Inequality - don't let it become invisible

Two Pandas or the futures of 100,000+ young people?

Angela Constance - Minister
for Youth Employment -
will be paid £81,449

I'm going to try and keep this blog short [that counts as hard work for me] and simple [that is also hard work for me as I love exploring all the nuances .......].

• there are now over 100,000 young people [16-24 years old] unemployed in Scotland
• Angela Constance was recently appointed as Minister for Youth Employment
• the post has no decision making powers. It has to report to two Cabinet Secretaries
• she will be paid £81,449
• there is to be a £30 million budget for youth unemployment [it is not 'new' money, it is re-allocated money]
• that equals an investment of just over £300 per young person currently unemployed.

• there are now two Pandas in Scotland
• No Minister for Pandas been appointed
• Panda leasing costs to be paid to Chinese government are £600,000 a year for 10 years
• Panda food costs £70,000 a year
• that equals an investment of over £335,000 a year, for each panda

A spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) said: 

"Edinburgh Zoo is putting the 'con' in conservation by trying to hoodwink the public into believing that the salvation of pandas lies in warehousing these sensitive animals."

Chris Draper, of the Born Free Foundation, said the panda deal was a 

"short-sighted and retrograde step".

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told Channel4 News she is 

"very optimistic"

 about the extra visitor numbers the pandas will attract in order to pay for the loan.  She described them as a 

"very generous and welcome gift"

from the people of China to Scotland.

Go figure.

Voluntary Action Fund banging a cracked kettle on equality

Mark and Helen Mullins

The 'third sector' is a strange under-explored world in Scotland, and is home, according to the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations [SCVO], to over 137,000 employees and spending £4.4 billion a year.  Parts of it do wonderful, incredible work, and a lot of the organisations operate in the ghettos and gulags of our society where the public sector rarely ventures, bringing comfort, humanity and dignity to people who have slipped through the few remaining fragile fingers of safety society now grudgingly offers in the shape of a government-ravaged care and support system.  I have blogged elsewhere about the decision of Mark & Helen Mullins to kill themselves in October 2011, rather than face another winter of poverty even Dickens would have found beyond his powers of description.  It is sometimes difficult to work out if the economy will topple off the cliff first, just before the shredded safety net of care and support finally bursts under the impossible weight of the tens of thousands of people who now survive, just, on food parcel handouts.


It is true that the 'third sector' does sometimes heroic work.  I have witnessed it, both when I worked in it and when I was on the Boards of a number of its many organisations.  I also know that not all in the sector live up to that heroic standard.  I have blogged before about a friend, bullied out of her job in a voluntary organisation which works for disabled people.  I know of some organisations where the integrity of financial management was not a million miles removed from that which was to be commonly found in the money markets and banks of 2007 before the crash of 2008.  I know of organisations who still think of disabled people as 'problems to be solved' and not simply accepted for who they are.  The sector is like the rest of the world - chock-a-block full of the sometimes great, the often good, the regrettably useless and the occasionally dangerous.


As a citizen, I reckon too many of our organisations are not properly held to account for what they do [and equally for what they don't do, but should] and have become accustomed to working away in the darkness which descends when good governance and scrutiny goes on a long holiday.  From time to time the work of an organisation catches my attention.  I switch on the headlights and take a long, hard, look.


One of the more recent to be caught in my headlights is something called Voluntary Action Fund [VAF].  The main reason it caught my eye was the number of colleagues working in the equalities field who were required to dance to a strange tune called by VAF who in turn dance to an all too familiar tune whistled by the government's own Equality Unit.  Their testimony made me think VAF could, in that time-honoured phrase, be part of the problem and not part of the answer.


I started by asking a number of questions which aimed to establish just what VAF were doing, why, and how much of a difference it was making.


The kind of questions I asked included :

Keith Wimbles, Chief Executive
of  Voluntary Action Fund

Part of the funding [to voluntary organisations] appears to come from government via VAF. I am at a loss as to why. Could you please explain why there is a need to filter/channel funds from the government’s Equality Unit through VAF and what added value I as a citizen gain from that arrangement, as I presume the role of VAF is also funded by government and thus the funding for VAF has to be top-sliced from that available for the voluntary sector?  

This was just one of the questions I put to Keith Wimbles, Chief Executive of VAF.  He chose not to answer that question.


On another tack I asked:

I would also appreciate sight of any quantitative evidence VAF has on how its funding to other bodies has helped citizens lead lives free of discrimination, access more equality of opportunity and encounter greater understanding and tolerance even though they are different?

The response I got to that ? :

Reports from funded organisations on what has been achieved against specific outcomes and an evaluation of VAF’s performance are sent to the Scottish Government as the funding agency. 

Which translates, roughly, as 'piss off we are not telling'.


Overall I have found it difficult to shine much of a light on the workings of VAF and to find out just what difference VAF makes to the lives of people.  The cupboard door behind which this information is to be found is being kept resolutely closed and the mushrooms, from the quality of answers I have received, are clearly flourishing.


There appears to be a strong reluctance on the part of VAF to be transparent and accountable to citizens and those who might be seen as beneficiaries of any work being done on equalities.


Have a look for yourself.  Try to find out what VAF [email Keith Wimbles via this link] does and what difference it makes to the lives and needs of your sister, brother, your mother, father, or your lover - all of whom might need society to better recognise their diversity and be comfortable with them being different.  It was said, long ago, by Gustave Flaubert, that :

'Human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when all the time we are longing to move the stars to pity'

Maybe it is because I am deaf, but the cracked kettle being used by VAF to beat out a tune for the organisations it funds to dance to would find even Fred Astaire and Flavia Cacace scratching their heads.  If you do find out the difference VAF makes and why your sister, brother, your mother, father, or your lover benefit, please send it on to me and I will publish it here so that others can be better informed.

Nicola Sturgeon

If you can't find it out, get in touch with Nicola Sturgeon, who carries equalities in her bag, and ask her to take the cracked kettle away from VAF.

Hierarchy of Equality ?

Your NHS in Scotland employs 131,340 people across 22 health boards and in 2010/11 spent £10,358million in revenue expenditure. 

Each of those 22 health boards has a legal duty to do all sorts of work around delivering equality and eliminating discrimination.  In other areas of this blog you will find, if you choose to browse, that one of the many areas in which our health service is failing is in delivering equal pay for women who work in our NHS. 

As citizens we are able to expect health boards to publish information on what they are doing [or even what they are not doing] on delivering equality and eliminating discrimination.  We should be able to find out, say, just how many black minority ethnic people are employed on senior salary bands across our NHS and, by comparing data year on, find out just how quickly or slowly racial discrimination in employment in our NHS is being eliminated.  The idea is that by making things transparent, you and I can hold health boards to account.  It is a long haul.  People who work in government and in health boards [all of whom tell you they have a best friend who is gay/black, or a neighbour who is deaf/Jewish] don’t really like being held to account, and make it hard for you to know what they have done and what they have still to do in delivering equality and eliminating discrimination.

Compare and contrast.

What is known as the ‘third sector’ [charities and voluntary organisations] is, according to the Scottish Council for VoluntaryOrganisations [SCVO], a bigger employer than our NHS, with 137,000 people employed in it.  The sector raises and spends £4,400 million each year.

Do they have a legal duty to deliver equality and eliminate discrimination?  No.

Bigger employers than our NHS and yet no legal duty to show that black minority ethnic people are employed on senior salary bands across the sector and, by comparing data year on, find out just how quickly or slowly racial discrimination in employment in our ‘third sector’ is being eliminated?

Is it because they are intrinsically ‘good’ employers and the public sector bad employers?  No, no and again, no.  I have blogged before about with an anonymised story about someone I know who has been bullied out of her job by a ‘third sector’ organisation which works for disabled people. 

Don’t just take my word for the failings of the sector.  A report by the Young Foundation [he of ‘Big Issue’ fame] ‘concluded that most of the literature on social innovation in the voluntary sector points to a sector that is ‘better at believing they are innovative than being innovative’.  Or in the words of Bernard Bailey, ‘When science discovers the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it.’

when is she going to stop drooling
and dribbling over the pandas

The Young Foundation report [Mapping the Third Sector] said, in relation to equality, ‘Reducing inequality and enhancing diversity: Despite valuing social justice, there are significant gender and ethnic inequalities in the [third sector] workforce.  Female chief executives receive £11,000 less per year than their male counterparts and there are very few chief executives from ethnic minority backgrounds, particularly in larger charities.  The voluntary sector has been good at advancing social justice issues up the external agenda but organisations need to reflect on these same issues internally.’

In other words, the third sector is talking the talk, but not walking the walk, on equality.

We need to be able to expect, and demand, more from our ‘third sector’. 

If you want more out of the third sector, drop an email to Nicola Sturgeon, government minister with the equality portfolio, asking her when she is going to stop drooling and dribbling over the pandas and instead use her power as minister to get the third sector in Scotland to do the right thing on delivering equality and eliminating discrimination.

Martin Sime

You can also email Martin Sime, Chief Executive of SCVO and ask him why he has not driven change in the third sector in Scotland to ensure equality is visible and evidenced and any hierarchy of equalities is dismantled.

Their Agony, their Despair and our Inhumanity

The agony, the despair, the inhumanity of what we have created.

Mark Mullins and his wife Helen died in a suicide pact sometime in October this year after giving up on a life of grinding poverty .  Their bodies were undiscovered for several weeks in their home in the small market town of Bedworth, Warwickshire .

From what is known, the poverty was not simply about a lack of money.  That said, when the couple died, they were living in a wretched and appalling state. They had been living on £57.50 a week for the last 18 months. This tiny sum, just £4.10 each per day, was the unemployment benefit that was claimed by Mark.  Our systems and structures which provide the building blocks of what we call society have become poverty stricken - of humanity, dignity, decency and respect.

It has been reported that Helen had her Child Benefits stopped, but was unable to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance, as she was not deemed fit to work. She was then informed that she also did not qualify for incapacity benefit, due to her not being officially diagnosed with a medical condition.

Mark had found life hard since leaving the army and had been unable to find regular work. He was Helen’s full-time carer but he was unable to claim Carer’s Allowance (£53.10 a week), as he was told he was ineligible until she had been diagnosed with a disorder.

In December 2010, Mark and Helen, who had recently married, appeared in a short documentary about people living below the poverty line in Warwickshire.  Mark gave an interview to the Salvation Army [watch it via this link], whom the couple relied on for food parcels. He detailed their daily struggle for existence. They were interviewed at a soup kitchen in Coventry, where they came each Sunday for a “soup and food handout”. Unable to afford travel costs, the couple had to walk the 12-mile round trip. Mark told the interviewer at the time that they had been doing this for nearly a year.

He said that social services had taken Helen’s youngest daughter away from her, “because she was looking after Helen and doing everything for her”.

“My Helen is learning disabled, but it took her a very long time to get any kind of benefits or social security,” he said. “The job centre decided that she couldn’t sign on because she had no brain function, no numeracy, literacy skill, any mobile abilities. But the Incapacity [Benefit] and disability people wouldn’t recognise her until she had been fully diagnosed. We are caught in Catch-22 situation. We couldn’t sign on the dole. Couldn’t get the Incapacity established. Couldn’t get the disability established, so basically we are living on very little, hand to mouth.”

They could no longer afford food, he added, saying, “We’ve basically survived on a lot of your food handouts. We live in the one room of our property. Obviously we can’t afford all this heating in minus 10 and 15. We can’t afford to run the heating…. The food we gather here we basically put into a big pot and I keep one broth going continuously because your household bags gives us lots of fruit and veg, potatoes and there’s a lot of bread here. And we really have from week to week at times survived on what you have given us.”

They had to put the food parcels they got from the soup kitchen “out in the shed, because it’s cooler in the shed. We don’t have a fridge or a freezer. We bring it [the food] in piecemeal and add to the big broth pot as we go along.”

Commenting on their inability to claim the benefits they were entitled to, Mark said, “I think the system is very unkind. We have lost count of how many appeals we have had. We’ve had to fight tooth and nail every step of the way to get benefits.

“They have no problem in suspending benefits. It’s not an issue for them. They just put a tick in a box and a stroke across a piece of paper and they alter your lives, which is fundamentally unfair. You have those who have the power to do this to you and those of us who don’t have the power to resist it.”

'I think the system is very unkind....You have those who 
have the power to do this to you and those of us who 
don’t have the power to resist it.' - Mark Mullins

This happened within our society.  It will go on happening until we decide it must not happen on our watch again.  

That means more than a donation to a charity, of whatever size.

It means more than shedding a tear at the slick video clips with often heart-rending content shown on such as 'Children in Need'.

It means more than getting off your backside at elections once every few years, forgetting about the 'X-Factor' or 'Coronation Street' for one night, and getting down to the voting station to cast your vote for radical change.

It does mean you have to reclaim how we build and maintain our society from the numpties and eejits who have been left to get on with it at Westminster and Holyrood, for their model of society has failed Helen and Mark in the worst possible way.

It does mean you have to start holding your MP, your MSPs and your governments to account - fully and properly and regularly, not just at elections.  If you need training in how to do that, contact me via this blog.

I have borne witness to another human being driven to killing herself.  It is an experience beyond both comprehension and description, and yet my experience is nothing to what each of these human beings has endured.  For some, death is a better answer than life, as the system has nothing to offer and my personal experience has made me accept and respect that.  For Mark and Helen Mullins, the system changes needed to give them real support and real hope were so minor, the fact that they were missing tells us we have created a society where life is cheaper than than the average weekly shop.  We are but a heartbeat away from sliding into becoming a society where the value systems on display would not be unfamiliar to those who lived in national socialist Germany in the late 1930's.


One of the few who did challenge the cheapening of life of those who did not fit the Nazi model was Pastor Friedrich Niemöller.  His legacy to us is a piece of verse which is as relevant today as it was then:

First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

With Helen and Mark, they did not have to come for them.  'They' [we, us, our society] simply stood aside and allowed them to fall to such depths of agony, despair and inhumanity, that death offered them a warmer, safer place.

Will the rooster crow for Nicola's thrice-times denial ?

a classic lesson in how the establishment
 [in this case men] will not give up their unfair
advantages [in this case, being paid more]
unless they are dragged, kicking and screaming,
into court

For some years now [since 1975], the law has required employers across the UK to provide women with equal pay for work of equal value. The Equality Act 2010 continues to place a legal obligation on employers to deliver equal pay for women. That Act also opens the door to pay systems being challenged if they deliver unequal pay for such as disabled people and other communities protected by the Act.

In Scotland, progress by the public sector in making equal pay for women happen, instead of always ‘working towards’ equal pay [not to mention equality generally], has been a classic lesson in how the establishment [in this case men] will not give up their unfair advantages [in this case, being paid more] unless they are dragged, kicking and screaming, into court. Even then, some public bodies will still throw money at lawyers to try and stave of the inevitable. The City of Edinburgh Council were still, as of November 2011, prepared to argue [and pay hefty legal fees in so doing] in court that its care workers, clerical and classroom assistants should not be allowed to claim equal pay with male refuse workers, gardeners and road workers. They lost.

Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for Health & Wellbeing, is doing her bit. But not for the sisterhood. No, no and no. Thrice nay. Nicola, who was 5 when the original equal pay legislation came in, is doing her bit on equal pay - for the brotherhood and the establishment.

Nicola, who was 5 when the original equal pay legislation
 came in, is doing her bit on equal pay - for the
brotherhood and the establishment

Michael McMahon MSP has been posing a series of questions to Nicola for some time now on why women in our NHS in Scotland are not being given equal pay for equal work.

But before looking at some of his recent questions, let’s flash back to October 2009. At a meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Equal Opportunities Committee, Nicola had a lengthy session exploring with Committee members just where the NHS was with equal pay. Amongst many other statements made by Nicola at that time, the Official Record shows that she said towards the end of the session :

 'It was indicated [at a previous Committee round-table discussion on equal pay reviews] that advice had been given to NHS boards not to perform equal pay reviews to ensure that agenda for change remains equal-pay-proofed. I want to clarify that that is not the case. There remains an issue about the extent to which such reviews can be carried out while agenda for change reviews are under way, but there is a clear expectation that all boards will get on and complete those reviews as quickly as they can, and that they will go beyond the letter of the law to ensure that they are exemplary employers that live up to all the duties required of them.' [6^th October 2009]

Seems clear enough ? NHS Boards to stop faffing about, get off their fat, predominantly male, and well fed corporate butts, and do equal pay reviews? There’s even some encouragement in there to go beyond compliance.

NHS Boards to stop faffing about, get off their fat,
predominantly male, and well fed corporate butts,
and do equal pay reviews

So why, when Michael McMahon tabled his three most recent questions on the subject, did Nicola respond, three times, as she did ?

Michael McMahon (Uddingston and Bellshill) (Scottish Labour): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-02826 by Nicola Sturgeon on 29 September 2011, whether a deadline will now be set by which detailed equal pay reviews will be carried out by each NHS board.
 (S4W-03421)Ms Nicola Sturgeon :
 Negotiations are currently taking place around remuneration for on-call commitments under the Agenda for Change pay system. The majority of Boards are awaiting the outcome of these before progressing equal pay reviews. These negotiations need to be allowed to take their course and it would therefore not be appropriate to set a deadline for carrying out equal pay reviews at this stage.

and then 

Michael McMahon (Uddingston and Bellshill) (Scottish Labour): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-02826 by Nicola Sturgeon on 29 September 2011, for what reason this was not an issue in NHS 24, in which details of any gender, age and disability pay gap have been available via equal pay reviews in each of the last three years. (S4W-03422)Ms Nicola Sturgeon : It is for NHS Boards as employers to decide when they can publish an equal pay review based on the information available to them. With the exception of NHS 24, NHS Boards are awaiting the final element of the Agenda for Change pay system involving remuneration of on-call commitments being put in place, and will then progress the equal pay review process.

and then 

Michael McMahon (Uddingston and Bellshill) (Scottish Labour): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-02826 by Nicola Sturgeon on 29 September 2011, (a) when and (b) how women in the NHS will benefit from their employers being required to “go beyond the letter of the law to ensure that they are exemplary employers” on equal pay. (S4W-03425)Ms Nicola Sturgeon : The Equality and Human Rights Commission have published a Code of Practice on Equal Pay. The Code recognises that regular review and monitoring of pay practices is not a formal legal requirement. However, it suggests that equal pay reviews may be the most effective means of ensuring that a pay system delivers equal pay. NHS employers will, therefore, wish to maintain an awareness of the Code in taking forward equal pay reviews as soon as this is deemed feasible.

why not email the Cabinet Secretary,
Nicola Sturgeon, and invite her to
stop disowning and denying her
sisterhood in the NHS workforce

Makes you really wonder just who is running our NHS [in case you are wondering, the Chief Executive of NHS Scotland is a guy].  

If you have a mum, a sister, a daughter, a partner, or a best friend working in our NHS and you want to give them a real, meaningful and lasting gift in the coming weeks, why not email the Cabinet Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, and invite her to stop disowning and denying her sisterhood in the NHS workforce, and instead bring an end now to the state-sponsored theft from the wages of women.

Somewhere, over the rainbow ......... equality is being spat on and abused

Better Policy, Better Lives [sic]

The Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] in Scotland has published a report, with the above working title, on 14^th November 2011 setting out the outcome of an assessment into Scottish Ministers’ progress in meeting the public sector equality duties.  It first said it was going to do this in July 2009, over two years ago.  

Some of us expected a substantial exposé of government’s failings and thus an opportunity to secure a major step change in work on eliminating discrimination at the heart of the public sector in Scotland.  Sadly, and as is increasingly the case with the EHRC, the report is at best tentative, lacks a tight focus, and heralds no brave new dawn in how the tempo and passion with which discrimination needs to be sought out and eliminated might be cranked up from its current snails pace to even just the kind of comfortable walking pace which wouldn’t so much as frighten  even the ponderous horses which lead COSLA.

That odd, faint sound you can barely hear when working your way through this turgid and heavy [92 pages long] report, is what you would expect to hear if Nicola Sturgeon was standing in the middle of a 2 metre diameter circle and an EHRC Scotland Committee member with a reach of 18 inches and wielding a metaphorical and very old, very wet and very smelly fish, was trying slap her with it.

If you are able to conjure up the energy to read the report, you will find some things which might well frighten not just the horses, but those dear to you and whom you know will need some robust protection from the daily abuse they experience in life simply because they are different.

On page 5 and as part of the EHRC’s ‘background’ to the report they suggest:

‘Other public authorities look to the Scottish Government for leadership in how they can effectively comply with the duties. Improving adherence to, and compliance with, the duties leads to better public services and ensures improved compliance with the public sector duties by other public bodies in Scotland’

I almost fell off my chair when I read this, convinced that Dorothy and Toto were going to appear any moment, that she would click her red shoes together and take us all back to Kansas. Well, OK, maybe not Kansas  – to West Lothian?  Scottish government has been breaching the disability equality duty since it came into effect in December 2006 by regularly publishing documents which are inaccessible to many people and which do not comply with the guidance of an organisation [SAIF] it funds to advise on how to publish accessible documents.  Nicola Sturgeon has been playing the Wicked Witch of the West on equalities for some time now.  The EHRC lion has yet to lay a paw on her.

Nicola Sturgeon has been playing the Wicked Witch
of the West  on equalities for some time now.
The EHRC lion has yet to lay a paw on her.

If the EHRC believes that this is leadership the rest of the public sector is looking for, they need to get out more.  A lot more.

The EHRC needs to get out
more - a lot more

On page 9, the report refers to staff within government who were interviewed as part of their assessment. At no time is there any reference to the rather odd situation where one of the senior staff in one of the policy teams in government is also a member of the EHRC Scotland Committee. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Even our recently departed role model from the bunga bunga scene, Silvio Berlusconi, might have thought this a tad cheeky.

On page 22, the EHRC notes in passing that COSLA, the mouthpiece of councils in Scotland, is ‘not subject to the public sector equality duties’. And this is a body that negotiates and agrees with government just how much funding councils will receive what council services need to be run?  Audit Scotland published a report in November 2008 on ‘The impact of the race equality duty on council services’.  This report offered a blunt and detailed analysis on the performance of councils, best summarised by the comment on page 3 of the report that 

‘Overall, we found that while councils have developed policies on race equality and have developed a range of initiatives, the duty has not yet had a significant impact on the delivery of services or on people from minority ethnic communities’.

Does the EHRC recommend as part of its findings in this report that COSLA should be subject to the equality duties?  Remember you only have an 18 inch reach and the size of the circle Nicola is standing in ?  If we are to be serious about eliminating discrimination, COSLA needs to be required to evidence that it, and those it represents, is exemplary across all the equality duties and regularly exceeds the minimum the law requires.

At the moment, COSLA’s position of micturition outside the equalities tent leaves it in a similar position to those churches with a celibate ministry and who regularly trot out a theological rationale against the use of condoms for safe sex.  COSLA needs to get hitched to the equality duties like the rest of the public sector, or sit quietly in the corner and play with itself while everyone else puts discrimination to the sword.

When you stagger your way to the finish line of this report, still clutching that very wet, very smelly, and very old fish, one of the many thoughts which come to mind is just what kind of warped humour in the EHRC comes up with a title ‘Better Policy, Better Lives’?  If you want to do something simple on this which reminds your government and the EHRC that Scotland’s citizens know the difference between rain and being pissed on from a great height, email Roz Micklem, Scotland Director at the EHRC, and ask:

‘How will implementing the recommendations in ‘Better Policy, Better Lives’ eliminate the discrimination I expect to face tomorrow at work because I am a woman/black/disabled/gay/Muslim/young/old, or just different?  If not tomorrow, when ?’

The killing fields of equality

Some of you may be aware that our governments, north and south, have decided that 'veterans' from the armed forces should be treated as special cases in any number of ways.  In other words, it has been decided that instead of creating an equal society where people who often encounter discrimination are given equality of opportunity, government has decided to scrap that approach when it comes to 'veterans'.  Instead, we will be expected, if we ever find ourselves in a queue for public services, to stand aside when a 'veteran' puts in an appearance and allow him or her to jump to the head of the queue.  Those who have been active on the killing fields of Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan will be given accelerated and priority access to increasingly scarce public sector services.

I find this thinking offensive and repugnant on any number of levels.  It represents the creation of a hierarchy of equality.  In my world, a hierarchy of equality is a contradiction.  In my working life, it is something I oppose and will continue to oppose, no matter how much I may be bullied into complying with current corporate thinking in the public sector.

Just over two years ago a fireman was killed when he and his crew were dealing with a pub fire in Dalry Road in Edinburgh.  A huge sacrifice to ensure the safety of people living in the vicinity [I lived nearby and was aware of the impact of his death on the community].  Does this require that we put firemen to the head of queues for public services?

Next year will mark exactly 100 years since the Titanic sank.  Most people will recall some of the many stories told about that disaster.  Many will also recall that the values of the time found crew and passengers ensuring that women and children were given first chance to get away from the sinking ship and be saved.  Our governments would have us believe that values have changed to the extent that women and children should now be dumped out of the lifeboats of public sector services to allow 'veterans' first chance at being saved, especially at a time when the state of services in the public sector resemble the Titanic after she hit that iceberg.

A lot of this blog was prompted by a chance encounter with a picture posted on Twitter.  The picture was of a poster found on a suburban commuter train in England.  It is clearly a contemporary revisit of a poster issued during what is often referred to as the 'Great War' of 1914-18.  I found it got under my skin.  I hope it gets under your skin and that you will decide for yourself who if anyone should get priority access to what is left of our public services.

Death before equality ?

Our devolved government is, once more, trying to draft specific equality duties for public bodies to use as a map in finding their way towards the goal of creating public services free of discrimination.


Having taken a bloody-nosed defeat earlier this year on another draft they tried to push through parliament, there is some evidence in this latest draft of government’s willingness to listen and, having done so, to amend previous positions and accept reasoned rationale for improving how these can deliver measurable, person-centred improvements in the experiences Scotland’s diverse citizens have when accessing and experiencing public services.

Before Ministers and civil servants tremble at the unheard of prospect of my giving them a gold star, I contend the debate is not yet over on just how much needs to be made explicit in the specific duty regulations and how much can be implied if we are to make a fresh start on delivering real, person-centred and measurable equality.

This cannot be viewed as simply being an academic debate.  Discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, hate and the denial of fairness and dignity remain an everyday reality for too many people living in Scotland.  It is also a shameful reality that the public sector in Scotland hosts many of the people, the attitudes, the mindsets and the practices which combine to sustain the denial of fairness and dignity to people who are different from them.

We have had several decades of opportunity to dismantle discrimination based on a person’s ethnicity.  That someone can be murdered in 2011 in Scotland simply because they are of a different ethnicity suggests those opportunities have been wasted and that racism and racial discrimination remains entrenched in our society.  Equal Pay for women has been a goal for several decades, and yet recent research on rates of progress suggest between another 70-90 more years are needed to reach that goal at present rates of change.  In the last few months a major inquiry into the abuse, hate and violence endured by disabled people has destroyed any cosy consensus that we are anywhere near delivering equality with and for disabled people.

The choices are stark.  We can sustain the false consensus which is most often at home in the dining and drawing rooms of Scotland's chattering classes, and has as its truth that all we need is just a few more minor policy tweaks, tick just a few more business plan boxes, airbrush in a just a few more black faces to Visit Scotland videos, and we will surely arrive, very soon, at some equality-Brigadoon.

Or.  We can learn from the history of our equalities work over these last few decades and accept that as a result of our failures, tens of thousands of people from Scotland’s diverse communities will have lived and died before experiencing what it would be like to live each day free from discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, hate and the denial of fairness and dignity.  Having learned, we can resolve to create and use these latest draft specific duties to deliver a robust measure of real equality in the current lifetimes of Scotland’s diverse communities of people.  

Do you want to see your mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son or your best friend meet each day of the rest of their life knowing they will face discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, hate and the denial of fairness and dignity?  I repeat. This is not an academic debate.  Early last year I visited my mother in an intensive care unit in hospital as she struggled to recover from a fall.  Days before she died I recall walking on to the ward and seeing her on top of her bed, clearly having been restless in her drugged sleep, and with her nightgown ruckled up around the top of her thighs.  I had to remind staff that though she was a heavily drugged patient, an old woman who had little time left to her, she was not only my mother but also a human being in our collective care, and that her dignity was precious to her and so should be to us.  Together we rearranged her nightgown and restored her dignity. 

If you believe we need to aim for real equality in the lifetimes of today's older, vulnerable and marginalised people, contact Nicola Sturgeon by email to let her know these specific duties need to be stronger so that all of our mothers can grow old without the fear of facing discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, or hate, just because they are different.

The NHS, shoes, ships and sealing wax, but not equality

I recall a few years ago being in the company of a bunch of reprobates and denizens of Leith on a wet Friday night, and the crack limped on to wondering what to do with what promised to be a miserably dreich Saturday.  The discussion lasted forever, starting off in the Malt Shovel at the foot of Cockburn Street and lasting well into the small hours of Saturday itself when a decision was finally reached [amongst those still standing and whose lips could still form words] in the bowels of the Pelican Club in the Cowgate, that we would all go searching for the fabled magic mushrooms.  I recall that Saturday afternoon, being driven out in the back of an ancient van and arriving in the middle of endless moorland in central Scotland.  The rain was horizontal, the sheep and sheep droppings everywhere, inadequately clothed and shod for our adventure, the temperature just shy of zero, and yet we harvested sufficient of nature’s free gifts to ensure that our mushroom virgins would swear later at night that the walls of the bar were pulsing, the pool table was really a large tortoise that spoke in tongues, and that they had been served at the bar by a Walrus who kept asking them if pigs had wings.

Magic mushrooms can have that effect.

So why is it, you wonder, I have dragged you down this seedy and disreputable memory lane of my dissolute past? 

Because our government is treating us, people who dare to be different, like mushrooms.  Deliberately keeping us in the dark and, on those rare occasions when we squeeze open a crack of daylight in the doorway of accountability, we find ourselves covered in generous servings of the shit of duplicity, mendacity and half-truth that is now standard government reaction when challenged on why equality is not being experienced by Scotland’s citizens.

In July of this year, the Equality & Human Rights Commission published a report on how well the NHS in England had performed in meeting the previous general equality duties on race, disability and gender.  Some of the key findings from the report were seriously disturbing :

q On the basis of the evidence made available to the assessment team, no authority or trust included in the sample was likely to be fully performing on all the three duties, and most were likely to have significant failings in performance.

q The assessment suggested that performance against the duties was regarded by the majority of authorities and trusts as a ‘box ticking’ exercise and only rarely encompassed the achievement of equality outcomes in practice. 

q Much greater attention needs to be paid to leadership, commissioning, and employment than the assessment suggests has been the case up to this point.

q Performance on the Disability Equality Duty (DED) was strongest, followed by the Gender Equality Duty (GED) and Race Equality Duty (RED) in equal measure.

q Several common causes were found for potentially inadequate performance. A key problem was the lack of equality planning and reporting in mainstream materials such as strategic, employment, and commissioning plans. It was therefore often unclear how the general duties were being delivered.

q It was not clear whether priorities, objectives, and actions were based on adequate needs assessment. Typically, transgender, transsexual and Gypsy and Traveller communities were overlooked.

q The quality of actions and reporting on the equality duties in mainstream plans and documents was very poor. This included action resulting from and reporting of achievements in equality schemes.

q A clear and urgent problem was identified with regards to a lack of action orientated priorities and objectives with real and tangible outcomes. The current state of play suggests that few mechanisms exist by which aims and improvements for equality groups can be defined and achieved.

q Twenty-four of the twenty-eight authorities assessed had failed to: set clear gender objectives; set clear means of effectively promoting equal pay through objectives; and addressing causes of inequality (see Table 3 for more information in Section 2 of the report). Equally, under-representation and gendered occupational segregation in employment was frequently unaddressed, as were health inequalities stemming from gender differences.

In short, the NHS in England has been failing big time on delivering equality under previous legal duties.  The EHRC hopes that these findings will ensure improved performance under the new Equality Act 2010.

Hmmmmm.  So would prodding NHS Chief Executives with a taser cranked all the way up to ‘Max’.

That said, the report did have the effect of providing another brief, illuminating crack of light on just how bad the NHS is in providing equal access to services for all people, and not just for the ‘people like us’ who plan and design NHS services.

Being a reasonable kind of person, I assumed Nicola Sturgeon would want to have the same kind of performance analysis on our NHS in Scotland.  Especially since she carries the bag for government work on equalities in Scotland.  It would really help her, I suggested in a recent missive, draft the specific equality duties required to help public bodies, like NHS Boards, meet the new Equality Act 2010 and provide health services equally accessible to all of the diverse people living in Scotland, and so ensure that they would get the same quality of health service as the ‘people like us’ who run it.  I added that I presumed she would not want Scotland’s citizens to be disadvantaged compared to those in England, as they now had this information and could hold their NHS to account.

government has decided, very deliberately, not to 

check if the last 30 or so years of work on such as 

race equality in our NHS has really made a difference

 This triggered a dialogue with government officials, speaking on behalf of Nicola, which became increasingly surreal as they strained every sinew to frame answers in such a way as avoided my direct questions.  It was as if I had stumbled into that scene where Tweedledum and Tweedledee recite for Alice :

The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."

The conclusion was that our NHS is not to have its performance checked in a way similar to that already undertaken in England. 

We are about to witness some major changes in how government will work on delivering equality.  Before setting out, government has decided, very deliberately, not to check if the last 30 or so years of work on such as race equality in our NHS has really made a difference.  In Scotland’s NHS, pigs do indeed have wings.