Equal Opportunities Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Official Report 294KB pdf

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Reform of Parliamentary Business

Item 4 is on remodelling the parliamentary week. The Presiding Officer and the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee have replied to our letter about the consideration of equality issues in the work that led to the proposals and in the work that will be done in light of the proposals. We are invited to note the letters. Do members have comments on them?

I am not entirely sure whether both letters addressed the question. The Presiding Officer says that she is mindful of the issues and I note that she has spoken to the business managers and the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. That committee says that there is an understanding that an equality impact assessment would be carried out, but it does not say that that has been done.

Has that assessment been done or is it on-going? We have raised the issue, so it might have been flagged up and people might be considering it, but I am not sure that either letter answers the question whether an equality impact assessment had been done. That is my reading—the responses in both letters are quite vague.

The issue is about not parliamentarians but everyone who works in the Parliament—it is important that that includes our valued staff. Another aspect is public perception. How the Parliament handles publicity in the media about the reform is important.

Like Dennis Robertson, I was pretty underwhelmed by the responses. I do not think that whatever happens as a result of the proposals will have an immediate huge impact on how diverse our future parliamentarians are, but we would not want to do anything that inhibited the fullest participation from everyone—be they parliamentarians or staff—in the parliamentary process in the long term. I do not know whether we should write again, to ask for clarity.

MSPs are the minority group in the Parliament. We must take cognisance of the broader workforce, but I am not sure whether that is clear in the responses.

I felt that the responses were a bit lukewarm and vague; they did not definitively answer the question. I agree with the concerns.

Does a due process exist for substantive change? I do not know the due process in the Parliament—it might be through the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. Who would be tasked with ensuring that an equality impact assessment was done or considering whether one was required?

I have just been informed that the SPCB would deal with that. If we write again, we could ask a question about the due process.

Does that mean that the SPCB appoints someone to do the assessment?

The work would be undertaken within existing staff resources.

My dilemma is a little more basic. I am not sure that I know what the proposed changes are—that might be down to my lack of inquisitiveness and inability to keep up with things. Does anybody in the committee know what the changes are?

We are talking about changes to the parliamentary week.

A report was published.

There is a view to holding chamber business on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and tweaking the times at which things are done. There has been a report that suggests a change to when committees sit.

Right. On that basis, I am clear that the question that the committee posed—through you, convener—has not been answered. It seems that the change has materialised into something that is, in my opinion, fairly significant. I would have thought that it would be essential to have an impact assessment accompanying that.

Dennis Robertson is absolutely right. The letter from the convener of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee states:

“I understand that it is SPCB policy to undertake an EQIA for any substantive change”.

However, in the Presiding Officer’s letter—she chairs the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body—there is a conspicuous absence of any reference to an equality impact assessment. I am concerned about that, and I think that the committee should be concerned about it.

Certainly. There has been a report on a change to the parliamentary working week, and Parliament will have to make a decision on the proposal. The change has not been decided one way or the other. I am not sure whether some type of assessment will be done if the change is agreed to, or whether an impact assessment will be done beforehand.

If the change is to be subject to a parliamentary debate before a decision is taken, the question whether there has been an equality impact assessment is surely of fundamental importance in informing that debate.

We could certainly write to the Presiding Officer again to ask whether an impact assessment will be carried out before and after.

We should repeat our question, convener. Has an assessment been done, and if not, will it be done? Parliament cannot make a decision on any substantive change unless an assessment has been done.

The inference seems to be—although this may just be the wording of the response—that something will be agreed and an impact assessment will then be carried out. However, our options should be informed by an assessment that is done in advance. That seems to be the flaw in the process.

If an assessment had been done, I would have expected a copy of it to appear as an appendix to the response that we have received. It is vital that we are seen to be transparent.

We could write a firmer letter.

With thicker ink.

We could note the comments in the convener’s letter, but write a firmer letter to ask for clarification.

I know that time is tight and we have our programme to follow, but I do not feel that our letters to other committees have been given due importance. Perhaps it is time for us to have a question-and-answer session with the convener of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, because our points were totally ignored.

Some things have been thrown into the response that I find very patronising. For example, no one was asking how question time should be taken forward—we were asking about the impact of changes to the business week in Parliament. I do not believe that it befits anyone to write back to the Equal Opportunities Committee to tell us about transparency in the chamber when that was not the question that we were asking. To give us more information on certain issues that the other committee believes are equality issues while not giving us the information that we asked for is totally disrespectful.

It had been suggested that the requirement to read out questions could be removed—

That was one of the suggested changes with regard to how we proceed, but we asked about the impact on the working week, which is totally different. How we go about that and when it will happen are separate issues. Reading out the questions is an important equality issue, but that is not what we set out to ask.

I think that we all infer from the tone of the replies that no equality impact assessment has been done. That is a material omission if the Parliament is to be asked to debate the proposed changes.

Absolutely. Would the committee be content if a firmer and more stringent letter was sent? If we do not get a sufficiently clear answer or we are still not happy with the response that we get, we can consider holding some kind of evidence session. Is the committee happy with that?

Do we need to consider the timeframe?

We need something that leaves us in no doubt that an equality impact assessment will be done. The responses do not leave us in no doubt about that.

If we look at when our letter was sent and the date of response—

The difference is about a month.

Yes. It took them a month to respond.

Why would it take a month to respond to the simple question whether an equality impact assessment has been done? Perhaps there is a reason that I do not understand.

The letter from the convener of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee states:

“any change within the scope proposed could be supported from within existing staff resources”.

That is reassuring. It adds:

“The overall effect should be cost neutral”.

If there are additional late-night sittings, that suggests that people’s work patterns will be altered and that there will be childcare issues and broader care issues. It would be reassuring to know whether the staff trade unions have been consulted on the proposals.

Siobhan, did you want to come back in?

No. Dennis Robertson made the point that I was going to make.

Okay.

On Dennis Robertson’s point, I am not defending the other committee, but we had a recess in February, and I do not know whether that committee meets every week or fortnightly. That might explain why it took a month for us to get a response. I would hate it if another committee was disparaging about ours because it did not know the full details.

That is understandable.

I think that the first course of action that we should take is to write again in firmer tones. Our letter will reflect the points that we have discussed today, and we will wait and see what the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee’s response is. Does the committee agree?

Members indicated agreement.