Council spends £15,000 on asylum seeker art

HOUNSLOW Council spent £15,000 on an art project for asylum seekers, its accounts have shown.

The grant paid to the Refugee Art and Cultural Enterprise (RACE) group is one of many items the authority has faced criticism for splashing out on since its accounts were made public last week.

Elsewhere almost £20,000 was spent on specialist alcohol counselling for ethnic minorities, while the council spent almost £80,000 on counselling its own employees.

RACE - which describes its purpose as 'to advance the education of the public in artistic taste and knowledge by providing exhibitions and public performances produced by refugees and asylum seekers' - used the money to help fund a £70,000 sculpture on the Butts Farm estate.

Sally Smith, who lives on the estate, said: "It's a staggering waste of money if you ask me. We would prefer good services such as weekly bin collections rather than hearing that our taxes are being blown on art projects for asylum seekers.

"I don't see why the council spends so much time trying to tick boxes and neglecting what it's supposed to be doing. I'm sure any asylum seekers living around here would prefer the money to be spent on processing their applications rather than stupid sculptures."

The £78,700 spent on counselling in the 2008/09 financial year - which could have paid the wages of three extra teachers - was described by the council as 'vital'.

A spokeswoman for the council said: "These are vital employee support services shared between all Hounslow schools, Hounslow Homes and the council. Like many large private and public organisations, we provide these types of support to minimise costs of staff sickness absence.

Hounslow's staff absence levels are now amongst the lowest in the country."