Two council-funded equality groups handed a further £70,000 of public money last month have failed to meet service level agreements with the local authority, The Courier has learned.
Damning evaluations by Fife Council’s Equalities Unit, released following a Freedom of Information request, found ”major issues” with Fairness Race Awareness and Equality (FRAE) Fife and recommended that Fife Independent Disability Network (FIDN) receive ”no further funding”.
The reports were presented to the cross-party working group on engaging with equalities before the eight councillors who make up the committee opted to overlook the official’s concerns.
The council’s executive committee rubber stamped the working group’s decision to award a further £14,870 to FIDN and £59,360 to FRAE the equivalent of six months’ funding at a meeting in August.
Since it was established as an independent voluntary organisation in 2009, FRAE Fife has been handed more than half a million pounds by Fife Council, so that it can provide services for ethnic minorities.
But an annual evaluation seen by The Courier details a catalogue of underachievement, which led the council’s Equalities Unit to warn councillors there is ”limited evidence” that FRAE is fulfilling its contract with the local authority.
”Whilst Frae is making some progress in delivering the Service Level Agreement (SLA) and is providing some limited evidence of achievement, many of the concerns raised in last year’s annual monitoring remain,” the report states. ”These include questions as to whether Frae is leading on, as opposed to participating in, activities, the need for evidence of the role Frae is playing in supporting community groups and the need for systems to be put in place to gather and report evidence.”
The 16-page document covering the year from March 31 2011 said ”attempts have been made” to record the contact staff have with clients and community groups using a database but it remains unclear how the organisation identifies ”the real issues of concern and how such issues are resolved”.
”There are 37 community groups listed in Frae’s paperwork but little evidence to demonstrate how active they are, how often they meet and what support is actively provided by Frae,” stated the monitoring report. ”There also needs to be greater clarity about what activities Frae staff are involved in and which activities they actually lead, as opposed to contribute to.”
The report concludes: ”There are major issues, detailed above, that need to be addressed and remitted back to committee for decision.”
A three-year evaluation of Fife Independent Disability Network found that the organisation ”does well with limited staff in dealing with day-to-day inquiries from disabled people” but raised concern that there is ”no long-term planning to identify disabled people’s issues or any patterns of concerns raised by disabled people.”
The council handed FIDN almost £100,000 during that time but ”membership of the organisation has not greatly increased and the profile of the members has remained more or less static,” according to the report.
”In view of the ongoing concerns raised through the previous annual monitoring reports and the lack of evidence to demonstrate the achievement of outcomes, it is recommended that no further funding be awarded to the organisation,” the report concluded.
FRAE Fife co-ordinator Naeem Khalid said: ”FRAE Fife has received no formal communication from Fife Council as yet. Therefore, under our contractual obligation with Fife Council FRAE Fife cannot comment on any specific issues.”
The Courier contacted Fife Independent Disability Network for comment but no one responded.
The chairman of the cross-party working group on engaging with equalities, councillor David Ross, also failed to respond.