Challenging discrimination

To achieve social justice victims of discrimination and harassment must be able to challenge their discrimination and be supported to enforce their statutory protection.

The recent advances in equality law mean that discrimination is no longer the preserve of minority groups but is now an issue which affects everyone.

There is legal protection against discrimination on grounds of gender, age, race, disability, sex and orientation and religious belief. It is difficulty to think of anyone who does not enjoy some form of protection against discrimination.

Stoke CAB has always sought to challenge discriminatory practices. We were delighted this year to receive funding from the Equality and Human Rights Commission to fund our first discrimination caseworker.

Previously victims requiring specialist legal casework had to be referred to other agencies, often outside of the city. Now however we can see people in the Bureau. We have seen a steady increase in demand for the service as people become more aware of it and we uncover a previously untapped demand.

Many of the issues we are dealing with are relatively straightforward to resolve but can cause the victims considerable inconvenience or distress.

For example, "Mary", an elderly woman with mobility problems, could only access her bank branch by walking down an alleyway and going into the bank through the back entrance as she could not manage the front steps. When we pointed out to the bank that this was treating her less favourably because of her disability they agreed to change their entrance to accommodate her and other customers with mobility issues

"Bill", an elderly man suffering from terminal cancer is unable to drive and relies on relatives, who live elsewhere, to take him to hospital appointments. It is very difficult to find a parking space in his street and he can only walk a few yards. This is proving very stressful both for him and his carers.

The simplest solution would be for his local council to provide a parking bay outside his home. However, the council's policy is only to provide parking bays for people who have a vehicle registered at their home address.

We contacted the council on "Bill's" behalf explaining his circumstance and pointing out their duties to make reasonable adjustments under the Disability Discrimination Act. The local authority then agreed to modify their policy and grant him a parking bay outside his home.

In both of these cases relatively simple adjustments made by large organisations have significantly improved the lives of vulnerable people.

By far and away the largest number of incidents we advise on involve discrimination at work. The majority of the caseload involves individuals who have suffered discrimination on grounds of race, gender or disability. Increasingly we are also seeing cases of people claiming to be discriminated against on grounds of their age.

In one case a South Asian employee of a South Asian company won compensation for being treated less favourably than the company's white employees.

PARINS, the Partnership Approach to Racist Incidents in North Staffordshire, celebrated its 10th anniversary in March 2009.

Sadly, the demand for its services is as high now as it has ever been. In 2009/10 95 people reported 242 racist incidents, 70 of which were referred on for specialist casework to resolve the issue.

As well as providing casework to individual victims the PARINS team has worked closely with partner agencies to improve how they respond to racist incidents.

In particular, much work was done during the year with Stoke City Council's area offices. As a consequence the number of reports recorded at these offices has risen significantly.

Staff have been trained and supported to deal with a wider range of incidents enabling more issues to be resolved at a local level.

"We are delighted that city council staff have been able to resolve far more issues, closer to home and with the need for fewer interventions," said the Equalities Teams Manager Jude Hawes. "The training, support and consultancy we have provided to these teams has increased their awareness of the problem and enabled staff to offer a much better response to victims.

"PARINS unique combination of monitoring, reporting and casework support means it is one of the most effective racist incidents monitoring partnerships in the country, often hailed as an example of best practice. At Stoke CAB we are very proud to play a leading role in this partnership and to host its staff," said Bureau Chief Executive Simon Harris.

PARINS 10th birthday party, in November 2009, saw the launch of Challenge North Staffs.

Building on the model and success of PARINS, Challenge North Staffs aims to adopt the same approach across the full range of hate crimes.

Since November people who have been harassed because of their age, disability, mental health, sexuality or religious belief now have an organisation to turn to.

"We have been conscious for a long time that, although there was provision for the victims of racial harassment there were large numbers of people who were suffering significant levels of harassment for other reasons, who had no equivalent source of help, "said Equalities Team Manager Jude Hawes.

"Therefore we launched Challenge North Staffs as the next stage in providing a comprehensive response to issues of harassment and victimisation. Already, we have seen a significant early demand for its services while reports and referrals are steadily picking up".

It is quite likely in the future that CNS and PARINS will converge to provide a comprehensive response to hate crimes.

Stoke-on-Trent Citizens Advice Bureau

Impact Report 2010

Challenging discrimination

To achieve social justice victims of discrimination and harassment must be able to challenge their discrimination and be supported to enforce their statutory protection.

PARINS, the Partnership Approach to Racist Incidents in North Staffordshire, celebrated its 10th anniversary in March 2009.

Sadly, the demand for its services is as high now as it has ever been. In 2009/10 95 people reported 242 racist incidents, 70 of which were referred on for specialist casework to resolve the issue.