Our ethnic minorities make a substantial contribution to this country. The Government are committed to equality of opportunity and good community relations. Barriers which prevent ethnic minorities from making their full contribution to the life of the country must be broken down. The reforms that we propose are designed to enable section 11 to make a major contribution to this objective. The grant has an important role in enabling people from the ethnic minorities to participate fully in the mainstream of British life. This is the Government's prime objective in the reforms proposed for the policy and administration of the grant in the light of the scrutiny report.

The scrutiny report shows that new legislation will be needed for any fundamental reform of section 11.

The Government agree that it is desirable to make the existing legislation more relevant to current needs, but believe that much can be done, in advance of any possible legislative change, to improve the way in which section 11 funding is administered. The main changes in funding arrangements set out in the draft circular are:

the emphasis of the grant in future will be put on practical projects working to identified needs, such as a lack of English language or low achievement in schools and local authorities will in future bid for funding for projects to be judged against such specific criteria;

all projects will have to be regularly monitored and reviewed against recognisable performance targets;

in advance of formal legislative change arrangements are being made for some section 11 funding to be redirected to innovative projects that tackle ethnic minority need, to be sponsored by the new training and enterprise councils (TECs), with task forces and city action teams in support;

local authorities will be strongly encouraged to work with voluntary organisations and to identify a proportion of projects for the voluntary sector;

new administrative arrangements would come into effect on 1 October 1991. Bids for funding will be invited on an annual basis to a fixed timetable.

The new arrangements will allow for wider and more innovative proposals, but existing projects will still be able to continue if they are brought within the new criteria. To increase effectiveness, all projects, whether local authority or voluntary sector-based, will need to set clear objectives for achievement. For example, specific objectives for section 11 funding in education are:

to give school age children whose mother tongue is not English a command of English and to help them achieve at the same level as others in their age group in all areas of the curriculum;

to strengthen ties between schools and the parents of ethnic minority pupils, where those ties are hard to establish because of parents' lack of English or because of cultural factors;

to give ethnic minority adults, who have an inadequate command of English or who lack numeracy or literacy skills, sufficient knowledge and skills to compete for jobs and participate fully in the mainstream of national life.

Some specific objectives in the area of employment, training and enterprise are:

to increase the awareness and take-up of the range of educational and employment opportunities by young people from ethnic minorities and to advise employers and community groups on the potential and training needs of such people;

to secure better take-up by ethnic minorities of small business support services to promote the creation and growth of small firms and self-employment.

The grant can help ethnic minorities in need in a number of ways by providing or aiding the provision of:

Services that cater for the particular problems faced by ethnic minority women and their children, for example, family and women's refuges and maternity social workers.

Social workers able to give help to ethnic minorities who are isolated, speak and write little or no English and experience cultural barriers to full use of services of the elderly; advice on fostering and adoption and help in the case of mental and physical illness.

The proposals in the circular will encourage the widest take-up in grant while at the same time ensuring that grant-seekers do not become wholly dependent on funding.