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Overview
The Regional Race Equality Council Partnership acts as a coordination group for race equality work in the region. The members are Racial Equality Councils (RECs) and BME Organisations for each county and unitary authority in the East of England. MENTER is the secretariat for the partnership, and regional EHRC officers also support the partnership.
Current Members
Hertfordshire Equality Council – Faizal Hakim (Manager)
Luton Equalities Agency – Ivor Aaron (Manager)
The partnership had previously a GO-East officer responsible for race and cohesion work but this was a secondment which ended in March 2008 and at the time of writing there is no replacement.
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Key Issues
Since the EHRC took over from the Commission of Racial Equality (CRE) in 2007, RECs have depleted from 100+ to 42 across England. The recession is having a further impact on the BME sector and increasing inequalities. It is a key task for the RRECP to monitor and challenge any adverse impact on racial equality and investigate avenues of funding for the activities or projects relevant to the partnership. We support organisational development of RRECP and member organisations and aim to:
Improve approaches to tackling race inequality, hate crime and unlawful discrimination. Promotion of race equality and community cohesion. Influence policy and community development.
MENTER provides a regional overview through the partnership and member organisations, providing feedback at a national level to influence decision making at national, regional and local levels.
The partnership reviews case work and discrimination issues/ trends, community cohesion issues/ trends, links with the public sector to promote race equality and community development practices. The RRECP supports the development of equalities schemes and impact assessment advice, disseminates EHRC updates and reports to the British Federation of Racial Equality Councils. Other relevant issues include responding to government consultations e.g. the discrimination law review. For further information on consultation responses, click here. The RRECP partnership tackles social exclusion and also informs EERAs Social Strategy. MENTER is the secretariat for the partnership via the Regional Equalities Partnership Officer.
Useful links for national race equality reference groups
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Current Work
The RRECP is focusing work around the impact of the recession and sustainability within the BME sector, via developing an action plan in key strategic areas as follows:
BME sector involvement in commissioning partnerships, via LAA, COMPACT and Childrens Trusts.
Monitor implementation of the Equality Bill and impact of race equality. Respond to funding or grants consultations to maximise income into regional race equality work. Organisational advocacy through training, campaigning and consultation.
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Future Work
The RRECP aims to develop its approach to partnership work by developing memorandums of organisational understanding between individual RRECP partners and MENTER by the end of 2009. These will feed into an overall memorandum of understanding to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the partnership. The RRECP strategic plan and action plan review is due by April 2011.
For further information, please contact Anna Burgess on 07774 969577 or anna”at”menter.org.uk. (replace “at” with @)
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