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Mohammed Dhalech, South Wales Police
(formerly Director of the Rural Race Equality Project for the South West of England)  

I now welcome Mohammed Dhalech, welcome back to Devon Mohammed. I had the pleasure of working with Mohammed as part of the Race Issues Sub-Group and I must say his contribution has always been stimulating and appropriately challenging. You will see from his CV what an active career Mohammed has had in dealing with these issues. Welcome back from South Wales - you've been a hard act to follow.

I would like to thank you for inviting me to this Conference - I think it needs to be put into a context which recognises that there has been a lot of work going on already. Last year I attended a conference covering the same issues organised by the county and the REC as well as various other events. Just briefly, every time I have spoken to people and said what I am doing now - people have said "Well, that's a big change - working for South Wales Police Force!" Yes, it is a big change moving from the voluntary sector to the statutory sector and also the police force - but I think it's a challenge that I am looking forward to and a challenge that's going to raise for me many other issues and barriers in tackling the issue of racism, not only in South Wales but nationally within the police service. I am looking forward to it because, if I go back four years when I first came to Devon and the South West, I was the first Race Equality Officer at that time. If you look at the South West now, there are fully constituted RECs within Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset, so things have moved on and I am hoping that my work in South Wales will move not only the South Wales police force on further, but also the police service as a whole.

The Lawrence Inquiry Report - this was published last February. Barbara mentioned there was a lot of press and publicity. In the South West not one paper picked it up! Not one paper addressed it. We did press releases jointly, but not one paper, whether it was the Western Morning News or the Express & Echo, actually took the issues up and ran with them. That showed that the South West was just not ready and not willing to recognise that racism was an issue in the area. The "no problem here" attitude has been prevailing since 1990 when Eric Jay did his report "Keep Them in Birmingham". So I think we mustn't forget that although that report was published ten years ago, it is still as valid today. I would urge every one of you to bring that report out and read it. That first piece of work on rural racism raised a lot of issues. Local authorities, the voluntary sector and the police were neglecting the issues and concerns of Black and Minority Ethnic people. Racist incidents were going unreported in the area. There was a whole range of issues that came out. There are a couple of issues he raised in that report that I want to talk about. For example a hotel worker reported that tourists were unhappy with a Black chambermaid who worked in the hotels - they said we don't want this Black chambermaid looking after our room. Those are the sort of conditions that were prevalent in the late 80Õs and very early 90's.

To put the whole thing into context, I will talk about some of the issues and the background to racism in the South West and go on to some of the strategies that have been used to try and move these forward. The work started in the early 90Õs to tackle the no problem here, no Black people here, no racist incidents here attitude. The response from Chief Executives of District Councils, Voluntary Sector Organisations and others was we don't have a problem with racism, therefore we don't have to worry about it. I have been looking at some of the responses that were received by Eric Jay. People literally scribbled in the margins and sent the original messages back saying not applicable, not applicable, it's never happened here in the last ten years that I have been here, therefore, it is not a problem here. They were never even typed.

When we began the work of the project in the South West in 1996, we began to realise the real extent of racism in people's lives and all that went unreported. For example, police figures - let's not go back to the early 90's but just 1996/97 when there were 81 reported incidents; last year there were 116. This year, without the financial year even being ended yet, it is 442. The problem is out there - it is just that it has not been recognised. That 442 is just the tip of the iceberg; we know that there is at least 3 or 4 times more than that going on. The amount of incidents that we used to come across on a regular basis from people, is just unbelievable. The REC's have been working with the Police across Devon and Cornwall to build confidence and encourage people to report incidents, but there is still a long way to go.

It requires a commitment from a lot of the other partners as well. District Councils have been very slow on coming on board. We struggled for 4 or 5 years to get District Councils on board. We are still struggling and I think District Council's need to recognise that racism exists. If you look at the figures of the constabulary, in every single district in Devon there has been a racist incident and there is more than that once you really dig down. I think there has been a continuous tendency across the criminal justice system to actually dismiss the issue or not acknowledge it. As Robert said at the beginning, if you don't acknowledge the issue, the problem grows. Agencies across the voluntary and statutory sectors have failed to recognise the problem exists and, therefore, they've never done anything about it.

People say "Well, we've never had a complaint about racism". People never used to go to the agencies, they never went to the City Council, the Housing Department and said, "my house has been graffiti'd". People used to come to the REC or to us and say "Look, I've just had this graffiti and paint sprayed over my house - I've been having it for three years, I have been complaining to the Local Authority and they've not done anything about - I have complained to the police and they have not done anything about it". This was a continuous response - we were getting people who were literally on the edge of a breakdown. They were coming to us and saying "I've been suffering this for three years, continuous abuse and harassment, in schools, youth clubs, nurseries and a whole range of areas, at work". They just couldn't go anywhere else to report it. They used to come at the last minute to the REC, or to the Project and say, "we need help from the Black Networking Group". They were experiencing racism in shopping areas, major high street chains and superstores. I can reel off a number of names - Tesco's, Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer's, C&A, you name them. Banks, Estate Agents, they were all involved in this process. Schools, Universities, Colleges. There was an example where a student applied to a college in North Devon and was told he would not get a place; he was told "you wouldn't mix in with the students". That was the reason they wouldn't accept him. Schools still fail to recognise bullying, racist bullying. Just before I left, I know the REC were dealing with a case of an incident of racial bullying - a case that has been going on for over a year where teachers and head teachers were failing to actually recognise it and do anything about it.

I have relayed some examples of the sort of cases that came our way. Some of the key issues that came out from the work we did were: Black and Minority Ethnic communities living in rural areas were isolated, they didn't have any support networks. They are dispersed across the whole of the county in different villages and communities. There is a lack of confidence to seek information and advice. They won't actually go and ask for advice because they were boxed in, because they didn't have people in their community to ask about assistance. They are more inclined to resolve their problems within their friends; the community and family circles. There is a lack of awareness of what services are available to them. Agencies and service providers weren't actually marketing their services to those minority communities; they were ignoring them. There were previous negative experiences of such incidents. An interesting example was a trainer who came down to a Social Services office. The reception staff started taking the Mickey, joking about what was this Black man doing here, not realising that that this guy was going to train senior managers. So it's not just about senior managers, but your telephone staff, clerical staff and their attitudes and behaviour. I think that one of the key things we learned was that to develop confidence in those communities who continually experience disadvantage and racism is a very lengthy process. It's not going to change over night and that means a lot of commitment from a whole range of organisations and agencies to actually achieve it. We've started that process but we need other organisations to join in as well.

The Project tried to develop some of those issues and created a number of initiatives to improve services to Black and Minority Ethnic people in the region. The project was part of the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux - a service that has an outlet in more or less every town and city in the country. One of the first things we did was to ensure that the CABx knew what the issues were and the clients in the area knew the CAB existed and would support them. We tried to encourage the use of the service. We also developed a directory of useful contacts. People didn't know what agencies existed in an area like Devon & Cornwall, for example the Islamic Association. There is an Islamic Centre for the South West, there is an Islamic Centre in Plymouth, there is an Islamic Centre in Torbay. There's a whole range of community groups around but nobody knew of them, so we tried to raise awareness that these existed. We put a lot of this information on a website as well. We recognised that people weren't reporting incidents to the police so we developed a system of evidence forms which allowed agencies, particularly racial equality agencies, networks and other individuals to actually submit evidence to us about the experiences that they had. Incidents where people were harassed or abused were coming to us but were not being reported to the police. That helped us to clearly identify the real issues and needs around Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. That also gave us the evidence to work with the police and other agencies. To say, "this is what the real picture is - what are you doing about it?". We worked with a whole range of agencies including local housing departments, Regional Development Agency, government offices, to try to get them to recognise there were such issues. We were also getting information out, letting people know that agencies, Race Equality Councils, Black Networking Groups, existed to help. The project could work in partnership with those organisations to support them. We continued to receive the response "there is no problem here - there are no Black people here" from very senior people as well - senior directors, senior managers. One director of a service for the local authority said "there is not a problem here - it is not a priority for us". We knew there clearly was a major issue in that department. People just were not taking the issues on board. Also, there was no corporate approach to it. We were finding that the odd department here, the odd worker there, were taking small initiatives but there was no corporacy, no leadership. There was no corporate strategy. Slowly that has begun to happen in some areas, not all areas, where there is a coming together of initiatives which are trying to recognise what actually is happening in their own organisations.

One other success we had was developing a range of partnerships to actually move the work forward. One of the successful ones through the South West partnership was "Roots of the Future", the CRE exhibition that was developed in 1996 which toured the country. It came to Bristol but they didn't think about the South West. If you were living in Cornwall or in West Devon, how long would it take you to get to Bristol - schools would need to get supply cover. It was just not economical to go, especially as the exhibition would probably only take about an hour or two hours to see - it was just not economical to go there and see the exhibition. It took a lot of persuasion to convince the CRE to say "yes you do need it more in the South West, in Devon and Cornwall, than you need it in Bristol - to educate and get children and people in the community to recognise what the issues are about". It was harder to convince local authorities to come on board as well. It was a struggle, to see who would host the exhibition. Eventually, we did get it hosted but it took a lot of effort and time with no response for a long time from many people. But we had over 2,500 people visit the exhibition; over half of them were children who came and saw the exhibition and who participated in workshops delivered by police, teachers, education advisors, members of the Racial Equality Council, and a whole range of agencies coming together, giving those children an opportunity to see that exhibition. Then we tried to look at some of the more local issues in Devon and Cornwall. That we found was a very useful exercise, to get children and young people started in that process. There were a whole range of other issues around multi-agency partnerships. I think the concept of a partnership is very different for many people. Some people will say there isn't an issue of racism among Black and minority ethnic people and therefore we don't need representation from those communities, and we'll not involve them. Ignoring the views of the community. Then go out and do something and then find out it's totally inappropriate. So, I think the Black and Minority Ethnic community needs to realise that there needs to be a very clear purpose and nature to those consultations, and why they should be involved. That communities, partnerships and the organisations are consulting and involving those groups. They should recognise that they need to be involved on an equal basis to be listened to as well as heard and not ignored. If you ignore them, then those communities are going to lose faith and confidence, are not going to bother coming back and will not trust those agencies at all. That is a regular recurrence in many agencies. The Crime and Disorder Act, Community Safety partnerships and the Lawrence recommendation call for those issues to be addressed and recognised. Communities need to be involved in crime investigations and be aware of the issues.

Another major area that we came across was supporting Black and Asian workers in rural areas. Many professionals working in the area - local authorities, the police force and other communities - were living and working in isolation in teams of 15/20 - with one Black worker. With some of the racist abuse those workers had to face on a regular and ongoing basis it is surprising how some of them actually survived those situations and carried on working in those areas. This puts a great pressure on them. They are also seen as experts suddenly on race issues and anything that comes up about a Black client "Oh we'll pass it to X because he's Black and he'll know what to do with this case".

In 1995, the social work and probation services in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset held a Black Workers" Conference from which was established the Black Networking Group for the South West. It was initially supported by CCETSW the governing body for social work. I think it's important that agencies recognise that, if you have Black staff, you need to support them. If you want to recruit Black staff, retain them and progress them, then if you don't value their contribution and support those workers then you are going to lose them. We still have difficulties because there are some authorities, and some managers who refuse to allow Black workers to actually attend Black workers" meetings. One particular authority clearly stated that their Black staff, would only have six hours a year to attend Black support staff meetings within county, with one of their white line managers being present. Some managers were just not happy allowing them and put any obstruction possible to stop their attendance at those meetings where they were getting mutual support from other Black workers and encouragement to make sure they addressed the issues they were encountering.

We soon began to realise that many employers didn't have any policies or understanding of the issues that Black workers face and are still surprised that Black workers have started now taking out cases of racial harassment against employers. Not only within employment but also in recruitment there is still an old boysÕ network in operation in many agencies. There is no clearly defined equal opportunities policy, people appoint people with a nod and a wink. I think the Human Rights Act coming in very shortly is going to raise a lot of issues about dress codes and a range of other areas. So there's a lot of issues to think about in terms of how you work with and support your Black staff, especially if you want to retain them within the service. I think some of these services are moving towards that direction but other services have a long way to go.

Another area of our work was awareness, education and training. The press, I remember when I arrived here in 1996, in the first couple of months there was a huge spread for at least two months in the local paper which left a lot to be desired about what that paper was about. It had articles and letters every week coming in from the British National Party, the National Front, talking about if you are not white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, then you should go back home. You shouldn't be teaching other cultures and religion in schools etc. This was a view aired by the people of Exeter in the local press on a daily basis. Led by the one local prospective Tory Party candidate. But, I must stress that over the years we have built up a relationship. Exeter's changed, and we have built a very good relationship in the last two or three years. They have made some mistakes. They made a mistake early on last year. They printed a very abusive letter but then also printed other letters as recourse. They have given us reasonably good coverage. We also had one journalist who won the Race in the Media Award a couple of years ago from the Western Morning News. Unfortunately he's now gone on to work for the Daily Express! He did some very good articles to promote the issues. We were very concerned because the Western Morning News were coming to us and saying we want to do a piece on racism. The WMN had never done any decent pieces on racism and why suddenly are they interested in this issue. We were very reserved and very concerned, so we monitored him. He actually gave us the article to read before he printed it, which was something that journalists normally don't tend to do. So, we were successful. As the work and awareness grew, we looked at training and awareness initiatives. I know there is a training consortium that's still in the process of being developed to try to meet those demands of training in the region.

We have worked with prison officers over the last three years, and with the Devon & Cornwall Constabulary's probationers, doing a two hour session on local issues around race. So they are aware of the issues they will experience when they go out. Because of the culture here when they go to national police college they switch off when equal opportunities issues come up. We want to prime them up to say there is an issue in Devon and Cornwall. This has proved very successful because of the partnership with the Black Networking Group and Race Equality Council on the project.

We have also had the far right active in the south west. That has been monitored on a continuous and regular basis with the support of Searchlight and we've responded appropriately when issues have arisen. Again, early last year, the Guild at Exeter University invited the British National Party to have a debate but fortunately they withdrew the invitation. But, again, they couldn't understand or see what was wrong with giving them a voice.

I think to round off. The project in the last three or four years has ensured that racial equality has stayed on the agenda. We want to continue to encourage agencies to adopt equality standards like the CRE's for local government. They are applicable to a whole range of other agencies as well. To develop race equality and equality issues corporately and strategically, you need the commitment from senior members and the chief officers within the organisation. If you haven't got that leadership, this may be very, very difficult and staff from organisations outside have to push that. The issues the project found were just the tip of the iceberg. Last year we got an anonymous call from a worker in a holiday camp in South Devon who told us she was a bit concerned about this holiday camp. She didn't give her name or anything else. But she had asked the manager why there weren't any Black holidaymakers in this holiday camp. The manager said "we weed them out in the beginning when they make enquiries - we don't want these people coming in to lower the place, that would make the place dirty". She then followed the issue up with the administration manager who actually took the bookings who said "we weed them out by their names". This is what's happening today, now, in Devon, where customers, holidaymakers, are being refused service. Actually, somebody undertaking a research programme came across the same issue in North Cornwall. She went into a bar and was refused service. That's the reality outside, in real life.

That's no loss to the Black person, it's a loss to the community because the community is losing economic investment in the area. If you look at the contribution that the Black and Asian communities make to the area you will find it's quite a bit. I think research is to be published shortly from PROSPER looking at the needs of the Black minority in the communities and the economic contribution they make to the area. I think we were fortunate to have a regional approach to co-ordinate areas of work. But one issue that needs to be reinforced not only here in this audience but also nationally, is that there are particular issues in rural areas that do not arise in urban areas. I think national organisations and agencies, whether they are Black, equality organisations, other organisations as well, need to recognise that if you continue to ignore rural communities, then the problem is going to get a lot worse. If you look at the problems being identified now, people tend to do a lot of research in rural areas, whether its Scotland, North West England or Kent or Surrey, everyone is doing research, but every piece of research that has been carried out has produced exactly the same results - there's nothing different. So why waste £20,000 on a piece of research when you can reinvest that money in actually doing the job and getting the issues addressed. I think national agencies should recognise that they need to put money into rural areas because if you don't, then it's not going to actually move things forward. So they need to do that.

I think Black and Minority Ethnic communities who live in rural areas have the same rights as any other citizen who lives in the area. You can't just ignore those members of the community who are contributing socially, politically and economically to the community. To actually say "Well you don't deserve the same level of service" - they deserve the same level of service as anybody else. I think we have seen progress in the last four years. There certainly needs to be a lot more done and the Black and minority ethnic communities need to be involved throughout. But there is a long way to go and some people are just learning to use the right language. The policies and practices are still pretty dismal and have a long way to go yet. As I said, I think you just need to recognise the valuable contribution that is being made by the Black and minority ethnic communities and the service that you deliver to them has to be a service which is equal, fair and just for everybody, no matter who they are.