Minutes:
The monitoring officer, governance & Scrutiny noted the ongoing discussion regarding a request for the review of the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) membership, to enable a Humanist representative to have voting rights.
A recent High Court ruling relating to Kent County Council (KCC), which refused to allow a humanist representative to become a member of its SACRE, was cited to support the request.
The monitoring officer clarified that the 1996 legislation required Group A to ‘represent such Christian denominations and other religions and denominations of such religions as, in the opinion of the authority, will appropriately reflect the principal religious traditions in the area’.
It was also clarified that a Humanist representative had been appointed to the Slough SACRE, as a Co-opted member and as such, had not been refused membership on SACRE. In addition, membership of Group A was required to represent the principal faiths and beliefs of the local communities.
Any review of the SACRE membership would need to be based on the 2021 Census, which in the breakdown of religions for Slough, showed 6 people who identified as Humanists.
During discussion, the Humanist representative expressed the view that the numbers did not give a fair reflection of the number of Humanists in Slough, as many people did not identify as such. He questioned the breakdown figure, and contended that the judgement from the Court ruling relating to KCC was that it was ‘unlawful’ for KCC to refuse Steve Brown’s membership on SACRE. He believed that it was discriminatory to exclude Humanist from SACRE and pointed out that Humanism was part of the non-religious world views, which was on the RE Syllabus, and that the issue predominately lay in the Group A category.
It was reiterated that Group A, needed to represent the principal religious traditions of the Borough. A full report would be brought to the next meeting for the SACRE to review and make a decision, as to whether to make recommendation for the Council to review the SACRE Terms of Reference (TOR) and make recommended changes to Category A, if agreed.
The SACRE Professional Adviser who was also adviser to five other SACREs highlighted that many other SACREs were starting to allow Humanist representatives under Group A. He added that non-religious world views should be included in this category, particularly as this centred on the issue of being inclusive. The term ‘humanism’ he believed was new to many, and therefore a significant number of people were likely not to have identified as such.
Members were reminded that the Humanist representative had been a Co-opted member for over two years, had contributed to the Slough SACRE, and therefore couldn’t be considered as being discriminatory.
Resolved that:
a) The update be noted
b) A report on the review of SACRE Terms of Reference and membership of Category A, following the 2021 Census to be reported to the next meeting, and to enable the SACRE to consider the request for representative membership to include Humanism.