Memorandum by the Home Office (SOC 26)
SUMMARY
1. The Committee has invited witnesses to
submit written evidence. This memorandum is the Home Office response.
2. Following the 2001 disturbances the Home
Secretary set up a Ministerial Group on Public Order and Community
Cohesion to consider how national policies might be used to promote
better community cohesion. He also set up the Community Cohesion
Review Team to seek the views of local residents and community
leaders where the disturbances had occurred about what needed
to be addressed to bring about cohesion and to identify good practice.
3. The two bodies published their reports
in December 2001. The Review Team made a range of proposals. The
Ministerial Group set out the Government's response in terms of
action already taken, and proposals for further action; including
the maintenance of the Group to ensure continued cross-Departmental
working, and the establishment of an independent Community Cohesion
Panel of people with relevant knowledge to support Ministers and
agencies. The Panel is supported by a series of specialist practitioner
groups dealing with a range of subjects including housing, education,
policing, employment and regeneration. The work of the Panel and
practitioner groups is discussed further below.
4. In early 2002 the Home Office set up
a dedicated Community Cohesion Unit. The Unit supports Ministers
and the Community Cohesion Panel as well as working to ensure
that community cohesion is mainstreamed into Whitehall policy-making,
and that some local areas become beacons of good practice in community
cohesion. The Home Office is working closely with the ODPM to
take forward community cohesion in the context of neighbourhood
renewal.
5. The Community Cohesion Unit, jointly
with the Race Equality Unit of the Home Office, has responsibility
for Home Office PSA target 9—to bring about measurable improvements
in race equality and community cohesion across a range of performance
indicators as part of the Government's objectives on equality
and social inclusion.
6. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000,
which came into force in April 2002, imposed a positive duty on
public bodies to promote race equality. The duty not only requires
public bodies to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful
race discrimination in performing their functions but, importantly
in the context of community cohesion, to promote good relations
between people from different racial groups. The legislation is
being enforced by the Commission for Racial Equality.
COMMUNITY COHESION
PANEL AND
PRACTITIONER GROUPS
7. The Community Cohesion Panel was appointed
in April 2002 to support local authorities and other agencies,
and the inter-departmental Ministerial Group on Community Cohesion,
in developing policies and action which foster community cohesion.
The Panel, which meets bi-monthly, feeds local learning and best
practice into Government policy-making, and is able to challenge
policies which may work against cohesion. The Panel has contributed
to the Guidance on Community Cohesion for local authorities (see
paragraph 12 below) and has helped to ensure that guidance and
incentives are provided to relevant bodies. Panel members each
lead on a particular theme, and have convened practitioner groups
involving some 200 practitioners from the private and voluntary
sectors, central and local government. More information about
the practitioner groups is in Annex A.
NEIGHBOURHOOD RENEWAL
8. Progress by the Government Regional Offices
in taking forward neighbourhood renewal is reviewed by the Home
Office-led Regions and Renewal Strategic Board, with representatives
from the ODPM and Government Offices. The Strategic Board reviews
the progress made by Government Offices in taking forward renewal.
The Home Office has set up a Neighbourhood Renewal Team which
is currently looking to increase awareness of the renewal agenda
throughout the Home Office. The Team will be looking at delivery
plans, programmes and funding streams to assess the extent to
which the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal has been
taken into account.
9. The Home Office Community Cohesion Unit
has worked closely with the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit of the
ODPM, and through Government Offices in the following areas:
— community cohesion-focused activities
for children and young people during the summer of 2001 and 2002
(in 2003 this has become incorporated into a single funded inter-Departmental
programme);
— the community facilitation programme,
under which regional co-ordinators have been appointed to undertake
conflict resolution work where tensions are identified, and strengthen
existing capacity for conflict resolution. This programme has
raised the profile of community cohesion at the regional and local
level and facilitated the building of relationships and partnerships
between agencies to address community cohesion and conflict. It
has successfully supported the development of new approaches to
addressing community conflicts;
— the development of community support
teams, consisting of a people and skills base that can be deployed
flexibly across a variety of institutions in areas at risk. These
teams, which were deployed in Bradford and Burnley, included senior
personnel able to support and develop local political leadership
to supplement existing local authority management capacity. The
Bradford team gave impetus to "Bradford Visions" partnership
work on community cohesion, and the "Driving Change"
programme of strategic initiatives. The Burnley team addressed
Leadership and change management, race and community relations,
youth and conflict resolution, and consultation and communications;
— the Community Cohesion Pathfinder
programme (see paragraph 11 below). Eleven of the 14 Pathfinder
programmes correspond or overlap with Neighbourhood Renewal Areas;
and
— community cohesion guidance to local
authorities (see paragraph 12 below).
BEACON COUNCILS
10. Six Best Value authorities currently
enjoy community cohesion beacon status under the Beacon Council
Scheme. These authorities have shown significant achievement on
community cohesion, and a commitment to disseminate good practice
to others. The authorities represent a broad range from a fire
authority (Cheshire), through a cross section of first tier authorities
(Barnet, Leicester, Rochdale and Tower Hamlets), to a rural district
(Tewkesbury). These authorities hold beacon status for community
cohesion from April 2003 to June 2004, and during this period
their good practice will be disseminated with the help of the
Improvement and Development Agency.
COMMUNITY COHESION
PATHFINDER PROGRAMME
11. The Community Cohesion Pathfinder Programme
launched by the Home Office and ODPM in October 2002 aims to build
examples of areas that are successfully mainstreaming community
cohesion into all their core service delivery functions. The programme
encompasses local authorities, the community and voluntary sector,
and communities themselves. Fourteen pathfinders have been selected
and a further 14 local authorities ("shadow pathfinders")
are benefiting from support under the scheme. The programme will
run from February 2003 to October 2004 at a cost of about £6
million. Detail about the programme is in Annex B.
OTHER LOCAL
GOVERNMENT ISSUES
12. In December 2002 the Local Government
Association issued guidance to local authorities about building
community cohesion (copy at http://www.lga.gov.uk/Documents/Publication/communitycohesion.pdf).
The Community Cohesion Panel and the Home Office were heavily
involved in the preparation of this guidance, which provides advice
on ways to review existing policies and practices so that they
help to build more cohesive communities. The Home Office will
be working with the LGA and other partners to issue revised guidance
in 2004 which reflects good practice identified by the Beacon
Council Scheme, the Community Cohesion Pathfinders Programme,
and the work of the Community Cohesion Panel and its Practitioner
Groups.
13. Community cohesion is reflected in the
methodology for the current district authority Comprehensive Performance
Assessment; and this will also be reflected in the methodology
for the next round of the first tier local authority Comprehensive
Performance Assessment due to take place in 2005-06. All councils
are expected to respond to the outcomes of the Assessment. The
Home Office has been involved in the recovery planning process
for councils assessed as poor. It has for example worked closely
with Oldham, the ODPM and the Audit Commission to embed community
cohesion into the council's overall strategy, which has included
the setting up a cross party leadership group and the development
of a joint vision for Oldham and Rochdale.
IMPROVING AND
SHARING KNOWLEDGE
OF COMMUNITY
COHESION
14. Measurement of community cohesion is
essential to planning and monitoring. One vehicle for this is
the Home Office Citizenship Survey carried out biennially in England
and Wales. The survey which is currently being conducted includes
questions relating to community cohesion. In addition to the main
survey there is a local areas boost in which local residents in
20 areas are being interviewed to capture how community cohesion
is working at the very local level. Findings are due to be reported
in spring 2004, and the next survey in two years time will allow
the measurement of any changes in community cohesion. More information
about the survey is in Annex C.
15. The Home Office will shortly be publishing
"Building a picture of community cohesion—a guide for
local authorities and other local stakeholders". This will
suggest 10 indicators that can be used to help build a picture
of community cohesion at the local level, and to enable comparisons
to be made between areas, through a data-sharing network being
established by the Home Office.
16. The Community Cohesion Unit plans to
update its website by September 2003 to provide comprehensive
information, guidance and best practice about community cohesion,
and a discussion board for policy-makers and practitioners.
WORKING WITH
LOCAL AUTHORITIES
AND AGENCIES
17. The Home Office has worked with Bradford,
Burnley and Oldham to address the issues in the Community Cohesion
Review Team report—resulting in the development of community
cohesion plans for those areas.
Bradford—
18. The Community Cohesion Unit has been
closely involved in the promotion of local activities to promote
community cohesion in Bradford. Bradford Council had identified
community cohesion as an issue before the 2001 disturbances, establishing
Bradford Vision as the local strategic partnership, which has
developed effective partnership working across the range of neighbourhood
renewal and community cohesion. Bradford Vision commissioned the
Ouseley report "Community pride not prejudice" (published
the week after the disturbances), which has helped set the agenda
for community cohesion in Bradford. Bradford Vision produced the
first local community cohesion plan in 2002, in line with the
community cohesion guidance to local authorities, consulting widely
on delivery, and Bradford Council has recently approved their
three-year delivery plan. Key issues addressed by the Council
and local agencies include:
— access to social housing by black
minority ethnic communities;
— involvement of young people in decision-making,
Youth Parliament and school councils, and in positive activities
for young people; and
— close monitoring of community tensions.
Burnley—
19. Since the reports into the 2001 disturbances
there has been:
— the development by the local authority
and its partners of an Action Plan responding to the recommendations
of the Burnley Task Force Report, published in December 2001.
The Local Strategic Partnership is overseeing the implementation
of the Action Plan and has built community cohesion into its community
plan;
— the establishment, on 24 January
2003, of the East Lancashire Community Cohesion Board, chaired
by the Leader of Burnley Borough Council and with a membership
which includes the Members of Parliament for Burnley and Pendle,
the Chief Constable of Lancashire, the chair of the local strategic
partnership and a representative of the Home Office Community
Cohesion Unit. The Board aims among other matters to initiate
and co-ordinate short-term community cohesion initiatives; and
to co-ordinate and communicate key short-term community cohesion
messages;
— better co-ordination between the
police and local authority on intelligence gathering and contingency
planning;
— the establishment by West Pennine
Police Division of a Racial Incidents Unit and a new risk management
approach to help prevent disturbances;
— improvement by Burnley Borough Council
of its media strategy for dispelling myths about the allocation
of funding to communities.
Oldham—
20. The Leader of the Council has the portfolio
for community cohesion. There is a "Cohesion Hour" before
every full Council meeting to debate ways in which members can
best promote community cohesion in Oldham and review progress.
Community Cohesion is a key theme reflected in the Corporate Plan
and Community Strategy. Common Ground North West set up in the
Autumn of 2001 is a network of local groups and voluntary, statutory
and governmental agencies committed to promoting community cohesion
across the region.
Home Office
1 July 2003
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