We are familiar with the scenario. Disgruntled or marginalised people riot: all hell breaks loose for a few days: politicians talk about initiatives: projects are funded... nothing happens.

Brixton and Toxteth may be exceptions to the above; Manningham, however, is an example. The scene of the 1995 riot became the beneficiary of more than £9m Single Regeneration Bid money (another £2m of European money was spent on restoring Lister Park). But tour that Bradford West area today and you would not know where the SRB cash has gone.

Worryingly, the same can be said about the much bigger £28.5m SRB scheme for Barkerend in Bradford North, the vicinity of tit-for-tat violence since the conflagration of July 8. Last month Tahir Mahmood resigned from the scheme; the temporary board, he believed, had become more interested in power than delivering services to the community.

Not surprisingly, frustration and suspicion are compounded when the benefits of these schemes are trumpeted loudly in the media, but then fail to materialise, leaving everyone in the dark.

All this strikes a chord with Dr Roger Ballard, above, Director of the Centre for Applied South Asian Studies at the University of Manchester.

"Although a great deal of money has been spent on all manner of inner-city projects, most of which are more or less explicitly designed to assist the ethnic minorities", he says, "hardly any of them give rise to a long-term commitment, or are integrated with mainline structures of service delivery.

"Very rarely is there any concern to recruit people with professional qualifications, especially in projects designed to assist the minorities.

"Instead large numbers of young people with minimal qualifications are taken on as 'community workers', 'link workers', 'classroom assistants' and so forth".

Dr. Ballard takes the view that all too many of these projects are no more than a whitewash.

"Local authorities can always point to these people as evidence of action being taken; but what are they actually able to contribute in terms of delivering effective services? Paradoxically enough, there are now an ever-increasing number of well-educated young Asians emerging from the universities. However my experience is that whenever such young professionals take mainstream posts in cities like Bradford, they start asking awkward questions which their colleagues do not want to hear; and in the face of such opposition, most simply move off elsewhere.

"Yet nobody in authority seems to mind very much. Instead they turn to a group of people who present themselves as 'leaders' and 'representatives', and who are old hands at putting in project applications.

"Fluent in English and knowing how the system works, they create whatever projects the funders suggest."

Dr Ballard, who gave evidence to the Ouseley report, says that getting the proper delivery of services right is essential to create the conditions for the unconditional acceptance of diversity by ALL the people of Bradford.

"Firstly, only hire professional people to do professional jobs. Secondly, take care over job descriptions. Thirdly, there must be a commitment to developing ethno-sensitive procedures and strategies for the delivery of mainline services."

Dr Ballard emphasises that a debate cannot take place if language itself is hobbled by Politically Correct terminology.

"We've got ourselves into a terrible hole by insisting that race is a moral issue and that people who transgress are somehow sinners. This is a political issue where different sections of the community have to learn and re-learn how to live together in a meaningful way."