Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive's environmental justice policy seeks to ensure that no particular section of society suffers disproportionately from avoidable environmental impacts in comparison to other sections. The Scottish Executive's Equality Strategy provides a framework for work in all equality areas, including gender. At the centre of this strategy is the integration of equality into every aspect of the Executive's work. Draft legislation is subject to equality proofing and is scrutinised by the Scottish Parliament. This integrated approach requires policymakers to take account of and reflect the diverse needs of the population.

The Executive has been developing a range of consultation mechanisms with minority ethnic communities in line with commitments given in our Equality Strategy and our Race Equality Scheme as reported in Making Progress: Equality Annual Report, published in February 2003.

The Scottish Executive published in 2002 guidance on consultation with equality groups entitled Good Practice Guidance - Consultation with Equalities Groups. This covers consultation with women's groups. This guidance is designed to assist policy makers within the Executive to adopt good practice when consulting with equality groups.The guidance recommends that after the consultation it is a good idea to ask those consulted about the process and ways it could be improved in the future. This may include reviewing who actually responded to the consultation, to see whether there are any patterns or obvious gaps. This may help to pinpoint any groups that were not contacted by the methods used.

Local partnership within a national strategic framework should be a key theme of the development of a community legal service for Scotland. That is why the Deputy Minister for Justice announced on 21 March that the Executive, in close collaboration with the Scottish Legal Aid Board, intended to establish pilot partnerships to look at local advice needs and service provision in Fife, Argyll and Bute and Edinburgh. This is in addition to the partnership already in operation in Glasgow West. The Executive is also in discussion with the Disability Rights Commission about establishing a thematic pilot partnership to look at provision of advice to people with a disability.In addition, four pilot projects administered by the Scottish Legal Aid Board with additional funding from the Executive are under way looking at new models of partnership-based service delivery for people in need of legal advice and help. These projects are working with Citizen's Advice Bureaux in Inverness and Moray; with advice providers in West Lothian; with Streetwork in Edinburgh, and with the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre and Castlemilk Law Centre in Glasgow.

Our publication Preventing Violence Against Women: Action Across the Scottish Executive acknowledges that there may be a link between the use and misuse of pornography and violence against women. The research evidence in this area is, however, inconclusive and, therefore, as part of a forthcoming violence research programme, we are considering undertaking a research study which examines the perceived links between pornography and violence.Material that is obscene or indecent is heavily regulated under Scottish law, under section 51 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1981, the Indecent Displays (Controls) Act 1981 and through the common law offence of shameless indecency.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-34781on 25 March 2003. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

Equality is a key cross-cutting issue for the whole of the Executive. Our Equality Strategy, Working Together for Equality, provides a framework for a mainstreaming approach which requires policymakers to take account of and reflect the diverse needs of the population.

Following the Review of Legal Information and Advice Provision in Scotland, which reported in November 2001, the Executive is taking forward a programme of practical development work to lay the foundations for a community legal service for Scotland. The respective roles of "one-stop shops" and more specialised advice agencies, and the arrangements for effective referral between different agencies to ensure that people get the best help they can, are being considered as part of that programme of work.

Employment policy is reserved to the UK Government which takes the lead on funding and delivery of Welfare to Work programmes. In Scotland it does this in partnership with the Scottish Executive and contributing organisations.The New Deal for Lone Parents and the New Deal for Disabled People are available on a voluntary basis in the Edinburgh East and Musselburgh parliamentary constituency. Following a qualifying period of unemployment, Jobcentre Plus clients are eligible to join the New Deal for Young People and the New Deal for the Long-term Unemployed. Both these programmes have targets to achieve parity of outcomes for those clients from Minority Ethnic Groups.A Jobcentre Plus Minority Ethnic Outreach Worker operates within the constituency, liaising with New Deal Personal Advisers and local minority ethnic groups to improve the employability skills of ethnic minorities and to encourage their engagement with the New Deals.Help is also available to increase the employment rate of those with a history of drug misuse within the Edinburgh East and Musselburgh parliamentary constituency through Progress2Work.A number of disadvantaged groups also have early access to Training for Work.

Figures on the number of jobs obtained through each of the New Deals in Edinburgh and East Lothian are only available for the New Deal for Young People, the New Deal 25 Plus and the New Deal for Lone Parents. Combining the latest data for each of these programmes from the start of each produces the jobs totals in the table, broken down by (i) race, (ii) gender and (iii) disability.

	Total Jobs
	(a) City of Edinburgh	(b) East Lothian
(i) Race1
White	5,602	967
Black	43	6
Asian	84	3
Chinese	9	1
Other ethnic	34	2
Unknown2	211	21
(ii) Gender
Men	3,570	559
Women	2,396	439
Unknown2	17	2
(iii) Disability
Disabled	836	148
Not disabled	5,113	850
Unknown2	34	2

Source: New Deal Evaluation Database, data to end December 2002.Note:1. Classifications have been aggregated in the interests of brevity.2. "Unknown" includes both clients who prefer not to disclose, and a small number of database recording inconsistencies.