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Southall
Black Sisters
This page was posted originally in
February 2008 to ask local people in West London visiting this website to support
the Southall Black Sisters (SBS) who were facing closure due to a change in
funding policy by the
The original posting to this page relating to the
threat of closure is as below. The drafting including the tenses used has not
been changed to reflect subsequent events so could readers please bear that in
mind. The commentary about the threat of
closure is then followed by details of the Court action by Southall Black
Sisters against
The longer term issue of funding for SBS from LBE
remains subject to review by LBE. Any relevant developments will be updated on
this website.
The threat of closure (as posted in February
2008)
Although not directly connected with energy healing,
Southall Black Sisters (SBS) are a mainstream organisation supporting women
going through very difficult situations in their lives. For those who do not
know them, SBS are based just up the road in Southall and provide a range of
support services for Asian and Afro-Caribbean women who are suffering various
kinds of disempowerment and abuse at the hands of others. SBS is also active in
influencing national and local government policy development on issues within
its area of operations such as forced marriages and honour killings. You can
read more by going to the SBS website by clicking here.
SBS is an organisation in the voluntary sector which
is dependent upon funding from various public sector and charitable sources for
its ongoing financial survival. Its largest funder is the
The reason for mentioning SBS on this website is that
this organisation needs all the support that it can get from the local
community so that it can continue to provide specialist support for Asian and
Afro-Caribbean women. If readers of this page would like to help, please write
to
Details of your local MP can be found by clicking here.
It would be helpful if readers of this page who would
like to help Southall Black Sisters could e-mail their friends and relatives in
Also, it would be a big help if other potential
sources of funding from within the local community could make themselves known
to SBS.
If
Explanatory briefing about the
funding situation issued by Southall Black Sisters
From Southall Black Sisters
21 Avenue Road
Southall
Middlesex
UB1 3BL
Tel: 020 8571
9595
Fax: 020 8574
6781
Email: southallblacksisters@btconnect.com
8 February 2008
Dear Friends
Southall Black
Sisters is under threat of closure
We are writing to
you to request support for our organisation. We are currently facing threat of
closure as a result of our local authority’s (Ealing) decision to withdraw our
funding as of April 2008.
Since the mid
eighties our ‘core’ funding has been provided by Ealing. Over the years we have
on average received £100,000 per annum from the local authority and this is
utilised to provide advice, advocacy, counselling and support services to black
and minority women in the borough who experience violence and abuse. The
experience and insights gained through this work has led us to become a
strategically important service, providing advice on policy and legal
developments to government, and international, national and local organisations
and professionals. The Ealing grant has, of course, had to be supplemented by
funds raised elsewhere.
The local
authority’s decision is based on the view that there is no need for specialist
services for black and minority women and that services
to abused women in the borough need to be streamlined. This view fails to take
account of the unequal social, economic and cultural context which makes it
difficult, if not impossible, for black and minority women to access outside
help or seek information about their rights. In effect the council proposes to
take away essential life saving services provided by SBS. Ealing council
suggests that we either extend our service to cover the needs of all women in
the borough or that we set up a consortium of groups to provide such a service
for the same sum of money. The amount of funds available to the voluntary
sector in Ealing has shrunk year in, year out, but the withdrawal of funds to
SBS will have a number of far reaching consequences:
- The attempt to compel us to meet the
needs of all women will mean that we will have to reduce our services to
black and minority women across
- We will no longer have the same
national impact in terms of our input in policy and legal development in
relation to black and minority women which has been highly effective over
the years. Our campaigns in such critical areas of work as forced
marriage, honour killings, suicides and self harm, religious
fundamentalism and immigration difficulties, especially the ‘no recourse
to public funds’ issue, will have to be drastically cut back .
- A unique, specialist and experienced
organisation (members of the staff and management committee have a
combined experience of over 50 years) will lose its identity - an identity
that has become synonymous with high quality service provision. We are
seen as a ‘flagship’ organisation. Indeed Harriet Harman, the Deputy Prime
Minister in her speech at the House of Commons on 18 July 2007, made
specific reference to SBS as exactly the kind of group that the State
should support.
…we will work on
the issue of empowering women in black and Asian communities. Women play a
crucial role working together in their communities, whether they are working to
reduce crime in their area, like Mothers Against Guns…, or whether they are
Asian women, like Southall Black Sisters, working to support other Asian women.
We want to do more to support and empower those women as they tackle problems
within, and build bridges between, communities
This statement was made in the context of debates on cohesion in
which she specifically identified groups like ours as key to building cohesion
between and within communities. It is therefore of grave concern that at a time
when all local authorities have a duty to promote cohesion, Ealing Council has
chosen to undermine a group that has historically and effectively worked across
religious and ethnic lines within black and minority communities precisely to
bridge differences and build a sense of citizenship. Ironically, the Council is
seeking to set up Muslim women only groups under its ‘cohesion’ strategy – the
demand for which does not exist!
We also need to
address the new challenges posed by immigration and asylum difficulties,
growing racism and religious intolerance. But without adequate funding, SBS is
now in danger of closing down.
Current
Position
Following legal action,
we have compelled Ealing Council to carry out a race equality impact
assessment. This had not been undertaken prior to making a decision to withdraw
our funding.
Although the
Council has now undertaken such an assessment, it is only in relation to the
new domestic violence policy. In other words it only assesses whether or not
all women ‘may’ be able to access the new service. The Council maintains that
withdrawing funding from SBS will have no adverse consequences for black and
minority women! The assessment is also flawed since it does not consider the
consequences for black and minority women if SBS services are cut or closed. We
have submitted detailed representations pointing out the flaws in their
assessment procedure with a view to taking further legal action if necessary,
Over 50 users of our services have also written to the Council protesting at
their high handed decision.
Your Support
The issues raised
by the Council’s actions have wider ramifications for all black and minority
women’s organisations. It is imperative that we act now. We ask you to write to
the leader of Ealing Council, Jason Stacey whose details are to be found on the
model letter that follows.
We would be
grateful for any support that you can give us. If you do not have time to draft
a letter, please find enclosed a model letter which you may amend as you see
fit. Please also let us have a copy of your letter and any reply that you
receive.
If you are able
to support us in any other way please contact us. We look forward to your
response.
Yours sincerely
Pragna Patel
Chair of Southall
Black Sisters
Pro Forma Letter of Support
MODEL LETTER
(on letter headed paper/with your address)
Jason Stacey
Leader of Ealing
Council
Ealing
W5 2BY
Date
Dear Mr. Stacey,
We are writing to
you to express our concern at Ealing Council’s decision to withdraw funding
from Southall Black Sisters, a flagship organisation that has brought credit to
your borough through its extremely valuable work locally, nationally and
internationally.
Over the years,
SBS has provided a much-needed service to local black and minority women. Its
work has been vital in bringing about much needed change to policy and good
practice on a range of issues from domestic violence to honour killings and
forced marriage. It has also served the borough well by organising services for
minority women across religious, caste and ethnic lines - a central aim of your
cohesion strategy. Given the Council’s record of support for the organisation
for the last 29 years, this must have been a view shared by the Council itself.
As you are aware,
black and minority women constitute one of the most vulnerable groups in
society. Recent national reports confirm that in addition to the problems that
all women encounter in exiting from an abusive relationship, black and minority
women face additional barriers to accessing advice and support. Consequently
they are in need of targeted specialist support.
You will also be
aware that SBS raises additional funding from a
variety of sources in order to continue to provide a comprehensive and high
quality service to minority women. It seems entirely unreasonable then to expect
the group to provide a service to all women from the same pot of money, which
had not adequately met the needs of minority women.
We are concerned
that you decision to withdraw the organisation’s funding appears not to be not
based on any proper assessment of the needs of black and minority women or the
impact that the closure of SBS will have on them.
We therefore urge
you to consider your new domestic violence policy and continue your support for
this important organisation.
Yours Sincerely,
Contact details
The contact details for Southall Black Sisters are as
follows:
21 Avenue Road
Southall
Middlesex
UB1 3BL
Tel: 020 8571 9595
Fax: 020 8574 6781
Website
: http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/
E-mail :
southallblacksisters@btconnect.com
The High Court Hearing in July 2008
The application for proceedings against
The following replication from the SBS website dated
25th July 2008 gives the official SBS summary of events and opinion.
Southall Black Sisters – Funding Situation
Update
LATEST NEWS (Updated 25 July 2008)
Southall Black Sisters’ Victory against Ealing Council
‘There is no dichotomy between funding
specialist services and cohesion; equality is necessary for cohesion to be
achieved.’ Lord Justice Moses
On 18 July at the High Court, in a dramatic
turn of events, Ealing Council withdrew their case
after one and a half days of a hearing which saw their defence
rapidly unravelling.
From the outset, it became apparent to the
presiding judge, Lord Justice Moses and to all those present in the courtroom
including the packed public gallery, that Ealing
Council was skating on really thin ice in attempting to justify its decision to
cut funding to SBS and to commission instead one generic borough wide service
on domestic violence on the grounds of ‘equality’ and ‘cohesion’.
Amongst other things, Ealing
Council was charged with the failure to:
- Have
proper regard to the race equality legislation and other equalities duties
or its own policies when it made its decision to end funding to SBS. It
failed to carry out a full and proper equality impact assessment and when
it did, it was only to justify its decision;
- Interpret
correctly the race equality legislation by deciding that our very name and
constitution (to meet the needs of Asian and African-Caribbean women) was
in breach of the Race Relations Act because it ‘excluded’ white women;
- Interpret
correctly the cohesion agenda by assuming that it was contrary to the race
equality legislation.
As the two days wore on, Ealing
Council found it difficult to maintain its defence in
the light of extensive evidence which showed that it had committed a series of
fundamental errors and was in fact close to being regarded as having conducted
the matter in ‘bad faith’ – a very serious allegation. The judge was disturbed
by the way in which the Council had behaved and was demanding that it account
for aspects of its actions which he found ‘blood curdling’. The Council had
misinterpreted statistics which showed that black and minority women have rates
of reporting domestic violence in Ealing that are
disproportionate to their size of population and a crucial letter from the
author of a report on gaps in domestic violence services in Ealing
was not taken into account by the Council when deciding to provide a generic
service, leading her to make a formal complaint.
The Council eventually decided to withdraw
its case thereby denying SBS the opportunity of having a full judgement setting out the facts of the case and the litany
of failures on the part of the Council………………... But we were able to secure a shorter
judgement (pending) – which will take the form of
guidance to Ealing and hopefully to all other local
authorities so that in future they comply properly with the racial and other
equalities legislation.
Essentially the principles that will be
reiterated are:
- Local
authorities must have proper regard to the Race Relations Act which also
means undertaking proper equality impact assessments at the formative
stage of the decision making process;
- Cohesion
does not mean disregarding the need for equality. Local authorities cannot
hide behind cohesion arguments to cut specialist service provision;
- Positive
action is an essential part of the duty to promote racial equality.
Special services run for and by BME groups (whatever their name) are not
contrary to the Race Relations Act.
This result of all this is that Ealing Council must now go back to the drawing board and
although the outcome could be the same again, hopefully, our victory will make
it more difficult for it to ignore the guidance and therefore SBS. The Council
has agreed to continue to fund SBS at the previous level until it completes the
process of commissioning based on any new decision on domestic violence
services.
Ealing Council also agreed to pay
the costs of our legal representation and unusually the costs of the Equality
and Human Rights Commission which intervened in the case as an interested third
party. The total costs are likely to amount to about £100,000 – the amount that
the Council previously gave SBS on an annual basis!
Victory
for the entire voluntary sector
This case has raised important questions
about the meaning of equality and cohesion and reminded us of the need to
maintain solidarity between white and black women in the face of ‘divide and
rule’ tactics. We hope that our victory will encourage other grassroots groups
to fight back. We believe this case has set a precedent and that the guidance
that will be available should enable all specialist groups to fight for the
right to exist as autonomous groups.
When we began the process of challenging Ealing Council exactly one year ago, we were not sure where
our journey would lead us. We received tremendous support from our users and
many, many other individuals and organisations along
the way. It is impossible to list everyone who supported us but we really would
not have come this far without such encouragement and support. Above all, the
support that we received reminded us of our responsibility in building a civil
society based on the principles of justice, equality and humanity. We thank you all for making this victory possible.
Original date of posting :
28th February 2008
Updated :
26th July 2008
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