A CHARITY arrange to advertise interfaith dialogue is getting ready to closure, after the Communities Secretary, Michael Gove, said that he was “minded” to withdraw its funding due to “reputational risk” to the Government and since a member of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) was one in all the charity’s trustees.
The Government doesn’t engage with the MCB, after a former member appeared to condone attacks on the British navy in 2009.
The Inter Faith Network (IFN) said that it had not been asked to proscribe membership of any individual, nor had it previously been advised by the department to expel any MCB members due to Government’s policy of non-engagement.
The member in query is Hassan Joudi, a former assistant secretary-general of the MCB. He was appointed as a trustee of the Interfaith Network in July 2023.
The charity said in a press release that its board had not sought Mr Joudi’s resignation, and “affirmed his role as a valued colleague”.
“IFN doesn’t endorse the views of any of its member bodies, nor can anyone member body or indeed trustee exert improper influence over the organisation. IFN’s purpose is to advertise understanding about different faiths and strength good inter faith relations. That is the premise on which it has at all times sought and been granted government funding.”
The charity had been offered £155,000 in recent funding by the department, for the period July 2023 to March 2024, and access to a £45,000 underspend from the previous 12 months’s funding — but the cash has not been handed over. The resulting shortfall signifies that its 4 members of staff have been given notice of redundancy. The charity’s board is to satisfy again next week to substantiate its closure, unless money owed by the Government is made available.
An IFN co-chair, Canon Hilary Barber, said: ”The Inter Faith Network for the UK has worked for over three a long time with Churches and with other faiths to extend understanding and cooperation in Britain in ways that are rooted in shared values, and which respect the integrity of the various faith communities. Its vital work will probably be lost unless a way forward is found on funding in the approaching days.
“The Trustees of IFN have explored many other funding possibilities but support from Government stays vital. We hope that Government will reconfirm its funding offer of last July and release the urgently needed resources to enable IFN’s work, including national Inter Faith Week, to proceed.”
A petition has been created on change.org urging Mr Gove to take care of funding. MPs, including Sir Stephen Timms, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Faith and Society, are lobbying the Government over funding.
The IFN has worked since 1987 to “advance public knowledge and mutual understanding of the teachings, traditions and practices of the various faith communities in Britain”, its website says.
Its board includes people of the biggest faith groupings, including the MCB, in addition to smaller faith groups and organisations promoting interfaith relations. The Government has funded the IFN since 2001. In 2022, the charity received government grants totalling £212,500 of its £343,250 income.
“While IFN continues to fundraise, the survival of its work can be unlikely without some government support.” the network said.
In December, The Daily Telegraph reported that officials in Mr Gove’s department were concerned that the Inter Faith Network had not condemned the 7 October Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. It also reported that two member bodies of the IFN had asked the Government to stop its funding; one in all them, Scriptural Reasoning, cited the MCB as the rationale.
A debate within the House of Commons on the withholding of funding was secured last month by the Labour MP Holly Lynch. She said: “We need the work that the IFN does now greater than ever. If we lose that — those friendships, the trust born out of that facilitated membership, and the programmes, initiatives and dialogue built up over years and years — it is going to take an awfully very long time to rebuild it.
“Even should funding perhaps turn into available in the longer term, it will be gone [by then]. It would take loads of effort and time to place it back together, and that will be an absolute travesty.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government, Simon Hoare, said that there can be an announcement on funding “sooner or later”, but that “the network just isn’t the one body that gives forums and organisations to deliver inter-community and inter-faith discussions.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities didn’t reply to questions, but pointed to a line in a note on background information on funding, which said that “all funding organisations are monitored by the department and subject to internal finance and due diligence processes.”
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