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.