Race   Equality for Tenants’ Organisations

A report on

 

 Black and Minority Ethnic  Participation &

 

 Race Equality Training in Scottish Tenants’ Groups

   

CONTENTS

 

 

  1. Executive Summary

 

 

  1. Training In Tenants Groups

 

 

  1. Equality Action In Tenants Groups

 

 

  1. Black And Minority Ethnic Participation In Tenants Groups

 

 

  1. Comments From Respondent Tenants’ Groups

 

 

  1. Methodology and Statistics.

 

 

  1. Acknowledgements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


1. Executive Summary

 

In 1993 the Commission for Racial Equality issued a guidance document to Tenants’ Associations after research revealed that tenants’ associations did not include black and minority ethnic people in a meaningful way. Today, the planned transfer of Council Housing to new Landlords, and the proposed Statutory Right to Tenant Participation, makes the input of Tenants’ groups and organisations more important and valuable than ever before. Have those groups become more inclusive?

 

In 2000 Positive Action in Housing conducted a survey to gauge whether this situation had changed.

 

A survey was designed and distributed by the Race Equality for Tenant’s Organisation (RETO) project worker, Ricardo Rea.  The questionnaire was designed to measure:

 

 

A ‘multiple choice’ questionnaire was sent to 133 Tenants’ groups and Federations of Tenants’ Groups, by post.  A prepaid return envelope was supplied.  Study of returns revealed the following:

 

·        There is very little direct black and minority ethnic involvement in Scottish tenants’ organisations. Only four groups out of 122 (3%) stated that they had black or minority ethnic members.

 

·        28% of tenants’ organisations have never received any equality training. Those groups who had received equality training had done this more than two years ago.  The training was about general equal opportunities so it is difficult to say how much focus there was on race. 

 

·        54% of groups had no Equal Opportunities statements and 40% had no plans to adopt a statement.

 

·        The majority of tenants’ organisations do not place increased black and minority ethnic involvement high on their agenda (42% said the issue was NEVER raised).

The survey results suggest that there is much work to be done, if the widely accepted goal of increased Social Inclusion is to be forwarded in an area as fundamental as Tenant participation in decisions about housing, especially as race equality is something that has not been raised as an issue in many Tenants’ groups, either by existing members, or outside organisations.

 

There is evidence that black and minority etYnic people do want to participate in Tenants’ groups, as is evidenced by increased participation in existing groups in Glasgow.  We are also aware of one nascent black and minority ethnic Tenants’ Action Group in Edinburgh, and another in Glasgow.  It is worth noting that there is a federation of black and minority ethnic tenants organisations in operating in England and Wales.

 

All of this would tend to suggest that a traditional “common sense” explanation of why black and minority ethnic people do not participate, that they are “not interested” or “keep themselves to themselves” are wide of the mark.  Every example of   increased participation has in common a strong pro-active element, IE the opposite of the “our door is open to everyone” approach.

 

If you wish to find out more about RETO training programme, become involved in some other way, or provide feedback on the survey, please contact Ricardo Rea on 0141 353 2220, or at ric@paih.org.  We look forward to hearing from you.

2:  Training In Tenants Groups

 

1.      When was the last time members of your group did any Equal Opportunities training that covered racial equality?

 

Within the last:  1 Year 33%     Over 2 years 39%      Never 28%

 

 

 

 

2.      If you did receive training, how relevant did you feel it was to your organisation?

 

 Not at all  2%         Some relevance 64%       Very relevant 35%

                    

3.      Have you any plans to do some or more Equal Opportunities training?

 

Yes  16%            No 62%     Unsure  22   %

 

4.      Has your organisation adopted an Equal Opportunities statement?

 

      Yes   43%          No 54%               

 

5.      If your organisation has not adopted an Equal Opportunities statement, are there plans to do so?

 

Yes  33%           No       21%

 

Comment: Although 98% of respondents thought training had been “very relevant”, or had “some relevance”, fewer than half the group (33%) that did not have equal opportunities policies, had a stated intention to adopt one:  Adopting an equal opportunities policy is something usually recommended during training. 

 

It would seem that many groups feel either that  “once is enough” for equal opportunities training, or that while training is relevant it is not the whole picture.   Only 16% of the sample, representing 19 groups out of the 122 had an intention of doing equal opportunities training.

 

 

 

 

3. Equality Action in Tenants Groups

 

Have you taken any steps to increase black and minority ethnic involvement?

 

Yes                                                39%                   

No                                                 28%     

No Answer or “Don’t know”           33%

 

 

 

 

 

Have you plans to take steps to increase black and minority ethnic involvement?

 

Yes                                                 34%                 

No        ­                                          39%

      No Answer or “Don’t know”           22%

 

If you have answered ‘Yes’ to either of the) two questions above, could you tell us a little about this and what motivated you to do this?   (list  of comments below)

 

If you answered ‘No’ to Questions 1 and 2 in this section, please tell us why you decided not to take action?  (Please circle as many as required)

 

It has not been raised as an issue                  42%

We did not think it was important                     1%

We were not sure which steps to take           16%

We feel it is up to people to get involved          0%

We do not have the resources                        26%

We do not have the time                                   1%

 

(see list of comments at the end of the report)      

 

Comment: A third of respondents did not seem to have a clear idea of whether action to increase black and minority ethnic membership had been taken. 

 

         

 

 

4.  Black And Minority Ethnic Participation

 

1.      Do you carry out ethnic monitoring?     Yes     0%

 

  1. If  ‘Yes’ could you tell us about the how this is done in the space below?

(No comments were provided on this subject)

 

  1. If you carry out ethnic monitoring, what percentage of individual members are black or minority ethnic?  

 

(Because ethnic monitoring was not in place in any group. Please see next    question).

      

  1. If you do not carry out ethnic monitoring, can you tell us if there is any black and minority ethnic representation in your organisation?  (See comments directly above) 

 

Yes 3%*

 

  1. If you do not at present carry out ethnic monitoring, have you any plans to do so?

 

     Yes     2%                               
       No   98%

 

Comment:  Although 72% of respondents said that they had received some kind of equal opportunities training in the past and 42% said they had an equal opportunities policy, not one group out of 122 responding claimed to carry out ethnic monitoring, and only 2% of groups (3) said they had any plans to do so.  Since monitoring is a basic and essential requirement in equalities work and action, it would seem that so far that training and paper policies have failed to get this across.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Follow up phone calls where need to get a more accurate figure here, as some returns were ambivalent about whether black and minority ethnic people who had been members of groups still were, and there was a reliance on small federations reporting on membership of their individual groups, however it would appear that during the summer of 2000, only about 4 of the 122 groups represented through the survey had ANY black and minority ethnic membership.

 

5. Comments from respondent tenants’ groups

 

  1. “We don’t have any Ethnic Minority Tenants in this area”.
  2. “We want to have a more representative balance on the tenants association to reflect the ethnic mix on the estate.  The Chinese are very well organised but they like to have their own organisation.  The other ethnic groups are more isolated but we have not found an effective method of approach”.
  3. “I have personally suggested that we should have a nominated representation from our organisation the asylum seekers on the tenants association.  We did ask for Kosovan representatives and they attended at first but stopped coming.  There is growing resentment against asylum seekers so this is a matter of urgency”.
  4. “For their own reasons they appear to be hesitant about becoming involved in community work.  Most in our area have their own business”.
  5. “Our monthly meetings are public and for a period we had elected a muslim.   He volunteered to publish and distribute our newsletter.  However he eventually become active in a muslim religious group and lost interest in the community council.  We would welcome any ethnic race member into our council”.
  6. “As an association we welcome anyone who resides in our area”.
  7. “We are a tenants/residents association and there are no ethnic problems in this area”.
  8. “We felt that the Federation was not necessarily accessible to all, for example does the black and minority community know about us?  How could we encourage involvement from all sectors of the community? To date we have organised an equal opportunities training event for our members and agreed that we must develop our equal opportunities policy.  We now aim to set up a working group to progress this work.  We have also make contact with the Black Community Development Project in North Edinburgh and hope to develop effective working links”.  
  9. “We have only one black family in our scheme of 133 houses they have been invited to every meeting we have had since they moved in, we have at least 2 per year but they have never attended any”.
  10. “The organisation is struggling to exist through lack of support from our landlord.  If we were better organised this issue would feature in all our plans”.
  11. “There is an isolated Asian family within our community”.
  12. “You could say (referring to the lack of an Equal Opportunities statement) our constitution does this, I hope”.
  13. “Attempting to encourage the rest of the committee to take seriously the problem (of lack of black and minority ethnic involvement) can be difficult”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Methodology and Analysis Of Statistics

 

 

133 questionnaires were sent to individual groups, and federations of groups. 

The contact details were supplied by The Scottish Executive, and The Scottish Tenant’s Organisation. We did not have access to the full Scottish Tenants Organisation database due to technical difficulties they were experiencing.

 

The total number of groups that could have replied via the 133 forms was 236 groups. 19 forms were returned, 14 from individual groups, and 5 from federations covering 108 groups.  Were federations were the recipients of forms, they took responsibility for getting answers from their members (and often had the advantage of keeping training records).

 

The response rate was therefore 52% of groups in the survey pool.  If we take 466* as number of active Tenants’ groups, then our figure of 122 of groups represented in the survey, means that we have a survey that has responses representing 26% of Tenant’s groups in Scotland.

 

3 questionnaires were returned as “addressee has gone away” (this represents 2% of the questionnaires returned).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* We estimate (at 27/7/2001) the number of active Tenant’s organisations in Scotland at 466.  This is based on cross referencing information provided by the Scottish Tenants’ Organisation (STO), and the Scottish Executive, Clackmannanshire Federation of Tenants’ and Residents Associations, Dundee City Council, and Tenant Involvement in the Islands and Highland Rural Areas (TIGHRA), and responses to contacts made with groups from February 2000 to July 2001.

 

 

7. Acknowledgements

 

I would like to thank the following organisations for their assistance during this research:

 

Clackmannan Federation of Tenants’ and Residents Associations

Chartered Institute of Housing in Scotland (CIHS)

Dundee City Council

Dundee Federation of Tenants’ Associations

Tenant Information Service (TIS)

Tenant Involvement in the Islands and Highland Rural Areas (TIGHRA)

Tenant Participation and Advisory Service (TPAS)

Scottish Tenants’ Organisation (STO)

 

 

I would also like to thank the members of the project’s steering group for their suggestions and encouragement:

 

Gordon Birrel (TPAS)

Jean MacKay (TIGHRA)

Frank McCarter (POVERTY ALLIANCE)

Tim Pogson (CIHS)

 

…and everyone at Positive Action in Housing. 

 

 

 

Ricardo Rea, Training and Development Officer, July 2001