Objective 3
This morning we welcome Angela O'Hagan from the Equal Opportunities Commission. Members already know her, because she gave us a briefing during the recess. Today, she will give evidence on the objective 3 draft, so that the committee can decide what representation we want to make to the European Committee.
Angela O'Hagan (Equal Opportunities Commission):
Thank you, Kate. It is good to have another opportunity to meet the committee. I intend to outline the content and intent of the equal opportunities provisions in the objective 3 draft operational plan, but I do not intend to offer comments on the full European policy.
Equal opportunities have been given greater priority in the new structural fund arrangements than was the case in the past. The operational draft plan for objective 3 states:
"The incorporation of equality between men and women has become an obligation upon all spheres of EU policy and policy-making, following the Treaty of Amsterdam. With regard to the Structural Funds, programmes are expected to be able to demonstrate improved equality between men and women in terms of employment; education and training; enterprise and the reconciliation of professional and family life."
At the moment, the requirement for gender equality is a priority. In Scotland, however, a broader definition of equality than gender equality is being promoted in the programme management executives and in the Scottish Executive, particularly in terms of the indicators that are being considered. As members will appreciate, that is in line with the broader approach to equalities across public policy in Scotland. To some extent, it also anticipates a widening of the scope for equalities issues in the European policy framework.
I would like to outline the approach taken by the European social fund objective 3 plan team in addressing equal opportunities issues and the role that the Equal Opportunities Commission Scotland has played in that process. In February 1999, when the programme management executive embarked on its work, it was concerned to ensure that there was an adequate equalities profile in the operational plan. The EOC Scotland agreed to be part of that process and was grateful for the opportunity to be closely involved in supporting mainstreaming equality in the new structural funds.
The EOC's view was that the greater priority being given to equalities issues in the new structural funds was a major development in equal opportunities and economic development policy. It was also a key area for developing a mainstreaming approach to equal opportunities in programme delivery in Scotland. We commend the Scottish objective 3 partnership for its commitment to equal opportunities and for taking the initiative to involve the EOC at the earliest possible stage.
As I said when I last met members of this committee, the EOC's resources are severely limited, so our involvement proceeded on the basis that we would, where possible, advise the plan team but that we could not comment on every aspect of the plan. To maximise the input from EOC Scotland, we requested that we become part of the Scottish co-ordination team—a group, chaired by the Scottish Executive, that brings together all the programme managers and programme management executives. In that way, we could ensure that the advice given to the objective 3 plan team would be further disseminated across all the other plans and programmes.
We are grateful to the Scottish Executive for supporting our partnership initiative to produce guidance on mainstreaming in the structural funds. I understand that the toolkit that has now been produced has been circulated to members of this and other relevant committees. The toolkit for mainstreaming equal opportunities in the structural funds has been prepared in partnership with the EOC programme representatives in the Scottish Executive. It has been circulated to all the programme directors and plan teams to assist them in the first stages of preparation of the draft operational plans. With the endorsement of the Scottish co-ordination team, the toolkit has also been circulated to the Scottish social inclusion network, because a great deal in it can be transferred to support mainstreaming equality in social inclusion programmes.
Both the structural funds review and the development of the social inclusion strategy will involve the development of indicators and evaluation mechanisms. It was the EOC's view that that gave us another opportunity to reinforce the cross-cutting nature of equalities issues and to harmonise the way in which outputs are measured in terms of equalities issues. As members will be aware, improved data disaggregation is at the heart of both those areas of policy development and evaluation.
The aim of the toolkit is twofold. The first phase deals with the context of mainstreaming equality in the new programmes and provides practical guidance on gender impact assessments—looking at policies in draft form to consider the impact that they may have, adversely or positively, on women and men. That will ensure that the gender dynamic of the labour and training markets, as addressed by the programme plan and the subsequent projects that stem from it, will be given due consideration in terms of the promotion of equalities issues within the programme. The second phase of the toolkit, which will be produced later this month, will give practical guidance on the application and selection procedures for projects.
I come now to the way in which equal opportunities will be addressed in the objective 3 plan. As members will know, there are two approaches to equal opportunities. There is the vertical priority—to use more Eurospeak—which allows for a specific budget head for specific projects on gender equality. There is also the horizontal priority, which underpins the other four priorities in the plan and which aims to integrate equalities issues across all the programme measures. That approach contains two of the essential components for mainstreaming equality: specific actions to address inequality and gender imbalance; and the recognition that gender issues are integral to other programme priorities, such as raising employability, social inclusion, promoting a competitive work force, and lifelong learning. Specific actions for addressing equality issues as special measures, and integrating equalities across the policy spectrum, constitute the process of mainstreaming equality.
The specific measures under priority 5 in the objective 3 plan allow for positive action initiatives. It is interesting that, for the first time, that includes initiatives by employers to improve workplace practices and policy frameworks to address gender segregation and the inequalities that that perpetuates in employment and training. We regard the measures as a very positive step, as they allow equalities issues to be promoted and addressed across the board, rather than remaining the preserve of individual projects, mainly in the voluntary sector and in local government.
The financial allocations of all the priority measures have still to be finalised. Although it is likely that priority 5 will be one of the smallest allocations, it will nevertheless be a significant source of funds for equalities projects and will provide a real boost to equalities initiatives and practice development. Although it will be one of the smallest budget heads, it will be supported by the fact that equalities have to be integrated across all the other programme measures, and resources will therefore have to be allocated to developing equalities practice. The mainstreaming approach under the horizontal priority will ensure that project sponsors and project applicants demonstrate how their project will address equalities within the main priority.
Another practical way in which we are aiming to underpin the horizontal priority is by expanding the references to equal opportunities that project applicants have to make and the evidence that they have to produce in the monitoring processes. Our intention is to go beyond the current practice of asking whether project applicants have an equal opportunities policy and leaving the matter at that, which is more superficial. We want a longer-term approach with evidence of practice and of developing practice over time. We hope that applicants, as part of the selection process, will be asked to complete an audit of their organisational practice and to commit themselves to executing action points that may arise from the audit. By increasing the profile of equal opportunities issues, we hope that they will become part of that monitoring process. In a sense, it will be more difficult for projects not to continue with their good intentions; more effective scrutiny of equalities issues will not only ensure greater visibility but reinforce practice.
The Equal Opportunities Commission Scotland, in partnership with Fair Play Scotland, has two European social fund projects that are intended to underpin the developments in policy with examples of good practice. They are very much pilot projects and we hope that the practice approaches will become part of mainstream business and economic development provision. That is the principle intention of our project Developing Equalities in SMEs, which is funded under objective 4 and which works with owner-managers of small businesses and a range of partner organisations from across the economic development spectrum.
Our other project, Equality in Training, is funded under the current objective 3 programme and works directly with European social fund trainers. It gives trainers training in equal opportunities, but its underlying aim is to improve awareness and understanding of equal opportunities issues and to see that reflected in future European social fund projects. In that way, we are trying to build the capacity of organisations to respond to the operational plan's new equalities framework.
I hope that this presentation has given members a flavour of the approach at both policy and practice levels.
Thank you, Angela. Do members have any questions?
People with whom I have spoken are generally very impressed by the outline. However, I have three points.
First, rather than making a comment myself, I want to pass on what a project co-ordinator said to me. She thought that the draft plan was admirable but that, from the point of view of management committees, it would be better if it was a bit more user-friendly.
Secondly, we all know that European funding requires matched funding. While the draft plan is good in principle, we are interested in finding out how it will work in practice. There are concerns that the matched funders do not have the same priorities. In terms of positive action, which Angela said was such an important part of the vertical approach, women-only projects have been under pressure from council budgets in past years; the perception is that women-only projects are no longer regarded as a priority for council funding. How does that fit in with the objective 3 strategy? Scottish Enterprise has stopped funding Training 2000, an organisation that Angela will know. This issue involves the big public funders—not just councils—and all of them must have the same approach as the plan.
Thirdly, the plan says:
"The final appraisal concluded that a focus on gender alone in terms of equal opportunities was misplaced and that a more targeted approach upon specific groups of women experiencing difficulty, such as lone parents, would be more effective".
To what extent has that recommendation been fully embodied in the report?
As a project applicant, I endorse your point on matched funding; I have first-hand experience of the difficulty of raising matched funding. However, on shared priorities, the plan's intention—indeed the intention of European policy—is to make funding agencies regard equal opportunities as a priority and to allocate resources accordingly. The measures within priority 5 include employers undertaking workplace audits and developing practice. Companies may have considered those initiatives anyway, but the funding could act as a spur to take action. The plan has been developed in partnership with agencies such as Scottish Enterprise, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, national training organisations and representatives from further and higher education. The strong message from all the plan teams is that, once the plan becomes operational, equal opportunities have to be at the heart of individuals' actions.
On a targeted approach, certain issues remain to be resolved. In particular, under the social inclusion measure of priority within the programme, women are not mentioned as a target group, but specific groups of women and other excluded groups are mentioned. When guidance is circulated to applicant organisations, those organisations will be given a very clear steer to ensure effective targeting of excluded groups, such as women and black and ethnic minority people in the community. That will be a key task.
I take Malcolm Chisholm's point about the user-friendliness—or lack of it—of the draft plan, which appears to be a response to directorate-general V of the European Commission's guidelines rather than the plan team's intention. There is a big job to be done in articulating what is possible for projects under this plan. We should work collectively with groups with which we are all in contact to publicise funding for equal opportunities projects at a level of resourcing that has not been available in the past.
Angela, you said that a priority would be to expand the reference to equal opportunities policies in applications for European structural funds. Monitoring is also going to be an important priority, as having a good equal opportunities policy and carrying it out are two different things. Who will be responsible for monitoring? Are there financial implications that will have a knock-on effect on the number of applications that can be made to the fund?
Your question on resource implications is one for the programme management executive. A substantial percentage of projects already have to be monitored; equal opportunities monitoring will simply become part of the procedure. The extra effort and resources in terms of time and expertise will fall on the project applicants, but they will just have to think that bit harder about equalities issues when they are putting together a project application.
We hope that that will be a way of improving the consistency of data collection. If projects are required to have the same starting point—they must think about equal opportunities from the beginning—they will have to put the systems in place in their organisations. We hope that that push across the sectors—the various delivery organisations—will result in a more effective use of resources. Data collection, which is not used consistently in project design and implementation, will be improved. In the longer term, there will be an improvement in organisational effectiveness when projects improve equal opportunities practice, monitoring and data collection.
In my previous life, I worked in further and higher education and delivered some training—mainly objective 2. Projects have simply had to have an equal opportunities policy, but do you think that the new guidelines and the push to monitor could start to break down the sexual stereotyping that we have seen on many projects? I felt that, no matter how hard we tried, engineering courses were filled with men and the service industry courses were filled with girls. Is there anything within the plan that will strengthen the commitment to shift the balances?
I could not agree more with your point, which links into data collection. Not all project sponsors are as conscious as you were, Marilyn, of the training market's perpetuation of gender segregation and the consequent perpetuation of inequalities. As equal opportunities is a horizontal measure in the programme, all projects, such as those that fall within the competitive work force or raising employability programmes, have to consider gender issues.
In theory, that should mean that segregation issues are addressed. However, for that to be effective, we need the sort of awareness raising that is being undertaken by projects, such as the ones I have described. The intensive and expanded consultation exercises that all the programme plans are undertaking are also necessary. Since February 1999, there have been a number of consultation exercises, seminars, awareness-raising sessions, topic-specific sessions—including equal opportunities focus groups—and so on. All have tried to build awareness. They have tried to deal with concerns on implementing equal opportunities effectively and to address the question of why equal opportunities is an issue—we are still at that level in some cases.
The consultative draft plan says:
"The Plan highlights lessons from the previous programme, which indicate that there may still be barriers to women's participation in terms of lack of affordable childcare".
Has that been adequately addressed in the current plan? In terms of your input into the document, Angela, were you unsuccessful in any of your recommendations on action that should be taken on equal opportunities?
My understanding of the operational aspects of the programme is a bit shaky. However, there are rules about supporting beneficiaries and supporting child care costs within projects—those rules have always been a feature of the European social fund.
As I said, the current plan seeks to build on the positive experiences of previous programmes. As to issues that we have raised and on which we were, perhaps, unsuccessful, on the whole there has been a positive attitude towards incorporating equalities issues to the fullest extent within the plan.
A number of pressures have arisen as priorities across the different sectors have had to be reconciled. However, under the social inclusion priority, for example, women are not designated as a target group, although specific groups of women are so designated. The way in which the measures have been scoped allow for capacity building projects and projects that address long-term unemployment or rural or urban exclusion. Those measures, along with the horizontal priority of equal opportunities, mean that there is scope for sex equality, women-only or gender projects within the social inclusion priority. By and large, there are mechanisms for that within the plan, even though that is not explicitly stated. That relates to my point about ensuring that project applicants are aware of the kind of projects that they can pull together when the plan becomes operational.
Are there any other questions?
I need some clarification. Forgive me if you have made this clear, Angela, but you said that gender equality in Scotland now has a broader definition than it has elsewhere. What does that mean?
I was referring to the fact that the definition of equal opportunities, or equalities issues, was broader than that of gender issues—the European Union policy drive in the structural fund guidelines is for gender equality, but the indicators and other mechanisms to support the implementation of the programme go beyond gender to include black and ethnic minority and disability issues. That is the broader definition of equalities, which fits in with the definition of equalities as addressed by this committee.
If there are no other questions, we will move on. Thank you very much for coming along, Angela. Members of this committee may report to, or speak at, a meeting of the European Committee, so we may be in touch with you again.
The European Committee will consider objective 3 funding on 19 October. Given what we have heard from Angela, we should make a representation to that committee. Tomorrow morning, the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee is also hearing evidence on the subject; whoever goes to the European Committee meeting may also wish to go that meeting. As gender issues will be the main subject, it would be appropriate for the reporter on gender issues to go along, if everyone is happy with that arrangement. If Johann deals with that, will she have time to report to this committee before she goes to the European Committee meeting?
Martin Verity (Committee Clerk):
No, there will not be time to report back to a formal meeting of this committee.
It might be necessary to call an informal meeting or perhaps Johann could circulate her report through e-mail.
What about posting it?
It could be posted. Is everyone happy with that? We will all be in touch about any representations that are to be made to the European Committee on 19 October. Obviously, the recess means that a formal meeting could be a problem, but members could get together informally.
Can I confirm that I have to go to the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee meeting tomorrow, listen to the presentation and then draw together a report?
Yes. Angela may be happy to help with that.
I would be happy to help. The programme director from the objective 3 partnership will speak to the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee tomorrow, so the discussion will focus more on European policy—where all the measures have come from—than my presentation did. The meeting will also address the specific social inclusion measures within the programme and the importance of maintaining the dynamic of equalities within the social inclusion debate, so it may be helpful in informing this committee about the European context.
Obviously, I hope that Johann does not do have to do this on her own. Other people have indicated an interest in gender issues, so I hope that two or three members will assist her.