§ Mr. Fowlerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement about the work of the Community Relations Commission.
§ Mr. MaudlingThe Commission intends to reinforce and extend its work in the light of past experience and evolving needs. I welcome this. Arrangements are being worked out for strengthening the links with local community relations work, and the training232W and career provision for community relations officers. There will be an overhaul of the Commission's information and publicity services. Closer contact will be established with the administration of the urban programme. The Commission will also begin, in pursuance of Section 25(3)(b) of the Race Relations Act, the preparation and publication of special reports on particular implications of public policy or administration. Such reports will be prepared either in response to references from me or on the Commission's own initiative.
These developments, and in particular the fuller discharge of the statutory duty to make special reports, will place a greater burden on the Commission itself—of which at present only the Chairman's is a full-time appointment. I have therefore agreed, at its request, to appoint a second full-time executive member, who will be a Deputy Chairman in place of Lord Campbell of Eskan, who has offered to relinquish the post for this purpose but will continue to serve as a member of the Commission. The new Deputy Chairman will be Mr. J. C. Burgh, now an Assistant Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Employment, who will be released in the late summer to take this assignment for about two years. The Dean of Manchester, the Very Rev. A. C. Jowett, who has been a member of the Commission since its inception, has agreed to relinquish his appointment to facilitate this arrangement, but will continue to serve on committees of the Commission.
The staff structure is also being strengthened, and the present General Secretary, Miss Nadine Peppard, will become Chief Officer to the Commission.