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 ?’