Turkeys and Equality

I am advised by officials in the government Equality Unit that a new draft of the specific equality duties is due to be published soon, and that all of us will be consulted on these - again.


One of the many issues which I and a small disparate - some would even say desperate - group of dissenters queried earlier this year, was just how well the previous consultation process had been handled and how well the few responses received had been analysed and reported on to government ministers.  


One of the points made to the Parliamentary Equal Opportunities Committee in March was that public bodies responding to the 'lite' duties proposed then would be highly unlikely to formally respond with arguments for stronger duties.  It was suggested, and accepted by MSPs, that turkeys rarely vote to have Christmas more often and indeed usually try to vote for it to be moved on to only occurring on a blue-moon cycle.


Part of this comes from the innate conservatism of public bodies, with innovation and risk taking squeezed out by the various tools of fear which are commonly passed off as management techniques and which Oliver Letwin proposes should be cranked up even higher.


Another cause of the turkey syndrome in the sector is that it doesn't, corporately, understand why all of this fuss about equalities.  Most of the public sector remains the plaything of white, non-disabled, heterosexual, middle-class, 'people like us' who design and deliver public services for 'people like us'.  And none of them would harm the proverbial fly never mind discriminate, they tell me.  Some of their best friends are gay/black/Irish/single parents/blind/deaf, and sometimes we embody all of these identifiers in the often perfectly formed shape of one human being.  So it must always be in some other part of the sector that discrimination is rife, where opportunity is a permanently closed door, and where good relations is what you have with all the contractors and consultants you use to deliver services.  Discrimination is structural, institutional and it flourishes at the heart of public life.


If we are to come up with specific equality duties which are good for Scotland, which delivers a Scottish approach to Scotland's daily experiences of discrimination and inequality, we need to use every part of how we work to shift the balance of power from 'people like us' to people who are different and diverse.


When public bodies are asked again what they think about new draft specific equality duties, the Cabinet Secretary for Health & Wellbeing must require that they, when answering, show and evidence as part of their response how they have involved and engaged with the equality communities who use their services, in shaping their response to government.  

'the endless 'gobble, gobble, gobble'
 of public  sector-speak
which Nicola gets to hear ....'

This way it would not just be the endless 'gobble, gobble, gobble' of public-sector-speak which Nicola gets to hear on how her draft duties will of course deliver equalities-Nirvana in the public sector.  By insisting responses from the sector must be partnerships with those people who the duties seek to protect and free from the oppression of living in a world designed for 'people like us', she would this time get a motorway route to equality instead of being taken down the predictable public sector pot-holed B-road which always arrives at a Scotland where BME people are forever stopped and searched in airports and where being gay is OK as long as it is in a fictional context.

she would this time get a motorway route to equality instead of being taken down the predictable public sector pot-holed B-road which always arrives at a Scotland where BME people are forever stopped and searched in airports

You can, if you share this view, let the Cabinet Secretary know by emailing her and asking her to ensure the consultation over the new specific equality duties needs to be handled in this way.  That way it is not just me who she is hearing from, but other people who are not 'people like us'.