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In Macpherson’s footsteps: a journey through British racism

BNG — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:08:52 +0000

After Stephen Lawrence’s murder, a former High Court judge travelled round the country to produce the most significant report on racism in Britain for a generation. Ten years on, how much has changed?

Hugh Muir · guardian.co.uk

‘The police are still institutionally racist. The local authority doesn’t carry out the racial impact assessments that were envisaged. The thing had no teeth’ – Maxie Hayles, community activist, Birmingham.

Photograph: David Sillitoe

Sir William Macpherson was not an obvious choice to write the report into the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Educated at Wellington College and Oxford, the son of a brigadier and once a captain in the Scots Guards, he was accused by critics at the outset of insensitivity to race issues. Certainly he seemed too immersed in the establishment to lead a process that would shake it. And yet that was exactly what he did.

No one who attended Macpherson’s hearings in south-east London can forget the key events. Neville Lawrence collapsing as he heard how his son was killed; the five suspects snarling and lashing out as they ran the gauntlet of the crowd outside the hearing, where the most senior police officers in the land would admit their force was guilty of “institutional racism”.

The inquiry was more than a series of meetings in a characterless suite of offices at Elephant and Castle. For the second part of his investigation, the former high court judge journeyed around Britain by train, to six places he and his team – Dr Richard Stone, vicechair of the Runnymede Trust, John Sentamu, now the Archbishop of York, and former police officer Tom Cook – had chosen for their racial significance. They intended to discover whether London was typical of the country.

Sir William has since retired to a life away from the public gaze. But were he to retrace his steps and tour the racial landscape again, as I did this week, he would find a country more at ease with itself, but one that is still struggling with issues he encountered a decade ago.

Ealing

Macpherson’s first stop had long been troubled by racial conflict. Historically, much of the attention focused on Southall but Macpherson set up his inquiry further north, at Greenford. As coordinator of the Stephen Lawrencecampaign, the grouping set up in the aftermath of the murder, Suresh Grover had been a regular at the Elephant and Castle hearings, but this, he recalls now, was a chance to give the local picture. “The local authority and the police were failing to protect black people and we told him so,” he says. “We had seen two racist murders and many people were suffering daily harassment.”

Initially, after the report came out, the black community felt progress wasbeing made, says Grover, but then things started to slide. His organisation, the Monitoring Group, has noticed a shift towards attacks on refugees. There has been a “terrible” official move away from anti-racism and towards community cohesion. “Groups like ours are in dire financial straits because race is well down the pecking order. We moved from Straw to Clarke to Blunkett – and Macpherson went out of the window.”

The Rev David Wise, the white English leader of the predominantly black Greenford Baptist church, was sharply critical of the police at the Macpherson hearings. But he has witnessed a substantial change in attitudes towards them. “The Met has made great efforts. What I don’t now get is people saying the police treated them badly because they are black. The police are not free of racism because they are human beings, but their structures appear to have made a difference. It’s the local authorities and other agencies that don’t treat people well.”

Manchester

In the 1980s and 1990s, Britain’s second-largest city had its own problems with racial violence. In 1986, 13-year-old Ahmed Iqbal Ullah was murdered in a racist attack at Burnage high school. Nasrullah Khan Moghal, head of the Manchester Council for Community Relations, recalls the start to proceedings. “Richard Leese, the leader of the council, spoke first and he immediately said that the city council was institutionally racist. Then the chief constable, David Wilmot, said his police force was institutionally racist too. Bishop Sentamu was dumbfounded.” The organisers were keen not to replicate the atmosphere in London where “virtually every speaker blasted the police”, he says. “We were critical, but things were improving. We felt we had a good story to tell.”

He still does. The authorities, police, council, voluntary sector, are big on partnership working, so “if the police are failing these days, it means we are failing as well”. Racial attacks and incidents of harassment are down over the decade and people are “increasingly happy” about integration, says Moghal. But, like Grover, he has seen a evidence of a new wave of violence aimed at asylum seekers. “We are seeing migrant workers from eastern Europe being harassed. It is no longer black against white.” As in Ealing, the mantra is “community cohesion”, and in Manchester that must include the plight of white people. “Look at Wythenshawe and there is a problem with white unemployment. Many young people have gone into crime and drugs. Many don’t attend school.”

I head to Wythenshawe to see for myself. There are few non-white faces, and even less money. A Poundworld shop faces a Poundland across the street. By his florist hut, Terence Banks is preparing to close up after another slow day. “Look at these lads,” he says. “They’re always out here, school day or not. They don’t have anything to focus on so they get up to things. Sometimes you hear them say that if you’re a certain colour you get anything you want but if you’re white, you won’t. Some just use it as an excuse, but some believe it.”

Tower Hamlets

At his third stop, Macpherson set up camp in York Hall, one of Britain’s most famous boxing venues, in Tower Hamlets, east London. This one of the most diverse boroughs in the country, home to Brick Lane and Banglatown. Junaid Uddin, then 27 and a worker with the Campaign for Police Accountability, recalls: “The police had begun to make some moves towards the community but they were in denial. They certainly did not want to accept anything like institutional racism. Before the inquiry, when we gave our point of view, we were labelled black racists. Afterwards we were seen as specialists.”

Uddin, now a voluntary sector consultant, says the aftermath was beneficial: “The police were at the forefront of changing a whole range of organisations.” Then came September 11. Things have been sticky ever since. “There is something very dangerous going on. We have deep concerns here about Islamophobia and what is going on in the Middle East, but when we voice them we are painted as extremists.”

The Rev Vaughan Jones, who runs a support agency for refugees and asylum seekers, has seen a big change in race relations since he testified to Macpherson. “There are a lot more inter-racial relationships and a lot of learning,” he says. But he also sees a lot of suffering. “Irregular migrants face state harassment instead of community harassment,” he says. “The debate 10 years ago was about established communities, whether they were being treated equally. Now the issue is what defines us as a country: who is included and who is not. It is about exclusion not inclusion.”

Bradford

On 21 October 1998, Macpherson and his team walked into the minefield that was Bradford, the scene of terrible riots three years earlier. Tension between communities and police was still high.

But he knew little, one suspects, of the manoeuvring to try to prevent certain people from talking to him. One person he was never supposed to encounter was Muhammed Taj, a bus driver and an official in the Transport and General Workers’ Union who sat on a council-commissioned investigation into the disturbances but broke away to publish his own report, complaining that the majority document report lacked focus. “I told Sir William there had been so many reports on problems in Bradford and they were just gathering dust,” he told me. “The fault lines were well known. We needed to do something.” What was done wasn’t enough: two years after the publication of the Macpherson report, Bradford was in flames again, provoked by the far-right into the most serious disorder in the UK for two decades. There has been nothing like that since and the authorities have poured millions into the poorest areas. Officers are wedded to community policing. But Taj says he is worried that the explosive elements are all still there.

In Shipley Ralph Berry, a Labour councillor preoccupied with education and community cohesion, seems positive, not least when he reflects that the BNP had four councillors in 2004 and now it is down to two. “If you ask people if they are voting BNP because they hate black people, they will say no. They just want someone to take them seriously. That’s what we are doing.”

Bristol

In 1998, 100 people packed into the hotel function room Macpherson’s team had hired in Bristol. Then the outpouring began. Two men sat together at the inquiry to give evidence jointly. One was Paul Stephenson, who led a bus boycott campaign in Bristol in 1963 against a company that would not employ black people or Asians. The other man was Richard Stokes, the black British guardsman whose career was cut short by racial harassment.

Stephenson moved 25 years ago to a predominantly white suburb. He thought he would be a trailblazer. Instead, his is still the only black family on the street. “I bought this house thinking I was breaking down social barriers,” he says. “The man next door promptly sold his.” His hope has been for more integration and understanding. It still is and Macpherson and the police have helped, he says. “But for every step forward we have made two back.”

Stokes sees progress because “the range of people who will defend racism is decreasing” and “kids are definitely more accepting of different cultures”, but he fears Bristol is still racist. “You need only go two miles out of the city centre to see that attitudes are different. It is class and race. It’s a funny place.”

In the St Paul’s area on the eastern side of the city, where the faces are mainly black and brown, I see a shop filled with DVDs, CDs, trainers, caps and clothing, a shrine to black urban culture. Then I see the owner, who is white. Debbie Reeve’s late husband was Jamaican, she explains.

Birmingham

Macpherson’s final stop was Birmingham. Maxie Hayles, a veteran community activist, says he was responsible for getting the former judge to the city. Even now he is pleased. “We had a nightclub that would not admit black people and the death in custody of

Alton Manning. There were attacks and harassment – all this in Britain’s second city – and they weren’t going to come! It was a joke.” He began a campaign. Soon Macpherson was there.

The meeting itself was turbulent. “The council leader said they were not institutionally racist. The chief constable said the same. Then we spoke about the discrimination and the racial attacks. People knew we were right. We got a standing ovation.”

If there was elation that day, for Maxie and his Birmingham Racial Attacks Monitoring Unit there has been deflation since. “The police still kick and scream about stop and search. They are still institutionally racist. The local authority doesn’t carry out the racial impact assessments that were envisaged. The thing had no teeth.”

Things aren’t better, they’re different. “Few will call you a black bastard but we all saw the list of BNP people,” he says. “It’s about attitude. We know it’s there.”

In a church hall in Handsworth, where black and Asian communities live side by side, Leroy McKoy, a youth worker, tells local teenagers about police hostility and racial conflict in the 1970s. But it is just a history lesson for the boys, for they say they have black friends, white friends, Asian friends, Somalian friends.

“That’s the way it is these days,” says Craig Taylor. His mates agree.

The statistics

Ealing
Population 306,400 (2006) 59% white, 23% Asian, 8.6% black.
Jan-Oct 2008: 3,247 stop and searches; police say 53% were white, 27% “Asian appearance”, 8% “black appearance”.
2008 London mayoral elections BNP came fifth, behind Greens.

Tower Hamlets
Population 196,106 (2001) 51.4% white, 36.6% Asian, 6.5% black.
Jan-Oct 2008 10,236 stop and searches; police say 58% white, 26% “Asian”, 10% “black”

Birmingham
Population 687,406 (2001) 71% white, 20% Asian,
6% black, 3% mixed race.
School population 144,100 – 43.6% white, 35.5% Asian, 5.1% black.

Bradford
Population 467,655 (2001) 78% white, 19% Asian,
1.5% mixed race, 0.92% black.
2008 local elections two BNP councillors elected.

Manchester
Population 392,819 (2001)
81% white, 19% black and minority groups.
2007-8 stop and searches police say increase of 56.6% in people stopped from white groups, and 69.9% in Asian groups, in a year.
2007-8 22.4% of all murder victims were black and 14.3% Asian.

Bristol
Minority ethnic population increased by 62% between 1991 and 2001 to 380,615.
Office for National Statistics gave it a “diversity index” of 0.22 (ie the
probability that two people chosen at random will be from two different
ethnic groups)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/21/stephen-lawrence-racism-macpherson-report?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

Government to apologise to Alder family over police custody death

BNG — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:19:19 +0000

The government will formally apologise through the European court of human rights (ECHR) to the family of Christopher Alder, a black ex-soldier who choked to death in handcuffs on the floor of a Hull police station 13 years ago.

The “unilateral declaration” made by the United Kingdom to the court is a highly unusual admission of widespread failures in the investigation into the cause of the Falklands veteran’s death.

In its statement to the ECHR, the government will concede that it breached its obligations in regard to preserving life and ensuring that no one is subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment. The family is to receive €34,000 (£29,000) from the government in an ex gratia payment and to cover legal costs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/22/government-apologise-alder-family-police-death?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

White male culture dominates police, says equality review

BNG — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:20:49 +0000

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 April 2011 20.40 BST

Neyroud report says greater diversity ‘would transform attitudes’ and urges qualifications to boost quality of recruits

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/05/white-male-culture-dominates-police?CMP=twt_gu

The Neyroud review quotes estimates of 11 years before there is 7% of black and minority ethnic officers in senior ranks of the police.

The police remain dominated by an “overwhelming white male culture” that still operates on “jobs for the boys” principles, according to an official inquiry into leadership and training.

The report by a former chief constable, Peter Neyroud, commissioned by the home secretary, Theresa May, says that greater representation of women and black and minority ethnic groups at all ranks would make the most difference to the culture of police forces.

But an equality assessment for the Neyroud review cites estimates that it will take 24 years at the current rate of progress to get to even 35% female representation in the three most senior ranks.

It also quotes estimates of 11 years before there is 7%, the national average in the community, of black and minority ethnic officers in the senior ranks, and a further seven and a half years to achieve that across the whole of the police.

Neyroud’s review proposes that a new chartered professional institute of policing for the whole of the service be set up with a merged Association of Chief Police Officers as its “head and heart”. Acpo would lose the “private company” status it has had since 1998.

Neyroud, who is the former head of the National Police Improvement Agency, also suggests a pre-entry qualification before recruits register and are sworn in as a constable, to drive up the quality of policing. The home secretary is to decide on the reforms in September after a 12-week consultation.

But the equality assessment warns that this pre-entry qualification proposal could hamper the recruitment of women and black and minority ethnic groups. Neyroud argues however that it will be possible to have several routes, including a college-based route, to the entry qualification to ensure that everyone was able to qualify. “The pervading and overwhelming male culture is the main barrier that has been referred to as the single thing that prevents the workforce changing into a more diverse organisation,” says Neyroud’s equality impact assessment. “At entry level the number of recruits to police officer ranks and community support officers has increased for women and people from BME communities. However, the culture, the systems and processes that have been developed and perpetuated by the dominant culture, needs to be reshaped so that women and BME officers and staff remain and prosper in the police service.”

The response to consultation by the Neyroud review put it more bluntly: “Culture of the service and current set up is still predominantly white male, and BME officers still find it difficult to break through the ranks,” says the review’s summary of responses on the issue of race. “There is a lack of trust in the service that still exists in terms of ‘walking the walk’ rather than ‘talking the talk’. These findings were mirrored when officers were asked about gender which also concluded that there is “still a perception that current processes maintain a ‘jobs for the boys’ culture.”

The report adds that while there is a general view in the police that “it wants to do equality”, it doesn’t actually do enough to make it happen.

Neyroud acknowledges that the challenge of a more diverse police force, especially among its senior ranks, remains prominent. “Furthermore, the impact of three or four years of a largely static workforce is likely to be problematic in terms of making the type of progress,” he said.

The Police Superintendents’ Association said it supported having a new single professional body, but cautioned the home secretary to step carefully on pre-entry qualification. “One of the major strengths of our service is the broad base and diverse background of recruits, and careful management will be required to ensure that, if the recommendation is accepted to introduce pre-entry qualifications, we do not lose that range of life experience so valued by the creator of the modern police service, Sir Robert Peel,” said its president, Derek Barnett.

Churchill’s Asian spy princess comes out of the shadows

BNG — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:36:07 +0000

By Divya Talwar Producer, BBC Asian Network

Britain’s Asian spy Noor Inayat Khan was shot by the Nazis in 1944 after being betrayed

“Liberte!” – That was the last word spoken by the heroine of Churchill’s elite spy network before being executed by her Nazi captors.

On 13 September 1944, the glamorous British agent, code named “Madeline,” was shot dead at Dachau concentration camp.

Despite being tortured by the Gestapo during 10 months of imprisonment, she had revealed nothing of use to her interrogators.

Noor Inayat Khan, died aged just 30, but her story has gone down in history.

She joined Winston Churchill’s sabotage force, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), and became the first female radio operator sent into France in 1943, with the famous instruction to “set Europe ablaze”.

The role was so dangerous that she arrived in Paris with a life expectancy of just six weeks.

Gestapo arrests

Noor became the last essential link with London after mass arrests by the Gestapo had destroyed the SOE’s spy network in Paris.

As her spy circuit collapsed, her commanders urged her to return, but she refused to abandon what had become the principal and most dangerous post in France because she did not want to leave her French comrades without communications.

For three months, she single-handedly ran a cell of spies across Paris, frequently changing her appearance and alias until she was eventually captured.

Despite having a full description of her and deploying considerable forces in their effort to break the last remaining link with London, it was only her betrayal by a French woman that led to Noor’s capture by the Gestapo.

Noor’s decision to stay in Paris to fight Nazism was a decision that cost her her life.

Despite carrying a passport of an imperial subject she had no innate loyalty to Britain.

Winston Churchill sent SOE agents to France in 1943 with the instruction to “set Europe ablaze”

Born in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother, she was a direct descendant of Tipu Sultan, the renowned Tiger of Mysore, who refused to submit to British rule and was killed in battle in 1799.

Her father was a Sufi Muslim who moved his family first to London and then to Paris, where Noor was educated.

But when war broke out in 1939, Noor and one of her brothers, Vilayat, decided they had to travel to London, dedicating themselves against what they saw as the evil of Nazi Germany.

Her fluent French, quiet dedication and training in radio transmitting were quickly spotted by SOE officers.

Highest sacrifice

Noor’s bravery has long been recognised in France, where there are two memorials and a ceremony held each year to mark her death.

However, in Britain, although Noor was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949, her courage has since been allowed to fade in history.

That is about to change with the launch of a campaign to raise £100,000 to install a bronze bust of her in London, close to her former home.

It would be the first memorial in Britain to either a Muslim or an Asian woman.

Shrabani Basu, who spent eight years researching Noor’s history in official archives and family records, said: “I feel it is very important that what she did should not be allowed to fade from memory.

”Noor died for this country. She made the highest sacrifice. She didn’t need to do it. She felt it was a crime to stand back.

”She was an incredibly brave woman and I think it is important that her bravery is permanently recognised in this country.”

The project, which has the backing of 34 MPs and prominent British Asians, including human rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti and film director Gurinder Chadha, is being led by Noor’s biographer, Shrabani Basu who wrote The Spy Princess in 2006.

Around £25,000 of the cost of the bust has been raised and permission granted to install the sculpture on land owned by the University of London in Gordon Square, close to the Bloomsbury house where Noor lived as a child in 1914, and where she returned while training for the SOE during World War II.

The memorial is scheduled to be completed and installed by early 2012.

Noor Inayat Khan’s story will be featured on Asian Network Reports on Tuesday 11 January at 1230 and 1800 GMT and afterwards on BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12151715

Black Environment Network

BNG — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:26:13 +0000

BEN is established to promote equality of opportunity with respect to ethnic communities in the preservation protection and development of the environment

BEN proposes there is no such thing as a pure environmental project – a so called pure environmental projects is one which has rejected its social and cultural context. BEN therefore works to integrate social, cultural and environmental concerns in the context of sustainable development. In order to achieve this, we work across diverse sectors. Our current themes integrate the areas of natural environment, the built environment, heritage, social justice, health and housing.

http://www.ben-network.org.uk/about_ben/intro.html

Child asylum-seekers targeted in Home Office budget cuts

BNG — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:20:57 +0000

By Robert Verkaik, Home Affiars Editor, The Independent on Sunday Monday, 11 October 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/child-asylumseekers-targeted-in-home-office-budget-cuts-2103184.html

Thousands of child asylum-seekers are to be removed from Britain under savage budget cuts being drawn up by the Home Office ahead of this week’s comprehensive spending review.

A briefing document sent to ministers sets out detailed proposals to remove child refugees before they reach 17 years old, and recommends bearing down on benefits given to asylum seekers. The UK Borders Agency (UKBA) plans to cut a third of its staff by 2014, prompting fears of security risks at British ports and airports Under the proposals, the UKBA says it would be able to reduce its annual £2.45bn budget by £346m.

Setting out a number of options for cutting costs, the document reads: “We need to resolve underlying trend on asylum support … On asylum support this will involve, for example, continuing recent tightening of entitlement to support, removing minors before they reach the age of 17 …”

But the Home Office is also considering saving money by offering a partial amnesty to asylum-seekers whose claims have been delayed by processing backlogs. The paper recommends “continuing to consider grants [of the right to stay in the UK] where agency delays mean even failed asylum-seekers are still in-country after several years”.

There are further plans to end the right of appeal to those applying for migration visas outside the UK, to reduce costs. But of greatest concern will be a policy of mass removal of unaccompanied children before they reach 17 and a half, the age when they are deemed to be adult asylum-seekers. Under current rules unaccompanied child asylum-seekers are usually granted leave to remain in the UK until they can make a fresh asylum application as an adult.

There are more than 4,200 unaccompanied child asylum-seekers in Britain, with most being supported in local authority social services homes. Emma Ginn, of the charity Medical Justice, said last night: “Many unaccompanied children are orphans. Many have escaped various forms of slavery, war and being made into child soldiers. To deport vulnerable unaccompanied children is despicable. To do it to save money is indecent … How we treat asylum-seeking children is already uncivilised, but to sink this low would cost our international reputation dearly.”

The document says: “In total these [cuts and policies] could deliver up to £346m of annualised cash savings by 2014/15 which would allow a reduction in taxpayer funding of £53m. It would mean around 3,500 more staff cuts (ie more than 7,000 from 2010/11 to 2014/15 or almost a third of our current complement).

This would imply a virtual doubling of caseworker productivity as a result of management culture and technology enabled redesign. It would mean a large percentage of travellers passing through automated gates at the border and more risk-based controls based on improved intelligence and scanning capability.”

But the officials warn: “These changes obviously involve significant level of management, project and implementation risk. … If bigger budget reductions are needed or to be able to deal with some of the funding and cost pressures from manifesto commitments we will need to go further.” Paul O’Connor, the Home Office group secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), said that cutting staff would lead to security risks from international criminal smuggling gangs and child and sex traffickers. He said: “There should be no compulsory redundancies. In terms of frontline security our members are the first port of call to maintain proper border controls. If they decide to cut one in three this country will be less safe and lead to a massive exploitation of young people.” He warned that job losses would also have an effect on the backlog of asylum cases built up over the last few years. “We expect services to be diminished because there will be fewer people to deal with the backlog, which will get worse … All this experience and skill built up over the years must not be jettisoned on the altar of the cuts.”

One of the proposals outlined in the document has already been implemented. The £50m Immigration Impact Fund, which gives aid to local authorities to help support asylum-seekers living in their region, was quietly dropped over the summer. And it was reported earlier this year that the Home Office was preparing to set up a £4m “reintegration centre” in Afghanistan so that failed Afghan child asylum-seekers can be returned home. An organisation is being sought to run the centre in the capital, Kabul, which would aim to help their resettlement. The aim is to assist 12 boys a month, aged 16 and 17, and 120 adults.

A spokeswoman for the UKBA said no decisions would be taken until the Government had completed its comprehensive spending review. She said no budget figures or policies had been confirmed.

The asylum seekers who survive on £10 a week

BNG — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:22:31 +0000

They can’t work, they can’t claim benefits, they have nowhere to live. And their only means of survival is one £10 food voucher a week. Four failed asylum seekers tell their desperate stories.

Since this era of financial austerity began, newspapers and magazines have hurried to publish advice on how to get by on a straitened budget. So here is one to beat all others. Today we offer a guide to surviving on under £10 a week. Without a roof over your head! Without a bed to lie on! With no support from family or friends!

It’s quite possible, and here’s how. These helpful tips come from four failed asylum seekers in Birmingham, who remain in this country, preparing to appeal the Home Office decision, sleeping meanwhile in hedges, doorways, old garages and staircases.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/16/asylum-seekers-survive-on-streets?CMP=twt_gu

Fata He

BNG — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:47:21 +0000

FATA HE is a West African word which means ‘Inclusion’ and was established in 2001 to redress social and economic inequalities relating to Black and Minority Ethnic (B&ME) individuals, families and groups within the city of Plymouth. Since becoming incorporated as a Limited Company (Social Enterprise) in 2003, Fata He has become an umbrella organisation for other B&ME individuals and groups, and works closely with other local, sub-regional and regional organisations.

Since the dissolution of the Plymouth Anti Racism Task Force (ARTF) in April 2004 Fata He have continued to support a number of individuals and groups who deliver services to B&ME communities including the Plymouth Gypsy community.

As the recognised sub-regional B&ME infrastructure hub for Devon, Cornwall, Plymouth and Torbay, Fata He with its partner B&ME organisations represents the B&ME Home Office funded Change Up infrastructure body in this sub region. Fata He received a small amount of funding in 2005 from the Change Up Early Spend programme to develop its capacity to take up position as lead B&ME organisation for the sub region.

The role of Fata He as lead B&ME sub regional infrastructure hub will be to:

Work closely with mainstream organisations to develop best practice and act in a supporting and advisory capacity in improving service access and provision for its excluded beneficiaries

Provide organisational development support to B&ME voluntary, community and business sector groups to help them grow and nurture their long term development

Develop a range of specialist provision through 4 sub regional locally based Forums and a sub regional representative Forum which meets the needs of B&ME people throughout the sub regional area.

Fata He plan to develop their services to fill identified gaps in the market. In essence we will develop a niche market of specialist services to add value to existing provision in the sub region. In order to make Fata He sustainable in the longer term, strands of delivery will be developed under four key areas:

B&ME Capacity Building

B&ME Social Enterprise Development

Asset Management

Consultancy and Training

In addition to the above and as previously highlighted we will develop, support and facilitate a sub regional infrastructure representative B&ME hub through the establishment of four local B&ME Forums in which Fata He will facilitate the exchange of information, provide networking and development opportunities for individuals and the Forum as a whole.

Our Vision is to
‘Build a sustainable, vibrant and cohesive B&ME voluntary and community sector in Devon, Cornwall, Plymouth and Torbay through a number of strong, innovative, proactive and representational B&ME Forums and a sub regional infrastructure hub’

Through a facilitating and supportive approach enable the B&ME voluntary and community sector to play its full part in the delivery of local projects and services, participate in the local implementation of social and economic regeneration strategies and also to tackle in partnership the problems of social exclusion in B&ME communities.

Equal Opportunities Statement

Introduction

Fata he believes in equal opportunities for all people in our community and we try and put our policy into practice in everything we do. We aim to deal fairly, openly and honestly with people applying for jobs, our Directors, employees, and clients who use our services.

Fata He was created to help change the previous lack of opportunities for people in our area to benefit from and to participate in the social and economic regeneration of the area. We are particularly dedicated to ensuring that all sections of the community are able to participate in and benefit from Fata He activities and we take care to ensure that there are no hidden barriers which might prevent this.

Fata He also understands that because everyone is different, there is a need for its workforce and client base to reflect and be representative of the community it serves. We are dedicated to enabling people to access the jobs and economic improvements which we might help to create and support in our business and in all our activities, either in our sole name or in partnership with others.

Aims

As a community based social enterprise organisation, any black or ethnic minority individual living in, having a business in, or being a community organisation in our catchment area, can become upon invitation a director of our Management Board, entitled to attend meetings and vote, and to help in our activities.

Fata He is a social enterprise established to benefit black and ethnic minority groups, business, families, and individuals although no one from the wider community would be excluded. We are committed to helping with the social and economic regeneration of our area and the wider areas of the city, and actively attempt to improve opportunities for all people so that they can participate in all Fata He activities. We aim to improve the social, economic, health, quality of life and opportunities for all people in our community.

Fata He will not unfairly discriminate (directly or indirectly) against anyone because of, for example their race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, sex, sexuality, age, ability or disability, education, literacy, religion (or non-religion), political activity, trade union activity, marital status, domestic situations, being HIV positive, and whether people are in or applying for full-time, part-time or job share work. (These are examples only. Other forms of discrimination will be tackled whenever they.

http://www.fatahe.com/index.aspx

Equality Bill to become law

BNG — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 21:58:17 +0000

Just in the nick of time, MPs approved the House of Lords’ amendments to the Equality Bill meaning that it has now become law ahead of the election.

The bill is expected to receive Royal Assent from the Queen shortly, with provisions in the Bill beginning to take effect in the autumn.

The new legislation, first introduced to the House of Commons almost a year ago, brings together many of the existing equality laws under one umbrella, which will help to make individuals’ rights clearer to themselves and their employers. Overall, unfair treatment on the grounds of race, gender, age and disability will be protected against under the legislation.

Key provisions introduced in the bill include:

The introduction of a new public sector duty to consider reducing inequalities
Putting a new integrated Equality Duty on public bodies
Increased positive action measures
A ban on age discrimination in provision of goods, facilities, services and public functions
A requirement for political parties to publish information on the diversity of its candidate selections
Adding a power to prohibit caste discrimination as part of race discrimination

Full information on the bill’s passage through parliament is available on the Equalities Office website.

http://www.equalities.gov.uk/equality_bill.aspx

Stephen Lawrence 10 years after

BNG — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:22:14 +0000