Time to call in the government's IOU's on Equality

For a long time now, our government has promised much on tackling discrimination and inequality, as well as putting in place equality of opportunity.  They are of course required to do this in law - deliver, not just promise to do it, not just talk about doing it, but deliver it.  With evidence.  


Those of you familiar with the many different forms of government promises are I know exhausted with the effort required to keep up with the volume of promises made.


For instance.  In 2008, government published what it planned to do over the next 3 years to meet its legal duties on delivering race equality.  It published 428 pages of what it was/is going to do.  If you have the energy and the time, you can open it here.


Just in case race equality is not your bag, maybe you want to know what is promised on disability equality.  Again, government has a legal duty to deliver disability equality.  In 2008, government published another hefty 315 pages of promises on what is was going to do over the next 3 years to meet its legal duties.  


Add in the promises on delivering gender equality, also published in 2008 - a modest 303 pages long - and you begin to get an idea of just how difficult it is to hold government to account.  Over these last 3 years there have been at least 1,000 pages of IOU's written and covering what government will do for Scotland's citizens on delivering equality.  With such a blizzard of promissory notes, it is well nigh impossible for anyone to keep track of what they have done, not done, why, and measure what difference, if any, has been made to the daily living experiences of the people supposed to benefit.


Roaming around the government's web site one stumbles on what appear to be random progress reports which may relate to some of those many, many pages of Equality IOU's.


On the health needs of gypsy/travellers, government commissioned the development of a Handheld Health Record.  This approach was apparently developed in partnership between the National Resource Centre for Ethnic Minority Health and gypsy/traveller communities.  The web page telling you about this also explains that the approach will be reviewed after a 'reasonable period of usage'.  If you get on to that web page, scroll all the way down to the bottom and look closely at the small print in the bottom right hand corner.  Got it ?  It tells you when this page was last updated.  Safe to assume nothing else has happened since then, else government would want you and I to know how well they were improving things for the gypsy/travelling community?


It says - or it did when I wrote this in July 2011 - that the page had been last updated on Wednesday October 12th 2005.  Almost 6 years ago.  Nothing new added since.  No more progress to report.  Nothing about how, maybe, it has been a brilliant idea and makes a huge difference to the health of gypsy/travellers.  Nothing about how, maybe, it has just not worked out at all and not delivered any health benefits for gypsy/travellers.  Just a big fat nothing.


This concept of transparency and accountability between government and citizens has failed.  I don't know if it ever worked, but it is clearly unfit for purpose - big time.  It is a spit in the eye of the democratic model of government.


This old paternalistic, inaccessible, tick-box style of pretending to deliver equality is so well past its sell-by/use-by date, the stink is about as bad as that hovering like a mushroom cloud over Wapping.


We need a new model and a new culture for government accountability and transparency in delivering equality – and we need it now, not next year, maybe, after a research study, when the recession is over, and all the other classic establishment delaying tactics. 


The next waves of government promises on equality action have to be set out in ways which describe how a person’s experience of public services will change as a direct result – not tell us that government will train all its staff in being nice to Meerkats.  The days of government casually scribbling another thousand or so IOU's on Equality must end.


Smart technology design should be used to allow citizens to check if the new promises are being kept.  If Tesco can use the web technology to email you to tell you exactly when those must-have, 3-pack,  50% off, sequinned thongs are back in stock at your local store, government can email you to tell you - because you asked - when the gender pay gap has fallen below 3%. 


We also need to create a new culture of policing the big picture of all the promises being made, and fill the gap left by the lack of an effective regulator.  Government needs to fund voluntary sector organisations [with 5-10 year deals] to monitor its progress and performance on delivering equality for all of our equality communities, and not just after the event, but before promised action deadlines are reached.  These organisations need to be independent of government [using the model of Commissioners] and be required to report directly and annually to Parliament, perhaps to the Equal Opportunities Committee.  

Government IOU's on equality being called in

The credit bubble burst round about the time government last scribbled those thousand pages of Equality IOU's.  Government needs to realise the credibility bubble has also burst on what it has been doing - and not doing - on equality.  The debt it owes Scotland's marginalised and excluded people is now toxic.  It is time to call in all those IOU's and deliver what was promised - eliminate the discrimination so many Scottish people are encountering in their daily lives.