Northamptonshire social justice campaign group struggling in wake of 'challenging' funding cuts

Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council’s (NREC) chief executive, Anjona Roy, explained that most of the cuts were made by district and borough councils, but that the county council’s financial troubles had also had a knock-on effect.

The organisation has been holding its own fundraisers to make up for the losses.

“Most of the cuts relate to district and borough councils,” said Mrs Roy.

“Northampton Borough Council have cut funding by 80 per cent, and Kettering Borough Council by 60 per cent.

“Those two have been very challenging.”

The issuing of the Section 114 notice by the county council’s chief financial officer earlier this month has put an end to receipts from individual councillors’ Council Empowerment Fund due to the restriction on new spending.

The fund is distributed for good causes and community activities in the area.

Other funding streams open to the campaign group include NREC’s own consultancy services, training programme as well as members of the public raising money by completing 5k runs and other physical challenges.

“We’ve been trying to increase the number of people who buy our training and consultancy from us,” said Mrs Roy.

“We also get donations from clients when we have helped them with workplace challenges.

“They give is 10 per cent of the settlement.”

She added: “We are still not getting people coming forward and asking for support in relation to discrimination they face in the workplace because it takes an amount of time.”

The NREC support and represent individual victims of discrimination, support victims of hate incidents and monitor hate incidents, raise awareness of the rights of individuals not to experience discrimination and to have their human rights upheld.