Allerdale has had a modest but noticeable increase in migrant worker numbers, with some concerns in two of the towns in the area about housing and anti-social behaviour. The council and West Cumbria Equality and Diversity Partnership had previously undertaken some research and mapped migrant workers across the area, but this had not generated action. It was felt that they needed to be better informed by new migrants themselves.

It was recognised that the partnership could be a vehicle for taking action forward and bringing the issues affecting service delivery to new migrants up-to-date.

The West Cumbria Equality and Diversity Partnership (CEDP) is a partnership that brings together the leading people working on equality and diversity from the police, the citizens advice bureau, Jobcentre Plus, housing associations, the primary care trust, Allerdale Disability Association, Lakes College, Allerdale Borough Council, Copeland District Council and AWAZ.

As part of the Migration Excellence programme, the council used:

• advice and guidance from the IDeA programme team to identify the aims and objectives of the support needed by the partnership
• consultant support to shape the focus groups and check the proposed content, and to agree the aims
• a local community group to organise and run two focus groups with new migrants. This was undertaken by the Cumbria Multi-cultural Service to discuss concerns around housing, information and advice, improving English, communications and discrimination. Migrant workers were recruited using the community group’s local networks in Maryport, which proved more difficult to repeat in the Keswick area where they had fewer links.
• consultant support to work with the West Cumbria Equality and Diversity Partnership. The IDeA consultant attended two sessions with the partnership to discuss its role and action planning in response to the outcome of the focus groups.

So far, the community group has produced a report based on the focus group discussions, together with some recommendations for action to be considered by different partners. This will be used in the partnership’s workshop session to consider action planning.

The key findings were that the migrants biggest concern was about housing (quality, safety, information on rights, action against landlords), the limited advice and information available beyond the citizens’ advice bureaux and other members of the migrant community, barriers created by having poor English (to deal with landlords and public services) and the availability of ESOL classes.

The focus groups were attended by 15 local migrants.

The Equality and Diversity Partnership has been re-activated, attendance has grown and there is renewed interest in its work.

As a result of the work to date, the West Cumbria Equality and Diversity Partnership is taking responsibility for drawing up an action plan for the area’s response to new migrants (expected in early autumn). The information about new migrants, which draws on migrants’ experiences, is being shared and updated.

In addition, the council is clearer about the work of groups in the area who are addressing migrant worker issues, and all the partners have made links with migrant workers through the community group.

The support and facilitation at the partnership meetings by the project is expected to impact on the action planning of the group. By working with the community group, the partnership was able to use focus groups to obtain the views of migrants in the area.

A skilled facilitator was able to revive and provide direction to an equality and diversity partnership which had appropriate members to consider and take forward suitable actions to improve services for new migrants in a joined-up way.

By listening to migrants, partner members were able to find out about needs and avoided making assumptions about them.

Initiating a response to new migration in an area without a tradition of such population change can bring benefits from specific interventions, such as focus groups and facilitated sessions.

Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)