News

A home office report into the riots in the summer has called on Bradford, Burnley and Oldham councils to publish plans for promoting community cohesion by next April, writes Jonathan Pearce.

All local authorities should develop a relevant strategy as part of their community plans, the report says.

The community cohesion review team, chaired by former Nottingham Council chief executive Ted Cantle, has made almost 70 recommendations for action to improve community relations.

While the team was not surprised to find physical segregation of housing estates and inner city areas, it was "particularly struck by the depth of polarisation of our towns and cities", says the report.

These physical divisions were compounded by other aspects, such as separate educational arrangements, community and voluntary bodies, employment, places of worship, language, and social and cultural networks, with the result that "many communities operate on the basis of a series of parallel lives".

"These lives do not seem to touch at any point, let alone overlap and promote any meaningful interchanges," the report adds.

Launching the report, Cantle said: "There is no common cause to the problems. There is no common solution."

But the report points to a "failure to communicate", which is "compounded by the lack of honest and robust debate, as people ‘tiptoe around’ the sensitive issues of race, religion and culture".

Among the sources of blame is a lack of local leadership and the report calls on the Local Government Association to prepare best practice guidance to help councils promote community cohesion.

In addition, the report criticises neighbourhood renewal and regeneration initiatives for a confusing "plethora of initiatives", and perceived unfairness in the allocation of funds, as well as forcing different communities to bid against each other.

'Community Cohesion and Building Cohesive Communities' available from the home office by clicking here