Equal Opportunities Committee, 29 Jan 2008

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Official Report 214KB pdf

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Mainstreaming Equal Opportunities

Agenda item 2 is on mainstreaming equal opportunities in the work of the Scottish Parliament's committees. Members will see from their papers that we have received correspondence from the convener of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. He has asked our committee, as the successor of the session 2 Equal Opportunities Committee, for our views on the proposed revision to standing orders that would require committees to report each session on the equality work that they have carried out. As members are aware, such a change to standing orders was proposed by the previous Equal Opportunities Committee and agreed to by the previous Conveners Group. The proposal was then forwarded to the Procedures Committee's successor committee in session 3. Do members have any general comments on the paper?

I was a member of the previous Equal Opportunities Committee. Technically, session 3 committees can change decisions that their predecessor committee made but, in my opinion, that would not be in keeping with the spirit of the matter. In paragraph 9 of the report on mainstreaming—on page 6 of paper EO.S3.08.02.02—the previous Equal Opportunities Committee's convener, Cathy Peattie, recommends that the proposed change be put off to allow more time; it was not put off so that it would not happen. Paragraph 9 states:

"appropriate steps should be taken to ensure that this exercise is carried out at the end of the next session."

The intention was to allow for detailed consideration rather than rush into things. I do not think that it was envisaged that the principle of having such reviews would be reversed, although that is technically possible.

Why not have a rule rather than a voluntary agreement for such reviews? It could be argued that if we do not, committees might end up just ticking boxes, which most of us would agree would be unacceptable. However, a requirement would allow committees to start thinking about the issue. If we proceed only on a voluntary basis, we will not get a good response. As paragraph 14 of page 3 of the paper points out,

"only two committees' reports contained a specific equal opportunities section."

That seems to be the outcome of the reports being voluntary.

The crux of the matter is given in paragraph 44 of Cathy Peattie's paper—on page 11—which is worth putting on the record:

"The production of a report on equalities work every four years will not place a heavy resource burden on committees and will provide significant benefits both internally and externally. The internal benefits include increased awareness for committees of the need to mainstream and monitor equalities issues in their work and the provision of both a mechanism for the sharing and encouragement of good practice and a useful resource for successor committees."

That makes the case for having such a requirement in standing orders.

In any case, I understand that if we agree to the proposal today, the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee will conduct a formal inquiry and take evidence on the proposed change, the outcome of which we could consider. For today's purposes, we should go with the status quo, which is that the issue should be taken forward and given detailed consideration.

I should make it quite clear at the outset that we are not bound by the previous committee, so it is legitimate to reconsider the issue even though members might think it unlikely that they would want to change the decision.

Normally, I am in favour of a carrot approach rather than a stick approach, but I agreed with the proposal of the previous committee—of which I was a member—about the need for the rule change. I appreciate the difficulties that are involved, but I echo what Elaine Smith said. Some committees reported back on equalities, but they are few—almost none.

In the previous evidence-taking session, we heard about people in the educational hierarchy who are responsible for rolling out projects but are unaware of equalities issues. That makes me even more convinced of the need to use the stick approach. It is important that Parliament does this work. The Scottish Parliament has an excellent reputation for equalities: we were one of the first Parliaments to bring equalities to the fore. The Equal Opportunities Committee's agreeing that reporting should be mainstreamed in all the committees of the Parliament would say that we take the matter seriously. Parliament must take it seriously, too. Equalities should filter through not only our work but the work of everyone in all walks of life. I am persuaded that we should go for the rule change.

We have to send out a signal. As Sandra White said, we are talking about carrot and stick. The figures in the paper show that the carrot that was held out to committees in the previous session of the Parliament was not big enough, so perhaps a stick is needed. That view is reinforced by the apparent absence of an equalities section in the latest Scottish Government budget document, although references are made to equalities throughout the document. Perhaps we need to send out a firm signal. I support a change in the standing orders.

The table on page 15 shows the contribution that committees have made to equal opportunities reporting. It shows how seriously committees take the matter and which committees made specific reference to equal opportunities in their reports. The table shows how weak the situation was last session: only two committees included an equal opportunities section in their reports, and one made reference to equality. The rule change would be significant. It would ensure that the Parliament was following through on the original ideal of mainstreaming equality throughout its committees. Also, as the paper says, the proposal is neither onerous nor expensive in budgetary terms for committees. Committees can manage it.

There seems to be a clear consensus in favour of the proposal—there certainly is in favour of mainstreaming. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

The next question is whether standing orders require to be changed or whether reporting should be done voluntarily. My preference is for committees to report on a voluntary basis. My fear is that committees may not pay a lot of attention until the very end of the four-year session. It could become merely the proverbial ticking and bumping exercise. Even if we go down that route, there is nothing to prevent the Equal Opportunities Committee from using the powers that we have at present to require committees to carry out equalities reviews and to report to us. We can use our discretion to do that on issues about which we are concerned and I would like to see us being a little bit more proactive in that regard. We should look for issues, flag them up as being important and say to committees that we think they are of relevance to them.

I ask for a show of hands from those who are in favour of the standing orders being changed to make reporting compulsory.

Members indicated agreement.

That is unanimous. I will go with my committee on the matter.

In the event that the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee says that that is not how it wishes to proceed, do members want to discuss at a later date a voluntary equalities review strategy and how that could be undertaken in terms of the guidance and training that would be required?

Yes. I speak as a member of the other committee to which the convener referred. If we do not persuade the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee to go along with the proposal, we should follow up on that proposal as a second option. Neither option rules out the possibility of the Equal Opportunities Committee being proactive in encouraging other committees to cover equal opportunities in their committee inquiries.

Thank you. We will convey the information to the Standards and Public Appointments Committee.

Meeting continued in private until 13:06.