With lockdown restrictions being eased and Britain moving into a new phase of the Covid-19 crisis, I want to scrutinise what happened during the lockdown within the Asian local community groups and charities, particularly in England.
Those from minority backgrounds have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19. Research shows that areas with high BAME populations have higher death rates among those with coronavirus. Health inequalities among the Asian Community has prompted community leaders to demand that health departments help close the gap.
Since the beginning of lockdown, Asian community groups have been working tirelessly to support those in need. This has included providing hundreds of thousands of vegetarian and special diet meals each day, assisting isolated people with shopping and medicines, carrying out religious activities via Zoom, providing essential PPE, assisting people with welfare benefits, counselling people with mental health and many more activities to keep the community safe. The Gurdwaras, Ismaili Jamat Khanas, Hindu Temples, Jain Centres, Mosques, modern evangelical Churches, and community centres have all provided an ongoing, selfless service, a foundation of the Asian culture.
On 8 April 2020, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a £750mn package to ‘ensure [charities] can continue their vital work during the coronavirus outbreak.’ We have to ask ourselves the question, why have the local authorities, government departments, major grant giving bodies and other well-established groups not made the effort to find out how much of this funding has been awarded to Asian communities?
Understanding the power within the funders
Most of this funding has been given by government departments directly to charities. And the government has shown itself willing to hand over the final decision-making power at a large scale. Of the total package, £200 million has been given to the National Lottery Community Fund in order to be distributed amongst local community groups and charities. Funders have a lot of power when it comes to making sure minority communities are properly represented and supported – especially during a crisis which is impacting them massively.
Through my contacts with Asian groups and charities I have come to understand that not only there is no clarity on how they can access the funding but there is also a lot of confusion about how it has been allocated.
I investigated the initial outlay of the £200 million in grants which clearly shows how the breakdown is unfair to the Asian community.
During the months of lockdown, grants of between £10,000 to £49,999 were provided by the National Lottery Community Fund to the tune of £7,157,612 which was divided between 518 projects. Of these just 7 organisations are from Asian communities and they have received only 2% of the allocation: £158,250.
The 7 organisations are:
- Bangladesh Youth Shomito, Leicester - £45,000
- KitKit Pathways to Recovery, Birmingham - £32,455
- Tara Centre, Lancaster - £36,606
- Bangladeshi Islamic Association, Sandwell - £14,189
- Naseeb Badminton Club, Nottingham - £10,000
- Jet Singh Trust, Staffordshire - £10,000
- Sikh Community Centre, Northampton - £10,000
Further research into grants of between £50,000 to £99,999 shows that £3,823,891 was divided between 54 groups and of that, a paltry sum of £161,350 went to two BAME groups:
- Walsall Black Sisters - £71,696
- Southall Black Sisters - £89,654
This evidence shows the true reality; that National Lottery Grants have barely reached the Asian community. It seems that the officers are not keen to publish these figures as it would expose their bias and underlying belief that all Asians are rich and therefore do not need any funding.
Now is the time to tackle this injustice
Institutionalised myths about Asians, especially that they are all rich, have been going on for years but the Pandemic virus has opened to the reality.
Equality Commission has to investigate
Unless this changes, Asian groups will continue to be ignored, be it by quangos, local authorities, or government departments. It is time that the equalities commission seriously investigates this bias – to this end, I have referred these inequality details to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a statutory non-departmental public body established by the Equality Act 2006. The Commission operates independently, and its job is to help make Britain fairer by safeguarding and enforcing the laws that protect people’s rights to fairness, dignity and respect.
I am asking them to use their unique powers to challenge discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and protect human rights.
Bias against Asians will also continue until we can have a fair representation of Asians working as grant officers. The current number is minimal, if any, (the exact figures are not forthcoming from the Lottery Board). There is also the same representation issue on the National Lottery England Board with the five members being: John Mothersole, Maggie Jones, Tarn Lamb, Kevin Bone, Rosie Ginday and Ray Coyle.
The chair is John Mothersole who has held senior local government posts in UK cities including London, most recently as Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council.
One would have expected, considering the growing Asian population in England, to have at least one, if not two, members on the Committee. After all, there is Asian representation at the highest level of UK Government Cabinet Ministers now, so should not all committees follow this example?
Unfortunately, when I tried to challenge the Chancellor and the Minister responsible for the public funds given to the Board for distribution, they were unavailable for comment.
The Chancellor’s office directed me to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports who suggest in the first instance getting in touch with the National Lottery Community Fund, who manage the fund.
Dawn Austwick, Chief Executive at the National Lottery Community Fund for the past seven years, who is due to leave later this year, has said that on long-term funding for BAME infrastructure organisations is lacking and that she wishes it had made more progress.
The Head of England funding, Elly De Decker, when I contacted her office for comments I was told," Before commenting on your data we need to establish whether it’s accurate or not. To help us with this, please could you clarify on the following three points:
- Where has the data come from i.e. the source?
- The date range of the data have you used?
- What methodology did you use to determine ‘Asian organisations’?"
It is very difficult to understand how this particular injustice has escaped the minds of the Asian community leaders and has not already been challenged. The Equalities Commission has, to date, not thought of investigate the scandalous conduct of the Lottery Board and other such funding bodies to establish and explore whether there is evidence to support a public inquiry.
C B Patel of India League said it is time that the British establishment considers Asians as part of the larger society and treat them on par with others.
Ms Shah of Asian Ladies Group said that the Asian community always believes in self-help and because of this reason our tax money is not being used for our welfare.
A spokesman from the National Congress of Gujarati Organisations (NCGO) said that the Lottery Board thinks that we are all crooks but has failed to recognise the fact that the lowest number of criminals are from the Indian community. We need strong leaders to take us out of this blatant discrimination because we are letting the likes of the Lottery Board get away whilst the silent majority look on in disbelief as they observe how the rabble-rousers take the cream.
