Who can't handle the truth .... on equality ?

In my search to find out why Visit Scotland only employs one worker [out of 763] confident enough to identify as Catholic, I have uncovered what appears to be a stunning disregard for the truth.

From my previous blog on this subject, readers will know that the Chief Executive of Visit Scotland, Malcolm Roughead, offered what appeared to be cast iron assurances that Visit Scotland was compliant with the law on equality.  To quote from the Visit Scotland response :

"I have referred your letter to my colleague Chris McCoy, our Equality & Diversity manager, who informs me that she has had confirmation from the Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] who are fully supportive of our Equality Mainstreaming Report & Objective and are content that we are complying with the legislation as it stands."

Since that response and because of the unsatisfactory nature of it, I referred my concerns to the EHRC in Scotland and, amongst other matters, asked :

Can you please advise if the EHRC is advising public bodies generally on whether or not they are compliant in relation to the general and specific equality duties, or only in response to specific requests from organisations ?

The response from the EHRC flashed me back to the early 90's when Jack Nicholson chomped his way through the scenery of the film 'A Few Good Men' and blistered that killer phrase into film history :

"You want the truth ?  You can't handle the truth."

The response from the EHRC as to whether they were handing out gold stars of compliance with the specific duties to our public bodies ? :

"On your final question, the Commission has not been in touch with any organisation to state that they are compliant."

I have now asked Visit Scotland to provide a copy of the evidence it has that the EHRC confirms Visit Scotland is compliant with the legislation.

I do believe we, the citizens of Scotland, can handle the truth on whether or not our public bodies are compliant with the law on equality.

Visit Scotland ..... then again, maybe not if you are a Catholic ?

VisitScotland has an odd take on equality.

Not so long ago, when creating a campaign in support of that infamous 21st century reprise of Brigadoon, otherwise known as the Homecoming in 2009, Visit Scotland were caught out portraying Scotland as a whites-only country.  When this was pointed out to them, they barely blushed before reaching for the air-brush and adding a token BME face to their poster campaign.  

Just 4 years on, Visit Scotland published a number of reports required to show how it was meeting the specific equality duties, which help guide public bodies towards eliminating discrimination.  One of the duties is to do with discrimination in the workplace and requires public bodies to gather data on the profile of people who work for it, using identifiers [known as protected characteristics] such as gender, race, religion and others.  The public bodies are then required to show how they have used the data gathered to better meet their general equality duty - in other words, they need to work out what the data tells them about discrimination through, say, not employing any or enough BME people and setting out plans to remedy the shortfall and so eliminate discrimination.  Simple.

Not, it appears, for Visit Scotland.

Employing 763 staff, you would expect them to publish around 10 pages of a report which would provide details, in numbers and pictures, on who works for Visit Scotland in terms of protected characteristic.  Some of the pages would set out an analysis of where Visit Scotland thinks discrimination may be the cause of some protected characteristics being missing from or under-represented on the payroll.  Some pages might even offer evidence of how good an employer Visit Scotland is in terms of, say, the number of disabled people employed.  Maybe even a couple of paragraphs at the end setting out an action plan to eliminate any discrimination the figures showed could exist ?

Here is the Visit Scotland report.
Read it and weep for equality.

Here is the Visit Scotland report.  Read it and weep for equality.

I contacted Visit Scotland, wondering if the data showing they employed just 1 Catholic might be evidence of sectarianism, and wondering that their ever-so-brief report might be non-compliant with the specific equality duties.  Their response - a serious case of corporate denial - serves simply to confirm that Scotland struggles to accept that sectarianism exists, or that anyone outside of Glasgow football clubs needs to take action to eliminate it.  

I have passed all of this over the the Equality & Human Rights Commission in Scotland and asked them to investigate.  I will also pass it on to the government minister responsible for Visit Scotland.  If you want to world to have a non-airbrushed picture of Scotland and want Scotland to welcome people here, irrespective of their religious belief, you might want to be asking Malcolm Roughead, Chief Executive of Visit Scotland, just why only 1 Catholic works for the organisation and why he cannot see that this might be as a result of discrimination against Catholics.

EHRC is creating a monitoring culture on equality which betrays the futures of the very people it is supposed to protect

Those who read this blog regularly will be aware that I expect more from the Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] than it currently delivers on eliminating discrimination.  A LOT more.  The most recent blog queried whether the EHRC in Scotland had become part of the problem in being seemingly unable to find much wrong with the work of the public sector on equality.  One of their most recent EHRC reports on checking the performance of public bodies in meeting the specific equality duties seemed content to note that most of them had published something by the required date, and yet in the same breath acknowledged that there was no check on the quality of the content of what had been published.  In other words publish a crap set of data on your workforce or a crap set of plans which will do bugger all to eliminate discrimination, and the EHRC will still give you 5 stars, just for publishing your crap.

The EHRC in Scotland has published a second report which examines what public bodies have published on workforce equality data and their role as employers.  The idea is to check if they are looking at how they operate as employers and gathering and using data to check if institutional discrimination is being identified and eliminated.  The duty itself is clear.  Gather data on your workforce, analyse it, and use what it tells you to change how you recruit, train, develop and retain a diverse workforce.  Simples, no ?

Wait for it.  There are 8 protected characteristics.  Recent research, shared with the EHRC in Scotland, found that there was evidence that sectarianism was present in sectors across Scotland.  To reach this conclusion requires that public bodies gather data on all the protected characteristics, including religion and, in that context, the numbers of Catholics and Protestants employed.  The research found that the quality of data being gathered on workforce profiling was poor and in some cases non-existent.  

So.  When one reads the EHRC report on how well Scotland's public bodies have profiled their workforce, you would expect the scrutiny to pick up on the gaps and for the EHRC to move quickly to lean on the public bodies to up their game ?  No ?  Read it yourself, here.

Once more the EHRC in Scotland has set the performance bar so low, public bodies would need to work hard at not getting another 5 gold stars.  As the report itself says :

The review found that 93% of the 184 listed authorities reviewed had published information about the composition of their staff, broken down by protected characteristic. In this review authorities were assessed as reporting on the composition of their workforce if they reported on any of the eight relevant protected characteristics.

Looked at through the eyes of the EHRC, the performance of the 11 Scottish universities who did not publish data on Catholics employed by them is judged to be compliant with the law.  9 of the universities did not publish data on the sexual orientation of their workforce, but not a problem for the EHRC as they published data on such as gender so they can be given the 5 gold stars for performance.

The EHRC is creating a monitoring culture on equality which betrays the futures of the very people it is supposed to protect. 

The EHRC in Scotland has become part of the problem ....

In March 2011, a very small number of people had the courage to warn the Scottish Parliament that work on equality would betray people encountering discrimination on a daily basis if the Scottish government's proposed specific equality duties were approved.  Despite an hysterical last-minute intervention from the Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] who predicted the end of the equality world as we know it if the draft specific equality duties were not approved, the Equal Opportunities Committee in the Scottish Parliament rejected government's proposals.

In May 2012, a set of improved, stronger, specific equality duties were approved, quietly, with no great fanfare, no handbag-smuggled flag-waving, no oxy-acetylene torch-bearing welding apprentices, and no media interest.

April 2013 brought a deluge of papers and data published by public bodies in their attempt to meet the requirement of the duties.

Looking at the area of data in employment equality and how well public bodies were meeting the specific equality duties, research found that for the protected characteristics of disability, race, LGB, and religion, the public sector was performing poorly and has no plans to do anything about that poor performance.  Other research also found poor performance across the public sector in the duty to publish equal pay gap data.

All of this research was shared with the EHRC in Scotland.  Their response to getting access to all of this evidence, free of charge ? :

The Commission is conducting its own assessment both of compliance with the duties – have organisations published what they are required to – and a deeper assessment of the contents of the reports, which we aim to publish over the course of the next six months.  As this work is being carried out to our own specification, whilst your information is helpful it will not be considered as part of our own assessment.

Given their lack of interest, you would think that the findings published by the EHRC from their research would be stunning material, bringing light to the darkness of lost opportunities and offering hope to those unable to get past the institutional discrimination which infects everyday life in the public sector.  You would think.

Read for yourself.  This is the report published by the EHRC on whether public bodies complied with the duty to publish, amongst other things, a profile of their workforce.  The Commission finds :

Overall the findings of this first phase have been positive ....... Scottish public authorities have performed well in terms of basic compliance with the requirements to publish their information in a transparent and accessible manner .....

Barely pausing for breath, the report goes on to say :

This report only provides headline information about whether or not relevant information has been published. What has yet to be determined is the quality and focus of what public authorities have produced .....

To translate, the EHRC has used scarce funding to commission research which finds that most public bodies have published something which meets the duty to publish something.  The EHRC then admits on the same page that there is no qualitative analysis of what has been published ........... but in the preceding sentences claims that what has been published is "transparent and accessible".  By this stage, most readers are a tad giddy from spinning around to catch up with the EHRC's shape-shifting on what the research shows.

It just keeps getting better.  Still on the same page, the report offers the insight that :

The impact of the work they [public bodies] carry out to meet their outcomes and to use their employee information will not be known for another two years .......

To again translate, the EHRC has spent scarce funds on research which cannot tell if what public bodies have published is of any value, if it is seriously crap, or even if the reports and planned actions could in themselves have the potential to create further discrimination.  

It would seem to be time for the Scottish Parliament to carry out its own research into whether the EHRC is still up to the job of acting as a catalyst for equality in Scotland.  Based on the confused and conflicted reports it is currently publishing on the performance of others, there is every reason to believe that it has lost the plot, is now part of the problem, and is no longer fit for purpose.

Scotland's Ivory Towers and Sectarianism - the squalid reality

Have you ever wondered who amongst the long list of illustrious dead from Scotland's past should be awarded the Honorary Doctorates passed out each year to the great and good by Scotland's universities ?

Just a few weeks ago, Edinburgh university granted this award to a mixed bag of people, still alive, including Eddie Reader [singer], Lynne Ramsay [film director] and Ellen Kullman [chief executive of duPont].  

James Connolly - 
we only want the earth

In May 2016 it will be 100 years since the execution of James Connolly, born in Edinburgh in June 1868 not far from Edinburgh university, and who went on to become an internationally respected socialist and freedom fighter for an independent Ireland.  Connolly's legacy to Scotland and indeed the world is massive and can certainly bear comparison with anything achieved by those on this year's list of honorary doctorates at Edinburgh university.  It would be a radical and daring decision if Edinburgh university were to award, posthumously, James Connolly an honorary degree of doctor of letters, as the quaint phrasing has it.

It would be but a small step in fostering good relations across Scotland's festering sectarian divide, where Catholics have long been kept several steps behind the progress being made by Protestants in all walks of Scottish life, whether it be in education or in employment.  Who better to recognise in this way than someone who was born in Edinburgh, in poverty, and yet who left a gigantic footprint in history on matters of equality and social justice ?

It would be naught but a small step in a Scotland which was comfortable with itself, which recognised that prejudice and discrimination are alive and affecting the lives of tens of thousands of people every day, and which was as determined to eliminate that discrimination as it appears to be determined to replace one flag with another, even at tennis matches.

Trouble is that Scotland is not comfortable with itself.  Elsewhere on this blog you will find evidence of how bigotry, prejudice and discrimination stalks the landscape of what we call the public sector in Scotland.  My more recent blogs have shown that our NHS is, after decades of ducking and diving on meeting the law on eliminating discrimination on the basis of disability, race and gender, still unable to deliver the basics of equality, such as equal pay for women.

Evidence of just how uncomfortable Scotland is with equality can be found in reports universities published in April this year to meet the newest legal duties on equality.  One of the many things they were required to do was profile their workforce according to protected characteristics, including such as whether a worker was disabled, from an ethnic minority, lesbian, gay or bisexual, and what religion/belief they identified with.  My latest research provides an overview of how Scotland's universities are performing with meeting the law and eliminating discrimination.

On the employment of Catholics, the data reveals a stunning complacency in universities.  Out of the 16 universities and schools Scotland has, 11 don't collect the data.  Just 3 universities are able to report on how many Catholics there are on their payrolls.  Out of the 38,555 people employed across the university sector just 373 identify as Catholic.  Less than 1% of the workforce.  The Scottish Bishops' Conference estimated at 2008 that the proportion of the population which is Catholic was at that time 12.9%.

As well as being poor, James Connolly was also born in Edinburgh's Cowgate of Irish parents and was a Catholic.  Edinburgh university is only able to report that just 1.77% of the workforce is Catholic.  I wonder what Edinburgh's figure will be when the centenary of his execution comes around in 2016 ?

Sectarianism distorting NHS Scotland's workforce ?

For some centuries now, being a Catholic in Scotland has not been a passport to an easy life and it has certainly not been an identity which automatically opens the armoured glass doors to employment and career development.

Just over the water, in Northern Ireland, the reality of sectarianism and discrimination has been openly acknowledged and direct action taken over the last decade has seen employment equality between Protestants and Catholics change from, in 2001, an employment rate gap of 19% in favour of Protestants to, in 2010, a gap of just over 8%.  The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland [ECNI] publishes an annual report which is based on survey returns required from all employers [private and public sector] with over 11 employees and which identify the community background of employees as well as their gender.  This enables the ECNI to properly monitor the national workforce profile and check that progress is being made to deliver real, measurable equality in employment for Catholics in Northern Ireland.  Where necessary, ECNI can and does take action.  

A simple, but powerfully effective tool which is delivering results.  Given this, it has to be asked : why does Scotland not do something similar ?  

Part of the answer has to be that Scotland doesn't like to admit that sectarianism is something which exists beyond the confines of certain football club supporters.  The implication being that as long as it is the rough, coarse working classes who maim and kill one another in the name of the Pope or King Billy, then Scotland's middle-class can sustain the charade that Scotland is a 'tolerant' country.  Another increasingly obvious reason is that Scotland's politicians and political apparatchiks don't want to know what the data on equality would tell them, whether it be about sectarianism and discrimination against Catholics, or the lack of BME people in jobs which help maintain the shape of Scotland's public services as something fit for 'people like us'. 

Scotland the White

If they don't know about the extent of racism, disablism, homophobia or the rest, they don't have to do anything beyond tokenistic hand-wringing over the more overt manifestations of discrimination.  Then the reaction is to, literally in the case of Visit Scotland in 2008, air-brush into the official documents on Scottish society a Disney-esque portrayal of shortbread-tin life in the kailyards of Brigadoon.

Scotland's new specific equality duties can help us bring an end to this self-delusion and replace it with hard evidence of how the workplace looks, without the aid of an air-brush or selective memory.

In April 2013, most of Scotland's major public bodies were required publish workforce data, profiling it by protected characteristic, including religion and belief, learning from what the data told them and then acting on it to show that they were eliminating discrimination.

Scotland the air-brushed

Recent research into what the NHS has achieved with this area of the specific equality duties suggests sectarianism and discrimination in relation  to Catholics is a reality which no amount of air-brushing or data-massaging will remove.


 We know that 19 of Scotland's 22 NHS Boards published profiling reports.  The other 3 either blissfully ignorant or simply ignoring the law.  No doubt the EHRC will be on their case.  It would be helpful if the Cabinet Secretary for Health was also to prod the 3 chief executives with a sharp performance-related-pay stick.

From the reports which were published, we know that the NHS in Scotland employs 158,326 workers.  We also know that 12,079 of them identify themselves as Catholic - just 7.63% of the workforce.  That is quite a way short of the Bishops' Conference of Scotland estimate for the Scottish Catholic population being 12.9%.

On the basis of these figures, there appears to be something like 8,345+ Catholic people missing from the payroll of Scotland's NHS.  

When performance on religious equality reveals that a town the size of Peebles would be needed to accommodate  all the Catholic people missing from the payroll of the NHS in Scotland, it is possible to conclude that sectarianism and institutional discrimination on the grounds of being a Catholic retains deep roots within the culture and practices of the NHS.

Given Visit Scotland's form in the recent past, it is worth looking at their workforce profiling report.  In this you will read that out of 763 Visit Scotland workers, just 1 identifies as Catholic.

Wedding Bells, a marriage certificate, but few P60s - is this equality ?

Scottish government has been devoting much precious legislative process and time to redressing the inequalities inherent in lesbian, gay and bi-sexual [LGB] people being able to get married in Scotland.  The wider discourse on same-sex marriage has uncovered evidence that prejudice, bigotry and homophobia in Scotland are rarely far below the scratched surface of many people's comfort zones.  To their credit, government has not allowed the opposition to same-sex marriage to deflect them from the goal of remedying an institutional inequality.

With same-sex marriage the contemporary backdrop to LGB equality in Scotland, one would have imagined a positive knock-on effect in other areas of LGB discrimination, such as in improving the employment levels of LGB people within Scotland's public sector.  Curiously and regrettably, given government's control over the public sector, the benefits remain limited to the prospects of wedding bells and have yet to witness marked improvements in the employment prospects of LGB people securing P60's within the public sector.

Recent research has looked at how the NHS in Scotland is performing in meeting the specific equality duty which requires them to profile their workforce by protected characteristic, analyse what this tells them, and then act on this so that they can better deliver employment equality - for all protected characteristics, including LGB people.  

We know that 19 of Scotland's 22 NHS Boards published profiling reports.  The other 3 either blissfully ignorant or simply ignoring the law.  No doubt the EHRC will be on their case.  It would be helpful if the Cabinet Secretary for Health was also to prod 3 chief executives with a sharp performance-related-pay stick.

From the reports which were published, we know that the NHS in Scotland employs 158,326 workers.  We also know that 1,502 of them identify themselves as LGB - just 0.95% of the workforce.  That is quite a way short of the UK government's estimate for the LGB population.  

On the basis of these figures, there appears to be something like 7,998+ LGB people missing from the payroll of Scotland's NHS.  

When performance on LGB equality reveals that a town the size of Oban would be needed to accommodate  all the LGB people missing from the payroll of the NHS in Scotland, it is possible to conclude that institutional discrimination in the NHS on the grounds of being LGB contributes significantly to the scale of those estimated to be missing.

BME people, work and the NHS in Scotland - thousands missing from the payroll

The Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] estimates that the average rate of employment for BME people across the public sector is 8%.

Scotland's NHS Boards recently published workforce profiling reports.  These are required in order to meet new specific equality duties, with the aim being that the Boards learn from analysing the data they gather and work out how to eliminate discrimination and improve employment chances for people who are recognised as being discriminated against - disabled people, black minority ethnic [BME] people, lesbian, gay & bisexual [LGB] people, and a number of other groups of people sharing what the law describes as 'protected characteristics'.

Research shows that 19 of Scotland's 22 NHS Boards published profiling reports.  The other 3 apparently decided to ignore the law.  No doubt the EHRC will be on their case.

From the reports which were published, we know that the NHS in Scotland employs 158,326 workers.  We also know that 4,164 of them identify themselves as BME - just 2.63% of the workforce.  Over 5% short of the average public sector employment rate for BME people.  

On the basis of these figures, there appears to be something like 8,500+ BME people missing from the payroll of Scotland's NHS.  

When an analysis of performance on race equality reveals that a town the size of Haddington would be needed to house all the BME people missing from the payroll of the NHS in Scotland, it is possible to conclude that institutional discrimination in the NHS on the grounds of race contributes significantly to the scale of those estimated to be missing.

Disability Equality is not working in the NHS

One of the clear measures of equality is to be found in the profile, by protected characteristic, of those in employment.

Being in employment can bring multiple, potentially positive, impacts on the lived experiences of many people who share particular protected characteristics.  It can reduce dependence on the less than generous state welfare system and the increasing stigma attached to what little support is provided to people who are jobless for whatever reason.  It provides the opportunities for those previously excluded from key areas of society to be able to influence change and the future shape of societal structures from within.  Being in work instead of being marginalised, excluded and discriminated against can also help start to slowly foster good relations between those who erect barriers and discriminate, and those who are discriminated against.

Scotland’s specific equality duties, adopted in May 2012, recognised this and set a clear goal for public bodies in Scotland.  Amongst other things, the duties required that public bodies gather data on their workforce by protected characteristic and use it to help them better perform their general equality duty to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations.  April 30^th 2013 was the first date by which public bodies were required to publish a report on their efforts in meeting this particular part of the specific equality duties.

A recent research report into what workforce data has been published by the NHS in Scotland on disabled people shows that if the UK average of 13.1% of people in work being disabled were achieved by all Scotland's 22 NHS Boards, this would find 19,376 more disabled people working in the NHS.  This is roughly equivalent to the population of Bathgate and provides a graphic illustration of the number of disabled people missing from the payroll of the NHS.

Lies, damned lies and the EHRC in Scotland

there are moments when even
a high-decibel use of 'WTF',
with full stops between each
word, is simply inadequate

Sometime the ever helpful safety-valve expletive 'WTF' helps when you read such as the latest exploits or murmurings of the hapless Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary in England, or stub your toe as you stumble and fumble in the dark towards the bathroom at some unearthly hour in the morning.  And then there are moments when even a high-decibel use of 'WTF', with full stops between each word, is simply inadequate.  This is about one such moment.

Yesterday, the EHRC in Scotland published a report and press release on just how well/badly public bodies in Scotland were doing in meeting new specific equality duties which came into effect in 2012 and required a slew of reports from them to be published by end of April this year.  I have already published research into the performance of the major public bodies in publishing data on their gender pay gaps, and shared it free of charge with the EHRC.  The EHRC press release tells us :

"The Scottish Government introduced these powerful equality duties in 2012 to ensure that public authorities tackle the most pressing inequalities"

And I had always thought the specific duties were introduced to help public bodies meet the general equality duty, which has eliminating discrimination, advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations at its core.  See for yourself here on the EHRC web site.  But no, in Scotland the EHRC has decided that is clearly too hard, to challenging, too difficult an objective for public bodies and now they just need to "tackle the most pressing inequalities".  Might be worth checking with the Scottish Parliament's Equal Opportunities Committee [SP EOC] if they are aware of the downgraded equality goals set by the EHRC in Scotland?

the EHRC press release
describes the specific equality
duties as "powerful"

But that isn't the toe stubbing, 'WTF', moment.  It is when the EHRC press release describes the specific equality duties as "powerful".  

Way back in 2011, the Scottish government invited the SP EOC to rubber stamp draft specific equality duties for Scotland.  These had been the subject of a marathon consultation and then an analysis report which conveniently ignored that the majority of respondents who were not public bodies opposed what was on the table.  At the eleventh-hour, some of us decided the stakes were too high and lobbied the SP EOC to seek amendments to the draft and strengthen the duties so that discrimination was eliminated in the years to come.  We were asked to provide evidence at a session of the SP EOC on 8th March 2011 when the minister would also formally move a motion for the Committee to adopt his draft.  You can read here all that was said at the meeting and how the Committee decided to throw out the draft specific duties and invite government to improve on them and on its consultation process and practice.

The day before, the EHRC Scotland Director, Ros Micklem, wrote to the SP EOC.  This letter set out the EHRC's position on the then draft duties and was a heavy handed attempt to bounce the Committee into approving the draft duties:

"We are supportive of the duties as currently framed, being both robust enough for regulation purposes but without being overly prescriptive"

The EHRC went on to point out that any decision to delay the adoption of the specific duties would not :

"be in the best interests of the Scottish people"

So.  The EHRC reckoned then that the draft duties were robust enough and that delaying them would not be in the interests of the Scottish people.

Now?  The interests of the
Scottish people don't rate a mention by the EHRC

Now?  The interests of the Scottish people don't rate a mention by the EHRC, the duties which the EHRC in effect opposed are now "powerful", and the goal posts are unilaterally moved by the EHRC from eliminating discrimination to "tackling the most pressing inequalities".  Joe Stalin would have applauded this capacity for re-writing history and air-brushing inconvenient realities and truths out of the picture.

Angels of equality in Scotland have fallen far and fast from grace

Summer starts next week.  The year is almost half-way through.  Equality has taken another hammering as we move into the third year of coalition government at Westminster.

People for whom equality law is supposed to offer a bulwark against discrimination, a crowbar with which to lever open some equality in opportunity, are being battered by the ideological drive to cut public spending, and the protections supposed to be on offer in the shape of the Equality Act 2010 and the Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] are as effective as food labelling promising minced beef content.

In April this year, research found that there is overwhelming evidence, submitted directly by public bodies themselves, that the legislative framework on equalities is being routinely ignored.  The research into how public sector budgets checked that budgets did not embed discrimination found that the default cultural mind set in the public sector is that there is no real depth or extent to discrimination within the sector.  The discourse within budget EQIAs is not on ‘cuts’, but almost always on ‘savings’.  The narrative within EQIAs rarely references discrimination, as if by airbrushing the word out of the public sector lexicon it can in some parody of ‘Animal Farm’ demonstrate that all are already equal and indeed that some are more equal than others.

The reaction of the EHRC in Scotland to this ?  Zilch.  Nothing.  No high profile court cases started.  No press release advising Scotland's communities that the EHRC was vigilant in ensuring their protection was 24/7 and that any failure on the part of anyone to meet the equality law would find the EHRC's tanks on their lawn.

OK, maybe that was just too hard for them to grapple with.  What about equal pay ?

Good PR for the EHRC.  Makes them
look as if they are on the equality case
and on the side of the angels.

On the legal duty to publish gender pay gaps by end April this year, research found that quite a few public bodies had failed to meet their duty.  Straightforward.  Easy peasy.  EHRC in Scotland could fire off a warning letter and invite each public body to explain the absence of a report on the gender pay gap.  Good PR for the EHRC.  Makes them look as if they are on the equality case and on the side of the angels.  So what did they do?  Nothing.  Nada,  Zilch.  They won't move until they pay out £thousands to a researcher to tell them what research already carried out, at no cost to them, tells them.  

OK.  Let's set aside the inaction on enforcing compliance with the gender pay gap regulations.  

What about the bedroom tax, which is causing massive dislocation and disruption for people and their communities?  Surely the EHRC in Scotland would want to take a high-profile, robust, derring-do stance in protecting disabled people from the disproportionate adverse impact on them of the bedroom tax?  A few unambiguous statements to the press, comprehensive and clear guidance to landlords and councils, a ray of hope offered to disabled people in Scotland that they are not to be left to fight this attack on their own?  Nothing.  While Cosla makes with the weasel words on how they can't disobey the law and have to collect the rents owed, the EHRC in Scotland has nothing public to say on this mean-spirited measure.

The workfare programmes invented by Ian Duncan Smith that gets people stacking shelves in Poundland in fear of their Jobseekers Allowance being sanctioned?  Where was the EHRC in defending the backs of people against government in this 21st century form of degrading slavery?  Probably shopping in Poundland for its 99p-for-three pack of throwaway principles.

The EHRC in Scotland is clearly not able to
give people in Scotland's equality communities
the protection they deserve.  The angels of
equality have fallen far and fast from grace.

In the last few weeks the replacement of Disability Living Allowance with Personal Independence Payment has arrived, Ian Duncan Smith's latest money-saving wheeze.  What succour has the EHRC in Scotland offered disabled people, what robust denunciation has been made of Smith's continued stigmatising of disabled people?  Follow this link to read for yourself just how often the EHRC in Scotland has stood tall this year so far on these and other issues, and commanded the attention of the media as it explained just how it would protect people from the prejudice and bigotry of their own government.  The EHRC in Scotland is clearly not able to give people in Scotland's equality communities the protection they deserve.  The angels of equality have fallen far and fast from grace.

Scotland's public sector - Gender Pay Gaps of up to 30% and no plans to close the gaps

Recent research into compliance with the Scottish specific equality duties on reporting gender pay gaps found that out of the 58 public bodies reporting gender pay gaps of over +or- 5%, just 4 offered a coherent plan for closing the pay gaps.  

The vast bulk [93%] of bodies in Scotland offered nothing in their reports which suggested they had any clear or coherent plan for reducing those gender pay gaps, all of which are in excess of +or-5% and some even reaching 30%.

One might conclude from this that the specific duty to publish gender pay data was not explicit enough in requiring bodies to act on what an analysis of the gap told them, with a view to closing the gaps.  Or one could conclude that it was deliberate and wilful inaction on the part of 58 public bodies and that they will go on doing nothing to close the gaps until government tells them otherwise.

The solution is simple.  Tighten up any loopholes uncovered by research such as this and revise the regulations so that even numpties in public bodies can understand.

Another common feature in the gender pay gap reports which have been published is the tendency to conclude that where a grade by grade analysis shows no major [i.e. +or-5%] gaps in the average pay of women and men on those grades, and when the pay gap for the whole workforce comes in at more than 5%, then that is not a problem because, some reports suggest, women choose to work part-time and/or women tend to be in the lower paid grades, or even choose to take the low paid jobs.  

The understanding by the public sector of occupational segregation, the roots this has in structural and institutional gender discrimination, and the consequences for the pay packets of women workers, is seriously compromised by the inability of the public sector to recognise discrimination in all its forms.  

If it is not that the intellectual capacity of public sector professionals has been compromised, then the only other reasonable option is that there exists in Scotland a stubborn, neanderthal cohort of senior professionals - including women - who believe that gender pay inequality is just not an issue.

Closing Scotland's Gender Pay Gaps - if not now, when ?

Recent research shows that changes in the law in Scotland on how public bodies must report on gender pay gaps have not helped accelerate the rate at which pay gaps are being closed.

Although more bodies than before are reporting what the gender pay gaps are [see this blog post], what they are reporting and the picture it builds is not cause for breaking out the bubbly.

At 10^th May 2013, out of the 92 public bodies examined in the research, 16 reported a pay gap within +or-5%.  Put that another way.  Just 17.4% of public bodies could claim to be delivering equal pay in the broadest possible sense.

At January 2013, the equivalent figure was 10 public bodies, meaning just 11% of the public sector could claim to have been delivering equal pay at that point.

At May 2013, 58 public bodies report gender pay gaps of between 5.13% and 31.9%.   Just a few months before that, research showed that 19 public bodies were reporting gender pay gaps of between 5.3% and 36%.  

While the number of public bodies providing gender pay gap data has increased dramatically, the scale of pay gaps being reported has barely changed.  One might reasonably conclude that the introduction of a specific duty to publish gender pay data has not accelerated the pace at which the gender pay gap is being closed.

What would Gwen Davis, Sheila Douglas, Eileen Pullan and Vera Sime have made of these figures, 45 years on from the strike action they and many other women took on equal pay as workers at the Dagenham Ford factory in 1968 ?

Scottish Government lacks the political will to close the gap within any defined period of time.  The STUC shows no passion for leading direct action across workers and demanding an end to the pay gaps, even in the lifetime of today's women workers.  Is it time for the sisters to look in  the mirror, draw inspiration from the women of Dagenham, and ask themselves on equal pay with men, 'If Not Now, When ?'.

Equal Pay - the good, the bad and the downright ugly

Scotland's public bodies have had plenty of notice that by end-April 2013, they should publish data on their gender pay gaps. The regulations published by government, better known as the specific equality duties, could not have been clearer:

.... a listed authority must publish information on the percentage difference among its employees between men's average hourly pay [excluding overtime] and women's average hourly pay [excluding overtime] ....

Even the only idiot in the village would get what was needed.  You would have thought.

But then the public sector in Scotland has had years of practice in ducking and diving away from the delivery of what it should have been doing.  Equal pay for women has been a legal obligation for over 40 years now, and still it remains out of reach for most women.

Recent research shows that out of 92 public bodies scrutinised, at 10^th May 2013, 74 had published gender pay gap data.  This represents an 80% compliance rate.

At January 2013, the results of previous research into councils, health boards, universities and other public bodies showed that out of 91 public bodies surveyed, 29 had published gender pay gap data.  This represented a compliance rate of 31.8%.

One might conclude on this part of the evidence that the introduction of a specific duty to publish gender pay gap data has had a positive effect.  Not when you go on to examine what has been reported - more on that in another blog.

What is astonishing is that 18 public bodies had ignored their legal duty to publish by 30th April.  Two-fingers were waved at the law.  The Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] reaction when advised of the research outcomes ?  A sucking of teeth and a sniffy dismiss to the research, claiming that they could only act on research they had commissioned and that if any public body was found to be non-compliant details "would be passed to legal".  

It beggars belief.  Elsewhere in the real world, more and more credibility is being given to the role of whistle-blowers in calling time on bad/illegal/unsafe/unlawful practices.  Not in the EHRC apparently.  More time must be allowed to pass, more scarce public funding to be spent, more sucking of corporate teeth before deciding if non-compliance should result in a big stick being wielded, as against a nice, friendly, informal word on the quiet in the drawing and dining rooms of suburbia where Scotland's middle-class state apparatchiks regularly meet and decide how 'people like us' will continue to portray a vivid picture of reform and action which, when the smoke clears, presents a picture of equality for and power-sharing with 'people not like us' which is not significantly different from that of 30 years ago.

Equality and the golden showers of tax avoidance

This week someone drew my attention to one of the 'Big Four' of the UK's accountancy consultancies announcing the launch of a National Equality Standard.  Hailed as a 'groundbreaking initiative' it is a tool for the business world and claims it fills a gap because there has been no industry recognised standard for equality, diversity and inclusion.

For those who doubt the accuracy of my reporting, read the web site statement for yourself here.

Ernst & Young have developed and sponsored the national equality standard with 18 other UK and global companies.  It is supported by the Equality & Human Rights Commission.  It just keeps getting better, doesn't it ?  Those of us devoting years to slaying the dragons of inequality can all pack up and go home.  Ernst & Young have got it sorted.

Or have they.

No evidence is offered of the EHRC backing, supporting or endorsing the national equality standard for business.

No mention is made on the EHRC web site of this must-have tool for business.

No evidence is offered that the tool requires the deep, permanent involvement of people from the equality communities to change the daily lived experiences of prejudice, discrimination and barriers encountered by people when using services provided by the private sector.  And when you look at the graphics [below] used on the Ernst & Young web site, you might find a clue.

There are no people.  No people going in or out of the business entrance doors.  No people even passing by in the street.  Just how this is supposed to project a sense of private sector business being open to and ready to meet the different needs of a diverse population is deeply puzzling.

Given the current debate around the minimalist tax bills paid by such as Amazon, Google, Starbucks and the rest, it does seem strange that one of the 'Big Four', who helps business minimise tax bills and so leave the rest of us pay more tax to make up the shortfall, should be interested in equality at all.  Their core business is the very deliberate creation and protection of inequalities in the distribution of wealth.  It is only a few months ago that Ernst & Young agreed to settle a court case in the US and pay a fine of $123 million for the promotion of abusive tax shelters to rich individuals.  

I have asked both Ernst & Young and the EHRC for evidence of their partnership in what feels suspiciously like yet another golden shower from the private sector.

In just under 24 hours since posting this blog, the EHRC senior press officer has confirmed :

"we support the initiative".

Not only has the EHRC sold its soul cheaply, it has paved the way for government to hand over what little work it really wants done on equality to the private sector and wind up the toothless, heartless and now soulless Commission.  

Has NHS become a no-go area for compliance with equality laws?

Over this last 12 months, the performance of the NHS in Scotland has been so shambolic it is difficult to conceive that there is a government minister in charge.

Nicola Sturgeon, former Cabinet 
Secretary for Health & Equality

The fiddling of waiting times by NHS Lothian, first revealed early last year, just won't go away.  Just days ago, yet another error in the waiting list figures given to the Lothian Board was found.  Given the previous Cabinet Secretary for Health, Nicola Sturgeon, did not replace either the entire senior management cohort or the members of the Lothian Board itself but instead asked them to clear up their own mess, suggests a naive belief that the resignation of the previous NHS Lothian chief executive was a sufficient catalyst for change.

If the Laurel & Hardy waiting times act were confined to NHS Lothian, there might be some small comfort in that.  Not so.  An investigation by Audit Scotland revealed : 

"The management and scrutiny of the waiting-list systems have not been good enough.  During the period we reviewed, the Scottish government and boards were focussed on making sure waiting times targets were being met but not giving enough attention to how this was being done."

The complete reveal of the shambles across Scotland is in this report from Audit Scotland.  The slings and arrows at NHS Lothian show no signs of abating, with a report last month revealing complaints from Lothian patients surging upwards by 20%.    

One of the many elephants in the room which houses the NHS in Scotland has to be if management and scrutiny of waiting lists has not been good enough, how can we be confident the management and scrutiny in other areas, such as meeting the equality duties, has been good enough?  We can't.  Successive government ministers have refused to build central performance management data systems which would allow government to track, in real time, health board performance on a range of critical areas.

In the last few months, research has been published which shows the performance of health boards on meeting the equality duties begs the question that the same malaise found in performance on waiting  times may also be affecting performance in the NHS on equality.

In delivering Equal Pay, health boards seem determined to break the law and ignore promises made by the Cabinet Secretary for Health in 2009.  In October 2009, Nicola Sturgeon responded to a question from the Scottish Parliament's Equal Opportunities Committee :

'It was indicated [at a previous Committee round-table discussion on equal pay reviews] that advice had been given to NHS boards not to perform equal pay reviews to ensure that agenda for change remains equal-pay-proofed. I want to clarify that that is not the case. There remains an issue about the extent to which such reviews can be carried out while agenda for change reviews are under way, but there is a clear expectation that all boards will get on and complete those reviews as quickly as they can, and that they will go beyond the letter of the law to ensure that they are exemplary employers that live up to all the duties required of them.' [6^th October 2009]

In 2012 I conducted research across all of Scotland's councils and health boards to clarify just what the equal pay gap is in Scotland's public sector currently.  Three years on from that very clear and unequivocal assurance given by Nicola Sturgeon to the Scottish Parliament, I have found that across the NHS in Scotland’s 22 Boards, just 2 [9.09%] of the Boards were able to provide data on the gender pay gap. This shows a gender pay gap of either 4.3% at NHS 24 or 12.9% at the NHS State Hospital. 

This means that just 1 Scottish NHS Board has a gender pay gap which comes within the 5% criteria set by the EHRC.

I shared that research with government.  No reaction.  No plan to shake the health boards out of their almost pathological aversion to meeting the law and stopping the theft from the pay packets of women.  Not only are health boards not going beyond the letter of the law as Nicola Sturgeon said they would, they are ignoring it and have been ignoring it for some time.

More recent research into Equality Impact Assessment of health board budgets, shows how deep the equality crisis is in the NHS.  Just 1 of the 22 health boards offered an EQIA of their budget, with the other 21 Boards unable to offer a consistent reason for not checking their budgets for discrimination and adverse impact on people from the equality communities.

 NHS Lothian claimed that a single EQIA of its big [£1.4 billion] budget would be "meaningless".  Another health board said they did not do an EQIA as they were "not withdrawing services".  The health board which hosts a dedicated equality unit supposed to assist all other health boards with equalities work, NHS Health Scotland, said simply "NHS Health Scotland has not conducted an impact assessment of the budget".  

Our NHS is spending £multi-billions a year and has no credible system in place for checking that the equality bang from each and every pound spent is squeezed to the max.  It has for too many years been complicit in stealing from the pay packets from women as it avoided its legal duties on equal pay.  Its record on race equality and disability equality is threadbare, with a track record of producing equality schemes consuming several hundred pages of print from which emerged little measurable difference in the life experiences for black minority ethnic or disabled people when accessing and using the NHS.

Alex Neil, Cabinet Secretary for 
Health & Equality

The NHS is in deep trouble.  Audit Scotland has found performance management and scrutiny to be not good enough.  Evidence is piling up that health boards are breaking the law on equality.  It is as if health has become a no-go area for equality in Scotland.  Government and the EHRC need to enforce compliance by all health boards with all equality law and fast.