This month’s Pulse includes a series of reports about the cost of living crisis. Through our work as evaluators of the Back on Track Financial Shield project in Lambeth and Southwark, we’re seeing the increasing impacts of the crisis on people’s financial wellbeing, and the links this has to their physical and mental health. The Financial Shield project offers a promising model for supporting people manage the impacts of the costs of living crisis, and the potential benefits this may have for their wider health and wellbeing. For more information about the project, please visit the Financial Shield website.

In the area of criminal justice, HMICFRS have published the latest PEEL Assessment Framework for 2023 to 2025. At a time where public trust and confidence in policing is low, the importance of a robust framework to guide independent inspections of forces is key. We recently worked with HMICFRS to deliver an evaluation of their custody inspection programme, and our evaluation report identified a number of areas in which the programme could increase its impact on public confidence and understanding of forces’ custody provision. Our evaluation report is available in full here.