Equality Minister falls from grace

Michael
McMahon  MSP

On 23^rd February, Michael McMahon MSP, lodged a question for Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy.  Michael has a deep interest in equalities and, mindful of the Equality Act 2010 and the latest draft of specific equality duties on which Nicola’s staff will be dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, he asked :

To ask the Scottish Executive how the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy will ensure that all NHS boards engage with people and organisations representing the protected characteristics and that their daily experiences of discrimination in the NHS are built into the equality outcomes to be published by each board by 31 December 2012. [S4W-05904]

By 6^th March, Nicola’s civil servants had laboured hard in the prolific and well-manured vineyards of government, strained every sinew in exploring the boundaries of innovative communication, and had clearly scoured the highways, byways and backwaters of our NHS, all the time stopping only to nourish themselves on nothing but the stalest of bread and lukewarm water, all so that she could say to Michael :

The regulations which cover the specific requirements that will be placed on listed public authorities have not yet been made. When they do come into force we expect that they will be accompanied by guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Once this guidance has been developed the Scottish Government will work with the Equality Team at NHS Health Scotland to consider what further support or guidance may be required.

An approximate translation of those anodyne phrases is :

‘we have done bugger all, and we have bugger all plans to do bugger all more, because we don’t believe that the NHS discriminates anyway’

do a few years processing CAP grants to sheep
farmers in Orkney, so that they can end up being
 a middle-ranked grunt writing gobshite like this
 for their political masters

Hard to believe isn’t it that highly paid civil servants can take pride in perverting transparency, accountability, and the concept of democracy through providing ministers with a form of words which deliberately seek to avoid answering the questions?  That they can plough through school and university to obtain a decent degree education, persuade an interview board to give them a job in the civil service so that they can serve the public and make a difference, resist the siren voices of the merchant banks and their promises of obscene bonuses on top of fat-cat salaries, do a few years processing CAP grants to sheep farmers in Orkney, so that they can end up being a middle-ranked grunt writing gobshite like this for their political masters? 

It gets better, or worse, depending on how you define democracy and government.

Michael put a number of related questions to Nicola :

To ask the Scottish Executive what checks the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy will put in place to ensure that the equality outcomes to be published by each NHS board by 31 December 2012 (a) are fit for purpose, (b) comply with the guidance to be published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and (c) are fully accessible in one NHS web-based resource. [S4W-05905]

To ask the Scottish Executive what baseline data relating to levels of discrimination in the NHS the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy will use to monitor the effectiveness of NHS boards in setting equality outcomes. [S4W-05906]

To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy will issue to members of NHS boards to ensure that (a) governance arrangements, (b) accountability and (c) transparency in the setting and delivery of equality outcomes is (i) regularly considered at board level and (ii) placed in the public domain as well as in one central NHS web-based resource. [S4W-05907]

To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy will issue to members of NHS boards to ensure that (a) governance arrangements, (b) accountability and (c) transparency in the setting and delivery of equality outcomes is (i) regularly considered at board level and (ii) placed in the public domain as well as in one central NHS web-based resource. [S4W-05908]

To ask the Scottish Executive what (a) central and (b) accessible resource the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy will establish to allow people and organisations representing the protected characteristics to compare performance across all NHS boards in setting and delivering equality outcomes. [S4W-05909]

6 times Parliament and elected members
 were given a vigorously executed V-sign
 by a minister who has the lead on equalities

All clearly designed to get our NHS ready to do much more than go on fearfully ticking a few boxes, to be doing a lot more than just enough to keep the enforcers at bay, and instead offer an exciting, innovative, confident example of how we can all show discrimination the red card and celebrate equality of opportunity being much more vibrant than the tired old cliché it has become.  


And the fragrant Nicola’s response [as drafted by her trusted and loyal civil servants] to all of these ?

                       

 I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-05904

 by her dissembling, her duplicity,
and her dissimulating,  ........ a
massive fall from grace in her
right to retain any integrity on equalities.

5 times.  Well, 6 times.  6 times Parliament and elected members were given a vigorously executed V-sign by a minister who has the lead on equalities [I know, you couldn’t make this up].  6 times Nicola was given the chance to offer real hope to people who experience discrimination in our NHS on a daily basis that on her watch things would change.  6 times Nicola was given a chance to show how Scotland could be different, more radical, more innovative, more determined than the rest of the UK to deliver equality in the lifetime of young BME people regularly excluded from the opportunities of mainstream society and regularly abused when they dare to cross the line.

Instead, with each and every one of those 6 opportunities, by her dissembling, her duplicity, and her dissimulating, Nicola chose to crush the hopes of people from the major equality communities in Scotland and completed a massive fall from grace in her right to retain any integrity on equalities.

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