Equal Opportunities Committee, 24 Apr 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 24, 2001

Official Report 248KB pdf

---

Budget Process 2002-03

I apologise to the witnesses for the fact that we are running 40 minutes late. Bob Benson has had to leave to catch a plane but I am sure that Adam Gaines will be able to answer any questions that members might have.

As we are running late, the clerks have suggested that, unless our witnesses have short statements, we could move straight to questions.

As we have no specific details from the witnesses' statements to ask about, I will start with a general question that I will address to each organisation.

Do you have a view on whether an equality commission, such as exists in Northern Ireland, would assist with the way in which the Scottish Executive allocates its funds? Would such a commission help you to do your work and would it help in dealing with the issues that you want the Scottish Executive to address?

The main issue for the Equality Network is that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues are not covered by any of the existing statutory commissions. That means that we have few national resources to take a strategic approach to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality or to provide expertise. We are a completely voluntary organisation, which means that Helen Chambers had to take a day out of her annual leave to attend today's meeting—I work part time, so I was able to attend. Lack of resources is a key issue.

LGBT equality has to be covered by law by the end of 2003 and there is a question about how that will be integrated with the other equality work that is being done. However, we do not have a strong view on that. The key issue for us is that, whether that is done by bringing LGBT equality into the remit of one of the other commissions or whether there is a joint equality commission, the focus should not be lost. Expertise should be focused on the specific needs of each of the different equality areas, and the resources should be available. Extra resources will have to be allocated when LGBT equality becomes a statutory requirement, as it will in a couple of years' time.

As Tim Hopkins has said, there is a need to maintain expertise and to focus on specific equality issues. The Equal Opportunities Commission's perspective on gender equality can occasionally be lost when equalities are brought together. In the budget process, methodologies are being developed around gender impact analysis, both by the Executive and, more broadly, in other countries. Taking a gender perspective on the budget is not necessarily the same as taking a perspective from the issues of disability, LGBT or race. It is important that the focus should not be lost.

Another concern is the level of resources. Currently, the statutory equality commissions have varied levels of resources, with the EOC's work on women's equality, or sex equality, being the least well resourced. That is perhaps no surprise, considering the level of priority that is given to sex equality. In bringing together a joint equality commission, how would the different aspects and expertise be resourced?

Mr McMahon mentioned the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. There are mixed views on the success of that joint equality commission. I do not want to be perceived as commenting negatively on the commission's performance; I am talking about the effectiveness of bringing together the equality bodies with the human rights commission. That takes us into an entirely different debate about the status of the commissions and the prospect of a human rights commission in Scotland, as the statutory bodies are considered to be British and not even cross-border public bodies.

The Disability Rights Commission feels that it is important that disability issues are not lost and that the budget process gives them a proper focus. There are specific issues concerning disability, which a joint commission might not take sufficiently into account. Anti-discrimination legislation in relation to disability is still relatively new, and the budget process must recognise the growing number of performance indicators so that disability issues can be properly taken into account across the different departmental budget heads.

The way in which financial information is issued does not show how money is spent specifically on equality activities. Do you think that that information is required to allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of equality activity funding?

My understanding is that, as part of the equality strategy, performance indicators and work in this field will be considered in the budget process. Currently, the Scottish budget does not do that sufficiently, although one would not expect it to, as the equality strategy sets that out as a measure that will be implemented later this year.

I would make a distinction between equality proofing the budget—the process of rendering visible the differentials in relation to mainstreaming—and the specifics of allocating against identified need. That distinction is particularly important with regard to gender. I stress that accounting for gender and a gender perspective in the budget does not mean privileging the needs of women over men or the other way round; it means recognising the differentials and ensuring that public spending is effectively targeted according to need and experience.

Is enough information available to allow us to do that? This spring, the Executive produced gender statistics, which Engender previously produced.

You will see from the smiles from the witnesses that you have struck a common chord. From a gender perspective, we welcome the Executive's publication of "Men and Women in Scotland: A Statistical Profile". That is a positive start and it is encouraging that Engender's work has been recognised. However, the profile is only a start. The absence of any equalities-disaggregated data in the budget documents is striking. Only one table in the health department information disaggregates by age.

For policy to be effectively informed, we argue that there should be cross-referencing with gender, income levels and geographical location, especially when one hears about locality budgeting across policy sectors.

Not enough information is available, certainly on the gender impact. Data should be more than quantitative; they should be qualitative, with information on impact, and they should take into account the processes that the service delivery organisations adopt and how those organisations assess and report on their performance.

There are almost no data on LGBT equality. The Executive has not produced a little blue booklet about LGBT equality data, because it does not have the figures. However, we welcome the fact that the Executive has recognised that and is about to commission a research project to consider methodologies for gathering the data. The methodologies for gathering the data must be different for each topic. LGBT equality involves confidentiality, which makes it different from other matters.

That study will happen over the summer. It is important that the Executive does further research after that study is complete, using those methodologies and gathering the information. That can be done. Not just the Executive, but those bodies that spend the majority of the budget that the Executive does not spend directly, such as local government and health boards, should be required to monitor and audit their work for equality. I will give one example of good practice, which shows that such monitoring can be done. Edinburgh youth social inclusion partnership monitors its outcomes on the bases of race, gender, disability and sexual orientation. Other social inclusion partnerships could take that up. That is one example of how that work can be mainstreamed.

The statistics and information that cover disability in Scotland are limited, which is one reason why we recently commissioned a baseline study to start the process. We must ensure that information covers the range of issues that affect disabled people. That will allow us to start considering whether expenditure is properly targeted. The information is as yet insufficient to allow that to be done, but the budget makes several references to targeted areas and programmes of expenditure on disability, with varying degrees of detail. In fact, the budget refers to disability about 20 times.

Would the witnesses prioritise any areas of inequality as crucial? If so, are the resources in the Scottish budget adequate to address them?

LGBT issues are certainly cross-cutting. Every aspect of the budget contains an element that would impact on our communities. If we were to prioritise those aspects, we would say that education, children, health and community care and local government would be important. Social justice is one of the two major themes that underpin the budget; it very much impacts on our communities. At the moment, there is not enough understanding of the relationship between social justice and discrimination.

As far as the support networks are concerned, support for the equality unit needs to be examined. Although it plays a fundamental role, its funding represents one part in 20,000 of the available budget.

Do members have any more questions?

Michael McMahon stole all mine.

Were our witnesses consulted before the budget was published? What do they think of the Executive's consultation on the budget?

The Equal Opportunities Commission, the Disability Rights Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality are members of the advisory group on equality and budgets, which has been going for a while. It is great that such a group exists; however, the first we heard of it was last Thursday, when we read the Scottish Parliament information centre's research note on equal opportunities and the budget. That paper does not mention LGBT issues at all, which is a pity, because SPICe is usually good about using the wide definition of equal opportunities contained in the Scotland Act 1998. Our written submission was going to mention our unhappiness at not being invited to join the advisory group; however, we received that invitation yesterday.

For some time now, the EOC has been involved in the wider process of pushing for gender analysis in the budget. That work was initiated by Engender and the Engender women's budget group, of which the commission is a member. We had a meeting with the former Minister for Finance, who agreed to a number of action points, including the establishment of an advisory group. However, that group's remit was extended beyond a gender perspective to a wider equality perspective. The equality-proofing budget steering group has met twice and is to meet again and I hope that the new Minister for Finance and Local Government will consider elevating it to the status of a ministerial advisory group.

As for wider consultation, we did not receive direct communication from the Executive either in the lead-up to or after the publication of the documents. There are several underpinning concerns. How have the spending priorities been set? What consultation has informed the process? To what extent would it have been appropriate to give information on that consultative process in the budget documents as they stand, which would have contributed to more effective benchmarking against the Executive's targets?

Overall, the EOC welcomes the Executive's commitment to consult on the budget. We accept that it is still early days and that this is a learning process, but we believe that the budget process should be expanded to include consultation at an earlier stage. The Equal Opportunities Committee's initiative in opening up the process to cross-cutting consultation is positive. The other subject committees must now take cognisance of equality implications in their deliberations on the budget process. As the committee is aware, the EOC and the CRE presented questions on mainstreaming to MSPs in November 1999. We remind this committee and other committees to utilise those questions in their analysis of the budget this time round.

The Executive's equality strategy is undoubtedly a positive step. It contains targets on developing tools for mainstreaming in the budget process. It is a little out of synch at the moment, in that the pilot work does not start until later this year. The equality-proofing process of the budget does not rest with the equality unit; it should be done by the divisions of the Executive, but that is not the case at the moment. That is compounded by the fact that, as Helen Chambers said, the definition of equality, and therefore its understanding, is hidden away in the commitment to social justice on page 28 of the budget summary document. We would have liked a strong and clear commitment to equality in the introductory statement to the budget process. We would also like the organisations that are responsible for delivering services on behalf of the Executive to be implicated in promoting equality. There should be a duty on those bodies to report to the Executive on their progress in promoting equality.

I would like to reinforce Angela O'Hagan's point. A vast amount of Scottish Executive funding is disbursed to other bodies, which tend to overlook LGBT issues more than do the Scottish Executive or the Scottish Parliament, which are quite good at addressing LGBT issues. That needs to be addressed with something much stronger than just a recommendation. There must be pointers to audit; it is important that people know that they will be called to account over these issues.

LGBT issues are not only not reflected within budgetary audit, they are not even reflected in the strategy on which the budget is audited. We have to go back a step with regard to the process, certainly with that aspect of equality and perhaps with others as well.

We, too, would like equality to be given a higher priority in the budgetary consultation process. We were not consulted until after the budget was set and, given the time constraints, we have not been able to consult our stakeholders and get their views to input into the process. In future, we hope that that will be possible. Moreover, we are mindful of the fact that there will be further requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 in 2003-04 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill, which is currently at Westminster. We hope that those requirements will be borne in mind.

Does the idea of taking a snapshot at a certain time raise a problem in evaluating the effectiveness of the budget? Does there have to be an on-going process to allow the relevant information to be judged, or is the problem caused by the lack of information?

At the moment, the structures are not in place even to deliver that snapshot. We should consider the reporting requirements and the monitoring and evaluation systems that need to be in place. To what extent are they in place across enterprise and lifelong learning provision, for example? The Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000 introduced a requirement on local authority education providers to report on their promotion of, and progress towards, equality. Where else does that requirement apply to service providers and other organisations? If the procedures are not in place, we cannot even get a snapshot. Evaluating impacts and outcomes is an on-going procedure and should feed back into the process to make for better government, better decision making and more targeted policies and programmes in future.

Thank you for coming along to give evidence today. I am sorry that your session was shortened. I understand that you have the questionnaires that were sent out and I look forward to receiving them. I apologise for the short time scale for returning them. Everything is done in such a rush.