Education Committee, 29 Oct 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Official Report 109KB pdf

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Mainstreaming Equality

We have a report and correspondence from Cathy Peattie, as convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee, about how we mainstream equality. That is obviously a big issue for the Parliament.

The main point appears to be that we should take account of the Equal Opportunities Committee's checklist on equalities in the work of the committee, in how the clerks organise the material that is submitted, and in the reports done by the committee. That probably already happens to a large extent, does it not?

Equal opportunities are normally taken into account whenever a committee produces a report on an inquiry or at stage 1 of a bill. The Equal Opportunities Committee's documents seek to make that more systematic and to elicit a definite decision from the committee.

We are talking about good practice in what we should be doing. I wonder how different things will be from the way they are now if the Equal Opportunities Committee's recommendations are accepted, as they should be. Perhaps Martin Verity has answered that.

I presume that the recommendations will place an obligation on all committees to ensure that when bills are introduced, whether they are members' bills or Executive bills, the bill sponsor has taken the required steps. To a certain extent, the recommendations create an additional layer of responsibility to ensure that equality proofing has been done.

I think that we have those responsibilities anyway under the Scotland Act 1998 and the procedures of the Parliament. The recommendations just develop that in more detail to give us a formula for best practice.

Although it is not immediately germane, it crossed my mind that we also have to take account of human rights. Human rights assessments are included in the policy memorandum of a bill, but to what extent the committee has taken on those obligations in the way that we examine issues is arguable. We should not lose track of the broader human rights implications of the legislation and work that we do.

The recommendations in the paper are a matter of good practice. Some years ago I reported a secretary of state for discriminating against women. He immediately abandoned the policy that he had been proposing. There is no doubt about the principle concerned.

It is a good idea for us to reflect on mainstreaming equality because I have just thought of at least six questions that we ought to have been asking about youth work. I know that an audit has been done of informal provision for young people in Scotland, but has that information been disaggregated in terms of provision for young men, young women, people with disabilities and people from ethnic minority communities? I know we are past that agenda item but, with the agreement of the committee, it might be worth while if we asked that question.

In fairness, some of the representations touched on the issue, certainly with regard to scouts with disabilities.

Obviously, I welcome the Equal Opportunities Committee's notes and reminder.

I wonder whether we should have a more formal structure within our work, even if only in the form of a reminder on each different topic, such as a heading on one of the papers. I do not know exactly what form that could take. The notes that we have been given are rather bulky. The whole point of the notes is that the guidance that they contain should become common practice and should be second nature to us. If we assume that that is still not the case, we must be able to remind ourselves. I wonder whether there is any way of building that in to our work.

I think that that is a formal part of the stage 1 reports and so on.

I suspect that it is, but I am thinking of other issues, of which Rhona Brankin gave a good example—our questions on youth work. When we draw up questions, perhaps we should have a little heading.

That is covered by the section in the checklist entitled "Questions to Consider when equality proofing".

That is a matter of practice. We need to uprate such issues in our minds; it is also a question of Scottish Parliament information centre staff and others being aware of those points—as I am sure that they are—and reflecting them in the briefing notes and papers that we get, so that such issues are considered from various points of view.

We should raise those issues in questions to witnesses.

That is right.

It is just a question of bearing in mind the six questions that are mentioned in the checklist, whether we are considering legislation or taking evidence from people. Some of the questions that we ask should be formulated around those issues.

It crossed my mind that there might be some merit in a committee member's having a particular responsibility for keeping such issues in mind, but that might be too formulaic.

That would not really be in keeping with mainstreaming.

No, although it would mean that those issues were brought before the whole committee. That is the point that I am trying to make.

My suggestion is that we should have a conscious check every few months to reflect on whether we have been pursuing a mainstreaming agenda in the way that we should have been.

In what format should that check be?

We could simply put an item on the agenda about reflecting on whether we had pursued mainstreaming in what we had done and what we were about to do. That need not be a long agenda item.

My concern is that, unless we have a sheet of A4 with something about that on it, it will be difficult to give focus to such an approach.

I am suggesting that we should do such a check every four or six months.

We could do that as part of our annual report.

Part of the request from the Equal Opportunities Committee is that the committee should include a section on equal opportunities in its annual report.

That is probably the best format in which to do such a check.

We have given that issue a run. We must decide on what our response to the Equal Opportunities Committee should be. On the basis of the discussion that we have had, we can probably indicate in our reply that we agree to that committee's proposals on the matter. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

I know that I was bad to raise the issue in the wrong place on the agenda but, in retrospect, can we ask some of those equal opportunities questions in the letter to the Executive about the youth strategy?

We can certainly include a general reference to the subject, but I am slightly reluctant to go back over the argument, because we did not really discuss equal opportunities satisfactorily when we were considering the agenda item on youth organisations. We might be able to deal with that more satisfactorily at a later stage, when we do our youth inquiry, but we will try to reflect equal opportunities in the correspondence.

Okay.

The remaining agenda item is the budget process 2004-05. In accordance with our earlier decision, we will move into private session.

Meeting continued in private until 11:24.