Equal Opportunities Committee, 01 Nov 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Official Report 252KB pdf

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Budget Process 2006-07

Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 15th meeting in 2005 of the Equal Opportunities Committee. I remind all those present to turn off their mobile phones. We have received apologies from Marilyn Livingstone, who is attending a meeting of the Edinburgh Tram (Line Two) Bill Committee. Nora Radcliffe has advised me that will leave at 10.30 as she has to attend another committee meeting.

Agenda item 1 is our consideration of the 2006-07 budget process. I am pleased to welcome the Deputy Minister for Communities, Johann Lamont. The minister is accompanied by Yvonne Strachan and Laura Turney from the Scottish Executive's equality unit and Jackie Walder from its Finance and Central Services Department. I give a warm welcome to all three officials and invite the minister to make an opening statement.

I am very pleased to be back before the Equal Opportunities Committee. Today's meeting provides us with a useful opportunity to talk about the 2006-07 budget process and related areas of work. I look forward to our continuing discussions.

I am sure that the committee is keen to ask a number of questions about the work that the Executive has done over the year since I was last at committee. I will therefore limit myself to updating the committee on the improvements and progress that we have been able to make to the way in which the budget, as both a document and a process, deals with equality issues.

As the committee knows, our work on the budget is an evolving process. The budget process has been amended to focus work on spending review years, at which time the major spending decisions are made. The committee will have noticed that there was no annual evaluation report this year. We have shortened the process in non-spending-review years to reduce repetition; in a non-spending-review year such as this one, when there is little change in the budget numbers, the process is lighter.

There are also no major changes to targets in non-spending-review years. New targets were published last year in spending review 2004 for 2005 to 2008. We noted the committee's comments on the targets and will take them into account when we set new targets in the next spending review. The committee will also note that we have taken on board many of the recommendations that were made by this committee and by the Finance Committee. Those recommendations have resulted in improvements in the way in which the budget documents deal with equality issues.

Today is the first opportunity that the committee has had to formally scrutinise the Executive's spending plans for 2006-07 since their publication in September. As the committee can see, we have made a number of changes to the way in which equality issues are embedded into the draft budget. We have taken account of suggestions that were made last year by this committee, the Finance Committee and the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group. Members of that group include officials from the Executive's equality unit and Finance and Central Services Department and representatives from the Scottish women's budget group, the Equality Network, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality. Professor Arthur Midwinter, who is an adviser to the Finance Committee, sits as an observer on the group.

Building on the work that we have done to date, we have continued to incorporate information on spending and equality work in the budget. We have again provided details of the activities of different portfolios on equality issues, along with details of spending and work on the Executive's other three cross-cutting priorities of closing the opportunity gap, sustainable development and growing the economy. Alongside the other cross-cutting themes, the promotion of equality is one of the fundamental principles of the Executive and it informs all the activity that we undertake to achieve our targets.

That is not to say that we do not have work still to do—obviously, we do. We see what we are doing as a work in progress. We also need to ensure that we have the data that tell us that we are making progress and that we have the commitment at all levels of Executive activity to deliver on equality across everything that we do. The draft budget for 2006-07 contains a section that outlines the way in which the principles of equality and closing the opportunity gap are contributing to the promotion of equality in Scotland.

We also outline our work with the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group and the way in which we have been working to develop tools for gender analysis of the budget through our two pilots in the areas of smoking cessation and sport. Having looked at the issue of health inequality, we identified those two areas as priorities for tackling that inequality. I hope that the committee will agree that the Executive has achieved a great deal in this area over the past year. I will be happy to take questions on the progress and outputs of the pilot projects.

Of course, the committee will also want to be kept informed of the other work that we are doing to mainstream equality across all our departments, including the mainstreaming work that we are taking forward in housing and education. We have evaluated that work. If the committee has any questions on the subject, I will be pleased to talk about the evaluation and the way in which we will take forward this work.

We have a mainstreaming equality team in the equality unit that is working to develop equality impact assessment tools and processes to embed equality across policy and practice in the Executive. I am sure that the committee will also be interested to know that we are in the process of equality proofing the closing the opportunity gap targets. We recognise that those two areas of work are not necessarily synonymous and that equality issues need to be taken into account if we are to deliver successfully on them too.

We have also learned some valuable lessons from the participation of the Health Department in the recent Equal Opportunities Commission gender equality duty pilot. All that work is interlinked and is part of a broader programme of work that we intend will deliver on the equality issues that are, of course, of interest to the committee. We will continue to ensure that the committee is kept informed of our work. I will be pleased to engage in further discussion with the committee on all that we have done.

The draft document is part of an on-going process. We will, of course, continue to make improvements to budget documents; we are always pleased to consider any suggestions as to how we might improve them. However, I will continue to stress, as I did last year and as my predecessors did in the past, the need to find a balance between keeping the budget documents workable and accessible and responding to the many requests to include more targets, impact assessments and performance indicators supported by statistics that are disaggregated by sex, ethnicity, disability, age, geographic area and so on. That said, I am happy to discuss any suggestions and any method by which we can continue to refine the budget documents and the budget process at the same time as we further our commitment to deliver on equality issues.

Thank you. I welcome your statement. I agree that there has been a welcome change over the past few years with regard to the budget and equal opportunities. The overarching equalities statement in the draft budget is more comprehensive now. However, the Equality Network believes that the budget documentation would benefit from

"a clear definition of equal opportunities, based on that in schedule 5 to the Scotland Act".

It believes that such a definition would assist departments in considering equalities across all budget strands. What are your thoughts on the suggestion?

It is worth saying at the outset that I welcome the very positive comments that the equality bodies made on the changes to the budget process. Their comments are encouraging—it is an example of dialogue producing results.

In response to the Equality Network's point about including a clearer definition of equal opportunities in the budget documents, I would say that the equal opportunities definition in schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 sits behind the terminology of the draft budget—it is almost taken as a given. I cannot see a problem in including it in next year's draft budget document. It would be a relatively straightforward amendment to make. We will pursue the suggestion.

Thank you. That is welcome.

You also spoke about the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group. Will you give us an update on the group's current priorities?

In working to mainstream equalities in its policies, the Executive likes to look at the distribution of resources over a range of issues. We work with our partners on the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group—the name is easy for other people to say, but self-evidently not easy for me—on a number of things that will improve the presentation of information on equalities issues in budget documents. We are working on raising awareness of the need to mainstream equalities into policies and budgets and investigating ways in which to monitor Executive expenditure on various groups.

The most recent activities include the commissioning of research into the budget process. The group has also been holding expert seminars. For example, on 14 June, a gender proofing expert, Professor Diane Elson, made a presentation to Executive staff and members of the group. The group is also pursuing two pilot studies in the areas of smoking-cessation services and sport. The studies will provide an analysis of existing services, the extent to which policies are working in practice, how much is spent on providing services and whether there are barriers to access for women and men. The pilot studies are smaller-scale versions of the equality audits that the committee recommended.

As the pilots are now complete, we look forward to being able to update the committee at a later stage on the outcomes of that work and on how the group believes the work might be taken forward by the Executive. I am certainly keen that we have a sustained dialogue between the group and the Executive on those issues. Perhaps that dialogue could also involve the committee.

That would be welcomed. The committee is keen to have an on-going dialogue with the group and the Executive on those issues.

Do members have questions for the minister? I am sure that there will be questions on the issues that she covered in her reply to my question.

Good morning, minister. Thank you for your opening statement.

Although the Executive has gone some way towards taking on board the concerns of the committee and of other equality groups, the committee still has a concern about changes to spending. That concern is shared by the Equal Opportunities Commission, which was particularly concerned about changes that have been made to spending plans since last year and about how the impact of those changes is equality proofed. For our scrutiny of this round of the budget process, we have been asked to focus particularly on the changes that have been made to spending plans and, obviously, we will do that from an equalities perspective. However, we have found that the information is not readily available from the budget documentation. Can the equalities impact of changes to spending plans be made more explicit in the budget documentation for this year and future years?

I hope that the committee's consideration of the budget will highlight those sorts of practical issues, such as the things people found difficult to follow or track. Although the committee is not quite an external eye looking in at the Scottish Executive's budget, it certainly provides some independent budget scrutiny, which I think is the purpose of today's session. I assure you that we will take on board any comments that appear in the committee's report.

One concern is that there seems to be no equality proofing of moneys when changes are made to previous spending plans through resource transfers between portfolio areas. Basically, we want to know how such transfers impact on equality issues. Perhaps you are right in saying that the committee's consideration of the budget today will be the start of an independent scrutiny of the budget. However, basically, our concern is that it is difficult to track equality outcomes at the end of each stage of the budget process.

As I said in my opening remarks, the challenge is always to make the documentation both accessible and useful. I recognise that we still have some way to go in allowing people to track both the spend and the equality impact of that spend. Yvonne Strachan might want to say something about the work that we have done on that.

As the minister rightly said, the group is continuing its consideration of those issues with the finance people. The process of extracting, recording and reporting the right information is perhaps the main issue that the group is trying to address. The group will then be able to make suggestions on how the process might be refined and made clearer for the committee. That is what the group is endeavouring to do.

However, as the minister said, we still have some way to go. We hope that, in the light of the pilot studies, we may be able to develop tools that will help us in that process. However, for the time being, we are happy to accept the points that you have raised. We will reflect on those and consider how we might improve the documentation in the year to come.

I have a small follow-up question. I accept entirely that the group is fairly new and is engaged in a long-term process, but my question is about why the changes were made and what the aims behind those changes were. I am sure that the aims included equality proofing. However, the group is obviously engaged in a long-term process, so I accept what you are saying.

Do you want the minister to respond to that point?

Basically, I want to know why the changes were made. Obviously, the Executive aims to achieve equality proofing, but that aim does not seem to be kept in mind for budget transfers. As I said, it is difficult to follow such changes. We do not yet have information on whether such changes will end up in achieving the aim of equality proofing.

Many changes have been made because our committee and other organisations have asked for changes. I think that you are saying that that can make the changes difficult to follow.

It is quite difficult to track how the spending plans have changed from those of previous budget documents in cases when, instead of providing new moneys, the Executive simply transfers existing resources. We do not yet have equality proofing of such changes.

It is fair to say that there is uneven development across the Executive on such matters. It could be argued that there ought not to be any change, so that people can track the process properly. However, we need to make changes to respond to what people are asking for. That is perhaps the core thing that we are trying to reflect on. First, we will want to look carefully at what you say about that issue in your report. Secondly, we can make available to the committee a detailed explanation of particular changes.

The committee welcomes the inclusion in each portfolio chapter of measures that are aimed specifically at promoting equalities. Can you provide us with some background on the decision to include those, bearing in mind that the Executive resisted the idea during budget scrutiny last year? What explains that change of mind? We think that it is a good decision, but it would be interesting for us to know how it was arrived at, given that last year the Executive did not think that it was a good idea.

That is the power of persuasion.

Well done. Was it us or you? It does not matter, because we got there.

There is no doubt that measures such as the gender equality duty begin to concentrate people's minds, so that they see that they will need to get a bit ahead of the game. It is recognised that there is a rationale and a logic to what is being asked for. It is not an extra, but something that is embedded in the process of good budgeting and management of portfolios. It is also important to be aware of what the pressures will be at a later stage.

You said that different portfolios seem to be at different stages of development on the issue. The communities portfolio sets clear objectives that relate to its spending priorities, whereas the transport portfolio outlines aims with no spending plans or specific targets. What more can the Executive do to make equalities targets more uniform across portfolio areas, with specific and measurable targets?

I return to the issue that you raised previously. Last year, we suggested that if we concentrated on closing the opportunity gap and related issues, we would also be addressing equalities issues. That was a significant move. The Executive recognised that there are certain inequalities that do not relate to people's social or economic position—a point of which many members of the committee are already aware. Discrimination on the grounds of race and gender is not simply about poverty, although the two are connected.

Your second question was about equality targets.

There is much more developed treatment of the issue in some portfolios than in others. What can the Executive do to bring them all up to the standard of the best?

There is uneven treatment of the issue. Some equalities bodies have commented on the fact that there is a significant distinction between what the communities portfolio has done and what others have done. Partly, that reflects the fact that people in the communities portfolio have greater awareness of the issue and that it is much more closely related to the other issues with which they are involved. The communities portfolio has a great deal of cross-cutting responsibility. Many of the services for which we are directly responsible will be delivered through other departments. It is inevitable that there will be differences between departments. The challenge is for a dialogue to continue across departments. Yvonne Strachan may want to say something about the practical steps that have been taken to bring that together.

In the practical development of the budget documents, there is liaison with departments across the piece, both through the Finance and Central Services Department and through our work in the equality unit, to ensure that information on equality is given. It is connected primarily with the mainstreaming of equality and the awareness and understanding of equality issues in policy development. As we have always said, that is an integral part of our work.

Our activities to improve the mainstreaming of equality are critical to the ability of departments to reflect that in their budget statements. The increase in the support that we give to departments is reflected in the fact that we are now undertaking a dedicated two-year period of work to help the process internally, which is in addition to the work that we have done before. The aim is both to give support to departments on policy development and to provide them with the tools and means to mainstream equality. We hope that, as the next year progresses, we will become better at that than we have been until now.

I am interested in exploring further the differences between departments and between portfolios. To take one example, the Environment and Rural Affairs Department is pursuing the aim of having more green spaces, particularly in deprived urban communities. That department views that aim as a target for resources. At the same time, however, the Education Department might wish to have more public-private partnership schools. That is happening in Coatbridge, for example, where it is proposed to build on existing parks and green spaces for that purpose. Are such conflicts being monitored and addressed?

A lot of those matters are addressed by the planning system and through policies relating to sportscotland. It is not presumed that PPP schools will eat into green-belt land or playing fields. In my area, it must be established that there is an alternative and that if a space is used, a space is provided.

I am not sure whether there is the kind of conflict between departments that you are suggesting. Departments have to make their own priorities, and they have to be accountable for them. Ministers will be accountable for the choices that are made. At a policy level, it is a different matter. We need to find a way to get people to think not just about the mainstream policy needs but about any particular issues for people with disabilities and any equality impact that they need to be aware of.

The committee might wish to explore some issues with individual departments. It strikes me, looking at some of the budget process, that it is at the department level that some of the dialogue should take place. Within the Executive, the equality unit has the opportunity to generate that debate. Accountability must be rooted in the departments, too.

It is inevitable that departments and ministers will make their own judgments on where they want resources to be. If we take subsidiarity into account, local government will make decisions on where its priorities lie. The test here is to ask to what extent we are able to ensure that, when departments and ministers make their decisions, one of the things that they feel they must take into account is the equality impact of those decisions, in terms of both consequences and parity among various groups.

The minister makes a fair point, although the committee might wish to explore this area further. The fact that we are doing the process in this way perhaps makes it a bit easier to establish whether there are any contradictions—if that is what you would call them.

We need to carry those contradictions in our own heads. Planning and housing are good examples. People always say that we need more houses and that we have not created enough affordable housing. However, we must also have a rigorous and accountable planning system. There are pressures there.

There will be an opportunity for the committee to examine the work of other departments if it wishes.

As we have already said, we very much welcome the separate section in each portfolio area on promoting equalities. We agree with the Equality Network, which has said that the new material will be vital in ensuring year-on-year monitoring in each portfolio. Has the Executive any plans to develop further its reporting of the promotion of equalities within the budget documentation?

As I have said before, the implications of the new duties will have an impact. It seems to me that the budget process needs to facilitate the process as well as being a part of it. Information will be required there, although I am not sure whether practical steps are being taken now.

Not in such a way that we could give a firm report to the committee as far as those duties are concerned. The way in which the Executive tries to report is in response to the way in which material is received by parliamentary committees and the public in general. The intention is to ensure that, while remaining consistent with the information that is given, which allows comparisons to be made, we make improvements where we can. These deliberations will be extremely helpful for that process.

My questions will go further along the same line, but they are more about specific targets. Only a few portfolio areas have specific equalities objectives and targets set out at the start of their budget chapter. Evidence from the Equal Opportunities Commission suggests that such top-level targets are crucial in ensuring that the departments understand their equalities commitments. Is the Executive considering a requirement for each department to include equalities targets?

The Finance Committee suggested that we reduce the number of targets, and that is a pressure on us. Most departments have some equalities targets, although we need to improve and refine all our target setting so that we include, where possible, more disaggregated sub-targets for equality groups. We must work with departments to get the balance right.

We also recognise that targets are at a higher level. Inevitably, however, some areas of activity will not be highlighted by a specific target. That creates a pressure on us as we cannot say whether that is a help or a hindrance. The duties imposed on us have implications for how we deal with the budget. We need to be open minded, and I will welcome comments. The consultation on gender equality goals and schemes may throw up some issues.

There is certainly a tension surrounding the number of targets. Perhaps the committee might pursue that issue by writing to departments instead of holding a formal evidence session.

The Equality Network said in its evidence that there is a lack of measurable follow-through from objectives to targets. It cites the example of the commitment in objective 1 of the "Education And Young People" chapter of the draft budget to

"promoting equality, inclusion and diversity".

However, the only target that could feasibly relate to equality is that for Gaelic-medium education. How can the Executive ensure that once equality objectives have been set, targets are set to meet them?

That is part of the same argument, is it not? When does attaching a target and an equality impact to every policy objective become unhelpful? The test is the extent to which we are mainstreaming thinking on an issue. We must be careful when discarding what we may think to be an unnecessary target that we are not discarding equality targets disproportionately. That is my concern. I would not like the committee to think that I am saying that equality targets will be the first to go because there is pressure to reduce targets. I acknowledge that, but I think that it would be cumbersome to have to decide on a target and an outcome for every policy area.

It is worrying, however, that we accept so much as implicit. When we write to the departments, we get answers that, if not exactly dismissive, are close to being so. There is a difficulty in presuming that a thing has been done implicitly only to find that it has not been done at all. I agree that it is a difficult balance to strike.

The point that I was trying to make, and one on which I want to reflect further, is that if we have not mainstreamed equality thinking into departments, they will hone the process by screening out equality considerations by saying that they are implicit. We know that in driving change, we must be more explicit on equality issues than on others. That is because equality issues have not been as mainstreamed as we would have hoped. I would like to reflect on that, and further discussion on it might be useful. I am all in favour of streamlining, but if it is removing aspects that might be considered edgy and difficult, that could be a problem. We might look at that further.

The Equal Opportunities Commission said that it would like specific equality objectives and targets relating to the Scottish Executive's equality strategy to be in the budget documents.

I hope that the group can look at that.

Thank you.

You said earlier that the Executive has evaluated the work of the housing and education mainstreaming pilots. Can I take you up on your offer to update the committee on that?

Yes. As you know, we reported last year that the two pilots would be subject to an evaluation. The analytical services division of the Scottish Executive Development Department appointed a dedicated mainstreaming equality researcher in 2004 and she has provided analytical support to Executive officials, including those in the equality unit. She evaluated the two pilots and submitted her report recently.

It is fair to say that the evaluation provides us with a great deal of positive information about the progress that has been made on mainstreaming equality in housing and education. It also provides food for thought on how we can address some key learning points in order to continue to progress the agenda, maintain momentum and convince people that the work is necessary.

The work is by no means complete. The mainstreaming team in the equality unit is considering the evaluation and assessing what steps we should take next—first, to maintain the momentum and continue the work in housing and education and, secondly, to take the learning points from the pilots and use them to inform mainstreaming work and equality impact assessments in other departments. A recent example of equality work in the Education Department is the continuing research to review our strategies for addressing gender inequalities in Scottish schools.

The evaluation identified a number of examples of good practice in mainstreaming equality in housing, although it is clear that we still have much to do to maintain the momentum and drive the work forward. Equalities have been mainstreamed in the development of community warden schemes, for example, and a report on embedding equalities issues into the work of the housing improvement task force was published in 2002. Attention was paid to disability and Islamic finance in the consultation paper "Maintaining Houses—Preserving Homes" and, in January 2004, Communities Scotland established its strategic equalities group to develop and oversee the strategic development of equalities within the agency. Communities Scotland has been active in engaging with equalities issues and mainstreaming and it launched its draft equalities strategy for public consultation in November 2004.

An equalities focus has been incorporated into the Housing (Scotland) Bill and in the work of the housing improvement task force. The regulation and inspection department of Communities Scotland is committed to mainstreaming equalities in its operations and practices. The report "Black and Minority Ethnic Communities and Homelessness in Scotland" was published in 2004 following the work of the Scottish Executive's homelessness task force; the revised version of the code of guidance on homelessness will incorporate some of the key findings of that report.

Mainstreaming principles have also been followed in taking forward the recommendations of the Scottish refugee integration forum. The needs of refugees should be taken into account when local authorities are updating their housing and homelessness strategies.

The Executive's work on mainstreaming equalities in education has focused on schools. The schools group in the Scottish Executive Education Department has designated two officials with responsibility for providing a focus on equality work. Equality provisions have been incorporated into key pieces of legislation on education and the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill was passed by the Parliament on 1 April 2004. Anti-racist education resources have been funded and implemented and the Scottish Executive has increased funding for the centre for education for racial equality in Scotland. The department is also working on other issues, including bullying.

The Executive supported the Minority Ethnic Learning Disability Initiative to develop a resource pack for parents and families of minority ethnic children. In the first phase of mainstreaming anti-discrimination into the curriculum, the Education Department is considering what the current curriculum offers in terms of equality and how we should proceed. Other work includes research to review the strategies to address gender inequalities in Scottish schools; consideration of the department's capacity to produce leaflets and publications in other languages; and the consultation exercise on the School Education (Ministerial Powers and Independent Schools) (Scotland) Bill, which was launched on 6 November 2003 and forwarded to groups that are concerned with equality issues.

We will let you know when we have considered the evaluation report, at which time the committee might want to have further formal or informal dialogue on the matter.

I did not hear you mention the Zero Tolerance Trust's respect project. Do you know anything about that? You mentioned an impressive list of projects, but are you satisfied that monitoring and evaluation is taking place to the extent that you expect?

We have to monitor the position, keep the pressure on and sustain people's commitment. It is one thing to say to someone, "Go and get me a list of things you have done that look as if they're about mainstreaming equality," but it is a different matter for people to realise that they have done that work because they have mainstreamed equality into their thinking.

The Executive has supported the work of the Zero Tolerance Trust and it continues to fund packs for schools and so on. Indeed, I had a meeting with the trust recently to talk about other areas of interest. That is a good example of where people act as a resource to the Executive and bring knowledge, understanding and direction that we perhaps would not have access to otherwise. I cannot give you details of how we are supporting such organisations now—I can get it to you later—but I can say that we are committed to that on-going dialogue with all the organisations that have particular expertise and something to offer in that regard.

That would be helpful. Convener, could the committee use part of a future meeting—perhaps one that does not concern the budget process—to examine the research, once we receive it?

Yes, and that could be linked to what we are discussing.

There is a lot going on in education and the dialogue with individual departments is interesting as well.

Given that one of the main parts of our remit relates to the mainstreaming of equalities, the committee would want to return to the issue.

Can the minister give us an update on the proposal by the committee last year that targeted equality audits be undertaken to facilitate the scrutiny of the equality impact of the Executive's spending?

As I have mentioned, the Executive has undertaken two areas of work that we would argue are smaller-scale versions of the equality audits that the committee has recommended. First, under the auspices of the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group, the Executive has undertaken two pilot studies in the areas of smoking cessation services and sport to analyse the needs of men and women for a particular service and to determine which of those needs the existing policies are intended to meet. The recommendations and action planning emerging from that work will help us to take forward further work on equality audits, so we are looking to see how effective that has been. Once the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group has had an opportunity to consider those recommendations, I would be pleased to talk to the committee about how the audit work might best be taken forward. I recognise that the pilot work is focused on two specific areas in the Health Department. As I am sure you are aware, this is a work in progress that, by its nature, is by no means complete.

The second area is the work that has been carried out by the Equal Opportunities Commission to pilot gender action planning in the Health Department. That pilot work, which has been well received, has been undertaken as part of the preparations for the forthcoming gender equality duty and has involved the assessment of the department's policy and functions in order to prioritise areas for action on gender equality.

Will you also give an update on the current position in relation to the gender impact assessment pilots that the Executive is conducting and an indication of whether those could serve as a model for the type of equality audit that the committee has previously recommended?

I might have already mentioned some of what I will say in my answer to that question. There has been considerable progress. Again, we considered health equalities and focused on smoking cessation services and sport. The aim of the pilots is to find a way in which we can assess the equality impact of mainstream spend in order to devise a method that is tailored to fit existing practice and can be used to assess the equality impact of spend across all equality groups. I am hopeful that the work on the pilots will inform future activity.

Has the Executive considered using existing analysis methods, such as workforce monitoring, to measure equality impact?

We need to ensure that we are using the resources that already exist. A range of things is going on in various places and we need to mainstream that as well and make it coherent. We should not be operating in silos. Someone from the analytical services division was involved in the housing mainstreaming work that we did and, as you would expect, they had a generic and mainstream view of how we should research and analyse something. That is important.

The committee is interested in the on-going issues surrounding equality audits. The pilots have been very good and have demonstrated the worth of carrying out equality audits in other areas so that we can measure how successful or otherwise the mainstreaming agenda has been. We will want to come back to that.

Minister, I will ask you about public sector targets. Despite 30 years of legislation, sex discrimination and gender inequality are still widespread and consistent in workplaces. I note that, although the draft budget contains specific equality employment targets for the Scottish Executive Administration, it does not mention any strategies for the development of equality employment targets in the public sector. In its written contribution, the EOC states:

"It is not clear to us why the Executive can place performance and service delivery targets on the public sector, but is not in the position to demand equality in public sector employment."

You mentioned that, to some extent, the gender equality duty might help to sort that out. I am interested in whether the implications of the public sector duties can be reflected in the budget documentation. Can you do something with that to encourage and promote the observance of equal opportunities throughout the public sector?

As you say, we continue to lead by example by setting targets for the Executive to employ women in senior positions, ethnic minorities and disabled people. Although we have no similar strategy at present that promotes or encourages target setting in the wider public sector, we should consider that, especially given the forthcoming public sector duties to promote disability and gender equality.

By way of illustration, the gender equality duty will place a statutory requirement on public authorities to eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equal Pay Act 1970 and to promote equality of opportunity between men and women. We would not necessarily want to be prescriptive about how public authorities should comply with the specific duties, because we have different relationships with different public authorities. Equality of employment might form part of the goal and target setting that public authorities need to undertake in order to meet their gender equality duty. That will be part of the on-going dialogue.

The gender equality duty will require public authorities, including Executive departments and agencies to carry out gender impact assessments on all relevant policies and to set out their plans for promoting gender equality through their work. It will also require public authorities to develop an action plan on equal pay.

I welcome the gender equality duty, but we have been asking such questions during the six-year existence of the Parliament and the committee. Earlier, you said that we want to be ahead of the game when we can be. I am still looking for an answer to why the Executive can impose performance and service delivery targets and other requirements on public services and public authorities but not equality targets. I do not understand that. I understand that the Executive has different relationships with different authorities, but in some ways the Executive is able to dictate and I do not know why that is not happening with equality—I am genuinely asking why not.

As I have said, we need to consider that further. The gender equality and other duties change the context in which people discuss and act on these matters. I hope that we can consider the issue in more detail through the consultation. I recognise the distinction that you have made, but we have to reflect on the matter further.

I am talking about how there seems to be no recognition of equalities in the awarding of contracts at local authority level, for example; the committee has raised that issue before. However, I accept what you say. The committee might want to consider the matter again.

The Equality Network thinks that the finance and public service reform portfolio chapter of the draft budget should reflect the equality activities undertaken by the bodies that the Scottish Executive delegates as spending authorities—for example, national health service boards and local authorities. What are your thoughts on that proposal?

I am always in favour of keeping in with the Equality Network and other equalities bodies. We want to reflect further on their evidence and committee members' commentary. I have already said that we will look at the suggestion that there should be a sharper definition of equal opportunities.

I have spent two and a half years on the Finance Committee, so I can bear out what you said about the improvements that are being made to equality proofing, as was reflected in many of the changes that were implemented. The only issue that seemed to lag behind the others was ageism, which was accorded a much lower priority. To what extent do you intend to alter that situation?

We have made a general commitment to equality of opportunity, but I recognise that there are ageism issues. Indeed, Westminster is in the process of legislating on the matter, if it has not already done so.

It is not the Finance Committee and the budget that will determine what we do about ageism, although it will be important that the budget process underpins and delivers our position on equality, once we have taken it forward. We are developing our policy on ageism. Responsibility for older people lies in the communities portfolio and the minister, Malcolm Chisholm, has been active in working with a range of senior forums and groups to ensure that the policy and strategy are right. We will then attack and interrogate the budget to see whether it matches our policy aspirations.

I take on board what you say, but I remember an evidence session with the minister when we spoke about lifelong learning. It turned out that grants for people who wished to take advantage of lifelong learning were not made to people over the age of 65. That type of thing should be looked into and eliminated.

We could have a discussion about grant support for different age groups. However, the point is well made that the Executive should marry its commitments to equality and to older people with its policies in individual departments. We all have a role in developing that approach.

The Equality Bill at Westminster should make a difference in that respect. Elaine Smith indicated that she wanted to ask another question.

The minister answered it earlier in response to another question.

The minister answered a question—that should be underlined in the Official Report.

As members have no further questions, I thank the minister for her evidence this morning and suspend the meeting for five minutes to allow for the changeover of witnesses.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—