The future of an organisation which helps people in Oxfordshire who have been racially harassed has been put in jeopardy after Oxford City Council pulled the plug on its funding.

The Oxfordshire Racial Equality Council now has no financial support at all from Oxford City or Oxfordshire County Councils, which had previously provided £46,720 of the £120,000 annual running costs.

Director Patrick Tolani admitted the organisation, which deals with about 150 cases of racial harassment each year and has been running for 30 years, did not have enough money to keep going.

He said: "We are very disappointed not to receive any funding locally and I feel they should be backing us."

The remainder of the funding comes from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the Big Lottery Fund and various Government grants. Mr Tolani said he was now seeking further Government funding.

He said: "I am upbeat that we will get the money from them, but for the moment we do not have all the money that we need.

"The city council funding is really crucial and our relationship with them is still a crucial one."

In 2007-8, the city council awarded OREC just more than £24,720 and the county council, which stopped supporting the organisation in March last year, had previously funded it to the tune of £22,000 a year.

The city council threatened to withdraw funding last year over concerns of mismanagement before a last-minute reprieve.

Mr Tolani said: "All the local noise about non-performance were just things that the city council and county council made up. I feel there has been a conspiracy against the organisation."

A spokesman for the city council said that its grants programme had been oversubscribed and OREC was low-scoring compared with other applications.

She would not comment on the concerns over mismanagement raised last year.

Oxfordshire County Council corporate strategies manager Adrian Harper Smith said: "Funding was withdrawn because of our concerns relating to the executive committee and the inability to retain key staff for any length of time with a subsequent impact on services.

"There has been a failure to adhere to the organisation's constitution."