Equality Act 2010 (Specification of Public Authorities) (Scotland) Order 2015 [Draft]
Under agenda item 2 we will hear evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights on the order. It is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before the provisions can come into force. Following the evidence taking, the committee will be invited to consider a motion to recommend approval of the order under agenda item 3.
I welcome the cabinet secretary and his accompanying official and I invite the cabinet secretary to make any opening remarks.
Thank you, convener. I introduce my official, Gaynor Davenport, who is from our equalities unit in the Scottish Government. Gaynor will help me this morning in answering your difficult questions when we get to that stage.
I will make one or two introductory remarks. First, thank you very much indeed for this opportunity, which I think is my first appearance in front of the committee in my new role as the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights. I do not yet have to declare an interest in relation to pensioners’ rights, before anyone asks me about that.
The draft order proposes to make routine amendments to the United Kingdom Equality Act 2010 in consequence of the establishment of new public bodies and office holders in Scotland.
If approved, the draft affirmative order will ensure that Historic Environment Scotland, our health and social care integration joint boards and regional boards for colleges are subject to the public sector equality duty in the same way as similar bodies and office holders that are currently listed in part 3 of schedule 19 to the 2010 act.
The committee will be familiar with the 2010 act, which introduced the public sector equality duty requiring listed public authorities to have due regard, when exercising their functions, to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
It is clear that the new public authorities and office holders carry out public functions that should be covered by the public sector equality duty and I will touch briefly on those general functions.
First, we have the integration joint boards for health and social care. As Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, I was delighted to introduce the landmark legislation that became the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014—not the sexiest of titles. The act provides arrangements for integrating adult health and social care in order to improve outcomes for patients, service users, carers and their families. Health boards and local authorities will be required to enter into joint working arrangements in respect of certain of their statutory functions relating to health and social care services. Health boards and local authorities are already independently subject to the public sector equality duty in the exercise of their functions, so it is right that the duty is extended to the new integration joint boards to cover functions that may be delegated from health boards or local councils.
Secondly, the Historic Environment Scotland Act 2014 provides for the establishment of a new non-departmental public body—Historic Environment Scotland. The new body will replace the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland—of which I am not one. The RCAHMS is a public body established by royal warrant. The new body will also replace Historic Scotland, which is an executive agency within the Scottish Government. The 2014 act gives Historic Environment Scotland the general function of investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland’s historic environment.
Thirdly, we have the regional boards for the colleges. The Post-16 Education (Scotland) Act 2013 amended the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 to establish regional strategic bodies. The functions of a regional strategic body include funding and planning college provision in regions with more than one college of further education.
There are two types of regional strategic body. The first is a college or university that is given regional strategic body functions. There are two such bodies—New College Lanarkshire and the University of the Highlands and Islands—and both are currently subject to the public sector equality duty through existing provision in schedule 19.
The second type of regional strategic body is known as a regional board and there is currently one such body—the regional board for Glasgow colleges. The draft order inserts a reference to regional boards into schedule 19, which means that the regional board for Glasgow colleges and any new regional boards that are created in the future would be subject to the public sector equality duty.
Finally, I assure the convener and the committee that I received the required consent from the right honourable Nicky Morgan MP, Minister for Women and Equalities, before laying the draft order and I have consulted with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is content with our proposed consequential amendments.
I am happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, cabinet secretary. As this is a straightforward instrument, committee members do not have any questions. Under agenda item 3, I invite you to speak to and move motion S4M-12227.
I move,
That the Equal Opportunities Committee recommends that the Equality Act 2010 (Specification of Public Authorities) (Scotland) Order 2015 [draft] be approved.
The question is, that motion S4M-12227, in the name of Alex Neil, be approved. Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
That concludes consideration of the affirmative instrument. We will report the outcome of our consideration to the Parliament. I thank the cabinet secretary and Gaynor Davenport for coming to the meeting.
Thank you, convener. I wish every meeting was as easy as that.
09:23 Meeting suspended.