Getting equalities off the corporate page and into the daily lives of people

My twitter feed recently alerted me to another blog which tells yet another story where equalities exists only on the corporate page and not in the daily lives of people.  The blog is about a young boy, Adam, who is disabled and who is not able to go to school because his health board - NHS Lothian - won't provide him with the support he needs to attend school.  NHS Lothian are required in law to provide that support.


A few weeks ago, Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for photo opps in our NHS, was told that NHS Lothian had been fiddling the data on waiting lists so that they did not cross over a line set by the Cabinet Secretary for photo opps.  Intrigued by the potential consequences of the scale of the duplicity in this area of a board's performance, I asked the Cabinet Secretary in between flashes : 

what systems are used by your staff to validate and audit progress and performance reports NHS Boards publish on meeting their general and specific equality duties?.

I also asked :

Can you please ensure that the quality assurance required and used in this context will be readily and easily accessible to Scotland’s citizens and community organisations representing the views and experiences of people with protected characteristics ?

You would have thought the Cabinet Secretary for photo opps would seize the chance to plug the massive holes in her performance management capacity when it came to health boards.  You would have thought she would want to create a legacy where performance on waiting times, equalities, equal pay and much more improved when she was in office.  You would have thought.


Her response, drafted by her officials, was:

it is for each Health Board, as a named public body in equality legislation, to have in place the precise mechanisms they require to assure they are complaint [sic] with their legislative requirements. The Equality & Human Rights Commission is the regulatory body that ensures these requirements are met.

Nothing like not answering the question. Nothing like ignoring the reality that Westminster is slaughtering the EHRC and it will be unable to cross the road on its own to get change of a fiver, never mind check the performance of public bodies.


Self-assessment is not fit for purpose.  We have the stark evidence in from NHS Lothian on its waiting list data.


If we are to make sure that the performance of our health boards is open, honest, transparent and eliminating the discrimination which exists, we need a tough, fit-for-purpose, independent and transparent performance monitoring regime.  Given the Cabinet Secretary's fondness for her concept of mutuality in the NHS, it is also critical that checking performance has to be done in partnership with the very people the whole effort is supposed to benefit - people from the equalities communities.  She might even want to think about inviting Adam to be part of a new partnership monitoring regime.


You might want to suggest to Nicola that she needs to get tough on equalities and tough on the performance of health boards in delivering equality. Feel free to use this tweet button to do just that.  Tweet to @NicolaSturgeon
If you want to support Adam go to school, use this tweet button to prod Nicola out of the glare of the flash bulbs and into doing her job as Cabinet Secretary for Health.  Tweet to @NicolaSturgeon
And you might want to tweet and ask the EHRC to do what Nicola says it does - ensure Lothian meets its legal duties. Tweet to @EHRC