Institutional racism in the lobbying system means some organisations have “preferential access” to government, a charity leader has warned.

Shabna Begum, chief executive of the race equality think tank the Runnymede Trust, told delegates at New Philanthropy Capital’s annual conference in London today that despite the new Labour government, institutional racism in the lobbying system means that some charities have more access to Westminster than others. 

Begum said during a panel discussion about engaging with the new government, Begum said that the Runnymede Trust had experienced a “stumbling start” to its interaction with the new regime.

“I would go so far as to say that this reflects institutional racism in the lobbying system, that there are some organisations that are going to have preferential access, have preferential networks already, and those organisations are going to be first in the queue,” she said. 

Begum pointed to the recent race riots that broke out across the UK this summer, saying that while the government did open conversations with some charities following the unrest, not all organisations were privy to these conversations. 

Despite the Runnymede Trust convening an open letter to the government, with signatories from 80 organisations, it was not invited to a discussion that the government held with other sector leaders, which Begum said she heard about second hand.

“So for me, part of this conversation is about how we make sure that if we’re showing up in the room in a crisis, we’re noticing who else needs to be in the room, who is absent, and who else can we help access those conversations,” she said. 

“We’re hoping to be able to be involved and support them, develop their ideas and shape them going forward, so that they are thinking about racial justice from the outset.”

But Pavan Dhaliwal, chief executive of the justice charity Revolving Doors, told delegates that she feels her organisation has had more conversations about serious policy since the new government came in. 

Dhaliwal said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the government’s relationship with the charity sector, particularly due to the government’s commitment to focusing on devolution. 

But she said there were “huge challenges ahead” and the charity sector should be a “critical friend” of the government.

“From our perspective, we really need the focus to be on getting public services back up and running before we start looking at other innovations,” Dhaliwal said.

Nathan Yeowell, founder and director of the think tank Future Governance Forum, said a new government was “never a silver bullet”, saying that charities needed to take time to work out where they could find common ground with the government and other sector organisations.

“I think it's also time to start sort of flexing our muscles and think about how we can build that relationship differently,” he said. 

“We need to work out and calibrate exactly what that current relationship is. And remember that there have to be both very private and public relationships. 

“The more time we can put into increasing the quality of that private relationship, before we start shouting that it [the government] has not delivered on every promise after three months, that would be a sensible start.”