Oldham officials attack riot report
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Your support makes all the difference.Municipal leaders in Oldham launched a remarkable attack yesterday on the report into last summer's race riots, which blamed them for the violence.
In its official response to the Ritchie report, which the council co-commissioned after the worst racially motivated riots in this country for 15 years, the town's leaders insisted that racial segregation had played no part in the violence and questioned the report methodology.
"Poverty and social exclusion" aggravated by a lack of government funding had caused the three nights of violence, the council concluded.
The council said there was "no programme of research to inform the conclusions" about segregation.
It added that the civil servant David Ritchie, chairman of the independent review, had been "dependent on the views of the self-selected few who sought the opportunity to express their views" in compiling the report.
The council cited a council house clearance programme as a key to its regenerative efforts – a point highlighted by Mr Ritchie – but said grants would be needed to assist an effort that would cost £15m a year.
Civic leaders have never been comfortable with the report's criticisms, which were unexpectedly strong, and which suggested the council wasdoing little to challenge the racial segregation in housing and education that had gone on in the town for 30 years.
The council was accused of failing to face up to "deep-seated issues" of segregation. The report also noted that only 2.6 per cent of the council's staff came from the ethnic minorities.
Mr Ritchie said he considered that "to be a form of institutional racism" and evidence of an "unwillingness to face realities".
In an interim response last autumn, the council dismissed a proposal put forward by the Ritchie committee that it try "social engineering" – a reorganisation of its council house allocation to limit ghettos of whites and Asians.
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