Agenda and minutes

Cllr Suresh Patel was welcomed as the new Councillor Co-Chair for the Forum.

Everyone introduced themselves.

The Forum shared the experiences and challenges faced by various groups:

• Northants Rights and Equalities Council (“NREC”)
  
  

Anjona Roy said that this year had been OK but next year was a concern. The Government Equalities Office had been consulting on changing the system of grants funding to local organisations to one operated mostly by telephone in future, possibly centrally.

Anjona said discrimination is a personal thing: people need support and confidence with proceeding into often very long tribunal situations – perhaps up to 2 years.

Anjona felt it was good that Northamptonshire had an agency to which people could go for complainant aid.

A House of Commons debate had emphasised mediation and education as needs, but Anjona said this was not enough. She felt in these difficult times there was an increase in issues, such as pregnancy-related dismissal, not offering reasonable adjustments for disabled people and an increase in poor practice. Anjona gave the example of a tribunal which had been given a fraudulent document and a judge had noticed this. There were more poor working practices in less regulated industries and especially within the logistics sector.

NREC had been trying to diversify its funding base and to reduce costs but the time frame for changes to funding organisations is very fast.

NREC was moving to Northampton College to further reduce costs.

Anjona said that at the county Voluntary and Community Sector conference a survey had found that 30% of voluntary sector organisations had been operating on reserves – so she did not think some organisations had much chance of a future.

• Sikh Community Centre and Youth Club (“SCCYC”)
  
  Pindy Chahal updated about this organisation.
  
  There were problems with parking in St George’s Street. Northants County Council had changed the arrangements, reducing what parking was available. Changes about what the primary school would allow were adding to the difficulties. What had been adequate now was making life difficult for the Sikh community.
  
  There was not much residential property in St George’s Street but it does have the gurdwara, the youth club and a primary school which SCCYC use regularly, often at times other people are not there.
  
  Now, on a Sunday there was often nowhere left for people to park. As the road is blocked off, people were having to drop people off if they chose to make the journey and then having to consider parking some distance away. In between the new parking zone that Northants County Council had introduced, Northants County Council had painted double yellow lines along much of the road. Reducing available parking at all times.
  
  The primary school is hired for the Punjabi School. In the past, like teachers for the primary school itself, the teachers for this school had been allowed to park their cars on the site. This had helped them to bring in things they needed to use in lessons and to take them away at the end of the school time. But the school had now decided that the Punjabi School  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Lindsey Ambrose, the Community Engagement and Equalities Officer, told members of the Forum about ongoing work to improve the Council’s performance in relation to equalities.

The single equality scheme was due to end in 2011 and new legal duties introduced through the Equality Act 2010 were a further prompt to create a new equality strategy which all council services would use to guide them and contractors about how to provide fair services.

The document now being consulted on was the draft equality strategy document. It had been developed working with inputs from the Northampton Disabled People’s Forum and Northampton Pensioner Forum. The Northampton Youth Forum would be helping to consult people at community events during the summer.

In response to feedback from council staff, councillors and people in the community, and drawing on best practice elsewhere, the new document would be much shorter than the single equality scheme. Called “Our Approach to Equalities” the new document should be easier to read. It should help everyone to understand how the council worked – in relation to things like procuring services, training staff, talking to and consulting with people, considering the impacts of its policies and practices on people it served and its workforce.

The Council wants services to be embedding and integrating equalities into all their work – not treating it as an “add on” or separate thing. The needs of everyone in the community should be taken into account day to day and in all planning in considering how ways of working affect people etc. All services at the council use service planning templates which guides them to consider equalities, hate crime and accessibility when they are planning their work for the coming year.

The Council’s services are working to the Equality Framework for Local Government. This is a standard which can help them and other people to understand how well they are doing to continually improve how fair and accessible their services are. The Framework recognises three levels of performance:

• Developing
• Achieving – Northampton Borough Council reached this late in 2009
• Excellent.

The Council’s ambition is to have reached the Excellent level by 2013. This requires services:

• To consider the population they aim to serve
• To check that people in that population have fair access to their services
• To find out what impact their services and policies are having on people
• To check that people and partners outside the Council understand that it is committed to equalities and is improving in relation to equalities
• To ensure councillors and council workforce are properly trained and knowledgeable about equalities.

While services may have many different objectives for aspects of their work and Equality Framework progress which together form an overall detailed plan of action, a summary is provided at the end of the “Our Approach to Equalities “ document.

In addition to the “Our Approach to Equalities” document, services will be publishing other information about their specific services: an annually updated report about the workforce and equalities, equality impact assessments, strategies  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

People at the meeting discussed whether there should be a forum event. In the past some Forums had held events from time to time.

People felt that these days there are lots of great events that happen in Northampton and bring people from different communities together. Those events often are not organised with support from Northampton Borough Council. They are organised by small community organisations. They might take place on land owned by Northampton Borough Council.

If anything, those events could be helped by the Forum and Northampton Borough Council if it were possible for some more support to be given to those groups. For example, many big events require “pre-events” to help with fundraising and event-planning. This would be better than the Forum creating its own event for people to attend.

It was noted that the Northampton Borough Council’s Events team was now smaller than in the past.

Action: Lindsey and Cllr Patel to make enquiries within Northampton Borough Council to see what might be possible.

Action: Forum members to consider what particular things they would ideally like help with and to share this back to the Forum, to help work out more about how support might be provided e.g. in terms of venue, guidance, information, contacts.

Lindsey outlined what had happened at the Guildhall in past years and the initial steps being taken for December 2011. These included

·        looking into lighting up the Guildhall in red for the day

·        asking staff in various organisations to wear red to show their support

·        radio interviews

·        asking the football, cricket and rugby clubs if they could do activities to show support

·        inviting local groups and individuals to take part in a ceremony in the Guildhall courtyard to talk about the work they do, experiences and to show support. The media would be invited to help raise awareness of the event too.

Participating organisations and services in previous years had included SOLAR, Northampton Borough Council, OPEN, Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service, Northamptonshire Police, Northampton Youth Forum, Northampton Disabled People’s Forum, Northampton Town Football Club, faith groups, Northamptonshire County Council, UNISON and GMB.

Lindsey asked if any members of this forum would like to be involved in 2011.

Anjona said that Northamptonshire Rights and Equalities Council would be interested in supporting activities in 2011.

Action: if anyone would like to be involved in recognising World AIDS Day 2011 either as part of activities at the Guildhall or having their own event featured on a Northampton Borough Council web page listing events happening for World AIDS Day, please contact Lindsey Ambrose tel/text: 0779 53 33 687 or email: lambrose@northampton.gov.uk

In past years a number of community groups and organisations organising activities in Northampton and the county throughout the period January to end of March. These might relate to past atrocities and genocides, or relate to current issues and current help available to people suffering discrimination, hate crime and bullying for example.

As a show of support these activities have been featured in Northampton Borough Council web pages, the Holocaust Memorial Day in Northampton Facebook page and sometimes in other publicity materials and press releases.

There would be a ceremony in the courtyard of the Guildhall on 27 January 2012. This would be timed so as not to clash with other similar ceremonies, if possible, recognising that some people might want to be at more than one of them.

There might be an event and other activities too.

Action: if anyone is interested in organising activities or events or joining in with activities at Northampton Guildhall please contact Lindsey Ambrose tel/text: 0779 53 33 687 or email: lambrose@northampton.gov.uk.

Interest in a visit to reminisce by members of Dostiyo

Northampton Borough Council was in the process of selling the property at 26 Cloutsham Street. Anjona asked whether it might be possible for herself and ladies from Dostiyo to arrange a visit to reminisce about their time at the property.

Action: Lindsey to make enquiries and get back to Anjona about this.

Further to the meeting

Lindsey discovered that the person dealing with this for the Council was Adrian Daniell. He agreed that a visit would be possible and asked that Anjona make contact with him. Lindsey passed on the contact details to Anjona to follow up if she and the ladies would like to do so. Due to the sales process the time available to visit was limited.

NREC seeking support for the “Hundred Club”
Northamptonshire Rights and Equalities Council was looking for people to give £10 a month for the “Hundred Club” and get a free place at a dinner which would be £35 otherwise. Lord Laws would be attending the dinner. He was involved in the case of a religious councillor who did not want to deal with lesbian gay or bisexual people.

Other

Pindy Chahal said she wanted to note that she had enjoyed this meeting.

People said that the items they would like to discuss at the meeting on 29 September if possible would be:

• An update about grants funding and commissioning by Northampton Borough Council: the Council has in recent months been discussing about possible changes in the future. People would like an update.
  
  
• An update about hate crime: there have been concerns about lack of reporting generally, a new policy and training introduced at Northampton Borough Council for its staff, and there have been some changes in staffing at the Police Hate Crimes Unit. People would like an update.

Further to the meeting:
- Joe Biskupski, the Community Engagement Manager at Northampton Borough Council accepted the invitation and confirmed he would attend to speak on the grants funding and commissioning item.
- Bill Edwards, the Neighbourhoods, Licensing and Support Team Leader at Northampton Borough Council confirmed he would attend to speak on the hate crime item
- Inspector Pauline Sturman of Northants Police has been invited to speak on the hate crime item.
- Northampton Youth Forum decided to make promoting hate crime awareness, reporting and support from existing services a priority in their work for the coming year or so. They were invited to provide an update for the hate crime item.

People said that for future meetings items they would like to discuss included:

• An update about Northampton LINk (a non-profit organisation based at 15 St Giles Street Northampton www.northamptonshire-link.org.uk which is responsible for gathering people’s opinions about health services, prioritising issues, putting together work plans to investigate specific things, taking issues back to the NHS and social care, and linking people to service managers and commissioners to have their say in developing and commissioning services). In particular people would like to find out how this organisation is working to help people from ethnic minorities.
  
  
• Youth funding provision by Northamptonshire County Council and others in Northampton area
  
  
  

• 29^th September 2011
• 19^th January 2012
• 6^th June 2012

The dates for the next meetings of this Forum are:

• 29 September 2011
• 24 November 2011
• 19 January 2011
• 15 March 2011
• 17 April 2011
• 6 June 2011
• 18 July 2011

All these meetings are due to be held at Northampton Guildhall, St Giles Square, Northampton NN1 1DE starting at 6.30pm and finishing by 8.30pm.

For people with internet access, news and opportunities can be shared at any time on the Northampton Diverse Communities Forum page on Facebook (www.northampton.gov.uk/dcf). News can also be shared by email between meetings.