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The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places a statutory duty on councils to eliminate discrimination, but not all of them are ready. Natalie Valios reports, while three  care sector professionals offer views on whether the act will help defuse tensions simmering in many of the UK's cities - tensions that exploded across northern towns last summer.

Race relations hit the headlines last summer when some of the worst rioting in a decade hit the streets of Bradford, Oldham and Burnley. In its aftermath, an independent community cohesion review team was set up by the Home Office. Its report identified recurrent elements that contributed to a deeply fractured community.¹ For example, ignorance about each other's communities had grown into fear, which was then exploited by extremist groups. Poverty and deprivation had led to frustration. A failure to communicate and a lack of honest and robust debate meant that people tended to "tiptoe around" the sensitive issues of race, religion and culture.

Although race is not a new issue, not all local authorities are geared up for the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and its duties. According to the Commission for Racial Equality report Equality in Practice,² local authorities' uptake of the CRE's Racial Equality Means Quality standard was disappointing. Despite being taken up by the Audit Commission in 1997 as one of its performance indicators, only two-thirds of councils had adopted the standard by September 2000.

CRE chairperson Gurbux Singh says that although the level of awareness of the act and its duties is high among local authorities, he is less confident of their ability to deliver. "Not all local authorities are prepared to the same standard or are viewing the challenge organisation-wide.

"For instance, we are concerned that some local authorities are seeing their human resources team as responsible for complying with the positive duty, whereas the point of the duty is to place race equality issues at the heart of the thinking, functions and policies of all departments. Only time will tell whether local authorities deliver on time and do enough to comply - there are urgent challenges for them ahead."

Trevor Phillips, deputy chairperson of the London Assembly, shares Singh's concerns. He thinks that some local authorities may only wake up to the seriousness of the situation when an authority is taken to court for failing to comply with the duties.

"I suspect that most local authorities don't have a clue about how serious it is. They will only realise when one has to pay up. Some are on top of it. But a lot think it's another piece of PC nonsense and will be sorry they weren't properly advised."

As well as producing a race equality scheme, councils must adopt this standard as a Best Value performance target. To help, the CRE is publishing a statutory code of practice to go alongside the act as well as non-statutory guidance documents for public bodies, due to be ready by the end of the month.

Responsibility for complying with the act's duties falls on to the shoulders of councillors. As far as implications for social services departments go, they will have to look afresh at their policies and practices to ensure there is no unintentional discrimination, says Andrew Cozens, junior vice president of the Association of Directors of Social Services.

This will be a particular challenge for those without a large ethnic minority population, he says. They will have to look at issues such as the availability of information in appropriate languages, review assessment arrangements, take faith into consideration in care provision, and make particular efforts to consult ethnic minority communities on new practices and procedures that may affect them.

As social services director at Leicester Council, Cozens is well aware of the importance of harmony in the community. Most of the city's residents are from ethnic minorities. There is a large Asian population, and 60 languages spoken in the city. It was held up as an example of good community relations in the independent community cohesion review team report.

The council was one of three to be given beacon status by the government last month for promoting race equality. Cozens attributes this achievement to strong links with community and faith leaders: "The communication channels are open."

The importance of keeping these communication channels open is not lost on the local authorities caught up in last summer's disturbances. In Bradford, tensions flared at Easter 2001, when white members of a football team ended up drinking close to a Hindu wedding ceremony. The resulting scuffle ended up on the streets and the young Asian men rounded up their friends on mobile phones. By the time the police arrived, the white men had left the scene and a confrontation between Asians and the police ensued. Then, in July, a BNP march acted as another trigger to escalate tensions.

Because of sporadic incidents in the area since 1995, the council had already commissioned former CRE chairperson Sir Herman Ouseley to review community relations in the district before the riots. His report, published a week into the riots, describes the degree of segregation, polarisation, discrimination and deprivation in the area. It also highlights the exclusion felt by young men.

"It's not just about race, but about gender, class and age," says Kersten England, head of policy at Bradford Council.

Generally, community relations are good, she says. "The perception that it was all racial tension isn't true. It is about the future of young men, black and white. At times people inappropriately racialise what is going on here in an unhelpful way."

At the time of the community cohesion report's publication, Gurbux Singh stated that there needed to be a special effort to engage young people of white and ethnic minority backgrounds to help them understand each other. This forms a core part of Bradford's strategy to ensure the summer riots are not repeated.

Initiatives include changing the council's constitution so that a newly established youth parliament can play a part in formal decision-making. Regeneration bodies are being encouraged to involve young people.

In parts of the district there are up to 90 per cent white or Asian children in schools, reflecting residential segregation. To address this, inner and outer city schools are being twinned in a bid to promote greater racial awareness and harmony.

The council is also reviewing its single regeneration budget activities because tensions have been exacerbated between communities when one area receives more money than another. And in the largest outsourcing in the country, it has transferred its education services to a private sector provider, which has the key task of raising educational attainment to national levels or above by 2005.

By 2010, it is estimated there will be a 22 per cent growth in large families, mainly from ethnic minorities in the area. Housing stock has been transferred to five registered social landlords with the means to provide services to ethnic minority families.

"Social, economic and environmental well-being needs to be in place so that community cohesion is possible," says England.

For authorities struggling to put together a community cohesion strategy, the Local Government Association will be publishing guidance in the summer. Meanwhile, in Bradford the mood is optimistic. There have been several acid tests since the summer riots - in particular bonfire night, which has historically been used as an excuse for violence - and all passed peacefully.

"This isn't an agenda that will ever go away because we are always going to have to work at living together," says England. "We are trying to develop a district at ease with itself."

¹ Community cohesion review team, Community Cohesion, Home Office, 2001

² Commission for Racial Equality, Equality in Practice, CRE, 2001, www.cre.gov.uk/pdfs/remqsurv.pdf 

- If you wish to contribute to the debate about race and social care, come to Community Care Live on 22 May at the Business Design Centre in Islington and participate in our session Playing the Race Card: Are Services Getting it Right? Speakers include human rights lawyer Imran Khan, and Gurbux Singh, chairperson of the CRE. For free tickets telephone 020 8652 4782, or visit www.community-care.co.uk 

A recruitment opportunity

Brian Coleman is health strategy adviser at the Commission for Racial Equality.

The end result of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act should be that action to promote race equality is integrated into the day-to-day activities and management of all public bodies. The amendments provide a framework for development that is consistent with other government initiatives around social inclusion and community cohesion. The thrust of the changes is to ensure that there is equal access to services and employment for all groups in the community. Progress on these fronts is clearly a fundamental part of action on community cohesion. This is especially true for the health and social care sector, a large employer with responsibility for services aimed at vulnerable and excluded parts of the community.

The specific duties around consultation and publication of information complement the other duties, which focus on both the service and the employment side of a public body's functions. They should mean that local communities have the information to scrutinise the performance of authorities and the opportunity to influence the priorities for action. Again this is consistent with other government initiatives around community involvement, such as the establishment of local strategic partnerships and the community empowerment fund.

The extent to which this produces results depends on the commitment of people in each organisation. It also needs people to think in ways that cut across traditional organisational boundaries. The proliferation of partnerships in the public sector provides the opportunity for joined-up thinking to promote race equality. For example, social services departments are finding it difficult to recruit professionally qualified staff. The other side of the coin is that unemployment rates are higher among ethnic minority groups than in the population as a whole. It makes sense for all public health, education and social services bodies to work together to develop training and career paths into the social care and health professions for people from local ethnic minority communities. This would help them all meet their duties under the act, reduce unemployment in the local community, begin to address the social care sector's recruitment difficulties and improve the quality of service delivery to ethnic minority communities by increasing the number of qualified staff from those communities.

The amended act

The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, which came into force in April 2001, forms the legal backdrop to the recommendations in Community Cohesion. Unlike the Race Relations Act 1976, the amended act places a statutory general duty on local authorities, and other public bodies, to eliminate unlawful discrimination, and promote equal opportunities and good race relations. Under this general duty, local authorities must take account of racial equality in their daily functions, including policy making, service delivery and employment practice.

Under the new act, they must be ready to comply with more specific duties by the end of this month. By then, each local authority must have published a race equality scheme. This is a public statement of how the authority plans to meet its general and specific duties. Under a scheme, local authorities will have to:

- Assess whether their functions and policies are relevant to race equality.

- Monitor their policies to see how they affect race equality.

- Assess and consult on policies they are proposing to introduce.

- Publish the results of their consultations, monitoring and assessments.

- Make sure that the public have access to the information and services they provide.

- Train their staff on the new duties.

Specific duties also include monitoring ethnicity of existing staff and applicants for jobs, promotion and training and publishing the results annually. Grievances, disciplinary action, performance appraisals, training and dismissals must also be monitored by employers of more than 150 full-time employees. Councils' performance will be monitored by the Commission for Racial Equality, and the duties will be legally enforceable.

The debate must stay local

Qaisra Khan is a development officer at the Runnymede Trust.

Cynicism about the strategic impact of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act and community cohesion comes naturally to those who have been living with racism, and trying to address inequalities. After all, the riots last summer occurred despite the act's existence. This cynicism is aggravated when you consider that many of the core issues of the community cohesion agenda attract much hostile political and media attention.

The only way to ensure that action on fundamental issues around race, citizenship and belonging will not be sacrificed for a managerial approach focusing on local government structures is by giving local people the opportunity to address the issues for themselves. For too long debates about equality issues have had no relevance for the communities involved. They remain marginalised and excluded. Local and central government have key roles, but discussion needs to take place across the activities of different organisations and among  communities themselves.

The Race Relations Amendment Act, the social inclusion, neighbourhood renewal and community cohesion agenda have created a window of opportunity in which valuable debate and action can take place. Projects and organisations have been addressing fundamental questions around inequality, such as poverty and access to services. The Home Office has set up a community cohesion unit, which intends to draw on many sources of expertise.

Community cohesion is clearly linked to any debate about race and forms part of the Runnymede Trust's vision for a successful multi-ethnic UK. A recent report posed these questions: what values and loyalties must be shared by communities and individuals in one nation? How should disputes and incompatible values between different communities be handled? How is a balance to be struck between the need to treat people equally, the need to treat people differently, and the need to maintain shared values and social cohesion?

The community cohesion agenda must clarify the relationship between cohesion, equality and difference. The agenda can have a positive impact on communities that struggle to address the central questions above. It needs, however, to remain close to local people and involve them at every stage.

'Inclusion not exclusion'

Ekanem Hines is a senior social worker at the London Borough of Croydon.

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry in February 1999 was the catalyst for the Race Relations (Amendment) Act. The fight for race equality for black activists has always been an uphill struggle. The judicial court arena has been the battlefield where the struggle takes place. The drama of the courtroom exposes the subtleties of racism.

This becomes a fine art woven into sophisticated legal arguments at the point of deliberations and final adjudications on outcomes of race discrimination cases. The burden of proof rests squarely on the applicant's shoulders, leaving the respondents to glibly talk their way out of it.

The legislation for cases of race discrimination does not even incorporate "racism". This has proved difficult for applicants, where clearly there is a case to be answered. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act demands a complete overhaul of thinking by requiring inclusion instead of exclusion, fair policies instead of lip service, accountability not superficiality.

But who will be invited to sit at the table to monitor the implementation, to ensure positive outcomes? Who will challenge the system when the disparity of treatment clearly becomes visible? These are usually people who bear the brunt of racial discrimination - they are often overworked, burnt out, under-resourced, labelled troublemakers and victimised.

It is important to note that there is now a specific statutory duty for public authorities to comply and consult. The key area that one should be aware of is the impact assessment. Public authorities must not only consult with service users and staff, but must assess the impact of what they are doing. Public authorities cannot assess themselves. No longer will authorities be able to tick boxes, boast about how wonderful their policies are or how many black staff they have in the department.

In order for the act to be implemented successfully it requires listening to ethnic minority communities. The usual denial of the extent to which racism impacts on black people will not wash and will now have to be addressed and viewed through the eyes of the people it affects. Although voluntary organisations do not come under the umbrella of public authorities, if they are contracted to do work for them, they will in turn become vicariously liable.