Equal Opportunities Committee, 05 Oct 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 5, 1999

Official Report 182KB pdf

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Progress Reports

Item three on the agenda is progress reports—if there are any. This item will probably be on the agenda at every meeting, although I do not expect reporters to report at every meeting—it will be on the agenda so that reporters have the opportunity to report. The first report is from Michael Matheson.

I welcome your comments, because I do not have anything to report.

I e-mailed everyone at the end of last week, suggesting that we meet for an hour before this meeting. However, no one replied. I was not sure whether technology let me down or no one was talking to me. I am sure that it was the technology. As no one got back to me, the disability group has not met. Naturally, I was going to suggest at the meeting that we go through the information that was given to us during briefings in the recess, try to establish an agenda and priorities and feed the outcome back to this meeting.

I should say that I am still in the dark somewhat as to which members of the committee are interested in being on the disability group. I would welcome clarification on that so that I know who I can target future e-mails to, rather than send them to everyone.

I thought that that information was already available. I have a list of who is on each group. Would it be useful if I read it out?

Yes.

The disability group comprises Michael Matheson, Irene McGugan and Michael McMahon. The gender group comprises Johann Lamont, Malcolm Chisholm, Irene McGugan and Elaine Smith. The sexual orientation group has Nora Radcliffe, Marilyn Livingstone and Shona Robison on it. The race group consists of Michael McMahon, Shona Robison, Malcolm Chisholm and Michael Matheson.

I would be willing to work on the sexual orientation group.

Okay. Those are the groups so far.

Can you add my name to the race group?

Yes.

I put my name down for the gender and disability groups, but I am not on either—as has been said, if you miss a committee meeting, that is what happens to you. I would be interested in being on those groups, if that is all right.

Yes, it is. Martin has the list. Members should speak to him so that it can be finalised. Everyone should know which groups they are on. As I said, I will put the item on the agenda for every meeting, but I do not expect a report every time.

I am slightly worried that the reporters will spend half of their time trying to arrange meetings, because a problem arises with clashes with other committees. I thought that we agreed at our first meeting that alternate Tuesdays would be a vacant slot. That may cause problems if members are on two groups, but are we still working on the assumption that we will try to meet on the vacant Tuesday?

That would be a good idea, but the problem is that the Justice and Home Affairs Committee has filled up the vacant Tuesday and some members may have to attend that committee in the morning. Generally, Malcolm's suggestion is a good one, but it is up to the groups to decide. It would be better if members had their first meetings and decided what to do.

I do not think that it was envisaged that we had to meet every week: that depends on which issues we are discussing. Malcolm is right that we said that Tuesdays would be an appropriate time for the groups to meet. Even though we are on other committees, we do not have to meet all the time and we do not have to use up all three hours of an allotted time. If there is a clash, we can move forward or back an hour.

On a point of clarification, convener. With regard to support for groups in organising meeting places and so on, should the reporter do that, or should we go to the clerks?

I am afraid that the reporters will have to do the organising, but we can give as much help as we can in finding rooms. Obviously, there will be some difficulty in finding rooms on Tuesday afternoons, because some committees will be meeting then.

There are rooms in Parliament Headquarters.

So the reporters raise the matter with the staff at the visitors centre?

There is a number—I cannot remember what it is—for booking rooms. It is on the signs on the doors of the meeting rooms in PHQ. Some members use their researchers to organise rooms.

I just needed to have that clarified because I was not aware that there was an established procedure. That is fine.

If something arises from our discussions that we want done, do we feed that to Martin and his team?

If the group produces a paper, we can put it on the agenda.

Is it the case that any action arising from that paper would need to taken at the request of the whole committee? Will the mechanism be that the clerks will pick up on any action once the papers are put to the committee?

Yes. We do not service the reporters groups. Obviously, we will give as much help as we can and we will put the output from the groups on the agenda.

That is fine.

It will often be a case of this committee agreeing to ask another committee to deal with an issue, or making a recommendation that the Executive deal with an issue, in which case the civil service, rather than us, will deal with the matter.

The committee does not have the resources. That has been discussed at the conveners liaison group. With regard to reporters and smaller groups, members are having to provide resources themselves. There is an on-going discussion on that issue. If members have problems, they should report them to this committee, because there is a limit to how much members or their staff can do themselves.

Basically, the reporters report to the committee.

The next group is the gender issues group.

My position is the same as Michael Matheson's—I feel good that I was not the first to have to make his admission. The same points apply to the gender group as apply to the disability group: we want to pull the group together as quickly as possible, identify a straightforward or limited issue to address, target it and, if we have some success, move on.

Michael, do you have anything to report?

I want to say at the outset that the response to the action plan on the Macpherson report should not be seen as a model. The time scale was far too restrictive. If there are flaws, I hope that people will understand that we were not left with enough time to plan ahead; it was a case of meeting, drawing up a draft and asking people to comment on it. Letters and e-mails were flying backwards and forwards. That was not appropriate. I would like to thank everyone for their help and for their understanding of the problems that I have I faced.

I am happy to accept comments or criticism of the report—on its style or on how things were conducted. We tried to work to the initial deadline of 30 September, but that was never going to be practical, as became clear when I spoke to Martin last week. I asked Kate to explain the situation to Jim Wallace. I hope that, as we are a committee of the Parliament, our views will not be ignored even though the report is late, although I do not know what Jim Wallace's position on that is.

I am sure Jim Wallace will understand. We could not get our report done by 30 September because he could not see us until 28 September, whereas we had wanted him to come on 21 September.

My understanding is that there will not be a problem with its being a few days late. Are there any comments or questions?

We followed the structure of the action plan, looking at the general issues before the specific issues. As the introduction to the paper indicates, we felt that, although the plan makes a lot of welcome points, some areas could be strengthened and that there were omissions. We wanted to be constructive rather than critical and to fill the gaps where appropriate.

Most of the issues raised in the section entitled

"Openness, Accountability and the Restoration of Confidence"

were fairly straightforward, but we had some concerns about the delivery of what is proposed. The action plan will not be sufficient if people are not confident that it will achieve its aims. Our point is that it is not enough to say that things should be done; there must be ways of proving that they are done. Confidence will be restored only when it can be shown that things are being done, which will provide openness and accountability.

In England, it has been proposed that Her Majesty's inspectors of constabulary should look at police authorities. We felt that it was a glaring omission that the action plan said that that would not be the case in Scotland. We could see no reason for that. HMIC should look at all aspects of the police service.

We asked for clarification of what was intended in other areas. We felt that COSLA was being asked to look at certain issues but not to deliver on them. If COSLA cannot deliver an ethnic balance in police authorities, that balance should be delivered through co-option. We have looked at the possibility of co-option to this committee and there is no reason why local government should not co-opt members of ethnic minorities to ensure a proper balance when race issues are being discussed.

Under the heading

"Police Practice and Investigation of Racist Crime"

we expressed our concern that the police are being asked to police themselves. There should be more scope for scrutiny of police procedures and of investigations of racist crimes. To have the police as the investigators of the police is far too narrow. There should be wider consultation with other organisations on how the police are performing. The action plan does not allow for that.

We are concerned that, although family liaison was identified as important, the resources and the professionalism of those involved are unlikely to be sufficient. There must be greater professionalism and high standards so that the arrangement is not makeshift but a proper means of delivery.

Similarly, the proposed consultation on victims seems very restricted. We would like to see it widened to ensure that those who are directly affected as victims are given the means to make their position clear. Victim Support Scotland was identified as the means of doing that, but the action plan contains no clear commitment to support VCS if it finds that its resources are restricted. Jim Wallace has said that VCS would be supported, but the committee needs to insist that that is stated in the action plan.

The issue of disclosure gave the group the greatest difficulty because we felt that we did not have the professional background to comment definitively on the legal implications. However, we believed that, where it would benefit the victims and their families, there should be room for manoeuvre on disclosure. There have been cases where disclosure would have had no effect—that is always true when the case is completed. It can be very important for families to know what has taken place and what information was available during the trial. We could not be specific about when we felt disclosure was appropriate, but we wanted the issue to be looked at more closely than was suggested in the action plan.

We felt that the action plan was vague on recruitment and retention. We wanted a more studied approach to police training and to ensuring broader ethnic minority representation in the police. We felt that the action plan was remiss not to give a clearer commitment on that. We suggest that a report is commissioned to ensure a police policy on recruitment and retention that is deliverable and being delivered.

A glaring omission from the action plan is any comment on how education should deal with racism. Malcolm was keen to ensure that the education bill was highlighted. The action plan considers only the police—we commented on that omission under the heading "Miscellaneous". The broader services that impact on all areas of racism in Scotland should be looked at, especially social work, the probation services and children's panels. Without looking at those areas, the action plan will not have the impact that it could.

I am puzzled because the previous draft referred to a feasibility study. The group agreed that there was no reason for the Scottish study not to go ahead and that we should not have to wait until April 2000 for it. That has disappeared from this paper.

I am puzzled myself. I have noticed a couple of omissions—I do not know what has happened to a couple of the sentences that I saw my assistant type. Page 5 says that the committee urges the Scottish Executive

"to review issues concerning civilians and special constables".

I asked my assistant to use the words "civilians employed within the police service"—I even saw him type them in—yet they are not there now. I do not know what has happened. I have a draft that mentions the feasibility study, but it has now disappeared. I will try to clear that up.

Will you make sure that the feasibility study is reinserted before the response is submitted?

Because the matter has been raised here, I will speak to Martin and ensure that it is reinserted. We have agreed it twice and it was in a draft that everyone has seen.

Could this be an earlier draft?

I am not sure what has happened. I am puzzled.

In the section "Recruitment and Retention" on page 4, I am concerned about the way in which the sentence on quotas reads. I am anxious that we do seem to argue that positive action means giving up high standards. My party very courageously decided to use quotas to increase women's representation in Parliament and I would defy anyone to say that that resulted in a lowering of standards. I am not sure whether that is what the group meant, but the sentence implies that there is a cost to the use of quotas—when we are addressing issues as fundamental as lack of participation and exclusion, that matters. It would be helpful if you could clarify what the group intended.

Where is that reference?

It is at the bottom of page 4. The last sentence states:

"The committee is concerned that a lowering of standards does not result from a necessity to meet targets through the introduction of quotas."

That should be omitted.

It was inserted because it was one of the specific points made by the representatives of the Commission for Racial Equality, which did not want tokenism or for the police to deliver purely because of quotas. The commission wanted it specified that the ethnic minority community should be represented in the same way as other communities and that standards should be maintained. It did not want token gestures that meant that a certain number were recruited but not to the benefit of the ethnic minorities.

I do not want the sentence to be omitted, because I know what the CRE was saying. I agree with Johann that the wording is not as tight as it should be, but the CRE asked us to state—and the reporter group agreed—that we did not want tokenism in the police. That sentence is aimed at ensuring that the police cannot simply deliver x amount of people into the police service. Those people must properly represent the ethnic minority community and the way in which they are trained and supported must ensure quality.

That is not what the sentence says. Its implication is that the service would bear a cost because it would have to be more flexible in the way in which it recruited people—the implication was that some people would not be up to the current rigorous standards. I understand that we want to underpin positive action initiatives with support for people coming in. We must ensure that this does not become a numbers game and genuinely move the police forward. The sentence is worded in such a way as almost to give succour to those who argue against quotas on the presumption that the police will have to lower their standards. Although that is not intended, it could give out the wrong message, so the sentence should be rewritten.

I suggest that we state that the committee believes that standards will be maintained through the introduction of quotas. That would be a more positive statement. Michael McMahon's concern is that the CRE has flagged up the issue, so it would be wrong to drop it. We should say that the committee is confident that standards will be maintained after the introduction of quotas, which would be more positive than saying that the committee was concerned about a lowering of standards.

I take on board the point about members being on a learning curve. This is a good report, given the constraints and the fact that everybody writes in their own style. However, the second paragraph on page 2—on openness, accountability and restoration of confidence—is a wee bit clumsy. Michael has clarified that what he is saying is that this committee is opposed to the fact that HMIC is not to be allowed to inspect police authorities. However, the paragraph seems to say that the committee is concerned that the Executive accepts the recommendation of the report, but rejects moves for HMIC to inspect police authorities. Could we change it to say that the committee believes that HMIC should be able to inspect police authorities as well as all parts of the police service?

Yes.

At the top of page 3, the draft response states:

"The committee also notes the Scottish Executive's rejection of statutory duty for Police Authorities to reflect any local ethnic or cultural mix, and suggests this may be a case for co-option".

As Michael said, we should be clear in what we are saying. We should be clearer here and say that the committee believes that this is a case for co-option. We should push that issue forward with a more positive statement.

I have a similar point to make about the fourth paragraph on page 4, which states:

"The committee of the Parliament recognises the importance of racism awareness training and encourages the Executive to ensure that Police Authorities to allocate time for officers".

Could we replace "encourages" with "insists"? We should be in your face about those issues.

The end of that paragraph states:

"The committee would also encourage the effective monitoring and evaluation of training."

We should add that we want local communities to be involved in that training. In Scotland, there is often a centre where all police forces go for particular training. It is much more important that local communities in different parts of Scotland are involved, so the training should be done on a divisional basis rather than across Scotland.

Michael spoke about the omission of a Scottish feasibility study, but did we not have a stronger commitment on the need for an independent police complaints authority? I hoped that, as a committee, we would be more up front in saying that we believed that there was a strong case for an independent police complaints authority. We should call for the feasibility study in Scotland to proceed immediately.

When Jim Wallace announced the review last week, we agreed—I have checked what was said—not to discuss it in the report until we had examined the statement. It would have been wrong to comment on it before the committee had met today to discuss the matter. We could add a comment now, if the committee takes a clear view about what Jim Wallace is proposing.

That is a fair point. I hope that the committee will now agree to include a stronger comment on the need for an independent police complaints authority, as we have an important role in promoting that as an objective. We should not call for one without having examined a feasibility study, but we should state that we recognise the strong case for it.

What I will say on the education aspects may involve other legislative considerations, in particular section 28. As the Equal Opportunities Committee, should we not argue for the specific inclusion across the school curriculum of an equal opportunities package? We should call for each school to have a promotion of awareness package that includes race. We would expect each school to have a race awareness workshop, or a tolerance workshop, as part and parcel of school life. Why should we not also have a sexual orientation and gender package? The former could come into conflict with section 28, so we may not be allowed that, but we should certainly push for a racial awareness workshop.

Tommy's final point leads on to what I said about the education bill. We should say something more than that we want to ensure that the syllabus is being effectively applied, because part of the problem is that the syllabus is not adequate in this regard. Tommy is right in saying that we should examine the whole area, not as part of this report but as part of our work on the education bill. I am aware that we are not allowed to add extra items to the agenda, so I had better comment on that now. We should decide how to deal with the education bill, because we will be up against the same time constraints if the consultation ends at the end of October. The bill will roll on from there and we should not do another quick report because we will not cover the issues properly. Tommy is right that we should examine race, gender and sexual orientation on the curriculum.

We should change what this report says about monitoring so that it specifies that racist incidents must be effectively monitored. We should also state that the Scottish Executive should ensure that the syllabus is developed and effectively applied. We should put down a marker for what we will do in more detail in a few weeks' time.

Should we specify the equality syllabus, as the syllabus covers reading, writing and arithmetic?

The report should specify race equality.

It covers the whole syllabus.

The report refers to the

"considerable volume of work undertaken by Head Teachers in ensuring the delivery of equal opportunities teaching".

Perhaps we should refer to the considerable volume of work undertaken by schools in ensuring the delivery of equal opportunities teaching, as head teachers do not necessarily do that on their own.

I have no problem with that.

The sub-group discussed the issue of head teachers' discretion—I apologise for not faxing that information to Michael last week. It would be useful to state that we did not want the decision on whether anything happened to be left to the discretion of head teachers. That is why the reference to head teachers is relevant. If we replace "Head Teachers" with "schools", as Johann suggested, perhaps we should add another sentence, stating that we do not believe that addressing racism within schools should be left to the discretion of head teachers. The discussion that we had at the sub-group was about what happened if a head teacher perceived that there was not a problem.

Do you want to come back on any of those points Michael?

If the committee has no objections, I have no problems with making the suggested amendment. All the way through, we have had consensus about we are trying to do. I have no problem with tightening up the wording or with adding comments to clarify the report and make it more effective. If the committee agrees with members' points, there will not be a problem in amending the report accordingly.

I have a problem with Tommy Sheridan's suggestion about strengthening the paragraph about co-option at the top of page 3, which states that the Scottish Executive has rejected the need for a statutory duty on police authorities to reflect any local ethnic or cultural mix. If we think about it, there is no statutory duty on any public body. Every police board is made up of councillors, but there is no duty on councils to reflect the ethnic mix of the community and no statutory requirement for co-options. We want co-options on this committee. Possibly, they should be extended to councils and every service area that they deal with. I do not think that the requirement for co-option is a matter for the police authorities in isolation. It would have to be part of a review to ensure equal representation on all public and elected bodies. That would give this Parliament problems. The wording of the report could be changed, but it should reflect that the issue has to be considered in the wider context.

I raised that point because there is growing concern about the operation of the police in relation to ethnic minorities. We have to reflect that concern, although you make a valuable point, in terms of the changed wording.

As Malcolm said, more things could be said about education generally in relation to the bill.

In relation to this report, we as the Equal Opportunities Committee should recommend that the police authorities should co-opt rather than simply encourage. I worry that reports are not taken on board unless they are quite up front in what they ask for.

What Tommy is saying reflects what we were talking about with the minister. We need to be clear about how much is discretionary and how much is mandatory. As we all know, when things are discretionary, some people tend not to adhere to them.

On page 4 of the document, under the heading "Victims and Witnesses", we read:

"The committee welcomes the role of Victim Support Scotland in addressing support needs of ethnic minorities."

One of the concerns that was highlighted at last week's meeting with the minister was that additional resources were provided by the Home Office in England and Wales, whereas there appeared to be none in Scotland. If anything, Victim Support Scotland's resources are being squeezed, particularly in the west of the country. The primary reason for that is the complications that arise from the Data Protection Act 1998. Could that section of the document be tightened up to reflect that?

Is it agreed that Michael McMahon will incorporate those comments in a final draft and that that should be sent to Jim Wallace?

Members indicated agreement.

Do committee members want the final report to come from the committee?

I think that that would validate it.

It would have to come from the committee.

If it comes in the name of the convener on behalf of the committee, the clerking team can help with the drafting.

Nora is reporting on the sexual orientation group.

I took a leaf out of Michael's book and e-mailed the people who I knew were involved—Marilyn and Shona—and we arranged a brief meeting this morning. British Rail messed up Marilyn's schedule, but Shona and I met and agreed that the obvious target for the committee was section 28. The first task for us in that area is to determine whether the Executive wants to tackle the repeal of section 28.

We knew that the Equality Network was making a presentation and we thought that we might pick up suggestions from that on what areas we might look at. Another issue that would fall under the sub-group's remit was whether same-sex couples should be able to have a civil marriage ceremony; we might consider that. That is as far as we got.

The briefing that we get after the meeting will—

We hoped that that would throw up other topics that we could take on board.

Does that cover everything on the agenda?

Could the sub-group consider in more detail whether the Equal Opportunities Committee could propose legislation on section 28?

We will have to work through the committee anyway, Tommy.

That is what I meant. Some committees have already suggested subjects on which they might introduce legislation. I would have thought that there might a specific remit for the Equal Opportunities Committee on that issue.

There has been some discussion about whether the issue comes under the education bill or the local government bill. We could propose an amendment to the bill, but first we must find out the Executive's intentions.

How do we do that? Will someone come to speak to us?

We can ask a minister to brief the committee. Alternatively, the committee can write to the Executive, or individual members can lodge written questions.

We may have a problem with the time scale. I had not appreciated that 31 October was the end of the consultation period for the education bill. Today is 5 October, so we need to find out the Executive's intentions. I assume, however, that the date by which an amendment to the bill would have to be produced would not be the end of October, so first we need to establish whether we should draft an amendment. We could use the consultation period to find that out.

Drafting a major amendment to the education bill would involve a lot of work. I do not think that the process of committees drafting amendments has been tested yet and I am concerned about the lack of resources available to committees. We need clarification on who will assist us in drafting the amendment.

I cannot answer that but I will find out and let members know as soon as possible, before the next meeting.

Given that we want to start our consideration, do members want me to invite the minister, or an official, along to our next meeting to answer questions?

Would not it be simpler to write and ask the Executive whether it has any intention of dealing with the repeal of section 28?

That is not the only thing that we would want to ask about the education bill.

I asked Jackie Baillie about section 28 last week, so we can look at the Official Report. Her response was certainly positive. A point that intrigued me—and which I should have pursued—was her reference to reserved aspects. I am not clear about that.

Perhaps we should not be bound by the end of October on the education bill. We want to hear from other people before we hear from the minister. On race, we should hear from Rowena Arshad, who has put in a very good submission on the bill on behalf of her unit at Moray House Institute of Education. We should also hear from someone on section 28, gender and general inclusion issues, including disability. The question of people remaining in mainstream education is central to this. We want to hear from three or four people pretty soon after the recess.

We are writing to various organisations with an interest in equality issues to ask them for their comments. We can then decide which organisations we want to brief us. That will have to be decided fairly soon. We will also want to invite someone from the Executive along to ask them about gender equality issues in the bill.

We have talked about this Parliament being open and accessible and consulting people, but have we taken any steps to invite members of the public—ordinary people, rather than representatives of organisations—to feed in their views? Is that something that we should be doing? If so, how should we set about it?

As far as I know, we are not doing that. I suppose that we ought to, but it is proving quite difficult to get even organisations to offer their points of view. However, I suspect that, as the Parliament's work continues, people will get more used to making representations.

Would it be worth sending out press releases to say which subjects the committee is considering and that if any member of the public wishes to make a representation they can send a letter to, or e-mail, such and such a person? I do not know whether we will get any response, but we should work harder to involve ordinary people.

I do not know whether the media would even cover such press releases. However, the Parliament has a media section that will issue a press release on behalf of the committee.

We will not get feedback overnight, but we should try to start the ball rolling. We need to get people more involved, so that the man and woman in the street think that they have direct access to the committee and that what they have to say will be taken into account.

Once I have received responses to the letters that have been sent out I will circulate them to the committee. Will the committee remit it to me to organise briefings by different equality organisations? If members want to hear from specific people, they should let me know, so that I can get things organised for immediately after the recess.

Will we be into the education bill by then?

Yes.

The Scottish Out of School Network has sent me invitations to a reception. I will get Martin to circulate those to everybody, with the details. The reception is at lunchtime on Thursday 7 October, which is quite soon. People may want to note that in their diaries.

That is the end of the formal, open part of the meeting. The Equality Network will give us a briefing once the meeting has been closed.

Like other members, I have been wondering why briefings are held in private.

There is no reason for them to be held in private. However, we decided to have briefings during the recess on the four main areas that the committee deals with. The first three were in private, so it seemed appropriate that the last one should also be. Any future briefings can be held either in private or in public. This briefing will be in private purely for the sake of consistency.

We agreed to have informal briefings, for which there would not be an official report, so that people would feel free to hold a dialogue. The decision was made for a positive reason. I would not want a spin to be put on it, as though we had decided to meet in closed session.

The distinction between formal and informal meetings may be less helpful than we thought, and I would be quite relaxed about having everything open to the public. It is highly dubious whether every word that we say in a debate is worth recording. However, we would all be comfortable with the public listening in on the committee.

Johann is right. All these informal briefings should have taken place during the recess, but the briefing by the Equality Network has been postponed for various reasons and has now run into the time when Parliament is meeting. The briefings were intended to inform the committee's work programme.

May I be facetious? If, now that we have entered an area of controversy, we take up Nora's suggestion that we issue a press release inviting disabled people to send us their views, there is much more chance that the press will cover it.

I imagine that, as ever with press releases, the press will diffuse what it wants to anyway.

We talked about the meeting being private, but is there any reason why it could not be an informal meeting at which members of the public could remain?

It is a pity that no one discussed that before. The meeting will be held in private because that was what was discussed with representatives of the Equality Network. I do not know whether they would have any objection to allowing members of the public to remain. I do not have any objection to it, but it would seem a bit unfair suddenly to change in an ad hoc way what had been agreed. I do not think that that would be fair to whoever is giving the presentation.

Could we ask them, Kate?

We would have to ask their permission.

They were invited to an informal meeting.

I think that Malcolm is right. There are only a few people in the gallery, and we would have to tell them that they had to leave. I think that you would be against that, convener.

Does informal mean private? I do not think that it does.

It should not. Informal means not having to wear a tie.

I close the formal part of this meeting. We now move on to the informal, public part of the meeting.

Meeting closed at 11:31.