PRESS RELEASE

Focusing on Race Equality	25th September 2001
Race relations didn’t feature as a prominent issue in Scotland until the Parliament was established, according to a leading expert in the field. Dharmendra Kanani has had a busy two years since he took on his role as Head of the Commission for Race Equality Scotland in June 1999. In an in-depth interview in the latest edition of Action, the Scottish Homes publication on social justice, Mr Kanani talks about the Scottish Parliament, asylum seekers and Communities Scotland, the new executive agency which will replace Scottish Homes from November 1. Mr Kanani believes that attitudes to race equality have changed since the Parliament was established. He said: “Up to then, race didn’t feature as a prominent issue in Scotland. The issue had always been equated with the size of the black population. That’s nonsense. “To change that, our starting point very early on was that we wouldn’t enter into the debate of numbers. It is instead as much about Scotland as a whole as it is about specific communities of interest. About how Scotland views itself, where it wants to be, and how it wants to develop. Central to that are issues of equality.” Mr Kanani describes the Housing Act – the largest and most technical piece of legislation to go through the Parliament to date – as “remarkable”. “For a long time there has been this disjointedness about how you tackle racial harassment,” he said. “There has been an absence of coming together of the different agencies involved. Central to social justice has to be the joining up of resources around the individual to create a better quality of life, rather than the individual trying to wire up services around him or herself. “What the legislation does is to lock housing providers into a more pro-active strategy for social inclusion. It is a remarkable piece of legislation which has taken us much further forward in this field than we would do down south.” On Communities Scotland, replacing Scottish Homes as a result of the Housing Act, Mr Kanani is interested in how the new agency will use its new broader community regeneration role in tacking not only equality issues, but social justice across the board. And on the problems experienced by asylum seekers in Glasgow, Mr Kanani said: “It focused everyone’s mind on what race relations means in Scotland. “What it has done is awaken people to the possibilities of what can happen in Scotland. The sense of ‘it won’t happen here’ has hopefully been completely consigned to the waste bin of history.” Looking to the future, Mr Kanani is positive about the potential for the Scottish Parliament to develop. He says: “The Parliament has seen a very interesting two years. Some of the learning which is happening here should definitely help inform the ways of working south of the border. Issues such as the way it has connected with communities, which have made political processes healthier.”
Anne Graham Tel: 0131 479 5167