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.