The focus on PFE in schools has been sustained by the efforts of charities, subject associations and the financial sector. These sets of mid-level “policy network actors” move between worlds, breaking traditional boundaries and building advocacy coalitions through organisational partnerships (Ball and Exley, 2010). Through advocacy, developing resources and delivering personal finance education sessions within schools, subject associations and the voluntary sector influence the National Curriculum formation and outcome. In the words of a financial education charity representative:
We act as conjugate between what is going on in the classroom and the policy. (Financial Education Charity Representative)
These mid-level organisations represent another set of policy actors who not only inform policymaking, but also interpret it. The financial sector sees being involved in financial education for young people as its corporate social responsibility. To them it is an investment in their customer base as well as in local communities. They run independent PFE programmes and provide funding for various PFE charities for young people.
Why is this important to us? Well, there’s a couple of reasons, one is very much around a very, very, genuine CSR image of we want to invest in our local communities, yeah and some of this from, it is from a, a, somebody’s read a great quote at our group convention yesterday and it said, you know, it was a quote that I don’t know who said it, who but you know, if a company isolates itself from its community, the community will isolate itself from the company. So being, some of it is general brand awareness, a reputational side of things. (Bank Representative 1)
We recognise that we’ve got a responsibility and as a bank we’ve got a responsibility to individuals, to communities, but also to Britain to help it prosper and that’s one of the things that we say, yo we want to be the best bank for customers, but we also want to help Britain proper. (Bank Representative 2)
The financial and voluntary sectors – including financial education charities and subject associations – are involved in PFE policy process at two main levels: at a national level and at the school/classroom level. On a national level, charities and subject associations influence curriculum reforms by regularly contributing to consultations put forward by the government and exam boards.
That’s really a large part of what we do – trying to influence these stakeholders and trying to get them to see that a happy healthy child is more likely to succeed in the classroom and more likely to succeed in life as well. We speak regularly to Ofsted. We submitted our response to Ofsted inquiry/consultation on Friday; we will wait and see what they say. We are in regular touch with the department of education as well as trying to make sure that they ensure that PSHEe is in the
curriculum. That’s what we are trying to do. (Subject Association Representative, PSHEe)
We have been consulted. The government set a priority, didn’t they, to involve the learning society and subject association a bit more heavily in the development of the new curriculum by the exam boards… I was asked personally to comment on the new A’ Business and Economics by AQA. (Subject Association Representative, Economics and Business Studies)
In addition, subject associations and financial charities see themselves as a link between schools and the government. They interpret policy text to help teachers make sense of it and deliver PFE sessions in schools:
It still takes a long time for these things to actually filter into many schools. They are all possibly oblivious to the new inspection framework or not considered what it really means for their curriculum provision and so the join up between something that’s written on a piece of paper from Ofsted and then a school thinking do we properly prepare students in that way that is implied in the new inspection framework and if we don’t what are we going to do it about it? That’s something where my organisation would like to help and we are going to offer training around it. (Subject Association Representative, Citizenship Education)
At the school level, banks and charities deliver one-off PFE programmes aimed at different school ages across the UK. Some financial education charities (such as PfEG) and subject associations provide not only teaching resources but also teacher training. Moreover, where subject associations depend largely on membership fees, PFE charities depend largely on financial sector funding as their main source of income. Therefore, as the interview extracts below illustrate, the interests and preferences of the financial sector and association members largely determined the work of charities and subject associations, respectively.
Our biggest priority is mental health because that’s what our members have told us they want support on… It’s [financial education] not coming through as one of the highest priority areas they want support on. (Subject Association Representative, PSHEe)
We are a membership organisation. The main priority is to try and survive because of the organisation is under extreme pressure financially and as we sit here today not sure I would put 50/50 chance on it surviving. So our kind of focus is to cater as much as we can to our membership needs within the constraints of the fact that it is very, very hard to get people to buy into a national organisation. (Subject Association Representative, Economics and Business Studies)
On the other hand, charities working in financial education were primarily funded by the financial sector and thus their work was greatly influenced by their sponsors:
We are reliant on the money provided by the financial sponsors to do the programme. Now, sometimes, actually in most cases those funders often have got a particular area, geographic area of interest that they want to support with. For example, Experian and Santander who fund quite a lot of schools – they might just say we just want to spread across the whole country but there are other funders who may just fund one or two schools that actually are quite specific. (Financial Education Charity Representative)
The alliance of the political, voluntary and the financial sectors under the banner of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Financial Education for Young People wields extreme power within curriculum policymaking. Such “policy networks” (Ball and Exley, 2010) act “as productive sites of power” (Fataar, 2006, p.644). However, of the three mid-level organisations identified – the banking sector, financial education charities, and subject associations – the most influential was the banking sector. By delivering PFE directly in schools through a network of volunteer employees, and funding PFE charities, the banking sector was recognised as another dominant policy actor in PFE policy implementation.