Chamber and committees

If there are particular groups that are having difficulties realising their equalities rights and human rights, is PSED the right tool to ensure that we, as the public sector generally, take those responsibilities and duties seriously, instead of saying, “Yeah, it’s difficult, so we’re just not going to bother.”? That is not done out of malice, but we quite often hear from people with lived experience of discrimination and from organisations that support different communities that some public authorities think, “It’s too hard, so we’re just not going to touch it.”

Do you hear questions being asked about that? Are the Scottish Government or other public agencies starting to think about it as we move towards reforming the PSED? Are people more alive to it and trying to get to grips with what it means? You are right that there is nervousness or reticence because they do not know what the duty is, what it looks like or what it means practically in day-to-day operations. Are those conversations happening in relation to reform?

That is really helpful, but quite a lot of questions arise from your comments, Bill. From what you have said, the inference might be that fostering good relations is something that happens, maybe not on a widespread basis but in a much more integrated way, south of the border. I am not sure that I see evidence of that. I am interested in your perspective, given that across the EHRC, you will share information, knowledge and practice around that. In England, is better attention paid to fostering good relations, given that there is a relationship that directly feeds into the human rights sphere there?

Others want to come in on the subject, too, so I will leave it there.

Another interesting issue came up in evidence last week. You talked about the action plan for Gypsy and Traveller communities. On the issue of racism, there was an expectation that health boards would put together and draw up anti-racism action plans. Is it your intention that all public bodies with responsibilities under the PSED should have an anti-racist action plan? If so, do you see that just being done in a phased way rather than requiring everybody to do it all at once? Can we speed things up a little bit?

I want to shift the conversation a little bit, minister. Within the public sector equality duty, there are three high-level needs: to pay due regard to eliminating discrimination, harassment and victimisation; to advance equality; and to foster good relations. In the past couple of weeks and this morning, we have heard that two of those needs—advancing equality and fostering good relations—are often overlooked, not given as much importance or not well enough understood. How would you describe the need to foster good relations to the people you are talking to, such as public bodies, public agencies or others with responsibilities under the PSED?

Good morning. Thank you for joining us this morning and for your comments so far.

I will pick up on points about consistency and the overall impact. John, in your opening statement, you said that the point of the public sector equality duty is to identify areas where things are not maybe working as well as they might and to improve things so that groups and individuals with protected characteristics get the services, quality support and other things that they need.

We are very aware, from the evidence heard in the past couple of weeks and previously, that the PSED is maybe not delivering. That is the point of the reforms and there is an on-going discussion. Other members will pick up on reform specifically.

I am interested in the point about compliance. Bill Stevenson, you talked about top-level compliance and the variable responses below that. Last week, we heard that only 38 per cent of public authorities are meeting their legal requirement to report on occupational segregation, which means that 62 per cent are not. That does not sound like a high level of top-level compliance to me. Could you unpick that a bit?

I suppose that that thematic or sectoral approach allows you to get into the nitty-gritty with the different agencies and authorities involved. That kind of makes sense when, as you say, and as we heard last week, your resources have reduced over time.

Following on from that, and thinking about consistency a bit more specifically in relation to the characteristic of race, which covers colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, BEMIS Scotland is clear that colour is well understood and well worked through in public bodies but that the others quite often are not. How might we tackle that? Is that something that the reforms need to deal with, or is that stuff that should be happening now, with PSED as is?

You mentioned the Gypsy Traveller community, which is one group of people with protected characteristics that, for a range of reasons, often falls through the cracks. People who are included in the race section might have different national origins or identities, and service provision and the requirement to uphold rights in Scotland can come into conflict with immigration policies, for instance. Where do you see the potential value or use of the PSED—as a blunt tool or otherwise—in enabling public authorities to provide services to people who have no recourse to public funds but to whom we still have obligations under those duties?

It is about public authorities understanding that the PSED could be a tool but that it will not necessarily solve problems relating to someone’s immigration status.