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Involve (think tank)
The Involve Foundation (known as Involve) is a UK based charity "working with governments, parliaments, civil society, academics and members of the public to create, advocate for and deliver new forms of public participation", like, for example, citizens' assemblies.[1][2] Its headquarters are in Bethnal Green in Central London, and it has offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland. BackgroundIn 1999, a group of academics in the field of deliberative democracy met with practitioners and policy-makers to explore avenues of cooperation. In 2000, this became the InterAct network, and in 2003, after several joint publications on public participation, they discussed formalising their cooperation by founding an institute. This initiative was launched in September 2003 in London, hosted by the Environment Council, and by March 2004 it had obtained its first funding from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. In June 2005, it stopped being hosted by the Environment Council and became an independent organisation, with Geoff Mulgan as its first chair and Richard Wilson as its first director. In 2006, it was formally incorporated, and in 2009 it became a charity, with Simon Burrall as Director. Its objects were/are “to advance education for the public benefit in methods and processes of public participation and democratic practice,” and “to promote good citizenship for the public benefit by encouraging and facilitating participation by the public in democratic and decision-making processes with an intended outcome of enabling people to develop their capacities, help meet their needs and participate more fully in society.”[3] In 2015, a Scotland office was opened, and in 2017 Tim Hughes became Director. In 2018, a Northern Ireland office was opened, and in 2021, Sarah Castell became Director.[4][5] ActivitiesInvolve's vision is of a democracy where people are at the heart of decision-making.[6] Involve has worked with a wide range of partners, most recently the Cabinet Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and NHS England. Past partners include the Home Office, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Justice, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly, the OECD, the European Commission and the BBC.[7] GovernanceInvolve's CEO is Sarah Castell and the Chair of Involve's Board of Trustees is Ed Cox. Other trustees are Claire Ainsley, Paul Braithwaite, Andrew Cave, Dr. Temidayo Eseonu, Delaweh Hamelo-Mensah, Kathryn Jones, Sharon Squires, and Dr. Hannah White.[8] There has been some controversy in 2024 concerning the appointment of a trustee with links to Big Tobacco, Andrew Cave, since some of Involve's activities are in the health sector[9] and this is seen as a conflict of interest.[10] Some of Involve's funders are also strictly opposed to investments in the tobacco industry, meaning their continued funding of Involve is called into question.[11] The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT), for example, a Quaker organisation, gave Involve its very first funding of £25,000 in 2004, and has continued to contribute regularly to its funding ever since.[12] JRCT’s funding principles, however, preclude investment in the tobacco industry: "The Trust seeks to avoid material investments in armaments, gambling, tobacco and new generation nuclear power."[13] Another major funder, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, operates with the same Quaker principles. It is unknown whether these key stakeholders were consulted about Involve’s appointment of a trustee from the tobacco industry, yet difficult to imagine they would approve it, given the fundamental conflict with their principles. Cave was Head of Communications at Philip Morris International (PMI) from 2012 to 2022.[14][15] During this time, he was involved in their push to subvert the World Health Organization's global anti-smoking treaty.[16] After leaving PMI, he continued to work alongside other former PMI lobbyists at So What Communications.[17] His LinkedIn profile states, "At Philip Morris International (PMI), I led regulatory communications across the UK and EU, advising senior leadership on PMI's unprecedented transformation to a smoke-free future." The term 'smoke-free' is misleading, however, as the report "Addiction at any cost: Philip Morris International Uncovered" by STOP (Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products) demonstrates: "Industry documents revealed that smoke-free products were seen as a way to create a new form of tobacco use among those no longer willing to take up smoking and “make new profits rather than cannibalise existing profits from cigarettes”."[18] Stanford University School of Medicine's extensive research has also exposed PMI's claims to move away from cigarettes and become 'smoke-free' as propaganda.[19] The description of himself in his LinkedIn profile as a promoter of PMI's 'smoke-free' initiative could perhaps explain why the Involve leadership appointed him as a trustee, if they accepted it at face value without investigating further, i.e. without performing due diligence. Indeed, on his profile on the Involve Foundation website, Cave also claims misleadingly that while heading the communications division at PMI he was “directing many of its initiatives to move away from cigarettes.”[20] He failed to reveal, however, that this move was not simply away from cigarettes but towards vaping products, including ones aimed at children.[21] In 2020, while Cave was working for PMI, the company was also actively trying to infiltrate UK government health policymaking to weaken anti-smoking regulations and increase the market of its 'smoke-free' but no less addictive products.[22] Investigations by Reuters have shown that Philip Morris International (PMI) also secretly infiltrated global tobacco control negotiations and Andrew Cave[23] then lied about it: "Asked in an earlier interview whether Philip Morris conducts a formal campaign targeting the treaty’s biennial conferences, Cave gave a flat “no.”"[24] All of the above information on Cave and PMI is freely available and easily discoverable with simple search queries, making the Involve board’s decision to appoint this former tobacco industry executive hard to fathom, given the multiple conflicts of interest with the values of its stakeholders and funders. Shortly before becoming a trustee at Involve (April 2023), Cave also became a director of another non-profit operating in the deliberative democracy field, the Sortition Foundation (January 2023). His profile page there makes no mention of the 10 years he spent working for PMI, however.[25] This constitutes a notable concentration of tobacco industry influence, since Involve and the Sortition Foundation are the two main providers of public participation services in the UK, and both have clients in the healthcare sector. It undermines trust in the outcome of deliberations on health policy organised by them, especially in view of recent moves by the UK government to strengthen anti-smoking regulations.[26] Also, the fact that a top tobacco industry executive obtained influential posts in key public participation organisations within a year of leaving his position must be viewed critically in the context of the World Health Organisation's commitment to promote public participation in health policymaking in its member countries.[27][28][29] In the UK, the Chief Medical Officer Prof. Chris Whitty, who called for politicians to push back against tobacco industry lobbying,[30][31] has been asked to stop the National Health Service (NHS) from cooperating with Involve and the Sortition Foundation on public deliberation projects to counter any possible undue tobacco industry influence on their recommendations. Key publications
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