TNAG-1274-FCO40-1624-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 127

Local Authority/

local Community

Involvement

scheme under which refugees, including some Vietnamese, benefit doubly by being themselves employed and being able to use their skills to help others in the refugee community.

21. The value of the existing MSC courses prompts the questions why there are not more, especially courses specifically designed to help the Vietnamese with skills training and the running of small businesses. We are pursuing these questions at present with MSC. If, as we have been told, the terms of the MSC regulations are an obstacle, we hope Employment Ministers will consider an amendment.

22. It may be that the services which the agencies provide have to some extent shielded the statutory authorities but our aim over the period has been to encourage them to take on their full responsibilities for meeting social needs among the Vietnamese and to persuade them that even more help is needed. The Joint Committee for Refugees from Vietnam has met representatives of the Association of County Councils, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Greater London Council, the Inner London Education Authority (the London Boroughs Association submitted a paper; the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities met separately with Refugee Action operating in Scotland).

23.

The local authorities have done a tremendous amount for the Vietnamese, particularly in the areas of housing and education and we expressed our gratitude to them for this. We put it to the associations, however, that it was inappropriate for the Vietnamese unlike any other minority group to continue to rely on centrally organised and funded social and community services for their continued development and support; what was required were services provided from within the community on a more normal long-term basis. The associations recognised that the Vietnamese were clearly a special case presenting a wide range of often acute problems calling for social service intervention and interpretation too: they valued the specialist support which the agencies have been able to provide in dealing with a range of problems - a JCRV paper prepared for the meeting had drawn attention to statistics of social work problems relating to child abuse, the elderly and mentally and physically handicapped. They argued, strongly that the agencies' specialist assistance could not be replaced by local authorities at this stage without some recognition by central government of the additional burden which was being carried for example by an extension of section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 to cover the Vietnamese or by an exemption from imposition of grant penalties, for expenditure incurred for the Vietnamese. If government was not prepared to move on either of these issues they suggested that it could not argue that its funding of the work of the refugee organisations should cease.

24.

We return to this argument later but at this point it gives an indication of the difficult situation in which the agencies have had to work and against which their achievements in stimulating local developments in many areas should be measured.

25. The agencies have had close dealings with the authorities in each area where the Vietnamese are settled. They have not sought to argue to the authorities that they should take on the responsibility for the whole network of workers funded hitherto by central government but have recognised that the strength or weakness of the Vietnamese communities settled in particular areas determined need. There were a number of ways in which authorities if they chose could respond to this need, either directly or through the use of grant

5.