Westway Trust has formally apologised for its behaviour in relation to the African Caribbean community and has committed to implementing all the recommendations of the Tutu Foundation Report into institutional racism and to go further.

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It is also the intention of the Trust to pro-actively progress a coherent community led reparations programme of activity. The Trust has made a commitment to work with the Community Advisory Group for at least five years in the pursuit of improvement.

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All staff will read the Tutu Foundation Report and receive awareness raising around the report, its history and reparations within their induction period. During this induction, the five elements of Reparations are explained and discussed. These are:

• Non-Repetition - The reforms made by the Trust will contribute to the non-repetition of previous acts.

• Restitution – Individual and Institutional: That the Trust outlines how it will repair the damage done to individuals, communities and organisations where they have been restricted, inhibited or undermined.

• Compensation - The Trust considers the question of compensation to impacted communities, including the African Caribbean community. The nature of the compensation should demonstrate commitment to the community.

• Rehabilitation - The Trust considers the scope of the rehabilitation required in order to support those who have been impacted by its decisions and actions and gives careful consideration as to how such intended rehabilitation can be best communicated and its impacts monitored.

• Satisfaction - In partnership with the CAG and in consultation with the community the Trust should consider how it can best memorialise what has happened in relation to institutional racism and its historical legacy with the Borough. In doing so, the Trust should develop and sustain creative and robust mechanisms to monitor and measure community satisfaction with its programme of reparatory justice.

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Westway Trust is pursuing a programmatic approach and will consider a judicial approach in the future. The programmatic approach will be based around four outcomes:

• Recognition: This outcome recognises that harm has been done and revealed itself, including by testimony delivered by individuals in the Tutu Foundation Review process. Partners in the reparations programme need to recognise the history and present situation. It recognises that people have agency in their repair, can lead it and may lead it in culturally specific or diverse ways. It recognises that the programme can assist towards gaining equal rights and equality and that people should relate to each other as equals and respectfully.

• Restoring Trust: this is a requisite for positive social interactions. We must work to restore equality, respect and inclusiveness. This does not mean the absence of useful process and accountability, it means that motivations are taken to work in favour of the vision.

• Restoring Opportunity: This outcome is to rectify opportunities that have been systematically removed from the African Caribbean community. It is not legally based, even though the law allows proportionate actions supported by evidence. We acknowledge the need to restore balance that was removed from this community. The emphasis being that African Caribbean people can again play a leading role in creating opportunities and have agency in the spaces and services that are enabled.

• Strengthening Solidarity: This may only be manifested in the later stages of our work because of our starting point, but it is highly motivational. It requires anyone participating in the framework to have a willingness to put themselves in the place of others.

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Empathy is a precursor to the ability to fostering dignity and for anyone that feels disadvantaged to know that their interests are recognised to allow their contribution to a just society.

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These four outcomes allow a programme to be forward looking and demonstrate that reparations are being considered in moral terms. The next stage will be to develop indicators for each of the outcomes.

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We are making this commitment to work together in good faith and progress will be shared with the wider community regularly, via this website and through other means.

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If you are part of a group or organisation that would like to understand more about reparations, then please get in touch with the Trust at info@westway.org

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 - Westway Trust and the Community Advisory Group

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