Equal Opportunities Committee, 28 Oct 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Official Report 272KB pdf

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Budget Process 2004-05

Good morning and welcome to the fifth meeting of the Equal Opportunities Committee in the second session of the Parliament. This morning we will take evidence on the budget process and on civil partnership registration. I have received apologies from Elaine Smith.

I welcome Margaret Curran, the Minister for Communities, and Yvonne Strachan, Ewa Hibbert and Helen Mansbridge from the Executive. I invite the minister to make a statement before we proceed to members' questions.

I am pleased to be back at the Equal Opportunities Committee and I look forward to our continuing discussions. This is a useful opportunity to talk about the 2004-05 budget process. I am sure that the committee is aware that how equality relates to the budget is a huge subject. However, I will limit myself to a brief description of the improvements that we have made this year to the way in which the budget documents and, indeed, the budget process, deal with equality issues.

Members will be aware that this year's budget process is a bit different from that of previous years. Last May's elections meant that we did not publish the annual expenditure report, so this is the first opportunity that we have had together to scrutinise our spending plans for 2004-05.

We have made several changes to this year's draft budget. In so doing, we have taken account of opinions from a number of sources, including the Finance Committee and the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group—if you can think of a shorter name for the group, I would be very grateful. I will talk about the group later.

I am sure that those who were members in the previous session will know that the budget documents made few references to equality in previous years. We and the committee expressed concern about that, so last year the annual expenditure report highlighted the equality work that is being undertaken in housing and education. That was the first step forward, but this year we have taken a significant step forward by including in each main portfolio additional information about spending and work on equality.

More than 100 projects and areas of work have been identified. They range from major instances of spending, such as the £106 million on concessionary fares for pensioners and disabled people, to smaller projects, such as the £55,000 Scottish Executive placement scheme for students who are from minority ethnic communities or who have disabilities.

The work of the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group is mentioned in the introduction to the draft budget document. I put on record our thanks for the work of that group, which has been extremely helpful to us as we have developed the agenda and engaged in its detail. The group was formerly known as the equality proofing budget advisory group—we are not exactly experts at giving groups jazzy titles—and it was renamed to make a better link between budget and policy. We have talked about that before, because we need to get it right.

We are working with partners to improve the presentation of information about equality issues in the Executive's budget documents; to raise awareness about the need to mainstream equalities in policies and budgets; and to investigate ways of monitoring Executive expenditure on different groups. Members of the advisory group include officials from the Executive's equality unit and from its Finance and Central Services Department and representatives from the Scottish women's budget group, the Equality Network, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality. Professor Arthur Midwinter, who is the Finance Committee's adviser, is an observer of the group.

I can see that the convener is trying to hurry me up. To cut a long story short, we are trying to improve and to make sharper and more detailed the information that we provide, so that people can see the range of equality work. We could never include all the information that is requested; the amount of information makes that impossible. As some people have said, some good work that is being done might not be highlighted in the budget documents. We want to manage that, to highlight information and to give people the opportunity to hold us to account for the work that we do on equality. I will shut up there.

There has clearly been considerable improvement in the inclusion of equalities in the budget. Several witnesses have expressed to the committee their support for the equality statements in this year's budget. How will those statements be maintained and developed in future budgets?

I will start the reply to that question, but Yvonne Strachan has led the officials' detailed work. Along with our key partners in the equality and voluntary sectors, the officials have done a good job. We want to provide clear and sharp information in the budget documents without overloading the system. Another aim is to signpost more detailed information about particular spends. Our intention is partly to deepen the link between policy and budget. If people focus only on where the money is and what that money means, they always end up asking questions about policy. We need to be clear about the equality policy and how it is held to account and we need to link that with the budget. To be honest, there is more work to do.

The minister explained well the agenda for the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group. Its intention is to obtain progress year on year and to consider presentation and what else needs to be done to enable the Executive to reflect properly to the public how our spend works. The minister outlined the agenda. It is for the advisory group and the Executive to make that agenda happen.

Some groups have felt that some subjects that were included under statements relating to closing the opportunity gap might have been better placed in the equality statements. Could you clarify the remit of the statements and how the Executive aims to achieve a consistent approach from departments?

We are aware of the committee's evidence on that and we saw that some departments included equality issues more as social inclusion or closing the opportunity gap matters. In the coming year, we intend to ensure consistent information across all the headings.

In its recent response to research conducted by Dr Ailsa McKay of the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group, the Executive stated its commitment to

"focussing effort on improving the linkage between expenditure and the outcomes the expenditure delivers".

That was also supported in the Executive's equality annual report, in which the Executive stated its commitment to developing more outcome-based targets. Can you detail the progress that the Executive has made in that area?

Like most people, we strongly support the connection between spend and outcomes. Of course, simply wanting that connection to be made does not mean that, when one looks at how expenditure is disaggregated across a range of organisations, it will be easy to make it. The committee will be aware that there has been a public debate about targeting. It is easy to set a target, but it is important to be open about how one tries to meet that target and, if it is not met, the reasons for not meeting it, which might be good reasons, such as changing circumstances. We need to be open about the process of getting to outcomes as we move towards making outcome expenditure part of the focus of our work. Yvonne Strachan can detail the progress that we are making in that regard.

As part of the 2002 spending review process, we established the outcome and output targets to try better to link expenditure to results. In the 2004 spending review, the intention is to improve on the targets that we set and to make the link between expenditure and outcomes easier to see. We are working on a programme of progress in that area.

The Disability Rights Commission stated in evidence that there are

"quite a number of positive aspects under many of the budget heads where it is clear that equality has been considered from the initial targets through to the detail of the expenditure."

However, it added:

"For one or two budget heads, although they have top-level equality statements, it is more difficult to work out where the detailed expenditure is." —[Official Report, Equal Opportunities Committee, 7 October 2003; c 68-69.]

It pointed out that the education portfolio is a good example of linking targets to expenditure but felt that the Justice Department, for example, did not provide strong links between objectives and top-level targets. What are your views on that?

That sort of evidence is compelling and we must give more attention to it. In developing the equality strategy, we have tried to be strategic in the first instance. We have developed work in relation to the housing and education pilots with a view to rolling out initiatives across the Executive. If the committee is telling us that we need to pay greater attention to the Justice Department, I would refer that message to the relevant groups to see what they might do to dig further into the outcome-related activity. We will consider the question in more detail and ensure that it remains part of our dialogue.

That is helpful. I realise that there is a limit to the amount of information that you can present and that you must be careful in that regard. However, another committee suggested that, if the budget information were to be presented on a programme basis rather than only on a departmental basis, that might point it up a bit more.

That is interesting. I think that we moved from a programme basis to a portfolio basis. We were trying to arrange the budget in a way that would allow ministers to manage the money for which they were responsible.

(Scottish Executive Finance and Central Services Department): Historically, the budget documents were presented on a departmental basis. They have been moved to a portfolio basis to show more clearly how the money is being spent. Marlyn Glen's point is perhaps to do with the level of detail involved. Given that a lot of our money goes out in blocks to local government, for example, it is quite hard to follow the money using the degree of detail that she is looking for. We are trying to find ways to improve the level of detail that we use, but that work is on-going.

Do you mean, Marlyn, that you want us to present the figures in terms of, for example, expenditure in relation to disability as opposed to on a departmental basis?

Yes. However, I understand that we always want more detail and that there is a limit to the level of detail that you can present us with.

The Disability Rights Commission would like the budget to be made available in various formats to suit disabled people and the Commission for Racial Equality would like translations of the budget to be made available. What are your views on that?

We are sympathetic to that in principle. We have had discussions about it in the past. We would not produce automatically every document in Braille or in every language, because most people accept that that might not be the best use of resources. Should anyone request a translation, we would do our utmost to provide it.

There has not been a demand for the budget document to be made available in alternative formats, so the issue has not arisen. Marilyn Livingstone asks about policy on making sure that information is readily available. As the minister said, the Executive's view is that, if there is a demand, we will have to respond to it.

The Executive has to bear in mind the relationship between demand and public funding. The budget document is technical and much of it relates to figures. We are trying to strike a balance in providing information to the public about a technical area and in being accessible. Although we have not received a demand for translation, the Executive would have to consider what to do should such a demand be made.

An important part of mainstreaming and equality proofing is consulting users on their views about the impact of policy. How confident is the Executive that the views of key stakeholders have been incorporated into target setting—which is important—in this year's draft budget and that the outcomes can be assessed in conjunction with those groups?

I am confident that we try. I cannot say that we have got everything perfectly right and I am sure the stakeholders would not say that, either. As Yvonne Strachan said, we must strike a balance. Different groups will say different things to us and there are often tensions around what they ask us to include, particularly given that we have to set priorities. We make strenuous efforts to work with key stakeholders and the advisory group does that effectively. A number of the equality groups would say that there is now a forum for discussion.

As members know, we have done a lot of work on gender issues in particular. The momentum to do that in the first session was great and we have kept it up. We hope to continue with that work as best we can within individual portfolios. However, things can be hard in our business and the fact that we consult people does not mean that we reach consensus—consensus is not always the right conclusion in any event. We are initiating processes that are thorough and engaging, but I acknowledge that they are imperfect.

The only point that I would add to the minister's comment is that part of the equality strategy has been to ensure that there is an effective process of consultation and dialogue with different communities across the equality spectrum. The Executive has attempted and encouraged that in its different policy areas. The process is improving and, as a result of that dialogue, we expect better engagement around the setting of priorities and the determining of objectives and targets.

Is the advisory group comprehensive? Does it include all the key stakeholders?

The group covers the main equality groups and those that had a particular interest in equality proofing the budget. To that extent, those players have been involved. There is a huge range of interests across the equality agenda and those interests cannot all be part of an advisory group. However, the way in which equality work is undertaken allows for a lot of dialogue and networking and all the organisations pride themselves on their ability to discuss matters among their memberships. Therefore, we hope that what they bring to the Executive has been debated and considered by a group wider than just the individuals who participate in our working group.

Would it be helpful if I read out the current membership of the group?

Yes, thank you.

There are representatives from the Scottish Executive equality unit—usually Yvonne Strachan and I—and Helen Mansbridge and another colleague from the Finance and Central Services Department usually attend meetings. The other members are Ailsa McKay and Kay Simpson from the Scottish women's budget group, Tim Hopkins from the Equality Network, Rona Fitzgerald from the Equal Opportunities Commission and Mick Conboy from the Commission for Racial Equality. As the minister mentioned, Professor Arthur Midwinter, the adviser to the Finance Committee, also sits on the group as an observer. We had a representative from the Disability Rights Commission, but at the moment that organisation is not able to send someone to attend. The open invitation stands—anyone who expresses an interest in that area of work is welcome to participate in the group.

Although the Scottish women's budget group welcomed the progress made in relation to equality statements, it expressed disappointment at the lack of disaggregated baseline information in the budget. For example, it welcomed the inclusion of spending to address domestic abuse, but would have wished

"to see an indication of the prevalence of domestic violence and of how the funding aims to address that in the objectives and targets."—[Official Report, Equal Opportunities Committee, 7 October 2003; c 63.]

How would you respond to those concerns?

In principle, I can understand why people would want the detail of that information, but whether we should put that in the budget is a challenging issue for us. Information on a whole range of spend on tackling domestic abuse, whether through greater refuge provision or greater awareness raising, for example, is quite detailed. Although I think that such information should be publicly available, it could be made available elsewhere. That is what I meant by signposting. If we provided that level of detail in every area, the budget document would be huge and cumbersome. If the budget became too cumbersome, that would not be helpful in terms of accountability. We should indicate to the people who want such disaggregated information where they can find it.

There will be areas on which we do not have the level of disaggregated information that we need. We need to keep pushing on that. Although it can be difficult to disaggregate the information, sometimes it is not as difficult as one might imagine. We could do it on domestic abuse, for example, because of the range of work that we are doing in that area. There is a separate group in that area, which could represent one way of indicating spend on domestic abuse. I can understand why organisations would want that information. There must be ways in which we could provide such information, but I am just not sure that including it in the budget would always be the right way.

The Scottish women's budget group, the Equality Network and the Commission for Racial Equality all emphasised the need to conduct impact assessments to examine the implications of the Executive's policy. How does the Executive use equality impact assessments to examine the impact of its policies and the respective budget allocations?

In all honesty, we do not use equality impact assessments as much as we want to, because we do not really have the tools to help us to do that. That is now on the agenda of the equality proofing budget and policy advisory group—we need to get a different name for the group, so that I can remember it more easily. The group's work will enable us to consider the impact assessment on various groups.

Conducting impact assessments is a sophisticated exercise. We have decided to do that properly, rather than to make a token effort, which we could have done a couple of years ago. That would have produced headline figures, but I would have been the first to say that that was not enough. We have gone for a more detailed approach, which the relevant networks and groups support. From assessing the experience elsewhere, I think that we have caught up with countries such as Canada and New Zealand, which were ahead of us. Am I right to say that, in opting for that level of detail, Scotland is up there with other countries?

Yes.

How confident are you that this year's budget is a step forward in creating a standard level of mainstreaming equality in all the departments?

I am confident that it is a step forward. We are certainly trying our best to be clear about what is happening out there and to tell people about the information that we are providing, so that we can allow them to ask questions about it. It is also proper that we are using the budget as a tool to ensure that equality is mainstreamed. We can all say that we have a general commitment to equality—all portfolios in the Executive, as well as officials, genuinely share that commitment. However, if one examines the details, one sometimes finds that that commitment gets a bit forgotten. The budget allows us to examine the detail and to find out what is actually going on. This year's budget is a step forward, but there is still more to be done.

I notice that the spend for 2004-05 and 2005-06 is static. Is there a rationale for the amount that is going to be spent on mainstreaming equality?

Do you mean the equality budget allocation?

Yes.

In the year before this new session, the equality budget increased by something like 500 per cent. Before then, the budget was low—the theory was that we should not need a big equality budget because the equality spend was in the big departments. No matter what I would do as equalities minister, the health or education budgets should be getting spent on equality anyway. There was an argument that we should keep the equality unit's budgets small, because most of the work was going on elsewhere. However, we still argued with the Minister for Finance and Public Services about the need to increase the budget. I think that it increased from £1 million to £5 million, so we have more money, which explains why it is at that level just now.

Will you continue to support existing projects over a number of years, rather than introduce new projects?

We are introducing new projects because we have just gone from having a budget of £1 million to having one of £5 million. I do not know where we will take that. We will need to see how the money is spent and what we achieve from it. I do not want to get into a situation where we are seen as the ones who spend money on equality. That needs to be done by all departments across the board, which is why we have taken the approach of making sure that every department has responsibility for spending on equality. If I have not answered your question properly, you can come back to me.

At the committee's last meeting, we heard evidence from John Curtice on the National Centre for Social Research's findings on attitudes towards discrimination in Scotland. I think that we all agree that that was an important piece of work, which was commissioned by the Executive. Does the Executive plan to use the findings of that research and, if so, how might that impact on next year's budget? In particular, the report states:

"Overall the results indicate that discriminatory attitudes are more likely to be expressed in respect of gay men and lesbians and minority ethnic groups than they are either women or disabled people."

I take your point that things are difficult because we have to set priorities, but that was the clear message that came out of the study. Does the Executive plan to make use of the research to determine how it spends its budget next year?

I can honestly say yes to that. The research is interesting in relation to how we develop policy. Spend should follow policy anyway, so the answer to the question is yes.

On the specific groups that you highlight, when we deal with equality arguments—and I know that you would agree—the most invidious thing that we can do is to set equality groups against one another, so that they say, "I'm more oppressed than you are." That just misses the point, in relation to the big arguments that we need to have. We would not want to get into that. Nonetheless, the report tells us some interesting, penetrating and searching things, which we will think about as time goes on.

Particularly in relation to gay issues, we do quite a lot of work with the equality sector. There is work to be developed. At a meeting with the Equality Network yesterday, we agreed to meet separately to develop that agenda a bit more. There is a good base for work that is going on at the moment, but there is a need to develop the agenda, particularly around bullying in schools and bullying of young people. We need to start moving on the striking research on the matter that was conducted a couple of years ago. We may have to sit round a table and discuss how we take that forward.

In part, the National Centre for Social Research study helps us by giving us insights into and justification for our work. It gives us a steer on where we need to go, but it is not the only thing that will do that. The Parliament's view is an obvious influence, such as the debate that we had on equality, during which that research was mentioned. The research provides a steer for the kinds of issues that we need to pursue.

One of the issues that came out of the research was that the groups that were more likely to be discriminated against were the very groups on which people felt that too much money and effort had been spent to fight discrimination. It is a chicken-and-egg situation. The question of justification is important.

I smiled when the minister mentioned bullying, as I was wondering whether she had seen a copy of our questions. My next question is more specifically about the budget. The Equality Network has highlighted the anti-bullying work that should be done in schools. The anti-bullying network was given £100,000 in the 2003-04 budget, which was specifically meant to be for consideration of such matters as homophobic and racist bullying. There is evidence to suggest that work on such matters has not been done—for example, the anti-bullying network's website still refers to a pre-repeal scenario in relation to section 2A. What are you doing about that? Money seems to have been made available for an issue that should be tackled. You mentioned targeting, outputs and monitoring. We all agree that such work must be done. What is the department doing to ensure that money is being spent on what it should be spent on?

To be honest, I do not know about the specifics of the matter, so I will need to come back to you about it. I talked to the Equality Network yesterday about the subject, which is a coincidence. I think that Stonewall research has found that there are serious incidents in schools relating to such matters. The subject was raised with me and we agreed to consider and discuss it and find out what we could do, but that was only yesterday. Can I come back to the committee on the matter? I take the point that if we say that we are doing things that relate to equality, we must ensure that the money is spent properly and that it does what we want it to do. I will pursue the matter.

A number of witnesses have pointed out the impact of delegated budgets on mainstreaming equality, particularly in relation to service delivery and best value at local levels. What assurances can you offer to stakeholders that the Executive is doing all that it can to ensure that mainstreaming equality is monitored and promoted at local authority level?

Obviously, there is a challenge when money is given out to a range of organisations, particularly to smaller organisations in the community. The answer to your question lies in the best-value regime. Ewa Hibbert can use the technical language for the committee.

The best-value regime for local authorities and a similar regime for the wider public sector set out a framework within which they should operate. The best-value principles are intended to inform and reinforce continuous improvement in the performance of public sector bodies. Local authorities and the wider public sector should deliver greater efficiency and effectiveness, but must also take into account economy and the need to comply with the requirements of equal opportunities legislation.

The Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 introduced a statutory duty of best value on local authorities and the Accounts Commission for Scotland is scheduled to introduce a new framework for auditing best value in local government from November this year. We have issued guidance to local authorities about how they should show compliance with their best-value duties. For example, the guidance says that to comply with the equal pay legislation, local authorities should conduct equal pay reviews of their staff.

The best-value regime has been rolled out across the wider public sector from the beginning of 2002 and extended to Executive agencies, Executive non-departmental public bodies, a range of national health service bodies and the Scottish Executive itself. Under the regime, accountable officers have a duty of best value under the terms of the accountable officer memoranda in the Scottish public sector finance manual—I am using some rather technical terms.

Nanette Milne wanted an answer, did she not?

The same principles that are applied towards local authorities under their statutory duties will be applied to accountable officers of other public sector organisations. Therefore, they must ensure that they have arrangements in place to secure continuous improvement in performance while maintaining an appropriate balance between quality and cost. They must also have regard to economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equal opportunities requirements and must contribute to the achievement of sustainable development.

I hope that that describes the way in which best value will roll out equal opportunities requirements in the wider public sector. There will be an obligation to report on how all those bodies are meeting those requirements.

Are they reporting to the Auditor General? Who is the ultimate monitor?

There are slightly different regimes. The Accounts Commission for Scotland will investigate whether local authorities are fulfilling their duties. Accountable officers are monitored by Audit Scotland.

Officials are wonderful, are they not?

We have campaigned for a long time to get best value to work in equalities, so the news is very good. I am sure that the committee will want to come back and examine those issues, but that answer was very welcome.

As there are no other questions from members, I thank the minister and her team for their evidence this morning.

Thank you. We will get back to you on those things that the committee asked about.

That would be useful.

I suspend the meeting for five minutes to give our next witnesses a chance to take their seats.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—