Aspire Community Works has been awarded the King’s Award for Enterprise for Promoting Opportunity, recognising its leadership in improving pay, conditions and access to employment in the everyday economy through its BetterforUs campaign.

The award highlights a practical model of delivery that links high-quality services with fair work. Aspire holds the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard at Excellence level — the highest level of accreditation — reflecting its consistent commitment to Real Living Wage employment, flexible working, training and progression. More than 90% of its workforce is recruited from disadvantaged backgrounds, and since 2015 the organisation has created over 140,000 hours of Real Living Wage employment.

BetterforUs was established to challenge the reality that too many publicly funded services are still delivered through low-paid and insecure work. Drawing on direct delivery experience, the campaign demonstrates how public procurement can be used to secure better jobs alongside better services.

This work is reinforced through Aspire’s wider programmes. Growing Green Circles is opening up routes into green skills, biodiversity and community stewardship through the transformation of underused spaces across London. Frameshifters works alongside this to support organisations to rethink how work is structured, widening access and creating more inclusive and sustainable employment pathways.

Dr Katharine Sutton, Managing Director of Aspire Community Works, said:

“This award matters because it exposes a simple truth: the everyday economy runs on work that is too often low paid, insecure and not fit for health. People are locked in and locked out of the Labour Market at the same time. Many are stuck in low paid, low status jobs that are bad for health, with no progression and toxic cultures. At the same time, millions of disabled people are locked out of employment by design. Things must change. Innovative public procurement could help support a nation of good employers – large and small. BetterforUs is all about making that shift happen.”

Luke Kavanagh, social investment manager at Trust for London, said: “Too many people in London’s everyday economy are trapped in low-paid and insecure work, which is a key driver of in-work poverty. Aspire Community Works is showing that this does not have to be the case. Through BetterforUs and their wider programmes, supported by Trust for London’s social investment, they are improving pay, creating access to stable employment and opening up pathways for people who are often locked out of opportunity. Their work is an important contribution to tackling poverty and inequality in London which we support.”