“Towards an Equality Strategy”
I welcome the Deputy Minister for Communities, Jackie Baillie, who has come to give evidence on the equality strategy. I invite you to give a brief introduction to the committee, after which we will ask questions. I understand that you want a dialogue with, and feedback from, the committee.
Absolutely. I welcome this opportunity to have a discussion. I hope that today's session will be less about questions and answers and more about where the committee thinks we should place the emphasis in what we are doing.
I noted that the officials from the Scottish Executive's equality unit attended your meeting on 20 June and gave some of the technical responses and background to the consultation document. Today, I will outline our thinking and the timetable to which we will work. I would like to get a clear sense of the committee's views, so that we can take those views on board before we start to put pen to paper in finalising the strategy.
I shall begin by detailing the timetable. In July and August, we hope to organise a series of thematic events with grass-roots organisations from the ethnic minority community, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community, women's groups and disability groups, to ensure that we have on board the views of those community interests as well as those of the statutory interests and the people who usually respond to consultation documents. At the same time, we will engage departments across the Executive in a discussion, as there are internal and external implications for local government and local enterprise companies, which we want to get bedded down quite quickly. By roughly mid-September, we will seek Executive approval of the strategy. Thereafter, in late September, we hope to have the opportunity for a debate in the Parliament. That is the broad timetable.
There was broad support, which we very much welcomed, for the aims and principles that underpin the equality strategy. In taking the agenda forward, we want to focus our attention on three components: first, the Executive, both as an employer and as an exemplar of practice; secondly, the integration of equality in policy legislation, budgets and service design and delivery; thirdly, the promotion of equal opportunities. In taking forward those three broad areas, we will make clear the context in which we are operating and make clear linkages with modernising government, especially the social inclusion agenda.
The key themes that emerged from the consultation and which we found helpful were: support for the mainstreaming approach; the need for partnership working; the establishment of on-going channels of communication and dialogue; and the importance of training and awareness raising and, equally, of a sound statistical and research base on which we will operate. Finally, a strategy that is dear to my own heart is that we should have a real action plan, with targets and a monitoring framework, so that we can measure success or otherwise and identify areas where we may need to do more. The Executive will support all those approaches and ensure that the strategy reflects those key themes.
On the Executive as an employer, we are already working on a diversity strategy in the civil service to improve performance across a range of grades and functions. Further, in relation to mainstreaming, we will take specific actions on guidance and training on equality appraisal and we will work to develop equality impact assessments for budgets. We will look to improve the statistics base and to put in place a framework of performance indicators and monitoring and evaluation processes.
In addition, many of you will be aware that we will be considering the issue of public appointments, on which I have issued a consultation paper. We will review consultation frameworks and, based on what has been said to us, devise a communication strategy that takes us forward.
On promotion, we will work closely with others, as that is not a matter for the Executive alone. However, we will take a lead and consider the possibility of public awareness campaigns throughout Scotland in each equality area. We will consider disseminating best practice in the most appropriate way and consider carefully how we promote equal opportunities, not only within the Executive but across the whole public sector.
Those are our initial thoughts on where we want to go with the consultation document. I would welcome input from the committee on whether it feels that the direction and emphasis are right and whether it perceives any gaps. To a little criticism, we took an approach that was deliberately open and inclusive and did not involve any preconceived notions. That applies equally to the committee's views, which we want to take on board. I hope that there is an opportunity to have that dialogue.
Thank you, Jackie.
Do members have questions and comments for the minister?
I accept that the consultation paper is an Executive paper and that the Executive will present the responses to the Parliament. However, the first of your three overriding aims about promotion of equal opportunities and integration of equality is that the Executive as an employer should be an exemplar of good practice in equal opportunities. Why not extend that aim to the Parliament? Is there a good reason why it should apply only to the Executive? Why not involve all MSPs, in relation to all their work, here and in their constituencies? Surely we ought to disseminate good practice as widely as possible. Why not start—once the strategy has been agreed—by talking about the Parliament as an exemplar, as well as the Executive?
Sure. I would have no difficulty if the strategy were rolled out in that fashion, but clearly, I can make plans only for what the Executive will do. It is for Parliament to decide whether it wants to go down a similar route. Naturally, I would be minded to welcome that as an outcome. If we can get the strategy approved, the next port of call will be to ensure that it is followed by the Parliament and used as an example of best practice in Scotland.
I welcome the consultation and acknowledge the fact that there has been wide communication to get to this point. Progress has been good. Given the clamour that there will be from groups that will want to have an input, I am worried that the time scale will mean that it will not be possible to continue the communication and ensure that feedback comes from the right people and can be considered properly and acted on. Is the time scale too tight, or will it be flexible enough to take into account the fact that there may be a surge of interest?
I think the timing is flexible enough. We have had a three-month consultation period, during which we sent out 4,000 copies of the document and received 185 responses. That was the first stage. The second stage is about engaging with smaller community and grass-roots organisations that may not respond to paper-based consultations. We want to facilitate the process to ensure that their views are taken on aboard. We have from August until the end of September to ensure that those groups are included fully.
A strategy should not be static; it is very much an evolutionary process. The detail, in terms of the action plans that will be taken forward, will provide on-going opportunities to influence or even change the agenda and to put additional emphasis on certain areas. I am not therefore terribly worried about the time scale. It builds in time for what we want to do—grass-roots consultation—but also allows for the strategy to develop over the years.
I have two questions. The first is more or less what I asked Yvonne Strachan two weeks ago, but I am not trying to check up to see whether you give the same answer. I was at the annual general meeting of the Poverty Alliance on Friday, as was Tommy Sheridan. The alliance asked me to talk about the relationship between the equal opportunities agenda and the social inclusion agenda, which it is concerned about. The section of your report on definitions and so on covers that. People are concerned that, on the one hand, social inclusion does not always take on board the equality areas with which you deal, such as gender and race, while on the other hand, the equality strategy does not seem to take on board the poverty agenda. People are asking how the two can be knitted together. It seems like a good idea to do that. What are your thoughts?
It is not just a good idea; it is essential. However, they are two fairly substantial pieces of work and trying to bring the time scales for both in line with the time scale to which we were operating for the social justice document was difficult. Officials, politicians and the Parliament need to make the connection between the two. The first way in which we have bedded that down is that the social justice document makes explicit reference to the fact that social inclusion is broader than poverty, and is about lack of opportunity, discrimination and ensuring that there is equality of opportunity for all. The second approach, which will be particularly helpful in taking forward the work of the equality unit in a practical way, is that every measure that we have put in place will be disaggregated over time on the basis of gender, race, disability and so on.
An exercise is under way to identify the gaps. For example, more data are available to us based on gender disaggregation, but very little information is available based on race or disability disaggregation. Those gaps are being identified and addressed. That was a clear commitment in the social justice framework.
Research has identified two main causes of exclusion. There are those who experience exclusion as a result of discrimination based on difference—any difference—and those who experience exclusion arising from a period of crisis. We will focus on those causes as part of our life-cycle approach and ensure that we bed down equality issues there. We should not lose sight of the fact that, as we roll out the mainstreaming approach across departments, it will apply equally to the social inclusion division. That will mean that it will build in the equalities dimension to its work in a practical, daily way.
Those are the current linkages. We are exploring how we further mesh together equality and social inclusion. It is clear in our minds that they are very much linked.
A lot of specific work has to be done in each of the equality areas. Concerns may have been expressed that the equality document was not explicit enough and in some ways was a bit general.
Last week, we heard from Jim Wallace about the Stephen Lawrence steering group. I know that you are involved in the race equality advisory forum. To reassure people that detailed work is going on in that area, could you give us a report on how the forum is progressing and on where it will go?
You are right that the equality strategy is about overarching themes, which we can implement across all the different equality interests, but we will devise specific, focused action plans for each of the interests.
You will recall that we set up the race equality advisory forum largely because there were certain recommendations in the Macpherson report that dealt with much broader issues. That provided us with an opportunity to look beyond the justice system at areas such as education, social work and health. The advisory forum was set up, first, to advise on a strategy to deal with race issues; secondly, to provide detailed action plans to tackle institutionalised racism; and thirdly, to advise us on how we could better consult black and ethnic minority communities.
In the past three or four months, fairly substantial work has been done on the key areas by the various sub-committees of the race equality advisory forum. That work will continue for the next one or two months. There are groups looking at local government, housing, the voluntary sector and social inclusion; health and community care; education; and enterprise and lifelong learning. We have coverage over all the areas of the Scottish Executive's responsibility.
The education group has completed its action plan and submitted it to the race equality advisory forum. We are assisting the local government, housing, voluntary sector and social inclusion group to pull together its plan, because that group is grappling with a much bigger agenda. The enterprise and lifelong learning group and the health and community care group are moving along and should complete their reports in the next two or three weeks. I expect that we will have action plans by August. The race equality advisory forum will meet at the beginning of September, when we will feed all the conclusions into the equality strategy and take matters forward.
We are trying to ensure that the process is owned by a wider audience than just members of the groups. Where possible, for example in the education group, officials from the Executive have been involved so that there is shared ownership of the outcome. The education group has also opened out its deliberations more widely, and has invited contributions from people representing a range of educational interests throughout Scotland, from zero to higher and further education. As a result, ownership is also felt by a much wider community. The process has been quite inclusive, and people have put in a huge amount of hard work and effort. I am confident that we will have finalised action plans in each area by September.
I have a quick question about local enterprise companies and business start-ups. The Executive identified that some groups, for example women, are underrepresented in starting up businesses. What is the role of the equality unit in monitoring that?
I have heard of women in my area who have tried to start up in business but have been refused start-up grants; they feel that they had good business ideas, and are not clear about the reasons for grants being refused. I am concerned to ensure that women do not have to try twice as hard as men to prove themselves to get such grants. It is important that we tackle that problem.
The equality unit would not have the role of directly monitoring that particular problem in local enterprise companies. We are working with all the Scottish Executive departments and policy divisions to ensure that they have the understanding and tools to consider such issues.
In the case of Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, that would be a matter for the enterprise and lifelong learning department, which has taken action in recognition of the issue that Elaine Smith raised. Members may recall that, on International Women's Day, Henry McLeish announced an additional £1 million specifically for microcredit schemes for women who are starting up businesses, or who work in existing small business, to allow those businesses to grow. That was closely based on the Wellpark Enterprise Centre model of microcredit, which has worked so successfully.
We have continued to support the fair play initiative, a consortium approach that is backed by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Scottish Executive, employers and, I think, the Commission for Racial Equality. It is intended to ensure that equality is bedded down into the development of small to medium-sized enterprises in particular.
Initiatives are taking place. The normal process is that we would expect any continuing problems to be fed to the department with responsibility. The equality unit has the more strategic role of giving the departments and divisions the necessary guidance, awareness raising, and tools to fully understand the agenda.
There are many quangos throughout Scotland. Will they all be expected to sign up to the final document? Will they be given action plans to implement, whatever the outcome of our final deliberations?
I expect that every public sector organisation in Scotland would be asked to endorse or sign up to the overarching strategy. Instead of our saying, "Here is an action plan for your organisation"—which would mean that we had thought about it but they had not—I would rather the process were reversed. I would prefer organisations to make a commitment, based on the mainstreaming approach, to devise action plans and to examine their internal processes, both as employers and as service providers, which is where the big win for the equality agenda will be made.
We will report annually to Parliament on the impact of, and our progress with, the equality strategy. I am keen to ensure that we have the full flavour of what is going on across Scotland.
We are also exploring local government, because it is such a key provider of services on the ground, and actively considering the opportunity of underpinning the mainstreaming approach as part of the best value framework. I do not know whether the committee welcomes that approach.
Let us set aside the issue of local government for a moment. On the question of the quangos, I understand your comments about the need for organisations to take ownership of the strategy, but those organisations use up a lot of public money and are therefore responsible to the Parliament. Do you expect to set up monitoring regimes to ensure that the quangos are doing what they say they are doing?
The simple answer is yes. However, although I want to ensure that the practicalities of monitoring are present, any such regime must go beyond encouraging people to do something in particular. There must be reporting mechanisms, and people must realise that we are treating the issue seriously if we are to bed down the long-term cultural change that we all want.
Furthermore, although doing so will not provide the full answer, it will be helpful to examine the system of public appointments and to make it truly reflect the whole of Scottish society. That means increasing the representation of women, ethnic minorities and the disabled across all public sector bodies and quangos.
You have talked about monitoring the membership of quangos and making them more reflective of society. Has any work been done on the smaller groups that proliferate around such bodies? I am thinking in particular of departments' working groups, where there might not be the same awareness of the fact that it looks really bad if all seven people in the group are male. Furthermore, has there been any work on economic or enterprise-type issues where, because equality is not necessarily the first priority, the points that Elaine Smith raised might be missed? Will the equality unit address such questions; and, if not, who will?
Secondly, you mentioned meeting voluntary groups. Are there resource implications for such groups? People have raised issues about supporting groups at a local level to deliver the quality service that we have been talking about.
One of the problems with discussions about mainstreaming and best value is that we lose sight of what the inequalities are: women, black people and people with disabilities are being discriminated against. How can we turn the language of mainstreaming into a concept that people can politically or socially sign up to? After our first year, what is the position with getting the Executive and others on board for mainstreaming?
I confess that you are absolutely right about working groups. When people pick such groups, they are not necessarily thinking about equality. The mainstreaming approach will have an impact on departments as they progress policy issues and decide on the composition of working groups. The equality unit will have a role to play. It is currently working alongside the public appointments unit. However, its scope is wider than just public appointments to quangos, as it covers appointments to working groups as well. I recognise that, in the past, people have been picked for particular expertise, without there being an awareness of the equality dimension and, more specifically, the gender dimension.
The issue of resource implications was raised. This is going to cost money. We are carefully examining all the various strands of the strategy. We will cost them, and I will then have discussions with the Minister for Finance during the course of the spending review that concludes in mid to late September. That timing is helpful for the publication of the equality strategy. We have to ensure that we have the necessary resources to take this forward. The approach will be phased, and that is how it should be. At the moment, we have £0.5 million, which is specifically to develop the tools, mechanisms and guidance to ensure that there is a mainstreaming approach throughout the Executive. In taking forward some of the more innovative ideas, we must ensure that consultation and communication are not just adequate but good. We will also consider the question of resources.
Your last point is crucial. Mainstreaming has broad support across the statutory equality agencies and a number of statutory organisations. However, to make this real for people, we have to discover the inequalities that exist, we have to define them and we have to set out in plain language what we are about. That will be part of the strategy document. It will look not only at the context, but at what we want to do. Mainstreaming is an approach that will help to deliver that, but we have to define the inequalities first.
Will the equality unit be able to be proactive and say that it is unacceptable to have established a group in a particular way? If a group has representation from a broad range of people, it is more likely to lead to developments that more accurately reflect all our needs. If a person is on a working group, he or she will have expertise that can be quoted if that person goes for a position on a public body. If we exclude people at an early stage, we will end up with public bodies that in no way reflect the broad diversity of society. Can the equality unit be proactive?
We can work closely with departments, along with the public appointments unit, to consider the composition of working groups, saying, "Have you considered X, Y or Z?" However, we can also provide them with clear advice and guidance on the way in which working groups will work—giving advice, for example, on the pattern of meetings, on how they will include others and on how accessible they will be. Those matters will also be important in ensuring that working groups have diversity of representation. Yvonne may comment further on the practical side of dealing with departments.
Yvonne Strachan (Scottish Executive Equality Unit):
One of the essential ingredients in moving the agenda forward on equality is to work co-operatively with departments to develop their understanding, knowledge and expertise, and therefore their ability to deliver the kind of agenda that we have spoken about this morning. A key part of that will be developing an understanding of the most appropriate way of reflecting objectives in matters over which departments have power and control. If that involves working groups, those groups should consider the equality dimension. At this stage, it is not a case of the equality unit having powers to say to a department that it has been wrong or that it has not been wrong. The process is one of engagement and is an attempt to develop an understanding so that departments can work in a way that will deliver that kind of outcome.
The approach that has been adopted so far is about trying to work in partnership, internally and externally, to achieve our objectives, rather than setting down sanctions at a stage when we are not in a position to expect people to have delivered that outcome because we are in the early stages of mainstreaming. If the question were raised at a later stage, that would be a different issue. At the moment, we want to encourage the ownership that is developing. We are optimistic that the objectives that are set out in the equality strategy will be met and that we will have better representation.
Given that the minister's comments are being recorded, I cannot avoid asking about resources. This committee has discussed the matter I will ask about and I am sure that the issue arises whenever the equality strategy is discussed.
When checking any piece of legislation for equality, part of the concern about arriving at a satisfactory proofing is having the resources to ensure that recommendations are implemented. We have a housing bill coming up, and I am sure that recommendations on ethnic minority and disabled representation and provision will be made. I am sure that many recommendations on disabled access will be made with regard to the Transport (Scotland) Bill. The Lawrence inquiry has raised issues to do with the provision of interpreting services in the justice system. That does not seem to have been resourced yet.
In order that there is a recognition that equality costs money, but that that cost has to be paid, does the unit have the capacity to cost specific equality elements when proofing each area of legislation? That would be helpful in showing that we have provided extra expenditure to ensure that things were equality proofed in action, rather than in words.
It would not be the unit that would be involved in the costing of equality proofing of legislation or service delivery, but the department itself. The department would know the cost of improving interpreting services. We would expect that equality impact appraisal to happen not only with regard to legislation but when budgets are announced. We are conducting action-based research that will target one or two policy areas in which we can adopt the mainstreaming approach and the equality appraisal approach alongside equality impact assessments of budgets.
We hope that, eventually, every piece of legislation will have an equality impact appraisal and that areas where additional resources are needed will be identified. We operate two tight budgets. We would need to recognise that equality costs money and consider how we implement policy to maximise its effect. That might mean that actions are phased, but I entirely agree that equality proofing has to go beyond words and has to be aligned with resources.
We are examining interpreting services in the context of the equality strategy, rather than simply in the context of the justice system. There are clearly issues relating to access to health services and local government services such as housing. We are taking a more strategic view than was contained in the Macpherson report.
I have a question about the more strategic approach that is being taken. You have set out the timetable for the publication of the equality strategy. Is that planned to link with the Executive's response to the recommendations of the disability rights task force which you said were due to be received in the summer? Can you update us on that? It could have major implications for the rights of the disabled.
Those recommendations have gone to the various departments, as there are implications for us across the Executive departments. The departments are considering the individual recommendations from the perspective of their portfolio interests, and we are collating their responses along with comments from disability organisations on the way in which we could implement the recommendations, and over what time scale. We anticipate publishing the Executive response to the recommendations later in the summer. The equality strategy will be published after that, but there is a clear linkage between the general themes that that document will adopt and the practical actions that will be taken in response to the report from the disability rights task force. Currently, the recommendations of that report, which are diverse, are with the departments across the Executive.
You talked about bedding down cultural change, which is obviously of paramount importance. We can have as many strategies as we want, but we must change the culture. You also talked about the importance of training. How will you ensure that training is appropriate and that the appropriate people in quangos receive it? How will you measure its effectiveness?
Measuring the effectiveness of training is probably the most difficult thing to do, as that depends on how much of the training the individual has absorbed and understood. I shall dodge that question, as the effectiveness of the training would be difficult to measure.
The easy thing for us to do, not to understate it, is to ensure that the quality and content of training is appropriate across the board. We will develop training for all the different officials throughout the Executive, and we will prepare guidance—a training pack, if you like—that states the programme that should be delivered for awareness raising, covering all aspects of equality.
Elsewhere, but particularly in local government, there is generic training on equality and awareness raising and specific, more focused, training that flows from that. The inputs can be measured and the outputs can be seen at a later stage, as people become more aware and adopt an equality perspective in all aspects of their work. Measuring how valuable the training has been to the individual, other than through a self-assessment exercise, is difficult.
There are no more questions. I thank you for coming along. I hope that you have found our comments as useful as we have found your answers.
Thank you. If members want to feed anything into the consultation process, we will be happy to take written or verbal comments from the committee.
Thanks very much.