you're getting a huge amount of information as well and you're trying to make that impact what do you do to make time for yourself I go and watch is united and normally bang my head against the brick wall uh it's he buzzing right now yeah i've never been so happy no um i do yeah i don't know it doesn't stop in you you know of course you need to look after yourself but it doesn't stop you you asked me at the start you know who i am i want to make it count so i'm you know i i find the minute you stop the minute the best ideas come as well interestingly and so it's always on because this is more than just a nine-to-five job is far more than that.

24:44And that's for all of us. We employ people at the CSJA who often have gone and lived a real life and done interesting things because it drives you a bit further and a bit deeper in that way. But for me, yeah, it's going out and spending time at the local Whistler pub with Great Play Park. It's watching my girls do what they do and it's watching leave. It brings it back to family and community, which is actually what you're trying to influence for the better and that's also what really helps shape you so you're clearly on a journey I don't feel like there's necessarily a destination that you want to get to but are there anything that you would love is anything you'd like to achieve or make happen or influence for the better whilst you're the chief exec of the CSJ I've caught there's a hundred policy areas I want to change I want to see more people out there working in good jobs and finding themselves that way I I want to see more families strong.

25:35I could reel off countless policy areas genuinely, and they'll always incrementally change lives. There won't ever be a kind of silver bullet that changes everything. If there's something that I would love to see shift massively, it's how people see the small voluntary sector. I honestly think if we get that infrastructure right, it can change a whole host of things. and how we find localised, we engineer localised support to go into kind of meaningful things. The big boys dominate everything on PR, on comms, therefore on finance. And I'm not saying they're not doing a good job. I'm not. There's some really interesting.

26:18But I think people that you know, people that I know who are looking to give away money to use their brands or use their companies, I want to try and link them to the stuff that never gets a look in. and that's why I'd love to see shift. How can anyone watching or listening that's now wanting to get involved and help what can they do? Firstly I'd say that I realise how hard it is for people to know what is going on around them but I would say first thing they can do is just stop and if they want to do something have a little think about what might be more localised versus what's kind of the well-worn path and that's where we can genuinely come in and help.

26:57If they want to give money to a cause we can help find them some really localized causes somewhere where they grew up or they have an affinity to or some causes that are way off the beaten track where their pennies will go a lot further than if it's into a big infrastructure you know i've used the stat before that 84 of giving goes to just four percent of the causes why because it's easy in that way we can do the hard work in finding them local groups and local areas and so come and see us and we'd love to help them in that sense that's brilliant and if someone's watching or listening and is in a position where they can contribute they want to be able to help support you financially what's the process what can they do well again we can you can go on our website we can get in contact and we can talk to them again lots of people are often looking for really cool stuff to find and we've got them in their droves we've got great people where we can create lists and ideas and do visits and all the rest as much or as little as people want and try and connect them with people that are crying out for not just money by the way not just wallets but their ideas people have often made money because they're bright and they're brilliant and half the time i'm wanting to learn from those kind of extraordinary people and to help shape the way an organization runs so we love to connect people's wallets to people but their brains as well inspirational i told you I was looking forward to this conversation.

28:21I don't want it to end, but it's a pleasure to talk with them. What you're doing is just so important. Andy, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.