Greater Manchester VCFSE Leaders set out 10 areas for action to tackle rising community tensions
The Greater Manchester voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) Leadership Group have shared a paper that highlights a need for more coordinated action across our city-region to respond to rising community tensions.
Locally and nationally, we are seeing an increase in hate and fear related to race, religion and gender, in particular. The latest national hate crime statistics for the year ending March 2025 show that there were 115,990 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales - a 2% increase compared with the previous year. There was a 6% increase in race hate crimes and a 3% increase in religious hate crimes recorded by the police. There was a 19% increase in religious hate crimes targeted at Muslims, with a spike in these offences seen at the time of the Southport murders and subsequent disorder, highlighting the real-life impact of damaging online rhetoric.
This paper is a summary of priorities and areas for action from the GM VCFSE Leadership Group to help guide further Greater Manchester System engagement and action, and to shape the VCFSE sector’s own actions in relation to ongoing community tensions.
We look forward to continuing to work together with our public sector colleagues on these issues.
