Barnet Council claims its race relations work will go from "strength to strength" after it withdrew all funding to Barnet Racial Equality Council BREC last week.
Council cabinet members stopped the North Finchley-based organisation's £58,000 annual grant and decided to allocate the money to its own team of community development workers instead.
"People are very concerned about what's happening next," said Anne Lippitt, the council's director of economic and community development. "But this has come to a head and we need to make it very clear we are here now to support the communities."
The new community workers will concentrate on working with black, ethnic minority, faith community groups and organisations in the borough.
The council's principal equalities organiser, Chris Henshaw, said: "They will expand on our existing outreach work with other organisations where we meet with group leaders in an effort to find out what the community needs and get them more involved."
Casework, which was supposed to be a major aspect of BREC's work, will be continued by the Commission for Racial Equality CRE until 2003. The CRE withdrew its annual £41,000 funding from BREC in March after BREC failed to meet deadlines for submitting accounts and did not fill staff posts.
December 5, 2001 11:26
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