Enterprise and Culture Committee, 10 Feb 2004
Meeting date: Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Official Report
170KB pdf
Mainstreaming Equalities
Agenda item 4 is on mainstreaming equalities. The Equal Opportunities Committee in the previous session of Parliament produced a report with certain recommendations, three of which impinge directly on committee work. Members have a paper that lists those recommendations.
My feeling is that we should simply agree to take account of those guidelines in how we plan and implement our work programme, but I would be glad to hear members' views on the issue.
It might be possible to make some practical application of the recommendations. I notice that recommendation 4 of the Equal Opportunities Committee's report talks about developing
"a database of Equal Opportunities … consultees which would be accessible to all Committees."
Perhaps we should invite one of the consultees to give an equal opportunities view of every inquiry that we undertake. For example, although I do not have a clue whether this is true statistically, my impression of our current inquiry is that seven or eight of our 10 witnesses were men. I also do not have a clue whether there is anything that an equal opportunities consultee would want to say about the development of electricity supply in Scotland, but if we do not consult them or at least ask for an input, we will continue not to find out.
I have a similar point, which I suppose relates to questions 5 and 6 in the checklist on page 4 of the paper. It occurs to me that if we are to ask the Scottish Arts Council and sportscotland, for example, to talk to us, one of the issues that we might want to raise with them is what they have done about implementing an equalities strategy.
On the power suppliers and those who are developing renewable energy projects, we might want to question them about what they have done in relation to equalities for minority ethnic communities. How is their information being disseminated so that those communities have access to the same level of information as everyone else? What are they doing about communities that include people with disabilities? I am thinking not just about the stereotypical equalities debate—the male-female thing—but about those communities that are excluded from the mainstream norm and how they are dealt with and reached.
I take the point, but it is up to each member to raise such issues in their questioning. I want to get away from the idea that we would just include a checklist in our work. If we were to do that, all that we would to is tick a box—the exercise would not have much meaning beyond that.
Perhaps we should remind ourselves that, whenever we are interviewing witnesses, one committee member should undertake to remember the point and, if appropriate, ask the question.
I could not agree more. I do not think that we should set up a formal procedure. Members should be conscious of equalities at all times.
The checklist is very useful. As the convener said, it hits on some of the areas that those of us on the Finance Committee came into contact with as a result of the Engender women's budget group raising the sort of issues that are listed in the checklist, particularly the differential impacts on various groups of aspects of Executive policy. Engender said that the impacts should be fed in at the policy stage rather that at the budget stage in order for the policy to be fully reflected in the way that budgets are allocated.
In relation to our examination of the budget, it might be useful for us to ask the ministers concerned to give us written answers to the questions. We could ask them how the points in the paper are being met in their area of the budget. That would enable us to arrive at a base from which we could frame questions that we feel are necessary or highlight any areas on which we think that more work needs to be done.
Okay. We have taken a note of that point.
Taking account of the points that have been raised, do members agree to the recommendations in the paper?
Members indicated agreement.
Meeting closed at 15:23.