10. Meanwhile, the arguments for a Board in the present situation are less cogent than in the previous circumstances when it was adopted. We are not here faced with an immediate inflow of large numbers of refugees, nor are there other complicating political factors. We have to handle a fairly substantial number but we have a reasonable control over the rate of entry.
11. If we are not to set up a Board we need to consider alternatives. It may be that there is no single alternative solution but that we may have to adopt a combination of devices. One possibility is that we could establish a strengthened unit here in the Home Office. We may have to undertake something of this kind anyway. By itself, however, such a unit is unlikely to be in a position to secure effective co-ordination. It would be in danger of becoming one more piece in the puzzle. The staff would be unlikely to have the experience and contacts in the voluntary and local authority worlds that would be needed and the voluntary organisations would be unlikely to be prepared to be dictated to by such a unit. The Home Secretary will also become much closer to and answerable for all the day to day arrangements.
12. A parallel suggestion has been that some kind of national co-ordinator should be taken on the Home Office staff. We think similar objections apply to this proposal.
13. The more promising suggestions seem to lie in strengthening the voluntary organisations themselves. One course might be to provide a full-time
secretariat for the co-ordinating group BCAR has brough into existence, and to widen the group so as to include representatives of the Government Departments concerned, and possibly advisers from the local authority associations. The secretariat could be in the Home Office or composed of seconded serving civil servants, who would be on BCAR's books and paid for by local government grant. Such a group would be likely to secure effective co-ordination between the voluntary refugee organisations themselves, and readier access to the central and local government bodies concerned. The administrative muscle they would provide would also be likely to relieve the anxieties of the other main voluntary organisations such as WRVS, Red Cross and St Johns Ambulance. Ideally, such a wider group would be chaired by BCAR, to keep up the emphasis on reception and resettlement by voluntary organisations, and to avoid slipping towards the concept of a Board.
14. An alternative might be to build on the co-ordinating machinery in other ways. One possibility would be to introduce as national co-ordinator some person with a national reputation who could lead the operation. But this would involve his acceptance by - and in the BCAR; and the full co-operation of the other voluntary bodies. Another possibility would be to support him by a small effective executive committee of some kind drawn from the various voluntary organisations on the understanding that they delegated to it effective authority and accepted its decisions. Developments of this kind, however, are getting closer and closer to a formal Board without its advantages.
15. It has become quite clear from the discussions I have had that the initiative in all this will have to come from the government. At the same time, unless we go for a Board, the solution, or solutions adopted will have to be those which the voluntary organisations themselves will wholeheartedly accept, or their value will vanish. We do not have much time to formulate firm proposals.
I was asked by our Minister of State last week, before he went on leave, to prepare a paper with various possibilities which he could consider
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