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Agenda item 2 is the Executive's race equality review, for which the minister will stay with us to answer questions. I invite him to give an introduction.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to provide the committee with information on our review of race equality work in Scotland and our recommendations for the way forward. Between June 2004 and February 2005, the Scottish Executive conducted a wide review of race equality work to determine the best approach that would deliver tangible improvements in the lives of Scotland's diverse communities, while ensuring that resources were maximised and directed to best effect. It was important to take account of the changing landscape in which our work was being undertaken, and to put in place measures to ensure a more effective response.
The committee notes the wide range of consultation methods that were used as part of the review of race equality work in Scotland. Is the Executive satisfied that the consultation got past the usual suspects—the gatekeepers, as it were—and was totally representative of all communities?
I do not think that such processes are ever perfect, but we can say that the process was thorough. It involved many different people and various methods were used to reach out to the people who are most affected by the issue. In the first instance, there was a written consultation, 19 stakeholder meetings and eight open regional seminars which were organised by Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure in Scotland and were aimed primarily at minority ethnic organisations. In addition, three round-table meetings were arranged by the Scottish Executive, a mapping study of minority ethnic voluntary organisations was conducted, health sector comments were received from the national resource centre for ethnic minority health and an advisory group involving leading figures from the Commission for Racial Equality and the Scottish Refugee Council was convened to consider the evidence.
How did the review engage with people whose first language is not English? For example, were the materials translated and interpreters provided as part of the consultation?
I should have said that a great deal of the activity that I outlined took place in the weeks before I became Minister for Communities. Yvonne Strachan might be in a better position to answer your question.
The external meetings were organised through BEMIS, which reflected the particular needs of the various communities. Most of the people who attended the meetings that we attended were able to converse in English in the discussions. However, we recognise that the engagement that BEMIS and the local networks had with their members and others might have been conducted in other languages. We would not necessarily have known that.
Could you clarify what you mean when you say that they were "offered in other languages"?
In the Executive, the standard practice is that, at the back of a document, we will have text in various languages to publicise the fact that the document is available in those languages; members can see an example at the back of the consultation summary. If we receive such requests, we translate documents as appropriate.
The committee notes that the Executive hopes to publish the national strategy and action plan in June next year, and welcomes the setting up of the four strategic groups. Can you take the committee through how the strategy will be developed?
The three elements that I flagged up were the work of the specific groups, further involvement with stakeholders—though the coalition that I am chairing and through smaller meetings with specific stakeholders—and the findings of the review. Obviously, a lot of findings have come out of the meetings and engagement that we have described already. Those three basic elements will be developed in the next six months. Obviously, there will be a continuing process; the coalition will have a continuing role in implementation of the strategy and any required developments. In the next six months, the work will be developed through engagement with stakeholders, with the coalition and with the four groups, which will come up with action plans based on the substantial findings from the work of the past year and a half.
Are you comfortable that, through the coalition, as many people as possible will be able to participate during the development of the national strategy and action plan?
We have not finalised membership of the coalition, but that issue will be a consideration, as it was yesterday when I reconvened the Scottish refugee integration forum. There will always be suggestions that other people should be on the group. Certainly, we agreed that the coalition should include a representative of refugee communities. Obviously, there will be some disputes—there always are when groups are formed—but we want to make the coalition as representative as we can without making it so big that it cannot effectively perform its function. As I said, we have not finalised its membership but we want to do that pretty soon so that we can have the first meeting in January or thereabout.
The summary and discussion of evidence that was published in January proposes 16 action points. Have all those points been accommodated in the framework for action that was published in November?
In general terms, yes. I was careful to check the conclusions that we made and how they relate to the recommendations that came from the review. I am sure that members will be able to find areas in which there is not total alignment, but I am generally satisfied that the conclusions of the review are reflected in our recommendations.
I am particularly interested in the development of local strategies and a review of the funding of race equality work.
We place strong emphasis on development of local partnerships, which will be responsible for development and implementation of local strategies. We think that race equality councils, where they exist, will have a key role in relation to local partnerships. Earlier, I said that we want those partnerships to come together in collaboration with the CRE. We think that we have a strong emphasis on work at local level.
I have a question on one of the four short-life working groups—the group that will look at asylum seekers and refugees. I understand that the groups are being set up because more dedicated work and action are needed across the fields that they cover. Events of recent years seem to have caused an increase in discrimination against and negative attitudes to asylum seekers in particular. The problems have been fuelled by media coverage and by the view that asylum seekers do not work—people do not understand that they are not allowed to work. For example, people call asylum seekers scroungers and say that they are taking their houses. I certainly hear that in my own community. What is the remit of the working group and what does it hope to achieve?
A comprehensive action plan is already in place. It was devised by the Scottish refugee integration forum when it first met two or three years ago. That is the starting point.
The committee welcomes the commitment to establish a high-level public sector group on equality to look at the implementation of the public sector duties and equality legislative requirements. Given that the review concentrated on race, and in light of the incoming commission for equality and human rights, how can we be reassured that all equality strands will have equal recognition in that group?
In my opening statement, I flagged up the fact that the group would look at not only race equality but the implementation of all the equality public duties and equality legislative requirements. I think that I said that we would establish a high-level public sector group on equality, including race equality. We are mindful of the issue. Clearly, the race equality duty came first, but we know that the disability and gender duties are right there behind that duty in terms of the timescales, and that they are of equal importance in terms of implementation. We want to take the opportunity of looking at the issues together; we do not want to look at the race issue in isolation.
So, the remit of the group will include all equality strands.
Yes.
On the ethnic status of Gypsy Travellers in Scotland, the committee notes the commitment that the Deputy Minister for Communities gave to highlight
I am very aware of the issue. Fiona Campbell is working with the group and she may want to come in on more detailed questions. Indeed, she may even want to correct me, as Johann Lamont is leading the work on this area.
Could something come out of the group on further work on Gypsy Travellers by way of recommendations for, or consultation with, our Westminster colleagues?
Ethnic status is one of the issues that the group agreed to address at its first meeting. Fiona Campbell can confirm whether the issue has been raised in the group's discussions yet.
Not yet.
But it is on the agenda.
Yes, it is.
That is good to hear.
The issue is one about which the committee feels very strongly and we urge the Executive to continue to talk about it.
Of course.
The committee heard evidence from the Commission for Racial Equality on its report "An Independent Review into Policing and Race Relations in Scotland". Although the committee welcomes the work that the police have done so far, we agree with the CRE that more may require to be done. In what way is the Executive working with the police to improve race relations?
The Executive is represented on the steering group that the CRE established to monitor progress on the implementation of the report's 73 recommendations. The findings of the report will play a part in every inspection that Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary conducts. I know that the Justice Department in general and Cathy Jamieson in particular are very keen that the recommendations should be implemented.
So, the work is on-going.
I understand that that is the case. As you will understand, I am not directly involved in that work. I am very interested in it, however, and I am determined to ensure that it is on-going.
The committee welcomes the Executive's intention to provide strategic direction and guidance to non-departmental public bodies. However, we also note with concern that the summary of the review mentions that
We regret that the pace of change has been slower than we would have liked it to be. That said, it is right for me to acknowledge that some progress has been made. We came up with specific proposals, some of which I mentioned in my opening statement, because the pace of change needs to be quicker. In my statement, I did not mention the strategic direction and guidance to NDPBs, where required, although I think that I mentioned community planning partnerships and the local government Improvement Service. We are taking specific actions as a result of the review in order to make further progress in the area.
Are you confident that the improvements will accelerate the pace of change?
Certainly, that is the intention. The coalition on race equality, among other groups, will take an active interest in the progress that is made, as will the committee. Of course, there is also the work of the national resource centre for ethnic minority health, which has already made a significant contribution. As I said in my opening statement, we have a specific new action for it to take. Even where improvement has been made, we want to build on that to make further progress. An important strand of the review was for us to drive up performance in the public sector.
The committee notes the three posts that are being created in Communities Scotland and the local government Improvement Service. Will the remit of those posts encompass all the equality strands?
The recommendation is that they should focus on race equality in the first instance. That is what has come out of the review.
You understand my reason for asking.
Absolutely.
The public sector duties on disability and gender are imminent, and it seems that it would be better to be proactive and to promote equality across all the strands. Do I understand from what you are saying that that might be considered?
That is a fair point. In relation to the high-level public sector group, we were going to focus on equality more generally. It is partly because of the recommendations of the review that we said that those posts would work on race equality. That is the position at present. However, we will give further thought to what you are saying about the way in which those posts are developed.
Thank you. I am sure that we will watch that with interest.
The committee is encouraged that the Executive recognises the vital role that voluntary organisations play in promoting and facilitating race equality in Scotland. The review states that the Executive will
There are various ways in which we hope to do that, one of which is to give support to the infrastructure organisations that work with the voluntary sector. I have mentioned BEMIS, which works with minority ethnic voluntary organisations and which we will support. We will explore models for organisational capacity building more generally and will consider local models of good practice that could be rolled out to other areas. A project that was mentioned in the review in that regard was the Black Community Development Project in north Edinburgh, which I know well. We are aiming to learn lessons from it and to try to roll them out to other parts of Scotland.
Cutting through the verbiage, how do you feel that your group is doing in relation to stamping out racial inequality in Scotland? Where are we on a scale of one to 10? Do we have a long way to go?
We have a long way to go. The clear lesson in the aftermath of the London bombings was that there was a totally unacceptable level of racism in Scotland. Whatever the reason, that became more obvious. I am being told that all the time in my meetings with ethnic minority communities, such as the one that I will have in Inverness today. It came through strongly over the summer that people were being subjected to increased levels of racism and abuse. The effects are still being seen; the situation has got more difficult since the London bombings, although that is not to say that there were not problems before that.
You mentioned the Black Community Development Project in Edinburgh. Are you aware that, if we are to build capacity in the black and ethnic minority communities, we will need more black community development workers, of whom there are very few? When you are looking at building capacity in those communities, will you consider initiatives that can provide and support the training and development of community development workers in the black community?
That is an important point. I am not sure whether there are specific initiatives on that. I ask Yvonne Strachan to say whether there are any.
Not specifically in the review, but as this is an on-going exercise, we could consider the issue.
We need to flag that up, because if we are to build capacity we need to be able to support people to do that work on the ground. If the work is done by white, middle-class people, it will be difficult to build capacity at community level.
As the minister knows, the committee spent some time on the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Bill. At the time, we took evidence from the Somali women's action group. The review talks about continuing
The group would be able to apply for the funding. The criteria for the fund have been drawn pretty broadly and I am sure that the group's work would be covered by them.
The review told us that
I do not see the connection between the first and second parts of your question.
The first bit of my question is that the Executive review tells us that
Standards and tools for evaluation are about ensuring that we evaluate the work that we do. That is important. For example, we have invited applications for the new Scottish refugee integration fund, and we are saying that we will use the recently formed indicators of integration as a way of evaluating the work of the projects that get funding. The first part of your statement was about tools and standards for evaluation, but there is a whole debate, which has been well-rehearsed in the Parliament, on the protocol or agreement, on which discussions are continuing. You are joining two separate issues together.
Would you like to comment on the second part of my question?
I have nothing to add to what was said in Parliament two weeks ago. That work is being led by Peter Peacock and the Education Department rather than by me. It is on-going, and I am sure that a report will be given to Parliament as soon as the terms of the agreement have been finalised.
The review notes that the Executive is still awaiting the outcome of research into the provision of translation and interpretation services. The committee has noted the Scottish Consumer Council report, "Is anybody listening? the user perspective on interpretation and translation services for minority ethnic communities". As translation and interpretation services are vital in ensuring equality in minority ethnic communities, will you undertake to consider the matter carefully as a fundamental building block of the national strategy and action plan? For instance, I was concerned that the people whom you were consulting could all communicate in English. Therefore, by definition, groups that could not communicate in English were excluded.
I understand your concern, but translation and interpretation services will not fall between two stools. They were a significant feature of our discussions yesterday in the Scottish refugee integration forum. Action points on translation and interpretation have already been developed, and we undertook to revise them to ensure that they were fully comprehensive and to deal with any gaps.
The things that you spoke about as being available in other languages are listed at the back of the review. Could they not have been put at the front? When people pick up a document, they do not normally go to the back page. How will people whose first language is not English know that documents are available in their own language? It would be better to have that information at the front of the document.
That seems a good suggestion; we can reflect on it and will probably agree with you.
I would like to ask about funding, as the issue came up in previous answers, particularly in connection with the Somali women's action group. You said that the Executive has established a new race equality, integration and community support fund of £2 million over two years. You also mentioned the funding criteria. What sort of projects will be funded? Who will benefit from the fund?
Fortunately, I have found the criteria since Elaine Smith's question—I apologise for not having them earlier. They are: eliminating racial inequality and disadvantage; combating racism and racist crime; improving the provision of services and support to minority ethnic communities—that would probably cover the Somali women's action group, to which Elaine Smith referred; driving up public sector performance on race equality and improving access to and benefit from public services; fostering integration and promoting dialogue and understanding between communities; developing awareness and the capacity of both majority and minority communities to engage with that agenda in order to tackle racism and to promote race equality; and developing the organisational capacity of the minority ethnic voluntary sector and promoting closer working with mainstream services. I referred to the last point in my answer to John Swinburne's question.
You say that the fund will be operational from April 2006, that bids can be made from November 2005 and that the fund will be available for two years. The fund will cover a large group of people.
Organisations have already been told what the criteria are. Yvonne Strachan will be able to tell us when the application forms go out.
They went out today.
That means that the organisations will know what the criteria are.
You mentioned £2.3 million for current commitments to race equality work and £2.4 million to support the integration of refugees. Is that new money or is it money that has been allocated?
Most of it has been allocated—as I said, and as you know, most of it is set for the spending review period. However, we managed to find a bit extra to put into the £2 million fund. Yvonne Strachan might be able to clarify the matter, but I think that most of the money is already in the budget to support BEMIS or campaigns such as show racism the red card.
The money had been allocated already for race equality. However, it was identified for areas of work outside the fund, such as on-going work to support organisations involved in the one Scotland, many cultures campaign and the one workplace equal rights campaign by the Scottish Trades Union Congress.
Therefore, it is money that has already been announced.
I was not trying to pretend that I was announcing lots of new money today. I think that I said that there was a bit of extra money for the £2 million fund. Budgets are more or less set for the spending review period, so we are talking about small amounts of extra money to boost the funds that we already had.
So the money was already allocated; it is not—
Not in total, but most of it was already allocated.
Can you tell us exactly how much new money will go into the £2.3 million for current commitments to race equality work and into the £2.4 million to support the integration of refugees? You do not have to do that right now; the committee can get that information in writing.
Within the £2.3 million are the commitments that the minister and the Executive have already made. There is a little bit of flexibility—as there always is—in the developmental work that has been identified, including the promotion of work in the public sector. Such issues are outside the fund, but they need to be delivered around the race review, and that work is taken account of in the £2.3 million.
Can we get a breakdown of where the money will go?
Yes. We will give you more detailed information about which organisations the money will go to.
That would be interesting. How can the Executive ensure that the money is spent appropriately? Are there built-in mechanisms for reviewing the race equality impact of the funding? Has an audit been set up or a group established to consider that?
All the different projects have to be evaluated—we will use the new indicators for integration in the refugee integration fund, for example. The issue came up yesterday at the Scottish refugee integration forum and most people agreed that we want more effective evaluation so that we learn about what works best. People have signed up to that already.
You mentioned the criteria that organisations must fulfil to qualify for funding, and there is also the compact between the Executive and workers in the voluntary sector. If an organisation that has been up and running bids for funds but does not meet the criteria—whether new or established—will it be given a written statement telling it why funding was refused? I ask that because there is a concern that the funding for Positive Action in Housing is being queried by a Westminster member of Parliament. I would like clarification on that. I hope that Positive Action in Housing is not prevented from getting funding, but if it or other voluntary organisations are prevented from getting funding, will the Executive give them an explanation?
An explanation would be given to any group whose bid for funding was unsuccessful. The criteria are not so narrowly drawn that groups such as those that you support would be excluded. Since you have mentioned Positive Action in Housing, I might as well say that it very much fits the criteria that I described when I said that I value the ethnic minority voluntary sector for how it delivers services to communities and for how it is engaged in challenging racism. Positive Action in Housing is a very good example.
We echo that sentiment.
Has the Executive given any thought to whether it can allocate long-term funding to particularly effective projects that come out of the £2 million fund over the two years?
That is a problem with spending review periods. On the strategic review of funding for the voluntary sector, we are clear that funding should be over three years, but it is difficult to get beyond the two-year period because of the spending review constraints. However, I understand people's concerns and am keen to see how we could deal with that issue.
Is the £2.4 million to support the integration of refugees also part of the 2006 to 2008 programme?
Yes. We will send a detailed breakdown, as we undertook to do for Sandra White.
It is the only allocation that is not dated, that is all.
There is some new money in the £2 million fund, but the other budgets are basically already running. We have just invited bids for the next round of Scottish refugee integration forum funding, but we did not announce that unexpectedly; it was in the pipeline. The substantial sums of money for the Scottish Refugee Council are, again, not new, and I am not pretending that they are.
I will ask a more general question. Driving up race equality in Scotland is extremely important, but it is a moving picture—Scotland is changing and big cities such as Glasgow are changing—and all policy is developed within the prevailing political climate. Asylum is a reserved matter, but the Scottish Executive must have a view on the impact of the media and of the prevailing view. You said that you were at a Scottish refugee integration forum meeting yesterday. What is the view on the impact of the media and of the policy on race relations and race equality in Scotland?
We recognise the media's role. It is recognised explicitly in the Scottish refugee integration forum action plan, which was formed two or three years ago and contains a section about the media's role. We need to examine that. The climate—everything that is happening throughout the United Kingdom and in the media—is relevant to views on race relations in Scotland, so we must acknowledge that wider picture and influence it as far as we can. However, it is difficult to have direct influence on the media, so sometimes we have to counter and challenge its influence. We also try to use the media in our own way through our one Scotland, many cultures media campaign.
Is the existing policy helpful or unhelpful to race relations?
What existing policy are we talking about?
I mean the existing policy on asylum and immigration. Is it helpful or unhelpful to race relations in Scotland?
There are two issues: the details and substance of policy; and the way in which the media—and, indeed, politicians sometimes—describe asylum seekers. Those are two different matters and the second is easier to deal with. We can certainly deprecate the way in which the media and some politicians describe asylum seekers, but, on policy, we would have to go through the raft of different policies and refer to certain policies and actions that we think have a negative impact. Elaine Smith has already mentioned the employment of asylum seekers and the way in which the fact that they cannot work has an impact on attitudes towards them, although some of that could perhaps be dealt with by clarifying and explaining the situation to people.
Thank you very much for your answers to our questions, minister. The committee would like to monitor work on the race equality review and be kept up to date on progress. Perhaps, at a future date, we can discuss the issue again.
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