The Civil Society Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
Through consultation with over 150 civil society organisations, The Runnymede Trust has compiled a number of recomendations for the UK government in order for them to address racial inequalities in England.
in 2016, the UN Committee on the Elimintion of Racial Discrimination (CERD) provided a set of recommendations, however this report argues that in fact, the UK government’s policies have been in direct breach of these, and that they have failed to protect vulnerable BME groups from continued discrimination and inequality.
Their hope is that the CERD will endorse this report and encourage the government to address the issues outlined.
Find the full report and extensive recommendations here.
The Lancashire VCFSE Draft Manifesto
Over the last six months, VSNW has helped to facilitate a consultation across the VCFSE sector in Lancashire, with the aim of collectively creating a vision for the next three years. As a start, some priority headlines were suggested and used as starting points for discussions.
Organisations have had the opportunity to input via LOCAL’s website onto a comment forum or during events hosted my some sector Leaders across Lancashire. The information was then collated into a draft manifesto with the aim of streamlining the input into a set of ‘asks’.
On the 29th June, the manifesto was presented at the ‘Lancashire VCFSE Draft Manifesto Aseembly’; breakout rooms explored what was missing from the manifesto, what was good and anything that they disagreed with. We are now asking all those who attended the event and even those that did not, to further read the manifesto and give feedback via a short survey. The deadline for this feedback is the 13th July. The information gathered after this will be used to make a final edit of the manifesto, before distributing and asking groups for endorsement.
This is a really important opportunity for VCFSE groups across Lancashire and we encourage as much input as possible.
Pulse Check Report May 2021
Pulse Check reports are carried out by the VCS Emergencies Partnership. They are used to gather information from VC organisations approximately every two weeks, so that the issues are understood and strategic responses can be developed.
The latest report focuses on how the new covid-19 strain, which has spread across a lot of the North West, Midlands and London has affected communities and the capacity of the sector to function.
A brief summary:
· 43% of respondents in London, 17% in the Midlands & East, 32% in the North, 6% in the South East and 10% in the South West reported significant or major concerns about unmet needs in their area in the 14 days prior to data collection
· Mental health/isolation, hardship and volunteering were the most frequently mentioned unmet needs in the 14 days prior to data collection
· 22% of respondents reported significant or major concerns about the capacity of the voluntary sector to respond to local needs in the 14 days prior to data collection
· Funding/sustainability, increased demand and volunteering were the most frequently mentioned issues affecting voluntary sector capacity in the 14 days prior to data collection
The Pulse Check May 2021 Report.
Past reports available here.
VS6 Assemblies Video
Earlier this year VS6 published their Assembly Summary Report “Building Back Better with the VCFSE Sector in Liverpool City Region”. The report summarises the key findings and recommendations from four assemblies held throughout 2020 to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the sector and specific community groups and topics including:
Following the success of the Assemblies, VS6 have produced this explanation video to promote both the Assembly Reports, and highlight the effectiveness of the assembly format as a way to engage with the sector at such a crucial time, despite social distancing barriers.
Please take a look and feel free to share it amongst your networks and media:
The VS6 Assembly Reports and associated recommendations have been essential to the conversations they have had with the LCR Combined Authority and have formed the foundations to their LCR VCFSE Manifesto, to which Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram has committed to.
VS6 will continue to engage with the VCFSE sector to understand the needs of the sector and their communities so that they can continue to represent the sector in their work with the LCR Combined Authority and with their partners from the public and private sector across the region.
Please keep an eye out for their next events by following them on Twitter @vs6news and regularly checking their website for the latest news.
The Green Bullet April 2021
The latest Green Bullet is now available to read. The intention of the Green Bullet is to connect and support networks of voluntary, community and public sector organisations in the region across issues pertaining to the environment.
It contains environmental campaign information, general information, publications, events, resources, consultations and funding.
Women & Covid-19: An IPPR North Report
‘Women in the North: Choosing to Challenge Inequalities’
The latest IPPR North report, written by Amreen Qureshi & Sarah Longlands, was released at the end of April 2021. Their premise for the report circulated around wanting to investigate how women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. They have taken an intersectional approach to the investigation, which encompasses the impact of pre-existing economic and social inequalities in combination with the disproportionate impact of corona on women. Their view is that the pandemic has further exacerabted pre-existing inequalities across the North for women.
What has been the impact?
Women are more likely to earn less and save less
Challenges in the North exacerbated by austerity
Health and Social Care workers are at higher risk of infection and death (in the UK 77% Health & Social Care workforce are women)
Gender pay gap in the North is wider than other areas of the UK
In response to school closure, women with the lowest income are 9x more likely to report job losses
Unpaid care work has a negative impact on mental health
The pre-existing social and economic inequalities which affected minority ethnic women has made them “less resilient to the pandemic” than other demographics
There has been an increase in domestic violence- (women with insecure immigration status have had particular issues accessing support services)
Policy Responses to Covid-19 for Women in the North
North West Relevant:
Greater Manchester Combined Authority launched the ‘Women and Girls’ Equality Panel’
Lancashire County Council commissioned Northern Power Women and Groundswell Innovation to create ‘Two Zero’: Female (business growth programme supporting female-led Lancashre based businesses)
Salford introduced ‘Tech She Can’
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority launched the ‘Fariness and Social Justice Advisory Board’
Recommendations for Building Back Fairer for Women
The report is explicit in it’s statement that economic recovery should not disregard the importance of furthering gender inequality.
They have 3 thematic recommendations:
Income
The Government’s “plans for jobs” should use targets to focus on employment for support for disadvantaged women and recognise caring inequalities faced by women
Introduction of targets set to level up the North’s gender pay to match the rest of the country
Understanding
There should be a shift in understanding of what constitutes the economy:
Equality impact assessments should be innately part of covid recovery policies
Government and Equalities Office should be more proactive in putting gender equity at the fore of policy development and make it a requirement for departments to publish data in relation to gender
Representation
Every recovery strategy designed by Combined Authority’s should have dedicated components considering more support of women e.g. gender equality panels should represent the diversity of women in the North
Politcal infrastructure gender balance
Devolution and recovery white papers should assess impacts of policies on women
Chairing Through Coivd
Being a Chair During The Pandemic
There has been much written about the effect of Covid working on staff employed by VCFSE bodies; similarly there have been many words written about service users. The financial effects of Covid have exercised researchers, policy makers, lobbyists and politicians. One area of work has attracted little comment – the role of chair.
The role of chair can be difficult at the best of times. When things go well and there is complete harmony, adequate resources, an agreed shared vision and contended service users there is no better role within a charity. Indeed, when one of these broad areas is not functioning as well as it could, it can be argued that the role becomes even more interesting, as the chair can use their skills to address the issue. However, when a pandemic strikes and the majority of the risk register suddenly goes red, then the role of the chair is very difficult indeed. And, to undertake the role in an unpaid capacity (with plenty of potential personal downsides) takes a very special person indeed.
The Association of Chairs published a landmark report in April 2021.
From a response of more than 700 chairs it is reported that the workload has, for some, turned into a full time job. Many report that relationships with the head of paid services (CEO) are better than they were but, for a significant minority (8% - which is not a lot but each case is significant as it affects individuals as well as operations,) they are not.
Chairs have had to cope with encorporating new technology into their role, as well as developing new ways of co-ordinating and chairing meetings. The ability to read nonverbal signals by attending physical meetings is, as for all, reduced.
The report indicated that a large number of operations do not have a training budget specifically for chairs. This may be because chairs are unwilling to deplete resources to increase their own skills.
Despite all of the issues that have arisen during the pandemic the overwhelming majority of chairs (83%) report that their motivation is at least as good as it was when the pandemic burst onto the scene.
We are approaching Volunteers Week. Ensure that your chair has a shout out of thanks. Where would you be without them?
The Baobab Foundation Report
‘Digging Deeper Report: Insights on tailored funding to organisations led by black people and communities experiencing racial injustice in 2020’
As stated in a previous article, The Baobab Foundation has been set up in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the stark inequalities further exposed by the global pandemic. The foundation aims to reestablish how black and ethnic minoirty-led VCSE organisations are funded and expose how the funding landscape has “enabled” or “limited” the work of these organisations.
Their report spoke to 26 respondents from 19 organisations.
Findings:
Rise in funding but exposure of limitaitions of support that would bring about systemic change, proportional investment
Focus on emergency response, not long-term solutions to tackle racial injustice
Some funders are putting social change as a priority, but more needs to be done to “integrate a racial and intersectional lens across funder strategies”
Thoughts:
Baobab do not use acronyms, as they regard them as an oversimplification of the lived experiences of individuals
Need to use ‘Intersectional approach’ as a framework to understand inequalities. Intersectionality which considers the various plethora of contexts and backgrounds that contribute to a persons lived experience, needs to be taken into account to build knowledge and resistance.
Funder Progress:
Increased availability & flexability of funding
“Shift towards participatory funding models”- including funders listening to experts on racial injustice
Investment into “lived experience funders and organisations”
Community issues now:
Progress remains limited, due to inhibted long-term and scaled flexible investment:
Funding doesn’t go beyond March 2021
Funding has failed geographical and intersectional disparities across UK
Groups still struggling with historic underinvestment
Moving towards an anti-racist & intersectional funding approach:
Funders need to be explicit about racial inequities
Understanding that racial injustice spans many social change strategies
Funders need to increase equity and transparency
Funders need to adopt risk-taking behaviour to generate innovations
Funders need to consciously work with groups outside of London
Trauma-informed approach to reduce harm in funding process needed
Call to Action to Funders:
Long-term and flexible funding (5+ years)
Address dispairites for groups outside of London
Build strategic partnerhships with organisations led by black people and communities experiencing racial injustice
Use “transforamtive policies and practices”
Adopt a trauma-informed approach across funding
Full report here.
Brief report here.
The Runneymede Response to the Sewell Report
The Sewell Report is a government commissioned publication exploring ‘Race and Ethnic Disparities in the UK’ which was released last week. In summary, it concludes that ‘insitutional racism’ is not prevalent in the UK; the report’s findings and argument have attracted strong criticism from across the country, from academics, journalists and indiviudals alike.
Runnymede, who operate as the UK’s leading independent race equality think tank, have advocated a particularly strong stance against the findings of the Sewell Report. They give several examples of why the findings in the report are not representative of the lived experience of many BME communities. Furthermore, they berate the reports highlighted issues, (such as exploration of the the acronym ‘BAME’ as problematic), and suggest that this also negates BME communities reality.
Runnymede explore the report in the following video:
The Runnymede written response can be found here.