Equal Opportunities Committee, 21 Sep 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 21, 1999

Official Report 133KB pdf

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Macpherson Report

The next item is the Macpherson report. Michael McMahon headed the group that considered the report and I ask him to lead off the discussion.

I am not sure that I need to go through the list of questions that the group identified. Even before we went through the action plan with the Commission for Racial Equality, it became clear that our report would be incomplete without allowing the committee the opportunity to question Jim Wallace in his capacity as Minister for Justice.

The group felt that we could work through the action plan to find its gaps and strengths and to look for opportunities for the committee to tighten up its suggestions. We considered the overall themes running through the report as well as some specific suggestions that could be made on certain issues identified in the report. I suggested to the group that we produce a list of the areas in which we felt we could make a contribution or about which we could at least ask for greater clarification. It would be impossible to draft a report without having the opportunity to speak to Jim Wallace first.

All we can do is to lay the list before the committee and allow members to decide whether they have anything to add. We could then use the list as a basis for putting a line of questioning to Jim Wallace.

Does anyone else from the group want to add to that?

I had to leave the meeting early. The one area that has not been mentioned—perhaps because we knew that we would be asking about it—is the independent complaints commission. We may have underplayed that because we all knew that it would be an issue.

It is referred to at the bottom of page 2.

My apologies, Michael.

I hoped that the matter had been referred to and I am glad that Malcolm has brought it up. It is an important point to raise with Jim Wallace next week. I would hope that a cross-party group would express concern about the lack of an independent complaints body. I want to maintain the cross-party approach in seeking such a body for Scotland.

The sub-group was unanimous in the view that the feasibility study was the way forward. That did not mean that members took a view on the body itself. Everyone agreed that there was a need for a separate Scottish feasibility study, because there would be few lessons to be learned from the study for England and Wales, which will be published next April.

I do not have to apologise at all; I have a defective copy of the sub-group report, which has several missing paragraphs. Do other members have the same problem?

At the end of the meeting, the group agreed on areas of unanimity and I drafted an initial report, asking members of the group to add specific questions. Once I had received those responses, I collated them into a fuller report.

I must have the original report. All is explained.

One of the problems that we identified was that of time scale. We had only a week in which to invite the CRE to visit us, to consider the Macpherson report and to identify areas of personal interest. Having had the opportunity to be guided by the CRE on the response to the report, we had only five days to compile the final document. In order to complete the report, I had to write up the questions that we had agreed on, e-mail the members of the sub-group to give them the opportunity to put individual questions, finalise that report and send it back to the clerks to be distributed to the full committee.

If we are going to be doing something like that in future, we require a longer time scale and greater consultation to ensure that the reports are as tight as possible.

The group has done really well in just one week. The work had to be done in a week because we were not in control of the date of the end of the consultation period, which is 30 September. Even though the group has had only one week, it has covered all the areas of concern and formed the basis for questions for Jim Wallace next Tuesday.

I must apologise; I should have e-mailed Michael with all my points.

One of the problems—perhaps I should say realities rather than problems—that we might have with the education bill is that, in Scotland, we do not have a national curriculum. That is one of the constraints within which we are working. Is that right?

I think that that was one of the questions that we identified at the end of the meeting. There were some subjects that we considered to be more properly in the remit of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee; it would be wrong for us to ask questions on those. There were other subjects that fell within the remit of other committees and we did not know whether we should comment on areas that were not specific to us.

That is not what I meant. The point that I am making is that the action plan says that there is not a national curriculum in Scotland. That is the context in which we must discuss education. Perhaps we need to change the wording.

That is a fair comment and perhaps the wording needs to reflect it.

I have made a note of that. Is there anything else on which members who were not involved in the sub-group want to comment?

The list is not exhaustive or inclusive; it is an indication of the areas identified by the group that could form the basis for a line of questioning. That is not to say that we must ask those questions. Committee members who have specific concerns can ask their own questions.

If members have other questions, they may find it useful to have a chat with Michael McMahon, because the group may already have discussed those issues.

On the question of education, the issue of the volume of work that has been left to head teachers needs much wider scrutiny. The teachers to whom I have spoken have complained bitterly about the volume of non-teaching work that they are required to carry out.

I have a question about the format of next week's meeting. What happens after 28 September? We have the basis of a response, but there will not be much time between the meeting of 28 September and the submission date of 30 September in which to pull something together. Has Michael thought about how we are to do that?

I hope that questioning Jim Wallace will not take up the entire session. I was working on the basis that we would not spend three hours on that and that there would be time afterwards to finalise our response, having had some answers.

Can I have clarification on whether Jackie Baillie is coming for general questioning on the same day? Will that happen, or would it be better to stick to the one subject?

We could ask Jackie Baillie to come another time; I do not think that that would be a problem. We could have Jim Wallace on his own and spend an hour afterwards finalising the report so that we can submit it by 30 September. I would like Jackie to come here as soon as possible to discuss the wider agenda of equality.

It would be valuable to have Jackie Baillie here to respond to issues raised by the Macpherson report, because she is responsible for implementing the advisory forum, among other things. It would be important to hear her contribution in terms of considering the issues that arise from the Lawrence inquiry in a positive way.

I will ask Martin to outline what has been arranged so far.

The arrangement is that Jim Wallace would be at the committee meeting from 2 o'clock until 3 o'clock; Jackie Baillie would sit with him. However, the expectation is that questions in that part of the meeting would be directed towards Jim Wallace and would concentrate on the Macpherson report, although Jim Wallace might ask Jackie Baillie to pick up the occasional question. Nevertheless, the thrust of that session would be on the Macpherson report.

Jackie Baillie would remain after 3 o'clock for about three quarters of an hour to take questions on general equalities issues. Her officials are preparing a paper to give an idea of the programme of work on equalities undertaken by the department.

Meetings in the afternoon normally run from 2 pm to 4 pm. The room will be booked until 5 pm, so there would be time after 3.45 to consider what had been said.

Are members happy with that arrangement? We could keep Jackie Baillie for another half an hour or so and then discuss the final submission. Is that agreed?

Yes.