INTERVIEW / A victim takes control: Herman Ouseley: The Commission for Racial Equality is riven by conflict. John Torode finds its new chairman is used to fielding flak

PAST chairmen of the Commission for Racial Equality came from rather grand backgrounds: Sir David Lane (Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge), Sir Peter Newsam (Clifton and Queen's, Oxford), Sir Michael Day (University College School and Selwyn, Cambridge). Though Sir Peter could claim a West Indian grandparent, all were British-born whites.

So the first surprise about Herman Ouseley, the 48-year-old who became the CRE's new chairman last week, is that he is black. Further, his origins are modest; he was brought up in a one-roomed flat in Brixton, south London, after coming from Guyana at the age of 11. The second surprise is that Kenneth Clarke, the Home Secretary, has appointed a man from a seriously left-wing background in London Labour politics. Almost his entire career has been spent in authorities that were once characterised as 'loony left'.

He is under no illusions about why he was given the pounds 65,000 a year post. 'People think the CRE is bloody useless. It lacks focus and a sense of purpose and that means that staff, many of whom are able, don't always function well. And if they had appointed another white man (or woman) there would have been intolerable flak.'

Herman Ouseley is a slightly-built, churchgoing Christian, with an engaging smile. He travelled alone from Guyana in 1957, to join his mother. 'My dad was a baker. He died when I was seven. It was a struggle to survive. Mum was a nurse. She worked all the hours God gave to raise the money to bring us over as soon as she could. It was the usual immigrant scene for the period. We suffered bricks and bottles through the window, I was called a black bastard and beaten up on the way home from school.'

He left William Penn comprehensive, Peckham, in 1963, with two A-levels to become a clerical officer for the old Middlesex County Council. A few years later, he became a community relations worker in a Lambeth council-funded body helping tough and alienated black youngsters. By 1979, he had become the administrator of the Labour-controlled council's community relations unit. One day, the police came to his office to arrest a young man on suspicion of assault.

'I said I would accompany him - so they arrested me, too, and held me for several hours. After all, they were looking for a black guy with a sheepskin coat and we both fitted the bill.' Eight years later he received pounds 1,000 from the Metropolitan police in an out-of-court settlement for wrongful imprisonment.

In 1981 came the big jump up the career ladder of what its detractors call the race relations industry. Ken Livingstone was leader of the Greater London Council and had launched his cultural revolution, with the politics of race and gender at the forefront. Ouseley was appointed principal race relations adviser at the then impressive salary of pounds 22,000.

He virtually invented the GLC's anti-racist policies. Until then, official approaches to race had been 'passive': remove obstacles to ethnic minority advancement, such as discrimination and low qualifications, and black advancement would follow. The GLC's approach (shared by the Inner London Education Authority) was 'active', aggressive, interventionist. Being 'colour-blind' was not enough; discrimination could still occur when employers thought they were being fair. Public bodies needed deliberate policies to recruit and promote more blacks; councils should boycott suppliers of goods and services where there was evidence of discrimination; schools should root out racist bias in textbooks; racism should be confronted at all times and in all places. 'If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem' proclaimed one poster for Ouseley's London Against Racism campaign. He still had the poster on the wall of his office in Lambeth town hall, where he was chief executive, until last week.

After an earlier spell as a senior executive in 'Red' Ted Knight's Lambeth council, Ouseley became director of education of the ILEA in 1986 and then chief executive, the first black to reach the top in local government. But in 1990 the ILEA, like the GLC before it, was abolished - partly because the Thatcher government so loathed their harping on about racism and sexism.

NOT, then, a very likely person for a Tory Home Secretary to appoint. But Mr Clarke has arrived at conclusions about the CRE rather similar to those long held by Mr Ouseley.

The commisssion has a budget of pounds 15m a year and a staff of 200. It is charged with the enforcement of anti-racist legislation, with the conduct of investigations and with education and propaganda. This is a vast remit and the organisation has never fully come to terms with it. Since its creation in 1977 it has been widely accused of lacking discipline, direction and priorities.

It has been riven by conflicts, not just between personalities but also between Afro-Caribbeans and Asians. Senior staff have resigned, been sacked or taken early retirement. Last year one top official turned to an industrial relations tribunal, claiming that the CRE's own promotion policies were racially biased. It was more than time for the smack of firm management - which might be more acceptable from a non-white.

What made Mr Clarke appoint this particular black man? There were more obvious candidates but they were not interested. Announcing the appointment last autumn, the Home Secretary referred to 'proven leadership skills'. Ouseley had earned Whitehall plaudits for his determined efforts to turn Lambeth council round since he returned to the authority five years ago. Earlier this year he produced an internal report alleging widespread fraud and corruption which sparked off a police investigation.

And what made him accept what one Labour MP described last week as 'a poisoned chalice from a Conservative goverment'? 'I did not want the job,' Ouseley said, 'and I would not have applied if it had been advertised. But I was approached and good people encouraged me to take it.'

THE new chairman promises 'a more robust management style'. Certainly, he can be robust, even prickly, in interviews. When we met he started by delivering a broadside on how parts of the press, qualities as well as tabloids, were out to get him. 'As far as I am concerned they can write all the crap and shit they like,' he said. 'But if they libel me I'll do 'em.'

Later, I said: 'I gather you are married to a white woman and have two children.' 'I'm married,' Ouseley replied angrily. 'What does it matter to you who I'm married to?' His wife, Margaret, a teacher, and their two teenagers had, he said, been subject to 'threats and intimidation'. He was determined to distance them from his work. 'In any case, I am simply not prepared to talk about my children.'

I had raised this subject in the context of ethnic monitoring, the highly controversial policy of keeping a check on whether members of minority groups are being recruited and promoted in appropriate numbers. Its advocates do not envisage racial quotas, as in the United States, but its opponents argue it could lead to them. Ouseley's aim is legislation that would force all employers and public institutions to keep records. If the balance of ethnic groups is not statistically appropriate, it would be up to the employers to prove that they had not been discriminating. If they could not do so, they would not be allowed to bid for public-sector contracts.

I had asked how the growing number of mixed-race children, like his own, would be categorised. He did not reply directly but said: 'Working-class children of mixed race identify themselves as black because society does. The inner city is a jungle. You've got to make your mind up quickly that you are black if you are going to survive on the streets and in the playgrounds.'

Ouseley sees all members of ethnic minorities as victims of oppression and so refers to them collectively as blacks, even if they are middle-class south Asians, preoccupied with religion, family and business rather than street politics. After all, there are 1,400,000 people of South Asian descent in Britain, against 880,000 of Afro-Caribbean. 'This is a very sensitive area,' said Sir Peter Newsam, CRE chairman from 1982 to 1987. 'Of course some south Asian activists actually insist on the label 'black'. But they are not typical. I have seen south Asians walk out of CRE meetings because they have been labelled black.'

Ouseley's record as a public servant is one of courage and skill; but he is used to working to an agenda set by the radical left and black activists. Now he is playing on a national stage, trying to assist the aspirations of a more diverse mix of racial communities.

Does the battle against racism need to be pursued so vigorously any more? Coincidentally, Ouseley took up his post on the 25th anniversary of Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' speech. But few now talk of mass repatriation as Powell did. Studies show that members of ethnic minorities are achieving far more educationally and professionally than they were 25 years ago. Haven't things changed for the better? Ouseley makes the point that one of his first jobs at the CRE was to deal with the aftermath of the death of Stephen Lawrence, a black 18-year-old stabbed in a racist attack by white teenagers in south London. 'It's very mixed. We all know individuals who have worked hard and achieved. But we don't see those who have been defeated by the struggle. You can't let up.'

(Photograph omitted)