| Lee Jasper | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1958 (age 53–54) Manchester, Lancashire |
Lee Jasper (born 1958) is a British Black activist and former Senior Policy Advisor on Equalities to the Mayor of London.[1] He resigned on 4 March 2008 following publication by the Evening Standard of personal emails that were illegally acquired.[2]
He was the subject of extensive inquiries conducted between December 2007 and June 2009 in relation to the sum of £510,000 given by the London Development Agency to south London's Brixton Base project.[3] At the time London Mayor Ken Livingstone stood by Jasper, saying: "I trust Lee with my life."[4] A later Investigation would find that Lee Jasper 'had no case to answer'.
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Lee Jasper was born in Manchester in 1958. His mother was born in the UK and is of African descent and his father is Jamaican. He moved to nearby Oldham at the age of eight and remained there until he was twenty one. He married at sixteen and was divorced by twenty one. He married again at the age of twenty four and his second wife died of lupus in 1994. He was a single parent from 1981 until 1984 bringing up his two eldest daughters whilst studying at Manchester Polytechnic.
Jasper left school without qualifications and briefly ran a market stall selling second hand clothes. In his 20's as a mature student, he gained a degree in social sciences and moved to London, where he worked at the Mangrove Community Association[5] and became involved in the politics of the Notting Hill Carnival.
Over the next decade, Jasper became one of the UK's most prominent race and human rights activists, sitting on many different committees and groups. He founded a range of the UK's most prominent national black organisations such as the National Black Caucus, the 1990 Trust and Operation Black Vote. He was also a founder member of Jubilee 2000 and Operation Trident Independent Advisory Group. He was one of only three witnesses representing black organisations at the Stephen Lawrence inquiry in his capacity as representative for the 1990 Trust. He was also a campaign group member of the Lawrence Campaign and personally organised the intervention of Nelson Mandela in support of the Lawrence Campaign.[1]
Jasper provided training for the Metropolitan Police in community issues. This role ceased in 1995 following the Brixton riots as some police officers blamed Jasper for a hardline speech that inflamed the crowd.[6]
His experience includes: Employed as Senior Policy Advisor to the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA); Director of Development of the Mangrove Trust; Chair of Mangrove Community Association, Notting Hill; Secretary, Notting Hill Carnival; Press and Publicity Officer, Interval Housing Project, Rainer Foundation. Jasper was the Director of the 1990 Trust (1995–2000), a leading policy organisation on issues affecting African, Asian, and Caribbean communities in the United Kingdom and Europe. Jasper is an ex-board member of the Royal Commonwealth Society (1997–1999). He is also the President of the National Black Students Alliance, as was also the Deputy Representative of the UK on the European Council's European National Anti Racist Network(1995/6). He is a founder member of the Equanomics network.[2]}
Jasper has chaired many committees and organisations including the National Black Alliance, National Black Caucus and the Lambeth Police Consultative Group. He is the National Secretary of the National Assembly Against Racism. He is a current member of the Black Jewish Forum and was one of the co-chairs of Communities on Line, a national organisation promoting internet usage for social and economic justice, and has been School Governor of St Andrew's School, Brixton, and Kingsdale and Chestnut Grove Schools in South London. He was the driving force behind the radical black web site Black Information Link[3].
Lee Jasper was voted one of the top 100 Great Black Britons.[7] He was also voted one of the top 10 in the New Nation newspapers Black Power List in 2007. He was one of only two people in the top 10 from the public sector.[8]
He was the Chief Political Commentator for The Voice newspaper during the 2010 election.[9] In 2010 he was awarded a Life Time Achievement Award by the NUS Black Student Campaign in recognition of his contribution toward challenging racism in higher education and on behalf of black students in the UK.[10] In July 2010 he was awarded a Pride of the Motherland Award ((Africa) at the 02 Arena by the National Consortium of African Student Societies.
He is currently co Chair of Black Activists Rising Against the Cuts ( BARAC) He is a leading member of the Coalition of Resistance anti cuts campaign. He is also the chair of the newly formed London Race & Criminal Justice Consortium and a political adviser to the 1990 Trust and a board member of Lambeth Police Consultative Group and Vice Chair of Brixton Splash. He is administrator for the "Justice 4 Smiley" campaign on Facebook.
In July 2011, Jasper controversially suggested there were similarities between the extremist Anders Behring Breivik and Mayor of London Boris Johnson.[11]
As advisor to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, Jasper earned £120,000 per year in his role as the Mayor's policy Director for Policing and Equalities. He was responsible for the development, enactment and promotion of equalities policies for the Greater London Authority (GLA) and had corporate responsibility for the development and delivery of anti discriminatory policies aimed at ensuring equality in employment practices and service delivery. He was also directly responsible for advising the Mayor on policing issues. He secured level 5 for the GLA, the highest level available for the Local Government Equality Standard; only a handful of public sector organisations have achieved this distinction.[4]
Due to his role in the Greater London Authority, he played an important part at the European Social Forum hosted by the GLA in London in 2004. This caused some controversy, as there was disruption at the anti-racist session of the Forum. His strong criticisms of the disruption[12] were in turn condemned by a small number of hard left wing groups as stifling dissent.[13]
He represented the Mayor's Office at the London's Gold Group Emergency and Disaster Committee that sat continuously throughout the 7 July 2005 London bombings. He organised the Mayor's apology for Transatlantic Slavery in 2007 and led the successful campaign to have the 23rd of August recognised as Transatlantic Memorial Slavery Day in partnership with UNESCO. He led with others the establishment of the Mayor's Commission on African and Asian Heritage in London. He oversaw the multi million pound funding and investment by the Mayor's office of the Bernie Grant Centre the Stephen Lawrence Centre, the Tabernacle Community Centre, th e Rich Mix Centre Brixton Base,among many others.
He chaired the Mayor's Notting Hill Carnival review producing the most in depth report ever produced on the issues associated with staging the event and outlining its full economic potential. He chaired the GLA Equalities and Budget Committee, also the GLA Procurement Diversity Strategy that produced a clear strategy in ensuring minority access to all city contracts. He pioneered the GLA Equalities effort resulting in the GLA being awarded Level 5 of the Local Government Equality Standard. He was responsible for London Black History Month season and led on the Mayors bicentennial anniversary of the abolition of transatlantic slavery programme that included an apology for slavery on behalf of London by the then Mayor Ken Livingstone. Jasper produced the first race, faith and disability planning guide for the London Plan the first for any city in the world. He led the Disability and Women's Capital, London schools and the Black Child annual conferences and events focussing on a broad range of equality issues. He led on the Rise Festival and oversaw the delivery of the disability arts festival Liberty and the London Asian Mela. He ensured the delivery of a high profile recruitment strategy for the Metropolitan Police Service that saw for the first time a 50% increase in black and ethnic minority officers. He led for the Mayors Office on the creation of safer neighbourhood policing teams. He also led the campaign to return the confiscated assets of criminals back to the communities that suffered their crimes resulting in millions being reinvested in London high crime communities. He was a lead member of the project team that delivered the successful Safer Neighbourhood Programme.[5]
(NPOVD Disputed -July 2009)
In March 2008 it was reported that Police investigating public funds allegations involving associates of Jasper had arrested Joel O'Loughlin, said to be a friend of Jasper's, whose company, Diversity International (DI), went into liquidation after being paid nearly £350,000 by the London Development Agency (LDA). It was alleged that the tender rules had been waived when DI was paid £346,000 to run a London website .[6]
On the same day another LDA-funded group linked to Jasper, Ethnic Mutual, was shut down by the Financial Services Authority. EM had received over £1 million from the LDA and the government, and it was discovered that £18,000 had been diverted from it to a company of which Jasper is a director.[14]
The police launched an investigation after Jasper voluntarily referred these and other press allegations to the police in a bid to clear his name. Arrests were made in response to the pressure brought to bear by the London Conservatives and the Evening Standard. Eleven individuals, all of whom were black, were arrested by the Metropolitan Police and after a two year and eight months investigation all of them were subsequently released without charge.[7]
Incoming Mayor of London Boris Johnson also launched an extensive Forensic Audit Panel investigation to examine in detail all aspects of Lee Jasper's decisions and actions whilst in office. That committee reported in July 2008 that Lee Jasper had acted at all times within his remit as a Mayoral adviser. Seeking to justify the report they did express concern about two members of his staff who were responsible for the Carnival Showcase.[15] However again these matters were referred to the police for investigation in July 2008 and in December 2008 the police concluded again that there were no charges to answer.[8]
In July 2009 all of the investigations concluded that Lee Jasper and all those included in the allegations made by Evening standard, had no case to answer.[16][17]
The most recent report, which was produced after a forensic 18 month independent investigation by the law firm DLA Piper and commissioned by the London Development Agency examined all the fraud and corruption allegations made by the London Evening Standard. The report published in June 2009 concluded that Lee Jasper had not influenced the funding decisions of the LDA and that there was no evidence of fraud or corruption. However, according to a BBC report of the investigation, although Mr Haworth-Maden said he found no evidence of fraud or corruption, he called for a number of administrative improvements at the GLA. 'His report found that Mr Jasper failed to record declared interests to the "standards expected". He also found that Mr Jasper's role in approving funding was "inappropriate given his interests" in a number of cases.[18]