Take Action! Faith-based public services: Let us know what’s happening in your area

Public services are likely to be contracted out in greater numbers to religious groups in the wake of the government’s Localism Bill. Let the BHA know of developments in your area.

Contact the BHA with your experiences 

BHA Head of Public Affairs Naomi Phillips on helping our campaign to protect inclusive, secular local services:

‘As the government encourages religious groups to take on more and more public services, paid for from the public purse, it is important we raise concerns where local authorities are handing contracts to religious organisations that have the ability to discriminate in employment and against service users.

Local services are depended on by many; from counselling to meals-on-wheels, homelessness support to facilities for young people, and it is essential these services remain open to all.

Already this year we have seen worrying examples of services contracted to religious groups. In April, the contract for providing services for the victims of trafficking transferred from a specialist charity to the Salvation Army. As a Christian evangelical group, the Salvation Army has previously stated the impossibility of being ‘religiously neutral’ when providing public services, and describes homosexual behaviour as ‘self evidently abnormal’.

In the same month, Richmond Borough Council took a contract for teenage counselling away from a secular group and awarded it to a Catholic organisation. At the time the BHA and some local councillors expressed deep reservations about the organisation’s ability to serve the entire community, provide information and advice on contraception or unwanted pregnancies, and meet the needs of clients requiring assistance with homophobic bullying.

However, looking ahead, the difficult part is finding out plans to contract to religious groups before the contracts are awarded. That’s really important, because we want to help local authorities to ensure that all groups they contract with to provide services on their behalf are held to the same high equality standards, without exception. Even after contracts are made with religious groups, there are still things we can do to ensure public services are not used as a vehicle through which to promote religion and to protect against arbitrary and unjustified discrimination against staff and service users.

That is why we need your help – please read on to find out some simple things you can do to keep public services shared, inclusive, and secular.

With your help in letting us know of services contracted to religious organisations in your area, we can work more effectively to campaign against unjust discrimination in public service delivery.'

Read more about the problems are with contracting religious groups to provide public services and about the BHA's position on public service reform

Why we need your help:

Government: More faith-based services for a ‘Christian nation’

In June 2011, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government described its new legislation as creating ‘new rights’ to take on local public services, and stated that they ‘[W]ill open the door for faith groups to get further involved in local life.’ More recently, Cabinet Member Baroness Warsi argued that the UK was a ‘Christian nation’ and called for further involvement of faith groups in public services.

Lack of local authority awareness

The BHA’s own research indicates many local authorities are unaware of the exemptions religious groups hold in equality law, and that they don’t know or don't record if they are contracting with religious groups or not. That means that many have no way of monitoring to see if such organisations are discriminating against employees or service users on religious grounds, or are providing the services in a religious rather than secular way.

You can do it!

As an organisation with limited resources, we simply do not have the capacity to monitor comprehensively the commissioning process in local authorities across England and Wales. Past experience also indicates that services contracted to religious operators are often quite localised, and though they are of crucial importance and used by the most vulnerable in our communities, they may not be a general or widely used public service and so less easy for us to monitor.

The help of our members and supporters will be vital in helping us raise concerns where appropriate.

What you can do to help:

Contact us

First, if you learn of services in your local area being passed to groups with a religious ethos please contact us at campaigns@humanism.org.uk

Using the Freedom of Information Act

Read more about how to issue Freedom of Information request to gain specific information from your local authority 

So, if you want to know if your local authority has contracts with religious groups, or whether those groups are permitted to use exceptions in the Equality Act to discriminate while providing services, ask them!

Remember to keep your questions clear and specific. Public bodies are allowed to refuse requests on the basis of cost, so if the request is too broad, they may respond it is uneconomical to answer.

If you need more help with this, just contact us as campaigns@humanism.org.uk

Checking your local authorities spending

Local authorities are now obliged to provide details for spending over £500, and permit inspection of their accounts for a set period at least once a year

By entering your postcode into DirectGov, you can find details of your local authorities spending, and check which organisations are receiving payment. It will not give you details of the service, but may be a useful starting point.

Thank you!