We are very pleased to update that the UK Nepali Community Advice Access project has now concluded and here we provide the Advice project Final Report.
Below we provide a copy of the email sent to the advice providing organisations that participated in or where requested to participate in the UKNFS enabled advice access project: it indicates some exceptional organisations and agencies (highlighted in the report and in the copy of the email below, as well as organisations/agencies that fell short, but need to be helped to restore their UK Nepali community engagement & communication credentials: we are certain that in 2019 these will be, with our support, taking the necessary steps to match their policy statements on engagement, to realities).
Here we also provide the Useful Information resources, that constitute the main outcome documents for the project in terms of UK Nepali community voice empowerment (two documents for community members and community leads) and effective engagement with advice providing organisations:
The third Useful information resource is provided to advice providers in the email referred to below, also provided to all our UK Nepali Nepali community organisations, particularly via the NNRNA UK — Information for advice providing organisations on engagement and communication with UK Nepali community members and community organisation representatives and leads
Email issue date: 24th December 2018 (summary version)
Dear UK Nepali advice access project advice providing organisation/agency participants,
Thank you very much for taking part in this important UK Nepali community support and engagement project. We are very pleased to provide the related UK Nepali community advice access report, and in appreciation and support to your organisation/agency, the main relevant outcome advice providing organisations/agencies Useful Information UK Nepali community engagement & communication resource.
A list of organisations/agencies approached and or actively participating (or declining to participate, is found on pages 9 – 10 of the report, which itself records the responses back, from exceptional/brilliant, to mediocre (or failure to participate at all despite polite requests to do so.
We of course on behalf of the community representation organisations, wish to thank all organisations contacted, that chose to actively participate in completing the project questionnaire, but we particularly wish to provide special thanks to the following for their enthusiastic input, and earnest involvement, as it is clear they have gone or are going ‘the extra mile and enthusiastically so’ beyond minimum requirements on engagement and communication with our UK Nepali community. Some of these are in particular, but not limited to:
- Rushmoor Council
- The Census / ONS
- HMRC
- DWP (Dorset Hampshire, Wiltshire, Isle of Wight)
- Wessex & national Crown Prosecution Service
Beyond these we note many more that have made clear they would like to do, given support and guidance from the UK Nepali community at national, regional and local levels, on more effective engagement & communication — on this and with many more besides, it is clear in their responses that wont of data has been holding them back from providing the scale and quality of outreach they seek to make to Nepali community members.
The source of this obstacle is of course the data collection system: perhaps the most significant outcome of the project being a 100% community support for rectifying this through a formal representation to the Prime Minister by the NRNA UK President with full UKNFS and comprehensive broader UK Nepali community representative organisations/groups and many more UK Nepali organisations as well as the Honorable Mr Leo Docherty MP (Aldershot consituency), the Leader of Rushmoor Borough Council, Cllr David Clifford, as well as H.E. the Ambassador of Nepal to the UK (Dr Durga Bahadur Subedi) on a dedicated Nepali entry on the Census 2021. Without data, structured data as only the Census provides, there can be no realistic opportunity for planning and providing appropriate services for our UK Nepali community, 60%+ of which is serving and retired Gurkha.
What emerges from the responses — from excellent to poor — to the questionnaire (and non-responses: a number of opportunities in follow up to those who did not initially reply, were given to enable clarity that non-responses where not accidental, but indicative of clear embedded organisation-culture perspectives towards the given ethnic minority community and perhaps generally in regard to communication & engagement with minority communities service users) is that there is a fundamental division between advice providing organisations/entities/agencies from national to local levels, that adopt either a fulsome Public Service ethos, or its diametric opposite, namely ‘silo thinking/organisation cultures’ that are far removed from considerations of good customer care, transparency, accountablilty. …
List of advice providing/dispensing organisations and agencies approached and/or taking part in the project:
Project local area locations organisations (all receive this communication and the Report, with awareness of the NRNA UK and other UK Nepali community representative organisations)*:
*Most of the organisations below contacted at CEO and/or Equality lead / Customer Services lead levels.
• Citizens Advice Bureaux: Shepway, Woolwich-Greenwich, Dorset, Bournemouth & Poole, Rushmoor
• Police Forces: Kent Police, Hampshire Police, the Metropolitan Police, Dorset Police
• Local authorities (general but with departments – housing, social services, electoral services, Anti-Social Behaviour, etc. – emphasis): Rushmoor District Council, Greenwich & Woolwich Borough Council, Bournemouth Council, Dorset County Partnership / Dorset County Council
• Adult Learning: Skills & Learning (Bournemouth Dorset & Poole) — Kent Adult Education & Hampshire Futures were also approached
• Councils for Voluntary Service: Rushmoor, Shepway, Poole, Bournemouth, Woolwich & Greenwich
• Wessex Crown Prosecution Service
• DWP — Job Centre Plus Greater Wessex (covering Hants, Wiltshire, Dorset, IOW)
• Other: Greenwich Community Directory
• DWP / national Job Centre Plus
• HMRC
• Local Government Association (LGA) Independent Group
• Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
• UKVI (Director General)
• HMCTS Immigration Tribunal (President / Lead)
• Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC]
• Hansard Society
• Runnymede Trust
• National Citizens Advice (CAB)
• Census / Office of National Statistics (ONS)
• National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)
• Banks: Lloyds Bank
• Police Forces: Kent Police, Hampshire Police, the Metropolitan Police, Dorset Police
• Local authorities (general but with departments – housing, social services, electoral services, Anti-Social Behaviour, etc. – emphasis): Rushmoor District Council, Greenwich & Woolwich Borough Council, Bournemouth Council, Dorset County Partnership / Dorset County Council
• Adult Learning: Skills & Learning (Bournemouth Dorset & Poole) — Kent Adult Education & Hampshire Futures were also approached
• Councils for Voluntary Service: Rushmoor, Shepway, Poole, Bournemouth, Woolwich & Greenwich
• Wessex Crown Prosecution Service
• DWP — Job Centre Plus Greater Wessex (covering Hants, Wiltshire, Dorset, IOW)
• Other: Greenwich Community Directory
• DWP / national Job Centre Plus
• HMRC
• Local Government Association (LGA) Independent Group
• Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
• UKVI (Director General)
• HMCTS Immigration Tribunal (President / Lead)
• Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC]
• Hansard Society
• Runnymede Trust
• National Citizens Advice (CAB)
• Census / Office of National Statistics (ONS)
• National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)
• Banks: Lloyds Bank
… In the relevant best practice examples, invitations for more direct close engagement with the UK Nepali community have been kindly made by some of you, to consolidate, initiate, expand direct meaningful engagement in regard to respective advice access experiences for your given organisations / agencies in communicating about your services with UK Nepali community members and particularly community organisations / groups leads.
We look forward to play our part in the New Year / 2019 in conjunction with the NRNA and all relevant major and minor direct community groups/organisations at national to regional and local levels, in taking up your respective invitations on collaboration opportunities to support your organisations / agencies UK Nepali community stated / requested engagement and outreach. No less importantly, we look forward to working with all organisations/agencies providing advice services — from the Best Practice exemplars detailed above, to poor practice onces not named but referred to (and indicated in the report) — in 2019 to assist public policy & customer care delivery stated commitments in support to our Nepali community, for mutual assistance.
On this we provide an important document to support deepened effective or new (depending on the advice providing organisation/agency circumstances) communications & engagement with our UK Nepali – Gurkha community at national, regional, local levels: Information for advice providing organisations on engagement and communication with UK Nepali community members and community organisation representatives and leads.