We move to agenda item 5, for which members have briefing papers. The committee is invited to decide how it will implement the Parliament's mainstreaming equality agenda in its work. Do members have questions or comments on the papers? My recollection is that we are asked in particular to address recommendations 2, 5 and 7 of the previous Equal Opportunities Committee's first report of 2003.
The recommendations are intended to guide us and ensure that there is a mechanism for automatically reminding ourselves of the need to mainstream equalities issues. Whether or not we think that recommendation 7 is the most important one, the idea is that we should formally scrutinise our work once a year and ask ourselves if we have been consciously implementing our mainstreaming equality policy. Whether mainstreaming equality has a space in our annual report or not, it is important to have the item formally on an agenda because that will allow us to scrutinise our thoughts and workings on equalities issues. Perhaps there will be nothing to report on that, but it is always worth reminding ourselves that mainstreaming equalities issues is part of the committee's duties.
The clerks have made a helpful suggestion in paragraph 10 of the briefing paper, although it probably means further work for them if we accept it. They suggest that we prepare "alternative formats" for the code of conduct, which members of the public would be able to access. That would ensure that anybody who wants to find out more about the workings of the Parliament and our code of conduct would be able to do so with no great difficulty.
On that specific suggestion, are the committee agreed?
Does the committee have a strong view one way or the other on recommendation 7?
It sounds fair.
So is the committee content to agree to all the recommendations? Or does the committee share the Conveners Group's reservations about recommendation 7?
I share the reservations because there is the possibility of inverted discrimination if we take recommendation 7 in a certain direction. We should avoid that possibility. The point is that either we mainstream equality or we do not. If we are mainstreaming, I share the Conveners Group's reservations about singling out equality issues. The point is that we want to mainstream them.
I take the convener's and Alex Neil's points, but we could say that the mainstreaming of equality is at an interim stage. If we are trying to mainstream, we might as well assess for the first year or so whether we have been successful. I know that that sounds contradictory. However, if we simply mainstreamed an equality issue and then sat back while the practice failed to match the agreed principle, the principle would not be worth the paper on which it had been written. Therefore, it is important to assess how the principle, which we may or may not agree on, is getting on and whether it is being acted on. I know that my point seems contradictory, but I think that it is logical.
I would not go to the barricades on the issue. I am happy to follow recommendation 7 for a couple of years, then drop it if we are satisfied that everything is hunky-dory.
Can I take it that Mr Butler's recommendation is agreed, that the committee accepts recommendations 2, 5 and 7 and that the committee will revisit the mainstreaming issue in general after we have produced two annual reports?
I hope that the suggested procedure will fall naturally into abeyance.
I seek specific guidance for the clerks, so that they know exactly what is required of them. Do members agree to the points to which I referred?
I will now formally draw the meeting to a close, but I would like members to stay behind for a couple of seconds.
Meeting closed at 11:41.
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