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Confusion about what community cohesion involves is leading to the wrong assumption that it is solely about race relations, according to the government's community cohesion unit.

Unit official Alan Smith told a workshop that it was clear that councils did not realise that community cohesion was about the dynamics of all groups. He said: "The one word that sums up community cohesion is confusion. There's an assumption that it is essentially about the race agenda. It is not. Community cohesion is a broad agenda about the problems facing all people.


"In the past 18 months wherever I have gone people say it is about race. But it is about avoiding fractures in communities and tackling whatever causes that fracturing."

He added: "Government officials in Whitehall have the best intentions but they tend to forget that people who live in the 88 most deprived areas, and other poor areas, do so 24/7. It is they that have to put up with rabble-rousers. They often have the answers to the problems in their neighbourhoods, which is something not understood by Whitehall."


Guidance on community cohesion, which was launched by the Home Office and Local Government Association at the end of last year, was developed after the disturbances in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in summer 2001.

But delegate Duggs Carre, voluntary sector development officer at Kirklees Council, said there was confusion at officer level. "We are told that the [community facilitation fund] is anti-riot money but we are not allowed to call it that."