§ Mr. Andrew TurnerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 8 May 2002,Official Report, column 229W, what proportion of consultees on the CRE's draft code of practice on the duty to promote racial equality responded to the consultation broken down by the major categories of consultee; and which public and voluntary sector organisations (a) were invited to and (b) participated in the CRE's promotional and consultative conferences. [56182]
§ Angela EagleThe following table sets out the breakdown of the responses (by major category) as a proportion of the total consulted:
Major categories Number of response Proportion of total consulted Central Government 15 0.03 Local government 218 0.48 Health 55 0.12 Police/criminal justice 24 0.05 Schools 403 0.89 Further/higher education 70 0.15 Non-departmental public bodies 27 0.06 Voluntary sector 18 0.04 Trade unions 8 0.01 Other 23 0.05 Unclassified 113 0.25 With regard to the number of public and voluntary sector organisations invited to, and participating in, conferences, the exact figures are not available as the individual conference organisers retain delegate lists.
However, I understand the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) has worked in partnership with a range of event organisers to put on over 20 conferences since December 2001, some of which were national and some of which were regional. A number of the conferences targeted all public sector organisations while others were sectoral in focus, for example health sector, criminal justice sector, education sector, local government, and police. Attendance at the conferences has varied from 50 to 200 delegates. The highest levels of participation were by representatives from the local government, health, police, criminal justice and education sectors.
83WWith regard to the voluntary sector, the CRE has commissioned the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) and the Council for Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO) to run 26 half-day seminars on issues for the voluntary sector. The seminars target both mainstream voluntary sector organisations and ethnic minority voluntary organisations. I understand the seminars will run until June 2002.