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8 October 1979
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES: ARRANGEMENTS FOR CO-ORDINATION OF WORK OF VOLUNTARY REFUGEE ORGANISATIONS
In the course of the meeting here on 23 August to discuss matters connected with the reception and resettlement of refugees from Indo-China, I announced that arrangements were being devised to strengthen co-ordination between the voluntary organisations (British Council for Aid to Refugees, the Ockenden Venture, the Save the Children Fund) involved and to provide a single point of liaison between them andother agencies concerne This announce/ was welcomed by the local authority association representatives present. These new arrangements have accordingly now been set up; they come into operation as from today and I am writing to inform you of the details.
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A small committee to be called the Joint Committee for Refugees from Vietnam - is being set up.
It will have direct executive responsibility for the co-ordination of the work of the Voluntary bodies's members will represent the British Council for Aid to Refugees, the Ockenden Venture, the Save the Children Fund and the Home Office. A Chairman has yet to be appointed, but is is hoped that an announcement will be made before very long. The Joint Committee will meet at regular intervals, probably every two weeks. In addition, an Advisory Council is to be set up (under the same Chairman) whose membership will include representatives of other bodies concerned with the Vietnam refugee programme (it is hoped that the local authority associations will consider be- coming members of the Council, when proposals for its setting up are circulated in due cours The Joint Committee (and the Advisory Council) will be serviced by a full-time Secretaria staffed by officials loaned from the Home Office who will be attached to BCAR but who will be responsible, in their day to day work, to the Joint Committee.
The functions of the Joint Committee and the Secretariat are:-
a)
To plan the overall requirement for reception centre accommodation and to
co-ordinate the work of the voluntary refugee organisations in the search for reception centres.
b) To liaise as necessary between the voluntary refugee organisations and local
authorities and other agencies.
c)
a)
To operate the system of calling forward refugees to fill reception centre
vacancies (Secretariat).
To act as a central point for receiving offers of housing from local authoriti
and others, and to co-ordinate the notification of offers to the voluntary refugee organisations (Secretariat).
To plan, within the framework of Government policy and in the light of the availability of reception centre accommodation and long-term resettlement opportunities, possible future rates of intakes of refugees.