Equal Opportunities Committee, 16 Jan 2007

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Official Report 97KB pdf

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Gypsy Travellers

Agenda item 2 is consideration of the committee's review of progress on Gypsy Travellers. The paper that is before us aims to bring the committee up to date on the subject and sets out an approach for the production of a final report.

I am concerned about the timescale. In undertaking a review, we were clear that we wanted to have the report of the Executive's short-life strategic group on Gypsy Travellers by the end of last year. We want to be able to produce our report. We could flag up issues in our legacy paper, but we owe it to the Gypsy Travellers in Scotland to ensure that we are monitoring the recommendations that the committee produced in its original report.

I agree with the convener on that. Obviously, we cannot dictate what any future committee will do. However, we should impress on our successor committee the high expectations on the issue. In the first session of the Parliament, the Equal Opportunities Committee undertook an extensive inquiry and produced a report. There is a lot of disappointment that things have not moved on as quickly as they should have done. We need to impress on our successor committee that the issue should take precedence in the new session and should be considered with some urgency.

Absolutely.

I agree. Is there any chance that we could amend the timescale and exert a wee bit more pressure on the Executive to come forward with a response? It might not be realistic to assume that it will do that, but I am concerned that, with the Minister for Communities changing, the subject will be lost and the wheel will need to be reinvented. We should impress upon the new minister that the matter is important.

You are right. We will have the minister before us on 20 February and we will have the report by then.

For clarity, will we have the final report by then? Is the draft report now the final report? If so, has it been made public?

We will have the report and we will be able to question the minister on how the Executive responds to the issues that we have raised. We will need to finalise our report by March.

Has the strategic group's report been made public?

It will be made public before our meeting with the minister on 20 February. It will be included with the papers for the meeting.

I refer to paragraph 9 in paper EO.S2.07.01.01, which reads as if we could decide to make the report public.

I understand that the minister agreed that the report should be made public before our meeting so that we can discuss it. Given that the report was written because we asked for it, it seems reasonable that we should have access to it as soon as possible.

I apologise for being late. I know that everyone was late because of transport problems.

Like others, I am concerned about the timescale. The previous Equal Opportunities Committee's report on Gypsy Travellers was published in 2001, which is more than five years ago. My big concern is that we will not have the minister's response before the end of the session. Can we speed up the timetable so that we get the minister's response and can finalise our report?

We will be able to do that. I would have liked to have the minister's response a month ago, to be honest, but we will have the report before 20 February and we will be able to question the minister on that day. We will then be able to respond to the report and publish our own report and recommendations.

Elaine Smith is right—we will include the matter in our legacy paper and we hope that our successor committee will take it up. I remind members that the initial report was done not by us but by the Equal Opportunities Committee in the first session of Parliament, albeit that some of us were members of that committee.

I understand that. I am glad that we will be able to respond. My worry was that the minister would not respond. I do not know what our recommendations will be, but in our legacy paper we should recommend that the minister should respond to the report.

Do members agree to the approach that is proposed in the paper?

Members indicated agreement.