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.