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Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants are there as part of the aftermath of Empire, some obligation is imposed on Britain
beyond that owing to immigrants from nations
with which Britain had no Imperial relationship. But obligation arises not only because
of a previous condition of slavery or colonialism now recognized as wrong. What are
the obligations of countries such as the United
States and Britain to people who want to migrate to them for political or economic
reasons? It is no simple matter to define these
obligations. In the United States, as a country of free immigration for so long a part of
our history, this obligation is taken seriously,
and it would be hard to advocate a closing of
our doors as abrupt as that which has occurred
in Britain; our history (and the political power
of ethnic minority groups) argues for a much
greater volume of immigration.
A final point of difference should be mentioned. While both are "welfare states," Britain long preceded the United States in taking
on public obligation for the health, housing,
and welfare of all its people. For example,
much of the action of local British housing
authorities is paralleled in the United States,
but here public housing authorities control a
much smaller, indeed a miniscule, part of the
housing stock. Most of our housing stock is
in the free market, bought and sold by individuals or rented out by individual landlords.
As in Britain, the actions of these many actors are affected by major institutions, such
as banks, and by local government authorities;
but government in the United States still
resists a general responsibility for the fate of
minorities because it has taken on fewer responsibilities overall. Immigrants and minorities are always in large measure reliant on
their own efforts. Perhaps this independence
is somewhat greater in the United States than
in Britain.
But standing above all the differences is
what I conceive of as the great similarity: the
commitment to universalistic principle rather
than to ethnic particularismin determining the
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The force of this conceptual problem in Britain is best seen in the uncertain status of black
groups as beneficiaries under the two existing
targeted race-related measures, the Urban
Programme (1968) and Section 11 of the Local
Government Act of 1966. Both programs, designed to tackle "racial disadvantage," are
marginal to mainstream funding and have had
little effect in shifting priorities within main
programs; moreover, there is a notable lack
of agreement on the legitimacy of using either
scheme to the specific benefit of black
populations.
Weak targeting of programs under conditions of ambiguity and ambivalence is a sure
formula for evasion. The norms of British
social policy tend to emphasize, on the one
hand, universalistic programs of benefit and,
on the other, discretionary judgments fitted
to the circumstances of particular cases. Alone
among British social policies, the Urban Programme and Section 11 enable central and
local policy makers to address, if they so
choose, the distinct needs of minority ethnic
groups. However, the stumbling block to the
realization of this potential is to be found in
another of the well-establishednorms of British
social policy: compensatory programs are
more acceptably aimed at areasthan at groups.
It is necessary to take a closer look at these
two programs in order to see how they are infused not only with ambiguity, but also with
characteristically British ambivalence about
ethnicity, about groups, and indeed, about
equality itself.
Ambiguity as Policy. Britain's Race Program
Britain's Urban Programme was born to
ambiguity and never quite managed to attain
clarity in the successive stages of policy revision that followed its inception in 1968. On
April 20 that year, opposition frontbencher
Enoch Powell, then MP for Wolverhampton
South-West, transformed the debate on immigration control and race relations with a
series of populist anecdotes which, he claim16
that this aspect has been consistently and explicitly publicized. Two types of project may
be said to be meeting this objective: schemes
which are aimed directly at ethnic minorities
and others which are directed at a wider group
but have a high proportion of ethnic minorities
among their clients."
Herein lies yet further ambiguity, for "indirect" benefit has proved a claim of convenience in many areas where the local authority
is unwilling to sponsor applications for distinctively ethnic projects. Moreover, in the 1980
review an attempt to evaluate performance
under the Urban Programme enunciated
several criteria: two, "ameliorating a special
social need"and "operatingin a deprived area"
were deemedfundamental, while five, of which
the last was "assisting ethnic minorities," were
deemed desirable. Eighteen projects of the 54
studied were judged to benefit minority
groups, nine because minorities formed a
significant proportion of the client group, nine
in more direct fashion.
The Urban Programme had arisen in 1969
in response to a conception of "special social
need" in which the presence of a substantial
minority population loomed large. By 1980 the
Urban Programme had undergone a fundamental change. The deepening economic
crisis of the older cities heralded a reversal in
urban policy in 1977, when it was announced
that henceforth special aid would be channelled
to defined inner city areas under arrangements
established soon afterwards in the Inner Urban Areas Act, 1978. Responsibility for the
Urban Programme was transferred from the
Home Office to the Department of the Environment. A far stronger emphasis was to be
placed on industrial and commercial projects
designed to secure economic regeneration. A
one-time social program had now been given
a strong economic policy slant. When the Conservatives took office in May 1979, despite
ministers' strong predispositions to axe these
programs, both schemes survived their respective reviews and emerged with reduced funding. But in their reprieved states, both the
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Urban Programme and the Inner Areas Programme have become vehicles for the Environment Secretary to advocate greater support for
wealth-creating schemes of an industrial
nature, a priority which has been rather
unevenly received among the local authorities
themselves.
Thus, by 1980, black groups with an interest in social and community projects were
at risk of being squeezed out of the urban programs. However, the first riots in the black
areas of the cities of Bristol and Leicester led
to eleventh-hour adjustments of their urban
program bids to steer some tangible benefits
towards these communities, and the far more
serious riots the following year in many cities,
and in Brixton and Liverpool in particular,
produced a dramatic reawakening of interest
in the Urban Programme as a vehicle for social
measures in multiracial areas. The government placed greater stress on the voluntary
sector (where ethnic interests tended to receive
greater attention) and consultation with local
Community Relations Councils was enjoined
more firmly; the 1981 ministerial guidelines
called for "due priority" to "projects designed
to benefit disadvantaged minorities such as
certain ethnic groups, particularlythrough the
provision of work and training." Other developments sustained the momentum of this
revival of the ethnic dimension to urban
policy. For example, the House of Commons
Home Affairs Committee underscored the significance of the urban program for tackling
racial disadvantage, as did Lord Scarman's
report on the Brixton disorders.
There can be little doubt that the riots of
1981 had a significant impact on an urban program from which blacks had only recently
risked virtual exclusion. Funding for the total
urban program was dramatically increased,
against the trend, to a 1982/3 level of ?270
million. Nationally, over 200 new "ethnicprojects" have been approved for 1982/3; in the
Partnership authorities these are valued at
?2m. (?0.77m. in 1981/2) while Traditional
Urban Programme expenditure on "ethnic
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gram. It differs also in providing for less central discretion and in its restriction to local
authority staff costs.
In essence, Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 empowers the Home Secretary
to pay grants in respect of the employment of
staff by those local authorities who have had
to make special provision in the exercise of
their functions "in consequence of the presence
within their areas of substantial numbers of
immigrants from the Commonwealth (a Commonwealth immigrant was defined as resident
in the UK for less than ten years) whose
language or customs differ from those of the
community." Some of the problems in its
operation reflect the changed circumstances
and assumptions brought on by the passage
of time. Changes in Commonwealth membership have had a direct impact on eligibility.
So too has the "two percent rule"(an arbitrary
criterion limiting eligibility to areas where immigrant pupils are two percent or more of the
school population) whose utility was undercut
by the government'sdecision, in 1973, to cease
to collect statistics on the ethnic composition
of schools. The ten-year rule signified an
assumption, common enough in 1967, that the
scheme would assist in the necessarily shortterm process of assimilating an immigrant
community. The reality of ethnic pluralism
has been one of cultural and linguistic
maintenance among many black communities,
and the expectation of some administrators
that Section 11 would gradually become obsolete has not been fulfilled.
The passage of the Race Relations Act in
1976, with its requirement that local
authorities take steps to eliminate racial
discrimination and disadvantage, illuminated
the weakness of Section 11 as an instrument
of that purpose. The then Labour Government
was concerned to tackle racial disadvantage,
defined as "a complex of problems deriving not
only from newness and difference of culture
but also from disproportionate material and
environmental deprivation accentuated by
racial discrimination and occurring principally
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in an urban context." That concern led naturally enough to proposals to replace Section
11 with a more appropriate and serviceable
funding program. The outcome was the Ethnic
Groups (Grants) Bill, which however fell with
the Labour Government in 1979. Instead Section 11 was revised in 1982; both the two percent rule and the ten-year rule were waived.
The use made of Section 11 to date and the
discussion of its replacement illustrate the ambiguities of the scheme itself. Directed towards
the "additional burden" of an immigrant
presence, it conferred eligibility on the basis
of numbers, but left it to local authorities to
assess whether or not a burden existed. Some
eligible authorities have not claimed grants,
while some have evidently been unaware of
their entitlement. The reference to "language
and customs" helped mold the image of Section 11 as targeted on the Asian child in school,
some local officials being thereby led to believe
that the presence of West Indian children did
not constitute eligibility. The take-up of Section 11 grants outside the education service has
been still more uneven.
Another confusion arises from the fact that
to many activists and community spokesmen,
and to a growing number of local politicians,
Section 11 is geared to meetingthe needsof the
black population. To others, including most
teachers, many local education authorities and
perhaps the Department of Education and
Science itself, the purpose of the scheme is to
supplement resources in areas where extra
burdens are generated by the presenceof the
black population. Thus, in much of the argument about Section 11, the protagonists share
no common ground and there is no apparently
authoritative interpretation to which they
might appeal. As with the Urban Programme,
the basic ambiguity about who is to benefit
under Section 11 can be traced to the origins
of these measures in the apprehensive climate
of the late 1960s.
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