Councillors from three different parties are uniting to halt – or at least slow down – plans to axe Warwickshire County Council's funding of an equalities service.

Warwickshire's Equality & Inclusion Partnership (EQuIP) receives a £135,000-per-year grant – more than 60 per cent of its annual income – from the county council to provide discrimination and hate crime support, equalities training and guidance through community and faith groups, businesses, schools and the public sector.

On Friday, May 22, the council's portfolio holder for resources and internal affairs Cllr Mike Bannister agreed to roll out a public consultation on whether to end that funding altogether despite a 30-strong protest outside Shire Hall and opposition councillors urging a rethink.

Cllr Bannister insisted no final decision had been made and that the consultation, scheduled to run from some point in June, had to take place to properly inform the call.

But even putting the idea to the public was enough to trigger a call-in – the official process by which councillors can challenge decisions they find unacceptable.

Provided four or more councillors sign up and the reasons behind the challenge are deemed reasonable by monitoring officer Sarah Duxbury, the council's most senior legal official, the relevant overview and scrutiny panel has to convene to run the rule over the original decision and arguments against it.

Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Sarah Boad has been backed by party colleague Cllr Jennifer McAllister, Cllr Nicki Scott and Labour group leader Cllr Sarah Feeney.

The call-in is understood to have been accepted and is set to be heard at an extraordinary meeting of the Resources, Fire & Rescue Overview and Scrutiny Committee at Shire Hall next week.

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Cllr Boad told the Local Democracy Reporting Service she believes the call was ideologically driven by Reform UK councillors without proper assessment of what EQuIP delivers with the money it gets, rendering any consultation pointless.

"If they were going to consult, that should have been on all the voluntary bodies and not just EQuIP," she said.

"It feels like EQuIP has been singled out rather than doing a wider appraisal of funding and with the council's duty to meet legal obligations on equality, we are not sure what will happen if EQuIP goes – who will deliver those services and meet those obligations?

"EQuIP does so much more than equality and inclusion – they set up disability forums in Rugby and North Warwickshire, they are setting one up in Nuneaton, they help with hate crimes. They offer such a wide variety of services and really good value for money.

"We feel that Reform has picked on a couple of words, equality and inclusion, rather than think about the services EQuIP offers.

"The contract ends next March (2027). By the time the consultation has been done and analysed and notice has been given (of any decision to stop funding), we are virtually at March anyway.

"They could just not renew the contract. I would not want that but they could have done it that way – clearly they have chosen to make a big fuss about it."

Cllr Bannister said it would be inappropriate to comment ahead of the scrutiny meeting, adding: "I am always prepared to listen to anyone. They were entitled to call it in and make their points and I will certainly address those issues at that time."

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