Launching Community Cohesion: Building Communities based on Trust and Respect last week, the government stressed that cohesion was not about race relations alone.

Unfortunately, the guidance for councils, which devotes sections to asylum seekers and faith groups while ignoring many other groups such as disabled and older people, gives the opposite impression.

Unsurprising perhaps given that the document came about as a result of government reports into the riots in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in the summer of 2001. The reports recommended that councils needed to examine how their policies had contributed to segregation within communities.

Senior project officer at the Local Government Association Peter Smith, one of the document's authors, concedes that it does concentrate on race, but insists that the reports on the riots were just a "starting point". However, its other authors - the Home Office, the Interfaith Network, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister - have produced a guide that does not stray far from those origins.

Although a joint effort, the guidance has an underlying emphasis on public order issues - another section is on young people - suggesting that the Home Office had the biggest hand in its creation.

John Richardson, of the Disability Advocacy Network, says he is "extremely disappointed but not surprised" that issues affecting disabled people are not mentioned in the guidance. Assistant director of public affairs at the Disability Rights Commission Agnes Fletcher agrees:"Community cohesion should build stronger and safer communities for all. Regrettably the needs of disabled people are not specifically addressed in the new guidance."

She says that disabled people should be included in the guidance as they experience both social exclusion and harassment. "A 2002 national attitudes survey for the DRC showed that 21 per cent of disabled people questioned had experienced harassment and verbal abuse in the street in relation to their impairment."

Others find the guidance's focus on race less of a problem. Philip Hume, corporate policy officer at Kirklees Council, says: "There are a whole range of issues that could be addressed such as gender, sexuality and disability. But I think it is right that this guidance has a strong focus on race and ethnicity because if you try to cram everything in there is a danger that you never end up doing anything."

Certainly the cohesion guidance requires a lot from councils. They are identified as the key to building cohesion and are asked to draw on voluntary sector knowledge. Councillors, says the guidance, are especially important because they provide a link between what is happening locally and council policy.

One problem with this, however, is that the switch by many councils from the committee to the cabinet system as a result of the Local Government Act 2000 has stripped councillors who are not in the cabinet of their power to influence decision making.

There are also problems with the relationship between the voluntary sector and the councils, partly because of funding issues. Susan Frost is an information officer at the Council for Voluntary Service in Hull, a city which has the lowest income per household in England, and where there has been violence against asylum seekers.

She says that the link between local authorities and the sector will need to be stronger if the needs of asylum seekers are to be better met and understanding of why they are living in the UK improved.

The guidance's recommendation that a volunteering programme for asylum seekers would help them settle and show the local community that they are contributing is, she says, "good in theory" but would require huge financial resources. To begin with, money would be needed to provide English lessons for asylum seekers before they began working.

Other areas of the guidance that are not specifically about issues affecting certain racial or religious groups are presented in terms of how people from the various ethnic communities relate to one another. For example, its section on regeneration looks at addressing misconceptions about area-based initiative funding, identified in the riot reports as a source of resentment.

But in many of the country's most deprived areas race or religion may play no role in dividing communities. In Barnsley, south Yorkshire, there is a high proportion of older white people, many of whom suffer ill-health, a legacy of its mining past. Joe Micheli, head of social inclusion at Barnsley Council, says that the problems and resentments built up are between impoverished white groups, all vying for limited regeneration funding. He anticipates that the winding down of the single regeneration budget, which has funded many of the city's projects, will increase competition between groups.

There is some way to go before the guidance achieves its aims of advising councils on how to create places where "there is a common sense of belonging for all communities", partly because its vision is limited to tackling the issues in terms of race and ethnicity.

Age also is an area that will need to be developed. The section on young people identifies them as a potential threat to public order but also, with the right education and opportunities to mix with people from different backgrounds, as a positive force for change. But advice on how to change the entrenched racist views held by many adults is largely missing.

As Hume puts it: "Children may have the experience of mixing with other children at school, but if they are going home to a family in which there is racism what will have the stronger influence?"

On the positive side, immigration minister Beverley Hughes says the guidance is a work in progress, adding that by this time next year there might be a new version of it.

Perhaps a new document, which incorporates emerging knowledge about communities, will offer a way for councils to look at producing cohesive communities in a way that goes beyond ideas of ethnicity. 

- Guidance from www.communitycohesion.gov.uk 

Cohesive community

• There is a common vision and sense of belonging for all communities.
• The diversity of people's different backgrounds and circumstances are positively valued.
• Those from different backgrounds have similar life opportunities.
• Strong and positive relationships are being developed between people from different backgrounds in the workplace and within neighbourhoods.

Steps for councils

Local authorities should conduct a baseline assessment of how effectively current policies and programmes promote community cohesion for all communities and neighbourhoods throughout their area.

As part of the assessment councils should ask:

• Are we clear about the regeneration needs and aspirations of all sections of our community?
• Do we really listen to people who truly represent all sections of our community?
• Do youth activities help to build understanding and tolerance between different groups?
• Do we have effective mechanisms to listen to the views of young people? Do we respond to those views?
• Do school pupils develop a tolerance and respect for the different cultures that make up the UK?
• Do some groups achieve much lower levels of educational attainment than others?
• What impact does the housing situation have on community cohesion? Do people get real choices about where they live?
• Are sections of the community disadvantaged in the labour market? What can be done to address these differences?
• Is there any evidence of religious discrimination?
• Is racist crime or other hate crime a feature of the local area? What measures are being taken to address it?