Inner-city festers as leaders dish out for ‘vanity projects’
PARTS of Birmingham with majority Asian and black communities are treated unfairly, with inner city inequalities allowed to ‘fester’ for years while the Labour leadership focuses on ‘vanity projects’.
Those claims are included in a withering assessment by some of the party’s backbenchers, set out in an internal report seen by the Post.
Around half of the Labour
Group’s councillors of black, Asian or other ethnic minority heritage contributed to the anonymous survey, designed to help understand their views on race and equality.
Their claims included that the council was failing to take ‘practical steps’ to ease health, education and employment inequalities in majority minority areas, or taking racism and discrimination seriously.
“The leadership is not recognising we have a problem,” said one.
“It should not take years of talking... show that we are serious by investing in resolving those issues,” wrote another.
Others said the council failed to sort out ‘basic services’ like housing, clean roads and flytipping.
Wards with majority BAME communities get limited funding, claimed one councillor. “If my residents got the level of service that other areas have, that would make it fairer.”
Another said: “I have constituents living in housing that I could not imagine me and my family living in... we have our priorities wrong, focusing on vanity projects (like) the Commonwealth Games.”
One councillor added: “BAME areas are not taken seriously... money isn’t allocated accordingly.”
The claims echo complaints made by some community leaders and opposition politicians in the city who have been pressing for more investment outside the city centre.
Also in the line of fire is the city council more generally – one claimed the diverse communities of the city ‘have not been engaged with’ while the commissioning of cultural events, council resources and business contracts “has not benefited the communities that desperately need the opportunities.”
Another said there were too few people of colour in senior officer roles. “We do not represent the communities we serve,” said one; another claimed the dearth of black and Asian people in management roles was not because of a lack of qualifications or ability, but choice.
“Public bodies should reflect the communities that they serve. Does our council look like Birmingham?” asked one councillor.
A councillor representing a deprived inner city area said the hard working communities were trying to make their area better “but the council isn’t meeting their needs. We have officers and senior staff that are representing the city and they don’t even live in Birmingham – they don’t understand the true issues we have to face on a daily basis, like parking.”
One respondent said issues within the Labour group reflected a wider problem with racism and Islamaphobia in the city.
“Like many other BAME residents I am really worried and fearful with the rise in racism and in particular anti-Muslim hate crimes over the last few years. I feel anxious when my children tell me they want to move to another country because they don’t feel welcome here...we really need to engage much more with our BAME communities. Having BAME councillors is not enough if we do not create an environment where people can express concerns related to race openly.”