Belfast City Council and Community Foundation for Northern Ireland face claims of ‘religious discrimination’ in barring faith based groups from grants process for Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration

Rev Brian Anderson head up the East Belfast Mission, which has a particular focus on supporting homeless people and the unemployed.

He was hoping to apply for a grant from Belfast City Council to run a street party to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. But when he found out the council had appointed the Community Foundation for NI (CFNI) to distribute the funds he realised he could not apply.

“We have found before that the CFNI will not grant any funds to faith based groups,” he said. The EBM previously applied for funds from CFNI to distribute women’s sanitary products.

“But they simply said it was written into their constitution that they don’t grant funds to faith based groups and after checking with a lawyer they were satisfied it was legal.”

However Rev Anderson notes that despite being faith based, his organisation receives 90% of its funding from NIHE and Belfast City Council. And he notes that many faith based groups across NI have been given state funding for projects for decades, including faith-based schools and youth projects. So he does not understand why CFNI sticks so rigidly to the principle of refusing to work with faith-based groups, or how it can be in the wider public interest to do so.

“I would understand funds being withheld if I was using them to distribute religious literature. But that is not what we are doing.”

He has written to the Queen - whom he notes is a professing Christian believer - to ask if she is aware that funding is being withheld from groups like his for the celebrations.

Rev Anderson said that the Departments of Health and Communities both also persist in using CFNI to distribute funds despite what he describes as “the religious discrimination” in its constitution.

The News Letter put it to Belfast City Council that the decision to use CFNI meant that it knowingly ruled out funding any platinum jubilee grants for churches, faith based community groups or the loyal orders.

The News Letter asked the council to explain its rationale for using CFNI and to explain how the choice was compatible with its equality policies. The council did not offer any clear answers to the questions.

A council spokeswoman said: “At February’s meeting of the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, elected members agreed that Community Foundation NI (CFNI) would administer a funding programme, on behalf of Belfast City Council, to support groups organising community events over the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee weekend.

“Officers are working closely with CFNI to provide support to those organisations who do not currently meet CFNI’s funding guidelines, but whose proposed event meets the criteria of the fund.

“This will enable as many groups as possible to submit an application for funding before the deadline of 1pm on Monday 11 April, and no groups meeting the application criteria will be excluded, subject to the fund not being over-subscribed.”

The News Letter asked CFNI if its policy to exclude faith based groups from grants was not religious discrimination and whether this was approved by the charity Commission? The charity did not directly answer the questions.

“The founding documents of the Community Foundation have limitations in our ability to directly fund certain groups, affirmed legally,” it replied. “Organisations with purposes to advance religion can seek an eligible umbrella organisation to work with and are welcome to submit an application to the Foundation for an eligible project on their behalf.”

The News Letter also invited the Departments of Health and Communities to explain how using CFNI is compatible with equality guidelines. Neither had offered any comment at the time of going to press.

The Charity Commission said it will consider the information in full before deciding any next steps which may be required.

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