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A leading regeneration organisation has criticised government guidance on community cohesion for councils, describing it as a "knee-jerk" response to last summer’s riots.

Urban Forum, a national umbrella body for community and voluntary sector groups, has also predicted that the document, which was launched in London last week, will be ineffective in helping tackle segregation in communities.

Rupa Sarker, local strategic partnership project officer at the forum, said: "It is a very reactive document, which has highlighted visible groups such as ‘black’ and ‘minority’ and ‘young people’. All other groups are sidelined by virtue of their absence. It is very short-sighted."

The guidance, whose authors include the Home Office, the Local Government Association and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, was created after reports into the riots in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley recommended that councils needed to examine how their policies contributed to problems.

But its aim was to offer guidance to help councils consider the impact of their policies on all groups within the community, with help from the voluntary and community sector.

Sarker said that voluntary sector groups had not been properly consulted, adding that the purpose of local strategic partnerships - which are meant to be a partnership between the voluntary sector and local authority - had been redefined within the guidance as a council-led body. This would cause problems for the voluntary sector.

"It is to be expected in a way because this guidance is written from a local authority perspective. But it really should not have been allowed to slip through, especially as the neighbourhood renewal unit is in the ODPM."

Think tank Race on the Agenda has also criticised the 50-page document. Annie Keys, regeneration and social exclusion officer, said: "This guidance is simply not sophisticated enough. It offers nothing new."

She added that there would be no "buy-in from grass-roots groups" because they had not been included in the consultation or attended the launch event.

Peter Smith, senior project officer at the LGA, said that voluntary sector groups had not been invited to the event because the guidance was for councils.