FIS Policy E-Newsletter 1 / 2010
Relevant to those seeking to engage with their local authorities.
We circulated this publication to affiliate members on its first appearance in September 2008, but believe that it will be useful to draw attention to it again, at the beginning of a new year and following the attention drawn by Michael Snee in 2009 to the importance of local engagement by affiliates (on the specific and important issue of the attribution of ethnicity to 2nd and 3rd generation children of Irish descent in the education system - FIS Newsletter July 2009, p. 5).
How your local Council works was published by NAVCO (National Association of Councils for Voluntary Service) in collaboration with IDeA and Urban Forum. The purpose of the publication is, in the words of NAVCA, "to help people understand what
their council does and help community groups have a greater say in
local decision making", to which end it "provides essential information to help
citizens and groups make the most of opportunities to influence
decision-making and hold their council to account". When we first distributed it, we referred to its coverage and accessibility.
Copies of this publication can be downloaded here.
Relevant to those with responsibility for assessing funding policy and impact.
In February 2009, through the Office of the Third Sector within the Cabinet Office, the government first launched its "real help" for "volunteers, charities and social enterprises", in the face of the turndown in the economy and with an announced budget of £42.5 million. Liam Byrne MP, the then Cabinet Office Minister, said that the government had "doubled government help to charities, voluntary groups and social
enterprises from £5.5 billion to over £11 billion," and that this meant that, "these
vital groups face the downturn with unprecedented strength."
As the various components of this programme were rolled out during the year FIS kept its affiliates informed by means of e-mails and then by the Policy E-Newsletter (E-Newsletter 1 - the Volunteer Management Fund; E-Newsletter 2 - the Hardship Fund, for example).
FIS was, in fact, able to access funding from the Modernisation component of this programme.
Third Sector and charity researchers nfpSynergy have been carrying out a State of the Sector Survey, the full results of which will be published in Third Sector on 12 and 19 January. However, in this week's edition, as a trailer, they have published the perceptions of their research sample (700+ people) as to the impact of the government's Third Sector Action Plan. The findings were as follows:
- 25% though that the Action Plan helped the sector cope with the economic downturn;
- 29% felt it hadn't helped in any way;
- a mere 3% felt that the plan had helped the sector 'a lot' or 'very much'
- 22% felt it had helped 'a little'
- 46% were unsure whether it had helped or not.
When asked about the impact of the programme on their own particular organiastions, as opposed to on the sector in general:
- 2% said it helped 'a lot' or 'very much'
- 10% said it helped 'a little'
- 65% said the programme had not helped their organisation at all
- 23% said they didn't know.
These outcomes are reflected the title of the article in Third Sector: "Poll shows lukewarm reception for third sector action plan."
Relevant to those seeking to increase the visibility of Irish needs.
This website carries the logos of the City Parochial Foundation and the New Policy Institute and describes itself as "the first independent, comprehensive source of information about poverty and inequality in the capital." When we received representation from an affiliate that this important resource appeared to ignore the Irish, we ran a word search on the site and found two Irish references. One was to 'Irish' as one of the 16 2001 Census ethnic categories. This at least placing London's Poverty Profile one step ahead of the EHRC publication (Ethnicity and Family...) which refers (page 13) to "15 [2001 Census ethnic categories] to which individuals are allocated" - the 'Irish' category being the missing one. The second reference takes the reader to Graph 7.4 of London's Poverty Profile based on Country of Birth data and including Irish data.
We have written to both the City Parochial Foundation and the New Policy Institute, drawing on The Report of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (2000) and L Simpson et al., Ethnic minority populations and the labour market: An analysis of the 1991 and 2001 Censuses (DWP 2006), to express concern about the non-integration of Irish data in this resource. We have also asked for clarification of one aspect of their stated methodology: "Even in London, with its diverse population, some of these groups are very small. The analysis which follows uses only those groups with sufficiently large sample sizes, namely White British [59.79%], White Other [8.29%], Indian [6.09%], Pakistani [1.99%], Bangladeshi [2.15%], Black African [5.28%] and Black Caribbean [4.79%]" - in view of their relative proportions to each other and to the Irish population [3.07%], based on table KS06 of the 2001 Census. (For purposes of illustration we have added the proportions in square brackets here.)
It is relevant to note that the Chinese community [1.12%] is another absentee from this resource.
Stop press: We have just received a response from the Chief Executive of City Parochial apologising for the omission of Irish data and raising the possibility of the inclusion of such data in a forthcoming revised report.
Relevant to those seeking to challenge discrimination.
FIS is currently preparing a response to this request. Communications have been sent to FIS affiliates and we have contacted individuals who have approached us on discrimination-related issues to make them aware of this opportunity. Our campaign to publicise EHRC evidence gathering includes the design and distribution of a poster for display in affiliate premises. A copy of the poster and information to reach external visitors to the FIS website can be found here. The closing deadline for FIS's own information gathering for its response is 22 January 2010.
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