Services funded by public money should be open to all, without alienating anyone.
The recent drive to contract out public services to faith groups risks undermining equal access.
Help us keep public services free from discrimination and evangelism.
The government is increasingly pushing for more publicly-funded services to be provided by religious organisations.
Many faith-based groups have carried out social service without imposing their beliefs. But religious groups taking over public service provision raises concerns regarding proselytising and discrimination.
65% of people have no confidence in church groups running crucial social provisions such as healthcare with only 2% of people expressing a lot of confidence.
Any organisations involved in delivering public services should be bound by equality law and restrictions on proselytisation.
Those advocating for faith organisations to take over more public services risk undermining these restrictions, which exist to protect both the public and third sector.
"We have concerns that some religious groups that seek to take over public services, particularly at local level, could pursue policies and practices that result in increased discrimination against marginalised groups, particularly in service provision and the employment of staff. Non-religious people and those not seen to confirm to the dominant ethos of a religious body, such as being in an unmarried relationship or divorced and being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered, could find themselves subject to discrimination."
Unitarian Church (Submission to the Parliamentary Public Administration Select Committee about the Big Society agenda)
There are also concerns about faith-based mental health and pastoral care in public institutions, including chaplaincy programmes in the NHS and the armed forces. Where such services are funded by the state, they should not be organised around religion or belief.
Religious commentators are often keen to document the contribution of religious organisations to the third sector and social activism. But they fail to demonstrate why it should be the state's role to build this capacity or why local authorities shouldn't have legitimate concerns about religious groups running services.
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3. Join the National Secular Society
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
Latest updates
Expect shift of healthcare to places of worship, say MPs
Posted: Tue, 13 Sep 2022 08:54
Faith groups will receive "increasingly significant" amounts of public money to run community services such as healthcare, MPs have said.
In a report launched last week, the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on faith and society says the public should expect faith groups to be "increasingly involved in the leadership and management of 'secular' referrals and key worker care in the community", and to receive "increasingly significant amounts of public funding to do this".
Some projects have already received "hundreds of thousands of pounds from public funds", according to the report.
The report, 'Keeping the Faith 2.0', outlines how partnerships between local authorities and faith communities have strengthened during the COVID-19 pandemic, and explores how this relationship can be embedded as a "new normal" in Britain.
The report says the "growing use of worship and other faith-based centres" in the delivery of statutory mental health and public health is "likely to be a permanent feature of health and social care provision".
It says: "Expect more churches, mosques, and temples to have clinical health care facilities grafted onto them or integrated into the existing building infrastructure.
"Expect more professional care staff to be operating out of worship centres as primary health, social and mental care is carried out from these locations rather than GP surgeries or traditional outpatients' departments".
The report says faith groups have a new "sense of power" after helping people during the pandemic and saw it as "an opportunity to reconfigure tired and outdated thinking and practice". A faith community hub leader in a London quoted in the report said: "it's about invading the public square".
The report says faith groups "will doubtless welcome this renewed attention and appreciation, and the opportunity to contribute goods and services without being required to 'edit out' their core religious values and beliefs".
The APPG on faith and society, which is chaired by evangelical Christian and Labour MP Stephen Timms, aims "to highlight the contribution to society by faith-based organisations".
Government pushes faith-based public services despite public unease
The government has increased its use of religious groups in the delivery of community services in the past few years. In July it announced the 16 recipients of its £1 million 'faith new deal pilot fund', a grant for organisations to provide community services which excluded organisations that were not faith-based.
This followed the government's 'faith engagement adviser' Colin Bloom launching a call for evidence into engagement with faith communities in 2020 which appeared to prioritise responses from faith-based perspectives.
In the same year, a report from Conservative MP Danny Kruger recommended the government "invite the country's faith leaders to make a grand offer of help". He dismissed concerns regarding faith-based public services as "faith illiteracy" and "faith phobia".
Research consistently reveals the public are wary about outsourcing community services to faith groups.
2016 polling by the Oasis Foundation found 65% of people have no confidence in church groups running "crucial social provisions such as healthcare" with only 2% expressing a lot of confidence.
And last month, YouGov polling found the majority (57%) of Brits said religion has an overall negative influence on the world, against 19% saying it has a positive one.
The APPG says "mistrust from secular agencies" in letting faith groups deliver public services is "bordering sometimes on intentional prejudice".
The report's recommendations include commissioning "a process of religion and belief literacy as a contribution to culture shift in all partners".
The APPG encourages local authorities to sign up to their 'faith covenant', which is intended to guide interactions between local authorities, faith groups and the general public.
Following Bloom's call for evidence and Kruger's report, the faith covenant was altered to remove a clause that stipulated faith groups should refrain from proselytising while delivering public services. This change was made following a meeting of the APPG where one religious leader said this clause was a "stumbling block for a couple of churches".
The National Secular Society criticised the removal of the non-proselytising clause as "a big step backwards, which has been taken primarily for the benefit of faith groups and not for the benefit of public service users".
The report recommends the development of "a five-year faith action plan" for other policies including climate emergency planning, equalities and cohesion, integrated care systems and pandemic recovery.
NSS: Public services must be neutral on religion
NSS head of campaigns Megan Manson said: "This report's recommendations are deeply troubling.
"Public services that are truly welcoming to all must be neutral in the matter of religion or belief. That MPs seek to actively replace secular public services with religious providers, while stripping away protections such as non-proselytising agreements, should concern us all.
"The suggestion that more healthcare services are handed to faith groups is particularly worrying. How will this affect women seeking an abortion, LGBT+ people seeking sexual health care, or victims of religious trauma or abuse seeking counselling, for example?
"Dismissing those with genuine concerns as 'faith phobes' who need re-education in religious literacy is insulting and will do nothing to alleviate the fears the increasingly irreligious public has about mixing religion with healthcare and other public services."
NSS: Don’t let religion impede women escaping violence in Scotland
Posted: Wed, 27 Jul 2022 16:33
Using faith groups to deliver services for women experiencing violence may risk exploitation, the National Secular Society has told the Scottish government.
The NSS warned against outsourcing services tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) to religious groups which proselytise to service users or fail to support women's equality in response to an independent review established by the Scottish government.
The review aims to develop a new funding model that will "ensure high quality, accessible specialist services" across Scotland for those experiencing any form of VAWG.
Women's groups must "constantly contend" with faith groups
The NSS said there are "specific concerns" regarding outsourcing VAWG services to religious groups.
It said many religious organisations do not support women's equality because they bar women from leadership roles or teach that women are subordinate to men. They may also oppose access to contraception and abortion, which may be "essential" to victims of VAWG.
The NSS said moves in England to give government funds to faith groups offering community services has attracted criticism from Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters, which defends the rights of women in ethnic minority communities. She said SBS has to "constantly contend" with faith groups which claim to deliver services to women and children subject to domestic abuse but in reality puts them "at further risk of abuse and harm".
Proselytising "alienating and exploitative"
The NSS said it is "essential" that religious groups are not allowed to run public services "for the right to proselytise to service users", which can be "alienating and exploitative".
It gave examples of faith-based charities, including those for women involved in sex trafficking, which offer prayer to service users despite the Human Trafficking Foundation Slavery and Trafficking Survivor Care Standards including a non-proselytisation clause.
It also highlighted a report from the Evangelical Alliance presented to the Scottish Government in June, in response to the government's announcement that it would commit £50 million over the next five years to community organisations helping people battling addiction. The report, which includes examples of Christian groups that offer "Bible studies as pastoral support", said it aims to "demonstrate the value and necessity of directing this funding toward many of the pre-existing faith-based programmes across Scotland".
NSS: Government should "exercise caution"
NSS head of operations Helen Nicholls said: "Many faith-based groups offering community services that operate according to high ethical standards and do not proselytise.
"Unfortunately, there are many others that do not. However well-intentioned, some faith groups cannot resist using community services as an opportunity to preach to vulnerable and desperate people.
"Others may adhere to conservative religious ideas about women, which at worst can put women at even greater risk of harm.
"We therefore urge the Scottish Government to exercise caution in working with religious organisations to tackle VAWG. It should refuse to work with those that do not uphold basic principles of equality based on sex, sexuality or religion or belief, and those that push an unwanted religious agenda".
The independent review closes on Monday.
Southall Black Sister's founding member Pragna Patel will be speaking about women's rights and secularism at the NSS's Bradlaugh Lecture in Manchester on October 1st. Tickets are available here.
