Episode 14: Simon Pellew OBE

Interview Date: 16 October 2020. Interviewer: Dr Jason Clark. Research and questions by Dr Simon Machin.

Simon Pellew, OBE, is a social entrepreneur who has spent his career addressing some of the most intractable social problems in the UK, unemployment and repeat offending in the criminal justice system. Influenced in his twenties by the radical communitarian theology of the Anabaptists, Simon studied in America with the expert on the Amish community, Professor Donald Kraybill, being much influenced by his famous book The Upside-Down Kingdom. Returning to England, he set up the pioneering education and training charity PECAN in Peckham, South London, famous for its impact in lowering unemployment in some of the toughest council estates in London and for its equal pay policy for all employees. For the last twenty years, Simon has worked with charities aiming to reduce reoffending in the prison population, pioneering approaches to improve family relationships and reduce unemployment amongst ex-offenders.

Simon Pellew - Timed Interview Summary

0:00 - 20:27

Childhood. Simon’s father and mother come from very different backgrounds, marrying after a whirlwind romance. His father fought in the Second World War and his mother was an actress and a journalist. Father becomes an entrepreneur, setting up a chain of launderettes across South London. Simon grows up in a village south of Epsom, Surrey, “an Enid Blyton world”. Family is not especially religious but his father prays and reads the Bible to Simon, who is sent to Sunday School. Goes to Charterhouse School, where he is bullied, but also converted to Christianity and his parents find his fervency unsettling.

20:28 - 28:46

University. Simon fulfils a childhood ambition and joins the Navy after school (an ancestor was a Napoleonic admiral). Is sponsored by the Navy to attend Bristol University where he studies geology. His Christian faith is rekindled at university with the effect of raising qualms about continued service in the Forces, from which he resigns, having served on the Ark Royal. Simon becomes interested in environmentalism, and completes a Masters at Imperial College, London in energy economics. He is placed as an intern with environmental consultants and attends a church in Shepherds Bush, London.

28:47 - 39:52

America. Goes to America to a Mennonite Seminary in Indiana. He is motivated to go there by studying prophecy in early Anabaptist teachings, and also by the combination of religious fervency, communitarian lifestyle and distrust of the big state in Anabaptist theology. He is also influenced by the book, Upside-Down Kingdom by Donald Kraybill and is pleased that Donald teaches sociology on the course, and Simon spends a couple of days being shown by Donald around the Amish communities. After recently rereading Upside-Down Kingdom Simon has realised that many of the innovations that he introduced when he was later the CEO of a Christian organization were actually Donald Kraybill’s ideas, not his own. Whilst in America, Simon then goes to Chicago to work with Cambodian refugees. Also attends several Vineyard Church conferences in America, and ironically this is where he first hears about the Ichthus network of churches which is developing in South London.

39:53 - 47:09

Returns to England and joins the Ichthus Fellowship, moving across from west to south east London. Sometime before, on a train journey across London from Epsom, he has a vision of people living trapped lives, and has already had intimations about doing some community work to address the problem. Is introduced to the big council housing estates in North Peckham and finds them intimidating. Reminisces that Peckham was a scary place in the late 1980s with very high levels of crime.

47:10 - 52:19

Marriage. Simon persuades Shunu, who also works at Ichthus to marry him. He notes that Shunu’s father was imprisoned by the British in the late 1930s at the same Simon’s father was stationed in Calcutta in the British army. Shunu’s mother grew up in the ancient Christian Orthodox community in Kerala. Her parents each emigrated to England independently. Shunu studies theology at Glasgow University and joins the pastoral team at Ichthus. Simon notes that there has been no noticeable racial tension on either side of the family.  

52:20 - 1:08:29

PECAN (Peckham Evangelical Churches Action Network). Having headed up Ichthus’s social action programmes, Simon sets up PECAN with the purpose of doing something practical about the local unemployment problems on an interchurch basis. An employment training course is started with funding from the Evangelical Alliance and is “almost a complete flop”. But it does manage to recruit volunteers from other churches as well as Ichthus and starts the practice of knocking on residents’ doors on the council estates to get course members. As a result of the later training courses, some attendees went on to get jobs. The basic idea of a 4-week course which trains individuals on how to get work emerges. Simon applies for and gets state funding to run a Government job club. PECAN begins to door knock 10,000 dwellings a year. However as there is huge turnover amongst tenants, although PECAN made a sizeable impact, Simon is not now sure that the organization penetrated the estate’s awareness very much. But as a result of the unemployment courses, the unemployment rate in Peckham fell below that of neighbouring Dulwich. Simon tries to set up a launderette to fund the charity. Despite being skeptical about its likelihood of success, his father is very supportive. It generates huge problems, absorbing time, losing money and facilitating vandalism and has to be closed. Part of the PECAN story is learning from mistakes, and they were very much part of the history, with someone pulling a gun on a trainer in the early days. The solution was to keep going and make things better by increments.    

1:08:30 - 1:15:27

PECAN’s Equal Pay Policy. To reflect the Christian nature of the organization, considerably influenced by Donald Kraybill’s Upside-Down Kingdom, Simon institutes an equal pay policy for all staff. Looking back, he thinks it made PECAN an easy organization to manage as people could be moved around into new roles relatively easily with no pay implications, and this made experimentation and internal promotion easier. It was also the most powerful symbol of the Christian faith externally, although not always popular with local churches. Staff loved it, and it took away some of the symbols of power which go with an organizational hierarchy. It set a high bar for a Christian lifestyle. In his current role, Simon still misses what equal pay did. It was one of the real impacts of PECAN.

1:15:28 - 1:19:35

Southwark Council. The relationship changes from hostility at the outset. After two years, PECAN starts to pray about the local housing estates to see them knocked down and replaced. The Council is given £26m as part of the Single Regeneration Budget and Christians start to be appointed to strategically important positions. Some estates start to be demolished and Peckham began to change. Sadly, then the schoolboy Damilola Taylor is murdered, creating feelings of despair locally.  

1:19:36 - 1:25:54

The practice of management. Simon has had a long interest in management theory, reading Tom Peters’ book about management, In Search of Excellence, and PECAN provides the opportunity to build an efficient organization. PECAN is an early acquirer of the coveted Investors In People award, and his staff nominate Simon for the OBE. But Simon decides to move on, having formed the view that founders are a menace to their charities, particularly Christian ones. He was becoming interested in criminal justice. He was pleased that people felt valued at PECAN and was pleased that people were able to develop autonomy.

1:25:55 - 1:44:16

More recent leadership roles involving criminal justice. At PECAN’s launderette, Simon witnesses the terrible effect of a mugging on an Afro-Caribbean woman and comes to realise that crime is a social justice issue, because those who suffer most are the poor and most vulnerable. He becomes interested in what stops crime and how people (mainly men) move away from a criminal lifestyle, technically known as desistance. The biggest influence is their social and family relationships, but it is not easy to achieve. Simon leaves PECAN in 2002, and in 2003 becomes CEO of Stepping Stones, which undertakes “through the gate” work preparing prisoners for release, twenty years before it became fashionable.  Four years later, he moves on to work for Time For Families, which concentrates on strengthening family relationships in prisons through pre-release training and parenting courses. Understanding the psychology of crime and peer relationships is a key to desistance. Moving from a Christian to a secular organization, Simon misses the common purpose and language. In his view, the criminal justice system is too punitive, but it is only the belief that one might be caught that acts as a deterrent. Wants to see the way that offenders are put on the shelf and told they have no role to play in society and the way that criminality moves down the generations in families changed. A common theme in his career is of unemployment and crime being spiritually damaging.

1:44:17 - 1:54:50

Looking back and then forwards. Since Government funding always comes with strings attached, Simon wonders now if PECAN could have relied on private donations, like the Victorian director of Bristol orphanages, George Muller. He remains proudest of the way that PECAN treated its staff and how a number of them developed their full potential; and of walking away at the right time. His remaining ambition in current job with Only Connect is to start up relationship work in prisons again, since it is vital to link up employment and strong family relationships in work with offenders.