The joint winners are Camilla Cavendish of The Times, for her investigation into the many injustices which have resulted from the Children Act 1989 and the professional cultures that have grown up around child “protection”; and Richard Brooks of Private Eye, for his investigation into the mismanagement and financial irregularities behind the sale of the government’s development business, Actis.
Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, said: “In these difficult economic times the Paul Foot Award is proud to offer two winners for the price of one! The standard was so high this year that the judges had to give a joint award, shared by a forensic financial investigation into a government scandal and a dogged critical campaign against legal injustice. Both are firmly in the tradition of first-rate journalism that Paul exemplified.”
Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, commented: “I think Paul would have admired the two winners for very different reasons. Richard Brooks is a digger and a troublemaker who niggles away at difficult subjects in a meticulous, punchy and highly effective way. Camilla Cavendish would have appealed to Paul’s campaigning heart for the way in which she pursued one story through thick and thin. Both are extremely worthy winners in the Foot tradition.”
Richard Brooks
Private
Eye
Early in 2007 Richard Brooks discovered, buried
away in a memo submitted to a Public Accounts
Committee inquiry into the government’s
management of shareholdings in various corporations,
a highly valuable but largely unheard of fund
management company called Actis. Brooks then wrote
a series
of articles exposing the sale of
a key government international development business
to the organisation’s own management for
a fraction of its value, and the transformation
of an effective development body into a money-making
machine for executives at the expense of the world’s
poor.
Camilla Cavendish
The
Times
The outrageous miscarriages of justice which are
being perpetrated on children, because unaccountable
social workers are removing them from parents
in closed courts with virtually no scrutiny, have
been raised before. But in a series of articles
for the Times, Camilla Cavendish provided a more
detailed analysis of the many injustices which
result from the Children Act 1989 and from the
professional cultures which have grown up around
child “protection”. She did so in
a sustained way which will force the authorities
to think again. The Times’ wider campaign
included several leading articles on various aspects
of the issue. Many disparate campaign groups were
encouraged to put their links on the Times website,
and urged readers to email their MP. Hundreds
of readers have done so, and the letters those
MPs have written to Jack Straw have put real pressure
on the Ministry of Justice.
Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard, whose investigation exposed the so-called “Lee Jasper affair”, serious financial irregularities in London’s City Hall and the London Development agency, involving a senior aide to the then mayor, Ken Livingstone. The investigation has so far resulted in six police inquiries, seven arrests and Mr Jasper’s resignation and was credited by some, including Mr Livingstone, with his defeat in the recent mayoral election.
Warwick Mansell, Times
Educational Supplement, who wrote
extensively about the government’s school
testing/exams regime, including the first major
story on the Sats test marking scandal which led
to the late return of thousands of pupils’
test papers and the sacking of test contractor
ETS Europe, and the first story bringing together
opposition across the education profession to
the government’s league tables/targets/testing
regime of school accountability.
Dan McDougall, The
Observer’s South Asia Correspondent,
whose undercover investigations in India, Pakistan,
Nepal and Bangladesh led to the shaming of three
of the world’s top five retailers, Esprit,
Primark and Gap Inc, for using children in their
supply chains. All three firms sacked or fined
major suppliers, cancelled millions of pounds
worth of contracts and launched multi-million
pound social funds.
Jim Oldfield, Rossington Community Newsletter, South Yorkshire Newspapers, who, long before Fleet Street had ever heard of eco-towns, started chronicling the activities of a group of landowners and speculators to plant one in the village of Rossington – Rossington Eco-Town - apparently against the wishes of 13,000-odd residents.
The judges for this year’s award were, in alphabetical order: Clare Fermont, Bill Hagerty, Ian Hislop, Richard Ingrams, Brian MacArthur (chair), Alan Rusbridger, and Michelle Stanistreet.
Back to Paul Foot 2011 » The Paul Foot Award 2025
The Guardian
The carer’s allowance scandal
PATRICK BUTLER and Josh Halliday have been awarded the 2025 Paul Foot Award for Investigative and Campaigning Journalism.
In a Guardian campaign, the pair exposed the rigid rules and unfeeling bureaucracy that govern carer's allowance, revealing that carers had been prosecuted for accidentally claiming the allowance alongside part-time work, even when some of them had reported their earnings to the Department for Work and Pensions. In the case of one man, who was convicted for over-claiming 30p a week, the DWP has since acknowledged he made an innocent mistake. Labour has now set up an independent review of the allowance, and raised the earnings limit for those claiming it.
The 2025 awards ceremony was hosted at Bafta by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, who said: "Who cares?" He added: "This is the big question in Britain at the moment and the winners wrote brilliantly about these very people."
Padraig Reidy, chair of the judges, said: "This was an enraging and heartbreaking campaign on behalf of a group the government has called ‘unsung heroes'. You couldn't read these articles without thinking of the Post Office Scandal—another story of ordinary, decent people persecuted by an uncaring bureaucracy. It was in the best tradition of Paul Foot's work."
An excerpt from the winners interview with Page 94, The Private Eye Podcast is here:
The 2025 Shortlist
Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
The Guardian/Reuters Institute
Out of Sight: Missing People campaign
Brinkhurst-Cuff movingly told the story of Fiona Holm’s disappearance, asking why it was so overlooked. She supplemented her reporting with a wider investigation into how the media covers missing people.
Patrick Butler & Josh Halliday
The Guardian
The carer’s allowance scandal
Vulnerable carers were taken to court for accidentally claiming carer’s allowance while working part-time – even when some of them had reported their earnings to the DWP. Labour has now set up an independent review.
Laura Hughes
Financial Times
Lead poisoning
In this deeply reported investigation into the effects of lead in paint and in the soil, Hughes asked a provocative question: will lead exposure one day be seen as a scandal on the level of asbestos?
Aaron Walawalkar & Harriet Clugston
Liberty Investigates in partnership with Sky News, Metro and The Guardian
Inside UK universities’ Gaza protest “crackdown”
The investigation unit at the human rights charity looked at British universities’ harsh measures against pro-Palestinian protests and activism on campus, and the institutions’ close cooperation with police.
Jim Waterson
LondonCentric
Lime bikes and broken legs
Waterson’s Substack newsletter uncovered a spate of broken legs caused by the heavy frames of Lime electronic bikes falling on their riders. Who was regulating this Californian company?
Abi Whistance
The Liverpool Post
Investigation into the Big Help Project
Whistance’s four-part investigation for the Liverpool Post newsletter exposed a housing charity that left residents of its homes living in dire conditions.
