The voluntary sector ... talking the talk on equality, but not walking the walk to freedom from discrimination ....

For those familiar with the laboured huffing and puffing that is aroused when prodding people and organisations to admit that discrimination exists and that it poisons the systems and structures of what we call society, the locus of that huffing and puffing tends to be around the dead horse that is the public sector in Scotland, with both government and the Equality & Human Rights Commission only occasionally taking time out from measuring the size of their pension pots to emerge into the daylight and apply the lightest of enforcement whips to that dead horse, all in the manner of a semi-retired and rather bored-with-it-all dominatrix.

Some recent chance encounters as I travel the highways and byways of what passes for equality work in the UK made me remember that there are any number of witnesses to this sordid spectacle, and that they are usually to be found in what is variously called the voluntary sector, the third sector, and the charitable sector.  Some in the voluntary sector, such as Scotland's network of Regional Equality Councils, have more than a passing interest in checking whether the horse is really dead and in whether the whip is being applied with sufficient vigour.  

Others, such as the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations [SCVO], occupy a slightly more ambiguous position in relation to equality.  While not a primary player in the work which gets done each day on identifying and eliminating discrimination, SCVO does have a tangential influence on that work by virtue of its role :

SCVO works in partnership with the voluntary sector to advance our shared values and interests. We have over 1500 members who range from individuals and grassroots groups, to Scotland-wide organisations and intermediary bodies. Through lobbying and campaigning SCVO works to advance the interests of our members and the people and communities that they support.

Elsewhere on the SCVO web site you learn that the third sector, for which SCVO acts as a voice, has 45,000 organisations, with an annual income of £4.5 billion, assets of £8.6 billion, and staff numbers of 138,000.  The NHS in Scotland had, in 2013, a budget of £11.9 billion and 140,00 staff.

Wow.  That suggests the third sector is a serious player by any measure.  SCVO itself as an organisation is a sizeable player, with an income in 2013 of £14.5 million and employing over 90 staff.

Given SCVO's role and the sector's punch in terms of funding and staff, I asked chief executive, Martin Sime, if SCVO gathered data on the protected characteristics of its own staff in line with the principles set out in the specific equality duties, and that if they did, could he provide me with a copy of that data, anonymised of course.

His response ?  

Thanks for getting in touch about this.  The work of the third sector in promoting equality is important and would not be effective if we failed to practice what we preach.   However, I cannot agree that the sector’s role is to monitor public sector compliance with their duties and legal obligations.     Nor do I accept the assumption that voluntary groups should be “compliant in principle” with legislation which is targeted at the public sector and which places no legal requirements or obligations on our sector.  It could well be the case that some voluntary organisations make it their business to hold public authorities to account for their compliance with the law; that is a matter for them.   Similarly, I am sure that there are voluntary organisations where equal opportunities policy and practice could be improved.   But I do not think it helpful to conflate this with public authority duties.

I returned with a second email request, agreeing to disagree with Martin Sime on whether the context for my question was fair, and asking again if data was gathered and, if it was, could I have sight of it.  His response ?

Thank you for your reply.   I do not wish to engage in a protracted dialogue about this. 

Is this then a key element of why Scotland struggles with making equality happen, instead of talking about it endlessly and wringing its hands in despair about how difficult it all is ?  If the third sector can't, as Martin Sime puts it, 'practice what we preach', where is the integrity of that sector in trying to hold government, the public sector and the EHRC to account on behalf of those who encounter discrimination in their daily lives ?  

If the third sector can't, or won't, evidence that discrimination is being eliminated from its own work, why should it be trusted by society to be a key player in identifying and eliminating discrimination in the work of others ?

Scottish government racist when making appointments to who runs Scotland ?

I recently blogged about Scottish government's failure to use the power it currently has to deliver gender equality in who runs Scotland, pointing out the reality that of the 574 people it appoints to the boards of Scotland's public bodies, just 201 board seats [35%] were given to women.  In tweeting the content of the blog, I quickly checked the composition of the boards of some of the big players in Scotland's public sector to illustrate the findings.  

They don't come bigger than NHS Glasgow.  When I looked at their web site, I discovered that out of 28 board members, only 6 are women appointed by government.  The Scottish Police Authority, Scottish Water and Scottish Enterprise are all just as bad.

I had moved on to tackle something else but a niggle in my head made me go back to the NHS Glasgow web page carrying details of the board, including their photographs.  You can look at their web site for yourself, or look at this screen grab from that web site taken earlier this week :

Get what was making me go back to check ?  No ?  Look again.  How many visible ethnic minority faces do you see smiling out at you ?  Not one. 

And yet.  A Glasgow City Council briefing paper from December 2013 advised elected members that the BME population in the city had increased from 5.5% in 2001 to 11.6% in the 2011 census.  Scottish government also knows this, providing access to similar data for visitors to its web site.

Remember.  It is Scottish government ministers alone who make these board appointments, not Westminster.  There is no barrier to Scottish government choosing to increase the number of visible ethnic minorities on the boards of Scotland's public bodies, and so ensure that decision making which affects us all is fully and properly informed by the views and experiences of visible ethnic minority people.  Indeed, one could argue that the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 would encourage such an approach and the Equality and Human Rights Commission publishes guidance on how to use positive action to overcome under-representation.

And yet, and yet.  Out of 574 seats at the tables of all of Scotland's public body boards, just 16 [3%] are filled by BME people.  If proportionate quotas were applied to the seats on these boards, an additional 7 BME people need to be appointed.

Because there are 78 public bodies with appointed board members, there need to be 78 board chairpersons.  Out of those 78, 1 [1%] is identified as BME.  If the quota principle were applied to the appointment by Scottish government of board chairpersons, an additional 2 BME people need to be appointed as board chairpersons.

Sometimes Scottish government needs to be called out on claiming it needs more power to make Scotland a "fairer" place.  Sometimes it is so obvious that even with complete power and control, Scottish government does not do equality, and certainly not race equality when it comes to filling the board seats on who runs Scotland.

Where is the gender equality in who runs Scotland ?

In all the Sturm and Drang preceding the referendum vote,
many claimed that Scotland would be a "fairer" place
if only ........................................................................

In all the sturm and drang preceding the referendum vote, many claimed that Scotland would be a "fairer" place if only it was independent and had full power over its own affairs.  I take issue with the word "fairer", suggesting as it does that there is some ill-defined point at which the redistribution of wealth and the power-sharing has gone far enough and need go no further.  But that is for another blog.

Little attention has been given to what Scotland's government currently does with the devolved powers it has, particularly in the context of equality [which is different, very different, from "fairness"].  For instance, in the immediate aftermath of the referendum, there was a call for legal quotas being introduced so that there is a 50:50 women/men share of seats in Parliament and councils.  Interestingly, I read nothing about these quotas being used for those who are appointed to the boards of public bodies in Scotland and who have control over huge budgets and the operations of 78 public bodies.

It is Scottish government ministers alone who make these appointments, not Westminster.  There is no barrier to Scottish government choosing to increase the number of women on the boards of Scotland's public bodies, and so ensure that decision making which affects us all is fully and properly informed by the views and experiences of women.  Indeed, one could argue that the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 would encourage such an approach and the Equality and Human Rights Commission publishes guidance on how to use positive action to overcome under-representation.

And yet, and yet.  Out of 574 seats at the tables of all of Scotland's public body boards, just 201 [35%] are filled by women.  If the 50:50 quota were applied to the seats on these boards, an additional 86 women need to be appointed.

Because there are 78 public bodies with appointed board members, there need to be 78 board chairpersons.  Out of those 78, 15 [19%] are women.  If the 50:50 quota principle were applied to the appointment of board chairpersons, and additional 24 women would need to be appointed.

Sometimes Scottish government needs to be called out on claiming it needs more power to make Scotland a "fairer" place.  Sometimes it is so obvious that even with complete power and control, Scottish government does not do equality, and certainly not when it comes to filling the board seats on who runs Scotland.

Equality a lottery in the apprenticeship scheme in Scotland

A routine approach to equality in the workplace is to monitor just who is in place, what level/pay they are at and other things, like how long they stay before moving on.  With that kind of data and some basic intelligence about what your workforce should look like if discrimination was eliminated from how you recruit and retain a workforce, employers have a reasonably straightforward task in changing how they operate so that they get the diverse workforce they should have and provide evidence that discrimination has been eliminated.  It is a lot easier than landing people on the moon.

And yet.  In a session with the Equality & Human Rights Commission in September, the Scottish Parliament Equal Opportunities Committee heard, in response to a question :

The EHRC found that employee monitoring was “patchy and inconsistent across all sectors”.  Overall, performance was poor: of the 184 public authorities examined, only 27 per cent produced the full set of information on the protected characteristics of their staff. Will you comment on why performance seems to have been poor?

The EHRC response ? :

We are moving into what we are calling a diagnostic phase, in which we are working with the Scottish Government to try to get underneath the data. We can see the outcome, which is poor results, as you highlighted. We need to know why that is.

Put another way.  The organisation responsible in Scotland for regulating and enforcing the law on equality was unable or more likely unwilling to use those three little words : I don't know. 

Elsewhere in that session, the EHRC were asked about monitoring of protected characteristics of young people getting access to what is called the Modern Apprenticeship scheme in Scotland.  They said in response :

we managed to get data about the numbers of people who are involved in the current programme by different characteristics. As you know, we found—as we expected to find—significant gender segregation but also a very low level of participation among ethnic minorities and a particularly low level of participation among disabled people.

What the EHRC did not share with the Committee was that there is, as yet, no data on the protected characteristics of religion or belief, or sexual orientation.  See this response from Skills Development Scotland [SDS] which confirms that they have only just this year started monitoring these characteristics.  When asked to explain why they had not been gathering this data already, SDS replied with this.

In other words, what they and we do not know is just how well such as young Catholic people are benefiting from the Modern Apprenticeship scheme, if at all, and certainly in comparison to young Protestant people.  If the first experience of work for young people in Scotland is through a Modern Apprenticeship scheme which seriously struggles to evidence an absence of discrimination, the future of working life for those young people and their capacity to help shape a discrimination-free workplace will be forever tainted and compromised by their initial experience.

EHRC unable to get public bodies to use 1+2=3

As some people in Scotland continue to struggle to accept the vote against independence, it seemed as good a time as any for Scotland's Parliament to quiz the Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC] on what progress it was making with its regulatory and enforcement role in making equality happen in Scotland.

Late last month, barely a week after the referendum vote, the Equal Opportunities Committee took evidence from the EHRC in Scotland on what it has been doing since last giving evidence to the Committee on the immediate aftermath of savage cuts to the budget of the EHRC.  If you are a fan of car crash evidence sessions, you can read a transcript of the full session here.

The EHRC.  Evidence on progress with equality across the many diverse communities living in Scotland and how the discrimination they face is being dismantled, permanently.  Remembering always that although the EHRC is but a child in years, the struggle to identify and eliminate discrimination on the basis of such as race, disability and equal pay for women, has had a legal mandate for decades.

And who from the EHRC in Scotland turned up to present evidence ?  Two white, middle-aged men, dressed in the most boring-but-safe of suits in which so many seek to remain anonymous, neutral and non-threatening to the status quo.  Before the session had even started, the evidence was being presented to the Committee in the most powerful, non-verbal manner.

One of the most obvious places to find discrimination is in the workplace.  The Committee soon questioned the EHRC on this, with member John Mason asking :

The EHRC found that employee monitoring was “patchy and inconsistent across all sectors”.  Overall, performance was poor: of the 184 public authorities examined, only 27 per cent produced the full set of information on the protected characteristics of their staff. Will you comment on why performance seems to have been poor?

The EHRC response ? :

 We are moving into what we are calling a diagnostic phase, in which we are working with the Scottish Government to try to get underneath the data. We can see the outcome, which is poor results, as you highlighted. We need to know why that is.

In other words, those three little words a lot of people struggle to use in their work : I don't know.  

Later in the session, Siobhan McMahon asked about progress on equal pay :

you mentioned pay gap issues when you talked about matters that have come up in discussions with Scottish Government officials. How are you taking that forward? As much as discussion at that level is welcome—I am sure that the committee will welcome that—it is a case of taking that forward and getting real progress on an issue that frustrates many of us. Have you set out anything concrete that you wish to take forward with the Scottish Government?

The EHRC response :

The way in which pay gaps have been identified and measured in the public sector is wildly inconsistent at the moment ......public bodies are adopting a variety of ways of calculating pay gaps. Working with the Government and Close the Gap, we want to understand why there is such variety ....

So, not only does the EHRC not know why the data published by public bodies is inconsistent, they are unable to do anything on closing the equal pay gap until they can get that consistency in data.

Elsewhere in the session, Siobhan McMahon asked about the EHRC using enforcement powers in relation to the performance of public bodies on the equality duties.  

Yes, for example. How many times have you taken a public authority to court for not complying?

The EHRC response ? :

We have never taken a public authority in Scotland to court. We have never had to.

In summary.  The EHRC regulatory function is a failure since they are unable to get public bodies to gather sufficient good quality data on their workforce which would enable the identification of discrimination and allow work to eliminate it.  They are also unable to get public bodies to use the same arithmetical approach to calculating pay gaps so that action can be take to close and eliminate those.

In the same way, the EHRC's enforcement function would seem to be a failure since, by their own admission, the EHRC has never taken a public body to court.

We can but hope that if equality legislation is devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we create a new regulatory and enforcement body which comes up with better answers than "we don't know".