NRI to head Commission for Racial Equality in UK

Singh, currently the chief executive of Haringey council in north London, was chosen from a strong field including Peter Herbert, chairman of The Society of Black Lawyers and Beverley Thompson, strategy director of the National Association for Care and Resettlement of Offenders.

He succeeds Sir Herman Ouseley who stepped down on January 31, this year. Singh told PTI on Saturday that he is delighted to have been appointed to head the Commission. “This presents a huge opportunity and an equal formidable challenge, both of which I welcome.”

Singh, who came here from Punjab at the age of six, went to the University of Sussexwhere he read Political Science. Singh said the political environment is right in the country and the national political leadership fully shared the commitments of the Commission for achieving racial equality.

"Hopefully in the next four years we will achieve the desired result," Singh, who will take over full time responsibility as Chief of the Commission in mid-May, said. Announcing the appointment, Straw said, “We are setting a new agenda across the public, private and voluntary sectors, trade unions and management. We must step up development of action to root racism out of our institutions and systems, to embed multiculturalism into the mainstream of British life, and to engage the youth of the nation in promoting equality."

He said his government is determined to realise "our vision of Britain as a nation which celebrates its diversity, which utterly rejects racial hatred and discrimination, and truly embodies the principles of justice and opportunity for all its citizens.

"There is simply noexcuse for tolerating culture which holds people back, or offers them anything less than the rights and respect they are entitled to." Straw said, "There is nobody who can doubt the existence of the barriers, we need to break down, or the complacency in many quarters which we need to overcome. But I am confident that by combining our energies and our commitment real progress can be made."

The term of the Chairman of the Commission is four years. Other appointments to the Commission will be announced shortly.

Throughout his career, Singh has worked and established strong ties with black and ethnic minority communities. He worked for the Commission for racial equality as a housing specialist in the late 70s before joining Haringey council, where he became London’s first Asian chief executive, earning one lakh pound per annum.

His new job means he will take a pay cut of nearly 18,000 pounds per annum as he will be getting 82,000 pounds per annum. At Haringey, Singh was responsible for developing separatesheltered housing schemes, each with an "ethnic minority warden" for Afro-Caribbeans, Asians, Cypriots, Jews and Irish.