A TROUBLESHOOTER appointed to ensure criminal justice agencies are respecting ethnic minority people's culture today declared: "I want to make a difference".

Stephen Little is the first ever Lancashire race issues co-ordinator in a role funded by the Crown Prosecution Service, Prison Service, Probation Service, youth offending teams, magistrates, crown courts and police.

His task is to look at how these agencies handle people from ethnic minorities and advise if there are any mistakes or areas to be improved on.

For example, the Probation Service will not make appointments with Muslims on Fridays because it is their holy day. Mr Little's job will involve ensuring similar sensitivity is employed as best practice across all criminal justice agencies.

He is also tasked with investigating how to recruit and retain people from ethnic minorities in the agencies.

His tenure is for 12 months, then another person will take his place to ensure there is always a fresh perspective.

Mr Little, 44, said: "People from ethnic minority communities can be reassured. I would like to, by the end of my 12 months, have made a difference for ethnic minority groups. My overall aim is to increase confidence in criminal justice systems across all groups. The success of this will be judged in the national crime survey. It promises to be a very challenging role.

"Our aim is to establish a register of best practice which can be used as a sort of template by everybody within the Lancashire Criminal Justice Agency."

One of Mr Little's first plans is to get all the agencies involved in acting out a court case in the presence of ethnic minority people.

He said: "It is clear to me that a lot of the minority ethnic communities don't know what the criminal agencies do."