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Item 3 is consideration of a possible rule change to require committees to produce sessional reports on how they have mainstreamed equal opportunities in their work, with the Equal Opportunities Committee co-ordinating those reports into a review of all committees. The proposal to introduce such reports was submitted to the Procedures Committee in session 2 so, before taking the inquiry forward, we agreed to write to the current Equal Opportunities Committee and Conveners Group to seek their views on the proposal.
As I am a member of this committee and the Equal Opportunities Committee, committee members will expect me to support the Equal Opportunities Committee's view that there ought to be a rule change. The Equal Opportunities Committee considered the proposal last session and this session and, both times, recommended a rule change. The voluntary option does not provide enough clarity or direction for committees. Paragraph 10 of the paper notes:
I am inclined to support the voluntary option that is suggested by the Conveners Group. That approach could be reviewed at a later date.
The Equal Opportunities Committee in the previous session raised the issue and considerable work was done to back up the committee's conclusions. The new Equal Opportunities Committee has looked into the matter and has come to the same conclusions. I understand that the Conveners Group discussed the matter without taking evidence from any corner; the convener may be able to confirm whether that was the case. In my view, we should agree to the rule change that the Equal Opportunities Committee has requested. The committees of the Parliament are being asked to report on equalities once in a session. Perhaps they can gear themselves up for that when they write their annual reports in the two or three years before the final report is required.
When the Conveners Group considered the issue, I did not comment on it. I did not think that it would be right for me to do so, because this committee was due to discuss the matter. However, the convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee did comment on the proposal. She spoke in favour of the voluntary option, although she made clear that she was expressing her view, rather than the committee's view. Only the views of members of the group were sought; no evidence was taken and no inquiry was held. As I recall, broadly the group concurred with the convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee.
Option 2 in the paper is for the committee to agree to no rule change
I am not best placed to answer that question and I am not sure how well placed the clerks are. It is hard to specify what measures would be taken in support of the voluntary option. I invite Peter McGrath to comment—I am sorry to put him on the spot.
I cannot add much to what the convener has said. One option in the paper is for the committee to provide strengthened or different guidance. That work could be undertaken by the Conveners Group, the Equal Opportunities Committee or the two working together. If this committee is not inclined to support a rule change because it hopes that a voluntary option can be secured instead, it can make its view known. It is for the committee to decide how it does that.
We have been looking at annual reports. If we opt for the voluntary approach, we can review the matter in a year's time—or put it on our agenda each year—to see what the committees have done by the end of 2007-08. If there is still no improvement, we can toughen up our approach. We could send the message to conveners that we are prepared to do that. Does that suggestion appeal to members?
Dave Thompson has outlined the current position. For the past two sessions, there has been an expectation that committees will mainstream equal opportunities. Unfortunately, sometimes when we try to get bodies to mainstream equal opportunities, the issue is downgraded entirely and slides off the agenda.
I think that Dave Thompson is saying that if committees continued to neglect to report on their mainstreaming of equal opportunities, we could look at the situation again in a year. I should also say that the opinion of the Conveners Group was a wee bit coloured by a similar discussion about sustainability. There were arguments both ways about whether reporting was best done voluntarily or whether a rule change should be made.
The very fact that the committee to which Marlyn Glen referred said that if it had had the nudge before, it would have included an equal opportunities review—
Committees always need a nudge and that is the point.
But that is the voluntary approach.
It is not the voluntary approach; it is recognition that people need a nudge to include such a review. Maybe they will not need that nudge in another couple of decades, but at the moment they do.
Have all committees been written to on that basis? The sort of questions that you want them to ask will not be relevant in every case, will they? In a good many cases, the questions will have to be different.
Of course it would depend on the topic. I am very tempted to ask the Equal Opportunities Committee clerk to come and give me some hard evidence as Hugh O'Donnell is not present. It is disappointing that, although the expectation is that committees should mainstream equal opportunities in any work that they do, the reality is that they do not. They need a nudge to do it. We are not asking very much; we are asking committees to review their mainstreaming only once a session. There is nothing to stop them doing that in their annual reports so that they carry out a review four times a session. I argue strongly that we should be looking at equal opportunities whatever we are doing throughout the Parliament.
I am strongly influenced by Marlyn Glen's arguments and do not disagree with her. However, the discussion has thrown up more questions than answers. Because mainstreaming equal opportunities has been a long-standing legacy issue and there are hard facts, as Marlyn Glen said, I think that we should go for option 3, which is to seek more views. Perhaps we should seek views only from the Equal Opportunities Committee clerk and look at some of the history behind the issue before the committee comes to a decision on what we want to do. Is there a deadline?
No.
I am open about what to do and was waiting to see what the committee had to say. Dave Thompson's point is that if we write to all committees saying that we expect them to review their mainstreaming of equal opportunities, but that request is ignored again, we can say to them within a year, "If you have not included a review in your annual report or looked at the matter, you can come back to it." If we do that, we still have the chance to ensure that committees do what we would require them to do under a rule change, which is to carry out a review at least once a session. That allows some scope. That is quite appealing, but I am relaxed about seeking further views. We would have to fix in our minds who we were asking for further views—
I am not looking for a full-panel inquiry, but if previous standards committees have written to other committees to report on the issue and only two of the 15 have done so in eight years, you have to agree that that is pretty poor. If we go ahead and do the same thing again, we will just cover the same ground.
If people want to agree to seek further views, we could ask the hard-pressed clerks to look at who we could get to offer a range of views in time for the next meeting.
I am quite happy to go down that route. We should not leave the matter in the hope that other committees will take on their responsibilities, nor should we seek views that the Equal Opportunities Committee has already heard. Perhaps we should just gather some of the information that led the Equal Opportunities Committee to recommend a rule change, rather than hold a big evidence session. Perhaps we could invite the clerks to other committees to give their views.
To be fair to the convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee, she spoke to the Conveners Group before her committee had come to a conclusion on a rule change.
Right.
Would it not be simpler just to write to the Equal Opportunities Committee clerks to seek some of the historical evidence on why the committee came to its conclusion?
I do not want to create more work than is necessary; it is just that I am conscious that whenever we have asked for evidence as part of an inquiry, we have tried to obtain a balanced response. For example, Graham Blount, whom we heard from earlier, was very much on one side of the discussion.
One reason why it is important that we change standing orders is that, if we had gone along with the idea of waiting for another year to find out whether any of the committees addressed the issue, the committees could always have said, "We have not reviewed our mainstreaming of equalities this year, but we intend to do it in our fourth year." That way, the issue is put off not year by year, but session by session.
And our successor committee would have the same discussion in four years' time.
When work has been done and a recommendation has been included in a committee's legacy paper, it is up to the successor committee to decide whether to push it.
It is a year into the new session before that happens.
Whole sessions could go by without the issue being picked up.
In the letter that we send out, we could say to the committees that if they do not carry out such a review this year, we will be prompted to revisit the issue. That would give them the nudge that has been mentioned.
I do not know what stage the committees have reached in producing their annual reports for the first year of this session, but we could ask them to address the issue in those reports. Am I correct in thinking that we will not have to wait long for those reports to be produced?
I do not know what the timescale is.
The reports are published in May.
So they will be being put together just now.
The wheels will be in motion pretty soon.
Would it be reasonable for us to tell the committees that we expect them to comply with the suggested practice and to include the mainstreaming of equal opportunities in their annual reports that will be published in May? If that does not meet with a good response, we could consider the issue again immediately after the publication of the annual reports.
That is more likely to produce an early result than a rule change, and it would not rule out a subsequent rule change. We could ask the committees to address the issue as they put together their annual reports.
But the issue might slide off the agenda again next year.
Exactly.
But even if we changed standing orders, the committees would be required to carry out a review only once a session. They will do that in the next few months, if we take up Dave Thompson's suggestion.
On reflection, perhaps a combined approach would be best. I will seek a reaction to my proposal from our representative on the Equal Opportunities Committee. We are approaching March and the annual reports will be published in May. Perhaps we could seek views before we come to a final decision, which will be based on what we see in the committees' annual reports. We could make a decision on whether to seek a rule change either just before or just after the summer recess.
That is a good suggestion.
That provides a fair balance.
Will we write to all the committees to seek their views? How will we tell them what we expect them to do?
We could write to them, as it would help to give us a balanced view and would give them an early chance to prove their worth. As Cathie Craigie pointed out, the letter that will go out to committees will make it clear that, when we revisit the matter, we will take into account what they have or have not done this time. I am happy enough to go along with that, if the clerks can pick the bones out of it and everyone is happy.
But we will come back to the matter.
We will come back to it, regardless.
We are not saying at this stage that no rule change is required. We will revisit this request from the Equal Opportunities Committee—I think that we must take it seriously.
Are the clerks clear about what we propose?
Can I just clarify that, in the letter to the committees, this committee will be both encouraging and seeking views?
Exactly.
Yes. We are encouraging committees to take action for this year's annual report, and we seek their views on whether there should be a voluntary approach or a rule change in the future. They can put two and two together and work out what they should do. We have other items on the agenda, so if members are happy with that, we will move on.
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