Herpreet Kaur Grewal,
Regeneration & Renewal,
9 May 2008
An ethnic minority women's refuge has had its request for a judicial review into whether a west London council properly considered how new funding arrangements would impact on its service users granted by the High Court.
Southall Black Sisters (SBS) requested the judicial review after it was asked by the London Borough of Ealing to expand its services to women of other ethnicities.
The charity said it was told by Ealing council that if it declined to agree to expand its services, the £100,000 of annual core funding it receives from the local authority would be withdrawn.
SBS claims that the council failed to carry out an adequate equality impact assessment before asking the refuge to expand its services to other ethnicities.
SBS said that it would be unable to expand its services to other groups without extra funding. It added that, if it lost its core funding from the council, its services for ethnic minority women would suffer.
SBS chair Pragna Patel said: "We are arguing that the council did not consider the impact of stopping services to black and minority women in the borough."
Ealing council's proposal to cut the funding if SBS did not expand its services sparked a row earlier this year.
In March, 16 MPs signed an Early Day Motion opposing the funding cut which said that Ealing council had proposed to withdraw funding from SBS "on the basis that funding a single group could lead to segregation" (R&R, 14 March, p7).
SBS said that the council's decision was partly due to its interpretation of draft guidance on cohesion funding published last year by the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Last month, Ealing council deferred its decision on future grant allocations for groups in the borough which provide domestic violence services - including SBS - for two months (R&R, 4 April, p7).
Now it says it will postpone the decision until the judicial review has been carried out.
A council spokeswoman said the council would contest the judicial review and take a decision on funding once the proceedings had taken place. She confirmed that the judicial review would decide whether the council had carried out an adequate equality impact assessment.
