Anger after Edinburgh Council Officials recommend massive cuts to BME Services for children and families

A broad Coalition of Black & Minority Ethnic (BME) charities and anti-racist organisations providing services for and/or supporting BME Communities in Edinburgh have condemned plans by City of Edinburgh Council officials to recommend massive cuts to BME Services.

The BME charities are deeply concerned about the news that services for vulnerable BME Children and families are being recommended for funding cuts to Edinburgh Council’s Education, Children and Families Committee at a meeting taking place tomorrow Tuesday 3 March 2020 at Edinburgh City Chambers.

Yesterday, Positive Action in Housing wrote to Adam McVey, Leader of the Council and the Education, Children and Families Committee asking for an urgent review of the officers’ funding recommendations and questioning whether any consideration was given to Section 3.26 of the Lessons Learnt Report (2016) which recommends a full equality impact assessment is carried out before recommendations are made about funding. Despite the urgency of the matter, we have still not heard from the Committee or Cllr Mcvey.

Three organisations, the Multi-Cultural Family Base, Sikh Sanjog and Intercultural Youth Scotland have been informed that their services targeting vulnerable and hard-to-reach Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BME) children and families will not be recommended for continued funding in the list of Children and Families Third Party Grants for the years 2020-2023 when the Committee meets on Tuesday 3rd March. Even if they wanted to, it’s impossible for these organisations to stay quiet.

Hundreds of groups applied for this Grant.

• 63 were told they would be recommended for an award,
• With the exception of a small youth work grant, none of the grants proposed are for services supporting vulnerable and hard to reach BME children and families
• 3 out of 4 BME organisations were told they would not be recommended for funding. This equates to a 75% failure rate for the BME Sector.
• Only 1% of the overall grant of £3.4M were recommended for services specifically for BME communities, yet according to the 2011 Census, 16.1% of Edinburgh’s population is from a BME background.

When Scotland says that it welcomes immigrants and refugees, this should apply to its resources and services and not just words about equality. BME communities pay taxes too.

This decision will have a massively disproportionate impact on people with protected characteristics, in this case, BME, refugee and migrant communities in Edinburgh. We strongly question the existence or validity of any equality and diversity impact assessment that has been carried out. That’s why we are standing together to challenge this recommendation.

If these cuts go ahead, it will have a devastating impact on over 600 BME children, young people and their families who currently access these projects, and lead to the loss of 14 workers, many of whom are from BME communities, and threaten the future of the charities themselves.

These cuts show a stark disregard for the needs of the city’s BME communities. All the statistics available from the Census and various research show clearly that BME communities across Scotland are disproportionately over-represented compared to the rest of the population when it comes to poverty, unemployment and poor housing conditions.

To award only 1% of the overall grant to BME organisations when their communities represent 16% of Edinburgh’s communities is beyond woeful. One could argue it is the very definition of institutional racism, it’s what happens when an unrepresentative group make decisions about communities who have no real say in the delivery of services.

BME organisations are specialist – and specialised – organisations. They exist for a reason – because despite appearances, mainstream organisations are generally ill equipped to understand or even have the necessary resources to respond effectively to the specific unmet needs of BME communities.

If the mainstream were serving BME needs, then BME organisations would not be needed, the same goes for women’s organisations, or disability organisations. But the converse is true.

Sadly, the danger is that the most vulnerable families will simply become invisible (again). Mainstream organisations can continue in blissful ignorance and get away with saying there is “no problem”. Meanwhile, the suffering of those who have the least voice or resources continues unabated.

We are calling on the Convenor Cllr Ian Perry and members of the Education, Children and Families Committee to restore parity and fairness to the grant giving process.

We also call on the Leader of Edinburgh City Council and the Education, Children and Families Committee to reverse this highly unjust decision to avoid causing further misery for hundreds of vulnerable BME children and families in the City.

If the proposed cuts to BME services are not reversed, the BME Coalition of charities are backing a full review of the grants process from the Scottish Parliament.

Certainly, we are actively investigating what legal grounds there are for challenging these cuts under the Equalities and Human Rights Act and will ask for this issue to be raised in the Scottish Parliament if necessary.

Signed,

Positive Action in Housing – Robina Qureshi, Director
Multi-Cultural Family Base – Anne Spiers, Acting Chief Executive Officer
Sikh Sanjog & Punjabi Junction Social Enterprise Project – Trishna Singh OBE, Director
Intercultural Youth Scotland – Khaleda Noon, Executive Director
Saheliya – Shruti Jain, Chair & Alison Davis, CEO
Muslim Women’s Association of Edinburgh – Tasneem Ali
Shakti Womens Aid – Aleksandra Kasprzak, Support Worker
Edinburgh & lothians Regional Equality Council – Parveen Ishaq, Manager
Sir Professor Geoff Palmer
Freedom from Torture – Fiona Crombie, Clinical Services Manager,
PATH Scotland – Najimee Parveen, Director,
Glasgow Women’s Library, Syma Ahmed, Co-ordinator

Score Scotland – Nabirye Balyejusa, Manager,
Challenging Violence Against Women – Hassan Darasi, Project Manager,
STUC Black Workers Committee – Rachel Thomson, Campaigns & Communications Officer,
Edinburgh Interfaith Association – Iain Stewart. Executive Director,
Community InfoSource – Sheila Arthur, Director
BE United – Areeva Goliath, Director, & Emma Picken, Founder
Shared Parenting Scotland   – Ian Maxwell, National Manager