Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member for Voluntary Sector, Equalities and Cohesion.

The Cabinet Member for Voluntary Sector, Equalities, and Cohesion is providing the Culture and Environment Scrutiny Committee with her annual report for discussion.

Consideration was given to the annual report of the Cabinet Member for Voluntary Sector, Equalities and Cohesion.

In response to questions, Councillor Nadia Shah (Cabinet Member for Voluntary Sector, Equalities and Cohesion, Oliver Jones (Director of Recreation) made the following points:

• With regards to whether there was enough focus on loneliness, the Council did a lot of work with Voluntary Community Sector partners and Community Champions in bringing people together and out of isolation.
• A lot of activities and funding from the Council as well as development work in the community had gone to bringing people out of isolation.
• These activities and the work could be worded in the Annual report next year as bringing people out of loneliness or reducing loneliness.
• The warm welcome work was not included in the report this year as it had been well established and was ongoing.
• Payng a London living wage to employees was also a requirement from sub-contractors working for the Council.
• As a borough of sanctuary, the Council had achieved some key milestones including securing long term housing solutions for Afghan and Ukraine refugees ensuring that they had a safe and stable environment to rebuild their lives.
• Over the past year, the Council’s resettlement schemes had provided accommodation tailored to the needs of vulnerable families alongside the practical support for those transitioning from temporary housing into permanent arrangements.
• In terms of access to education and skills the Council had focussed on the educational opportunities that could be provided to refugee children particularly those rapidly integrated into local schools.; while adults benefited from English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), which were programmes developed with community partnership organisations as well as Voluntary Community Sector partners.
• Vocational training and Curriculum Vitae (CV) writing workshops had been expanded to support people from refugee communities with the skills to enter the job market.
• The Council had also collaborated closely with employers, including business, voluntary organisations and charities to provide pathways into sustainable jobs for refugees as economic independence was important for community integration.
• In terms of community engagement and cohesion, this was facilitated by encouraging interaction between refugees and local communities at events, such as interfaith dialogues and cultural exchanges. Refugees were also welcomed to Community Sponsorship Schemes where spaces were created and refugees felt welcomed.
• With regards to Brave Cafes, this related to engagement sessions to dispel myths and stigma involving deep set issues around discrimination and equality.
• The concept of Brave Cafes was based on research and studies undertaken around concepts of discrimination and a methodology used to combat these issues in other European cities. Camden in conjunction with Leeds were leading on this in the UK.
• Camden had conducted 4 engagement sessions, on racism, domestic abuse, the LGBT+ community and the refugee community. They were conducted to promote community cohesion, by sharing experiences, fostering understanding and talking together in safe spaces.
• There had been a lot of learning and recommendations gleaned from the sessions which would be made available in a report and which the Cabinet Member was happy to share with the Committee.
•  The Council was very much keeping an eye on the hate crime stats particularly around the LGBT+ community as well as worldwide issues affecting all communities. All the strands including encouraging reporting of hate crimes were being worked on in the background and creating brave safe spaces to enable safer and integration of communities in the borough.
• In terms of the long-term sustainability of VCS organisations receiving funding, Camden was one of the only boroughs providing 7-year funding for voluntary organisations.
• The whole idea behind which was to ensure that these organisations could plan ahead to sustain themselves because when funding was provided in little bits organisations were unable to survive.
• Camden’s approach was regarded as innovative as it was not just financial but a community partnership focussed on creating real impact over 7 years.
• The Council invested £1.9m annually in 38 key community organisations providing unrestricted multi-year funding which allowed these organisations to adapt to emerging challenges while maintaining their core work.
• Camden’s funding was long term flexible funding nationally recognised by the Institute for Voluntary Research as a leading example of open and trusting grant making. There were also tools for measuring and monitoring the impact of the funding across all communities.
• The Council had also worked with VCS organisations to create warm safe spaces. For example, the Warm Safe Spaces Campaign was a response to the ongoing cost of living crisis. The aim was to offer warm safe spaces while connecting local residents to services and community initiatives.
• As Co-Chair of the interfaith forum, with Councillor Flier, a lot of work had been done around issues caused by conflict in other parts of the world which also caused worry in individuals and local communities. Issues had caused the gap between communities to start widening again. Both co-chairs had been going out into the community meeting with community leaders. Local MPs and talking within local community settings where people were comfortable. There had also been no place for hate surgeries in communities and allowing for all voices in the community to be heard. The Council continued to ensure that cohesion was at the heart of everything it did.
• In terms of whether there were too many voluntary organisations in the borough, the Cabinet Member was proud of the number of Voluntary organisations and personally would like to see more as they did so much work and served as the backbone of the community conducting great work in every cornerstone of the community.
• In terms of involving children and schools in voluntary work, via Councillor Umeadi (Associate Cabinet Member for Educational Inequalities) the Council had been speaking to the VCS about providing space for young people and children to learn about various things that were happening in the voluntary sector. The Council also had good links with businesses and Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) programme in schools. However, the policy needed to be right before children and young people had access to the workplace because of safeguarding issues.

The Cabinet Member for Voluntary Sector, Equalities and Cohesion and Officers were thanked for their work, time taken to attend the meeting and their responses.

RESOLVED –

THAT the report be noted.