Chamber and committees

Fair for All LGBT, as the InclusionProject is now known, is a partnership between Stonewall Scotland and the ScottishExecutive Health Department. The project supports NHS boards to engage with localLGBT people and community organisations and work with them to implement the recommendationsin Towards a Healthier LGBT Scotland locally.

More recently,pilot work with NHS boards resulted in the project publishing Good LGBT Practicein the NHS and Getting it Right: LGBT Research Guidelines which addressmany of the recommendations from the initial report. More information about theprojects work can be found at:

http://www.lgbthealthscotland.org.uk/home.htm.

From April 2008 the project will be integrated with the otherstrands of our Fair for All programme to provide a single mainstream sourceof advice and support to ensure that whatever the individual circumstances of peopleslives, including age, gender, ethnicity, disability, religion, sexual orientationor other circumstances, they have access to the right health service for their needs.

The Planning etc. (Scotland) Act 2006provides more opportunities for communities to be involved in planning.

On 9 March 2007 the Executive launched Planning AdviceNote 81: Community Engagement Planning with People containing adviceand information on the new inclusion measures in the act. It explains when peoplecan become involved, gives advice on the engagement principles and techniques thatshould help ensure effective engagement in the planning system and provides informationon the support, training and advice available to the public.

For example in the current yearthe Executive has provided approximately £253,300 of core and project funding toenable Planning Aid for Scotland to provide advice and training to communities onplanning matters, and on a project to develop engagement techniques with minorityethnic groups. In addition funding of £20,000 from the Planning Development Programmeis being used to develop projects on mentoring for communities and training forcommunity councils prior to local plan inquires.

Employment law is a reserved matter.Material relating to this is distributed by the lead UK Departments.

Public bodiesare under either a statutory duty or are expected to follow guidance on Best Value,including a requirement to promote equal opportunities in the workplace.

The Scottish Executivelaunched a Policy and Practice document on Supporting the Work-Life Balance in NHSScotlandin 2005. NHS boards are required to implement the document,which contains a number of a model policies, ranging from flexible working and jobsharing to home working

The Scottish Executive has a flexible working policy which isavailable to almost all of its own staff, not just those with children.

The importance ofmetropolitan regions has been recognised by economic experts internationally,and is a concept to which Scottish Enterprise has given careful consideration.

A metropolitan regionapproach is also reflected in the proposed strategic development plansintroduced by the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006. These will be required in the fourcity-region areas in and around Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, and Aberdeen. Strategic Development Planning Authorities,involving the local authorities in each city-region, will be required to setout in their plans a vision for the development of their region, and a spatialstrategy. They will also be required to prepare an action programme for itsdelivery. This should set a spatial planning framework for stimulatingsustainable economic growth.

The Scottish Executive iscommitted to encouraging business to contribute positively to society, in whateverform that might take. A wide range of Scottish Executive policies promote thethree main strands of corporate social responsibility (CSR) – social,environmental and economic.

The Scottish Executive alsosupports the work of Scottish Business in the Community, a business-ledorganisation which promotes CSR to Scottish business. Examples of our supportinclude representation on the board and project funding for initiatives dealingwith Employer Supported Volunteering, Healthy Working Lives and reducing theproportion of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).

Other examples of ways inwhich we support CSR include:

Determined to Succeed,through which we are encouraging businesses to support schools on enterpriseeducation. More than 7,000 school/business partnerships have been established –nearly four times the target set for the end of 2006;

the Executive’s agreementwith Microsoft, signed in January, and outlining the company’s commitment todevote its entire CSR effort in Scotland to help tackle NEET, and

£400,000 funding for “KickStart”, through which Scottish Premier League football clubs will double thenumber of vulnerable young people taking part in programmes to increase theirskills.

The information requested iscontained in a number of tables of statistics running to several pages, copiesof which are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib.number 42436). As the composition of the boards of individual public bodies bygender was not collected by the Executive prior to 2002, the tables onlyprovide this information for the period 2002-06. For the years 1999 -2001, thetables of statistics provide a gender breakdown of the ministerial public appointmentsfor all regulated public bodies.

It is a matter for individual publicauthorities to ensure they comply with the gender equality duty. The Equal OpportunitiesCommission (EOC) is the organisation responsible for providing support and guidanceto the public sector, however, to support the introduction of the duty and assistpublic sector organisations in Scotland the Scottish Executive has:

commissioned aGender Audit of Statistics, which will be published shortly, providing the mostcomprehensive analysis to date of currently available gender disaggregated statistics,and, where relevant, key research reports and reviews, for Scotland;

supported FairFor All Gender, a partnership between EOC Scotland and the Executives Health Departmentto help the NHS in Scotland to mainstream gender equality considerations into planningand delivery and ensure the health service meets its obligations under the new publicsector gender equality duty;

contributed tothe development of the Equal Opportunities Commission’s (EOC) Scottish Code ofPractice for the Gender Equality Duty;

contributed tothe development of the EOC’s guidance for the public sector on the gender equalityduty, including, Scottish Guidance for Local Government, Scottish Guidance for Preand Post-16 Education, Scottish Guidance for Local Government, Scottish Guidancefor Health, Scottish Guidance for Criminal Justice and guidance on impact assessment,which are available on the EOC Scotland’s website at www.eoc.org.uk;

participated inEOC consultation and awareness raising events across Scotland for the Scottish Codeof Practice, and

provided fundingand support to the EOC to organise the Transgender Rights: OrganisationalResponsibilities, Good Employment Practise and Service Provision conference.

The Executive is committed to continuing to work with the EOC,relevant employees and public authorities in Scotland to encourage and support theimplementation of the gender duty. As part of this we plan to establish a PublicSector Equality Forum and will use this to promote shared or joint approaches bypublic authorities. This forum will consider issues arising from all three publicequality duties.

Yes, the report was published todayand can be accessed at:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/173213.

Additional work on recommendations arising from the review isunderway and we will publish our findings in due course.

The NHS Quality Improvement Scotlandpublication National Overview January 2007 Maternity Services reported thatfollowing their review of their Clinical Standards for Maternity Services (carriedout between November 2005 and June 2006), 10 out of the then 15 health boards routinelycarried out anomaly scans at 18 to 22 weeks.

In those areaswhere routine anomaly scans at 18 to 22 weeks are not carried out, women are selectedfor further scans on the basis of clinical need. Local policies will establish thecriteria by which these decisions are made.

The Executive is working closely with all NHS boards to ensurethat developments in screening during pregnancy are introduced efficiently and effectivelyand this includes the introduction of routine foetal anomaly scanning in thoseboards that do not currently offer this service.

The Executive is constantly promoting equal opportunities inteacher recruitment and promotion. There has been a steady increase in the percentageof women in head teacher posts in secondary schools in recent years. Since devolutionin 1999 this has risen from 11.5%, to 21% in 2005.