研究報告

COMPACT Consultation Event

(Jointly organised by London Chinese Community Network and Chinese in Britain Forum)

Held on 14th January 2002 at The Chinese National Healthy Living Centre, London.

Acknowledgments:

1. Race Equality Unit of the Home Office for funding this seminar.
2. Chinese National Healthy Living Centre for the use of the premises.
3. Guest Speakers: Paul Barasi - Compact Development Officer, (NCVO); Lord Chan of Oxton - Chairman of Chinese in Britain Forum; Thomas Chan - Chairman of Chinese Takeaway Association.

Aims of the Event

To disseminate information to the Chinese Community about Compact: a government initiative to improve relations between the government and the voluntary community sector.
To provide information about the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.
To create an opportunity for Chinese voluntary and community organisations to discuss the implications of the Compact.

Introduction

The London Chinese Community Network and Chinese in Britain Forum jointly held the consultation event in an convenient location near London China Town. The event was attended by 47 people. The majority were representatives of Chinese community organisations, some representatives were from service providers such as local authority. Lord Chan of Oxton and Thomas Chan gave presentations on an overview of the Race Relations Amendment Act and its implications to the Chinese Communities. Paul Barasi introduced the Compact. Each presentation was followed by five minutes 'questions and answers' by participants and an opportunity for group discussion was programmed into the day.

Keynote Presentations:

1. 'Equal Opportunity to Valuing Diversity' & 'Race Relations Amendment Act 2000' by Lord Chan of Oxton, Chair of The Chinese in Britain Forum.

• Presentation covering ' Multicultural Britain, ' a short background to migration demography of Britain, giving figures of Chinese settlement and the workforce.
• Chinese Community Issues: education of first generation immigrants and British Born Chinese, a comparison of figures was made. 63 %Chinese children pass five GCSE's compared to 45% white children. At higher level education, 26% Chinese gain professional or university degrees whereas 24% Indian and 11% white.
• The ethnic 'diversity' of the Chinese Community was drawn upon and how the UK Chinese Community was made up of Hong Kong 48%, China 17%, Malaysia 14%, Singapore 4% and Vietnam 8% (1991 Census).

Q1: Mrs Lim from Camden Chinese Community Centre made a statement regarding her difficulty in fundraising for frail elderly and how they are ignored.
A: LC advised on Government plans on modernization and other organizations to approach such as Age Concern to help her cause.

Q2: Mr Min raised an issue regarding Chinese medicine and how this was not available on the NHS and how he saw this as an infringement of human rights.
A: LC responded that he would bring up the matter in his next meeting with the ministers.

2. 'The Implications of the Race Relations (Amendment Act) on the Chinese Community' by Thomas Chan, Chairman of Chinese Takeaway Association UK.
Thomas Chan introduced the legislation and raised points on how the community can play a role in relation to future legislation directly affecting the Chinese in Britain. Key points included:

• The general duty - To eliminate unlawful racial discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and promote good race relations between different racial groups.
• Specific duties of the Act - To publish the Race Equality Scheme, its function and its policies. The importance of assessment, consultation and monitoring impact of new legislation.
• Crossovers in services with public authorities - communities contracted to carry out services such as under 5's education, social and health care promoting race equality as a remit and partnership work with public authorities.
• The importance of the Chinese to get involved with input and play a role in participating in public consultation meetings, focus groups, reference groups, citizens juries and survey questionnaires.
• Advice on translation and interpretation, assistance in satisfaction surveys and assistance with complaints and feedback.

Q & A: John May London Borough of Barnet: Translation and Interpretation Services agreed there was little Chinese input in responding to survey questionnaires and far fewer logged complaints from Chinese individuals.

3. 'Compact, to improve relations between the government and the voluntary community sector' by Paul Barasi, Compact Development Officer.
Paul Barasi gave a general outline of Compact, an agreement between government & the public sector to improve relationships for mutual advantage. His talk covered the 5 codes of good practice to make the agreement operational. To summarise key points the following was included in his presentation.

• Informing BME organizations and getting it known is a challenge for the Government. Partnership on race equality, fair funding, investing in BME sector's infrastructure, recognising BME's sector's role nationally & locally.
• Teething problems in first year due to lack of framework or links with local government agenda, issues of mutual benefit and ownership, have been resolved with a new set of criteria with a seven-fold improvement.
• The community as a focus of local government modernization, consulting and participation, engaging the community, working with & supporting small groups and building strong communities.
• Best Value: Developing a local compact where it does not exist, to review the best value of voluntary sector support.
• Working together in partnerships and how effective these are. The voluntary sector bringing its expertise, links and know-how to the table. Being an effective partner and putting it into practice.

Q: Richard Lam Chinese Community Centre asked about getting additional funding to cover time and resources used to participate in setting up a compact, giving time to consultations and questionnaires.
Paul Barasi: Expectations need to be increased and feedback collected first so it is accounted for in the future. Suggestions were made to use Compact to get the Council to look at this whilst in early stages of development of the agreement.

Participants were eager to use the seminar as a platform to voice their views on other issues in the wider community at this point. Generally there was still some confusion on what Compact was and how to access it.

Group Discussion
Two groups of 9 and 11 were formed to discuss a series of prepared questions. Facilitators were Thomas Chan (group A) and Shu Pao Lim (group B), Paul Barasi volunteered to give further advice to this latter group.

Outcomes of group discussion.
There was a wide spectrum of understanding amongst the two groups, Group A used the opportunity to clarify many of the points raised in the talk to better understand Compact. In group B many of the participants were not clear what Compact was about and much discussion took place. Issues brought up included,

• A need to look at London specifically.
• The link between local strategic partnership and local Compact is not clear.
  Members were concerned about how they can make use of Compact with no clear guidelines provided, no personnel contact and no representative. These discussion groups reflected on the shortcomings of Compact and how it is presented to the Chinese Community.

Evaluation Form.
Total numbers of participants including staff and speakers were 47.
We received 9 feed back forms from a total of 40, about half the participants remained for the discussion groups in the latter part of our programme.

When asked if the seminar had met their expectations, 4 out of 9 responded Yes, and 4 responded as No. For people that answered N, the following boxes were ticked.

• More background information should be provided. (2)
• More focus should be placed on plans for liaison with the provinces. (1)
  Not indicated. (1)
• Other comments included, timing of the event that it was held during working hours. More Chinese should be involved, it was a fair introduction of Compact and the discussion groups should be divided into different levels of understanding.

Internal Evaluation
The timing of the event may not have been the most appropriate as it was so soon after the Christmas holidays. It had two events taking place on the same day, an AGM and a Seminar. It was planned that the Seminar would attract people to attend the AGM with lunch provided. Two issues were also addressed in the seminar Compact & Race Relations Act and it appeared that the objective was not streamlined enough. Each speaker was given 15 minutes to make their presentation. This seemed adequate for most speakers but for the Compact it seemed too short and it was hard to follow.

Invitation list
Suggestions were made for publicity to be made more diverse to include 'grass roots' community. It was noted the lack of students attending and in future to include academic groups on the mailing list.

***Ends***

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