White Mentoring program for Black boys
by Lee Jasper

Paul Lawrence is the founder of a leading life skills training consultancy. Born in London, but raised in Jamaica Paul has a unique perspective on underachievement among our black boys and firmly believes the UK education system has much to answer for. His life skills courses are designed to provide a leg up not just for those who fail academically, but to strengthen the prospects of those who find their academic qualifications are often undervalued purely due to their race. Paul was a part of a black bidding consortium for the Mayor of London’s mentor scheme.

Mayor ensures a £1.3m contract is awarded to a charity he is Patron, fails to declare his interest and unfairly discriminates against black businesses.
On July 20, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson launched The Mayor’s Mentoring Scheme. Speaking outside the Epicentre in Leyton, the Mayor told Londoners:
"Through no fault of their own there are some young boys in our city in desperate need of a strong, male role model. I want my scheme to reach out to those who may fall prey to the lure of gangs and violence and place them with positive, hard-working males who can help guide them,”
....“the influence of a positive role model can be immeasurable and I'd like to thank all the outstanding volunteers who have come forward and encourage even more people to get on board."
Now I, for one, welcomed the idea of a ‘Mayor Mentor Scheme’. So much so that I ensured my organisation formed part of the consortium that bid for, and was successful in, training the volunteers in mentoring skills – (I’ll tell you about that later)!

I believed that the idea of 1000 black mentors for 1000 black boys would provide a much needed resource for black youths in London and would represent a financial shot in the arm for hard pressed groups already delivering frontline services.

I publicly applauded Boris Johnson for his intention to deliver the scheme and for his choice of Ray Lewis as Mayor’s Mentoring Ambassador to lead his flagship project.

Add to this the inclusion of football legend Ian Wright, and the fact that 1700 people have already signed up as volunteers, you would think that this would be a ‘good news’ day for black Londoners and for community groups working with at-risk black youths... that is until you get to the sticky issue of who has won the contract for delivering the scheme.

So is it an established organisation with a proven track record of working with black gangs and disaffected youth in the community? You would think so, wouldn’t you, but no; the Mayor has awarded the Greater London Authority mentoring contract of £1.3m to the University of East London (UEL) and London Action Trust (LAT), neither of whom has any extensive track record of working with black gangs or the black community in general in London.

Further, and more worryingly, Boris Johnson is Patron of the London Action Trust (LAT) sitting on the board alongside old friends such as Nick Griffin (same name different guy) the Mayoral Advisor on Budgets & Performance alongside Conservative Steve Norris who is also, by happy coincidence, Chair of Ray Lewis’ East Side Academy.

Also sitting on both the LAT and East Side Academy boards is Fitzroy Andrew.

Now, as far as I understand it - and I am happy to be corrected – isn’t the Mayor of London duty bound to declare an interest as patron of London Action Trust? Especially when £1.3m of public money is heading their way? So just to be sure that I had my facts right, I checked the Mayor’s Register of interests and found that he has made no declaration regarding London Action Trust. I also checked with LAT who confirmed in writing that Boris Johnson is still their Patron. The Mayor - who came into power promising crystal clear transparency - seems to have failed to comply with the GLA rules relating to declarations of interest.

Here is what the GLA says on this matter

“The Mayor of London is required to declare personal interests in the Standing Register of Interests. He/she must register these details with the GLA's Monitoring Officer within 28 days of the commencement of his/her term of office, and must submit an updated notification within 28 days of becoming aware of any change. The Mayor has stated that the Register of Interests for Mayoral appointments will also be published in his promotion of openness and transparency.”

Leaving that to one side for a moment, the question of the suitability of the chosen contractors to deliver is a key issue. As a member of the consortium of black-led organisations that by all accounts gained the highest marks in the tender process, I was obviously keen to establish the facts. My eyes have been opened to a catalogue of questionable practices and major discrepancies in the Mayor’s tender procurement process. The official record of this process is published on the Mayor’s web site.

I checked the UEL and LAT web sites to see if either had a track record in relation to community mentoring of black boys involved n (or at risk of) serious youth violence. There was no mention anywhere of them having doing any work in this area. I then asked around and found that no organisations working on the front line of mentoring schemes have heard of either of these two organisations doing any work in the field.

So how could they have won such a huge contract especially when bidding in direct competition with experienced black providers – the same providers (us) who had been commissioned by the GLA to train the volunteers in mentoring skills – essentially, equipping them with the tools to undertake the challenging interventions required to ensure that these young black boys conceive and feel able to achieve their potential.

Our consortium was made up of top black led organisations (100 Black Men of London, Freeman Oliver, Life Skills Training Consultancy and Foundation for Life – all of whom have significant, proven and successful experience in the field of mentoring and talent management.

Our mentoring training was deemed unanimously as a success by the 200 volunteers we trained and we were also applauded for our ‘innovative approach and hard-hitting impact’ by the commissioning officers. Since the decision to award the contract to white mainstream organisations, we have been contacted by a significant number of the volunteers, many of them stating their concern that “a top class, black led consortium” has been ruled out from managing the remainder of the programme.

So maybe I was being naive – but I genuinely thought that the contract would go to one of the two black led consortia that bid for the work. And this is not based on a simple argument of ‘because we’re black we should deliver it’. It is premised on the obvious assumption that to get the outcomes required, it is important that the provider(s) have experience of working with black young people involved in, or at risk of serious youth violence. These organisations are best placed to deliver the type of scheme likely to resonate with the ‘hard knock’ black boys the Mayor is seeking to target.

Add to that, the fact that Boris Johnson fully accepted the Mayor’s Expert Advisory Group on youth violence (MEAG) recommendation that the Mentor contract should go to a proven contractor with relevant experience, community credibility and a demonstrable track record of working with gang members and black boys. Additionally, the Mayor’s office held several community meetings where Boris and his team repeatedly assured the community that they understood the importance of the programme needing to be delivered by grass-roots organisations to ensure credibility and thus, community co-operation.

The MEAG is disarray with the resignation today of one its leading members, Mr Viv Ahmun widely regarded as one the most strategic and effective black men working in the field of youth violence. In his resignation letter Mr Ahmun cites the Mayors lack of effective leadership. He writes

“Unfortunately I have seen little in the way of leadership from you in regards to this issue over the last 10 months despite my repeated emails, and points raised at our monthly MEAG meetings with you regarding my concerns.

Turning to the Mayors mentoring and confirming his clear understanding that the was Mayor fully committed to ensuring a black led mentor scheme he adds,

“ The London mentoring scheme, when initially launched over a year ago, had no scope to it whatsoever. Consequently, it’s development was supported by my colleagues and I alongside your officers, to ensure that for once a provision intended to meet the needs of black communities and more specifically, young black men at risk, would be led by a group with all the skills and capacity necessary to deliver a quality service. Unfortunately, for reasons best known to you, the contract was awarded to a partnership led by two organisations that, even when joined together, could not provide the credibility, capacity and competence needed to deliver the service. “
This represents a massive blow for the Mayor. Mr Ahmun will be a significant loss of support for the Mayor and will impact significantly on the Mayors attempt to engage with the black men community.

According to the Mayor’s report the black consortiums were knocked out after ‘due diligence was done’. This is inconsistent with the Mayors own report, which states that the tender panel had already had the due diligence information prior to the second interviews and the black consortium bids still came first and second.

In any event the London Action Trust does not appear in good financial shape. Checking on the Charity Commission website regarding London Action Trust I found the damning information in their accounts for 31/07/10.

So if due diligence was done for all the organisations bidding for the contract, it seems that the ‘powers-that–be’ have missed the fact that Boris Johnson’s favoured charity is in serious financial trouble and looks like its currently insolvent or likely to go bankrupt in the very near future. Furthermore, just to illustrate the extent to which this whole process has been fixed, one of the two black consortiums was backed by a multi million pound national charity making any issues related to financial resilience redundant.

The other partner cited in the UEL bid is a consultancy named ETHOS Consultancy. According to their website their staff consists of a total of two Directors, Martin Finegan & Dave Coker.

Information on the Internet via Companies UK shows that their accounts were overdue as of 17/07/11. It also shows that Martin Finegan has been under notice of strike-off three times in the last few months (March, May & June) and that he is going through his second notice of strike-off action as a Director for another business Exit in Ltd issued 17/05/11. He is not listed as a Director of ETHOS on Companies UK.

So once again we see a complete set of double standards and a clear breach of GLA rules. How can it be that these companies with such poor track records fiscally and in terms of administration were awarded this contract when one of the black consortiums backed by a highly reputable solvent national charity was turned down?

Let me be clear. I believe that the real reason the black bids were knocked out is that the Mayor did not want a black consortium bid to win. The Mayor it seems does not trust black people. Without a proper explanation - it really is that simple.

I also believe that the Mayor has illegally, and in flagrant breach of GLA policy and procedure, interfered with the tender process and ultimately overruled the tender panel’s initial decision. UEL and LAT initially came to the bidding process as two separate organisations, coming third and fourth respectively and the Mayor, in complete contravention of GLA procurement rules, invited them to join together and then awarded them the contract, worth nigh on £1.5 million pounds of public money, in an area in which they have no expertise or track record.

No doubt more detail will emerge over the coming months and there has been a flurry of Freedom of Information requests from concerned parties demanding answers. These include requests for the release of the sifting scores at each individual stage of the procurement process, a response to the Mayor’s undeclared interest in LAT and a copy of the Race Equality Impact Assessment as required under the Equality Act and much more detailed information relating to this tender process.

One of the black consortiums has now formally appealed against the tender decision and has submitted a race complaint against both the GLA and the Mayor’s Office. In my opinion no reputable organisation or individual should proceed with this contract or be associated with it while these very serious questions remain unanswered and a formal investigation is launched. It is very important that there is no collusion with any of the blatantly racist practices or illegality associated with this process.

For more visit leejasper.blogspot.com

It seems that even when black businesses dot all the i's and cross all the t's we still cannot get government contracts. Corporates always find a reason to say no.