Procedures Committee, 12 Dec 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Official Report 117KB pdf

---

Equalities Reviews

We move on to our consideration of mainstreaming equalities. Again, we had a short discussion on the subject at our previous meeting and members have before them a paper from the clerk.

Three options are before us: to leave the whole subject to our successor committee in the next session of the Parliament; to deal with the whole thing and make a report to the Parliament; or to make progress in examining the subject and leave notes for our successor committee, which would mean that it would not have to start from scratch.

If we wish to press on with some work, we will first have to meet the convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee to find out exactly what that committee is looking for, as that would be helpful. Our first decision is whether to leave the whole thing to our successor committee or to try to make some progress.

From the clerk's paper, I understand that the intention is for equalities reviews to be produced at the end of each four-year session. There is no recommendation for such reviews to be produced before the end of the current session. Thankfully, I will not be a member of the Parliament in the next session, but given the timescale involved, I suggest that it would be highly unsatisfactory to commence the work only for our successor committee to have to revisit it immediately after the elections in May. Our successor committee should look at the issue in its entirety.

I want to make a point about the comments that Bruce McFee has just made. My experience of committee inquiry reports is that members join and leave committees during the progress of an inquiry. Often, different views are expressed at different stages of a committee's inquiry. It would be a bit extreme for a committee to do some work on an issue such as equalities reviews and then to expect a successor committee to give any credence to that work.

I have absolutely no problem with the principle of the proposal, which is eminently sensible. From my experience of the way in which committees act on parts of reports that they inherit from their predecessor committees, I think that it would be more sensible to leave the matter to our successor committee. The subject should form part of our legacy paper; the clerk's paper could be used to inform the way in which our successor committee looks at the detail of implementation. The right thing to do is for that committee and the Equal Opportunities Committee's successor committee to work together in the new session of the Parliament. In our legacy paper, we should say that we view positively the proposed equalities reviews, but believe that the detail is for the Parliament to decide in the next session.

Given the differing attitudes to the ways in which equalities are implemented and the political background to such discussions, it may be better for the subject to be discussed early on in a new parliamentary session rather than late on in an old one.

One argument is that it would be helpful for committees to know that they had to produce equalities reviews. That would help them to get going right from the start. I am not pushing that argument, however.

I understand that. The fact that it is on our agenda will flag it up for committees. I have always been concerned about one aspect of equalities. Like many other areas, it can be about taking a tick-box approach. People say, "We have done this to that standard. We can leave that audit trail." Frankly, I hope that any future committee that looks at the issue will consider how to mainstream equalities; we must avoid the tick-box approach.

The subject should also be looked at afresh because the discussion and fact finding should be conducted a wee bit more deeply; it should be about more than just filling in a report every four years. The Equal Opportunities Committee says that the reviews will not be particularly onerous—or something to that effect. The important issue is mainstreaming and how equalities are built into good practice.

I take on board the convener's point. We could make it very clear in a legacy paper—or however we want to do this—that some sort of audit should be done at the end of each session of the Parliament, whether in terms of mainstreaming or other issues. I am with Bruce McFee on the matter: we should be looking to see how we mainstream equalities, rather than how we separate them out. We have to be certain that equalities are part of all committees' agendas. Committees should feel that expectation on them from day one; they should not be doing the work just because they have to produce a review at the end of the session.

Equal opportunities is one of the founding principles of the Parliament. In all that committees do, they should be looking to mainstream equalities and ensuring that their work forms part of that agenda. I am not too concerned about the reviews coming as a surprise to committees at the end of a four-year session.

Right. The view seems to be that we include the matter in our legacy paper and that we do not get involved in it. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Before we move into private session, and as we have an enthusiastic gentleman from the press in the gallery, I will say something about our report on the use of parliamentary time, which is our main bit of work at the moment. Depending on how we progress in private session, we hope to publish the report either late this week or early next week. We hope to arouse your enthusiasm at that point.

Meeting continued in private until 13:02.