Where's the beef in the equality commission in Scotland ?

A few weeks ago, parliament lightly grilled the Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] in Scotland on what is was going to do with considerably reduced resources to eliminate discrimination and promote equality of opportunity   The Equal Opportunities Committee did the grilling and the Official Report describes only too well just how the heat of scrutiny exposed the lack of beef in the evidence burger [though there was a lot of cheese] offered up by the EHRC.  If you prefer to watch the sizzle of fat in the fire, you can catch up with the archived parliament tv video of the session.

Baroness Onora O'Neill of
Bengarve, part-time EHRC 
Chair  and part-time fish-fryer

One of the early areas of interest was around the Helpline, which used to be run by the EHRC but which was put out to tender by government and awarded in 2012 to a partnership between the private and voluntary sectors.  

In column 1070 of the Official Report, the Committee was told that the helpline advises only employees and service users, not employers.  Clarity on this issue was not helped when the Scotland Director in comments immediately beforehand invited his colleague to clarify what the new helpline offered employers when in fact employers are not offered advice or guidance by the helpline.  The issue cropped up again in 1071 when a Committee member referred to the helpline being aimed at smaller employers.  The EHRC delegates did not correct this confusion.  Maybe they were taking their lead from the Chair of the EHRC, Baroness Onora O'Neill of Bengarve, who is well known as being a part-time philosopher fish-fryer and seems content to see government dismantle the EHRC piece by piece, page by page.

Even once the confusion is cleared up, the gap remains - there is no helpline for employers.  Scottish government needs to consider providing an advice/help line for employers and for service providers.  The continued absence of a structured and focused help/advice line for this group will inevitably have an adverse impact on the rate at which equality is delivered.  

References to the Helpline and its flaws crop up throughout the evidence session, with the EHRC team conveying to the Committee an impression that it is a somehow well-intentioned and innocent bystander in the unfolding disarray and that somehow, if it was all back in their hands/direct control, the sun would shine more often and the helpline would provide more information to more people.  If you listen carefully, you can just about hear Judy Garland soundtrack the evidence session with 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'.

The EHRC somehow omitted to share with the Committee that it sits on a reference group established to oversee the operation of the new Helpline and that a meeting of that reference group took place the week before the Committee session with the EHRC.  Two EHRC staff were present at that Helpline reference group and did not raise any of these concerns with the operators of the Helpline nor with the staff from Government Equalities Office [GEO] staff who were also present.

This was but one example of how the apparently succulent beef-burger of evidence offered by the EHRC turned out to taste suspiciously like horse-meat.  A critique of the horse-burger cooked up by the EHRC team, crinkle-cut gherkin and all, for the Committee can be read here.