Scotland's public sector executives paid in full by government- even when failing to make race equality happen

It is now some 50 years since the Race Relations Act of 1965 first outlawed discrimination on the grounds of colour, race, ethnicity or national origin.  It was extended in the 1968 Act to include a remit in the spheres of employment and housing.  In the Race Relations Act of 1976, almost 40 years ago, the Commission for Racial Equality was created to make sure the even more robust provisions of that Act on racism and discrimination were implemented.  More legislation on race equality followed in 2000, 2003, 2006, and in the Equality Act 2010.

You would think that Parliament has been sending a clear enough message, particularly to public bodies, that racism and discrimination needs to be eliminated.

And yet, 50 years on, current data tells us that the NHS in Scotland is unable to identify the ethnicity of over 29% of their workforce and does not yet routinely monitor the patient experience by ethnic identity and so provide us with evidence of the presence/absence of racism in service provision.  Councils in Scotland are little better.  Almost 40% of Scotland's total council workforce remains unidentified in terms of ethnicity, and very few Councils routinely gather data on service user by ethnic identity and so offer us evidence of the presence/absence of racism in council service provision.

Elsewhere, the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Fiona Hyslop, recently appointed Richard Findlay as Board Chairperson of Creative Scotland.  Looked at another way, the body charged with the strategic development of culture in Scotland is led by an all-white Board, with no Visible Minority Ethnic people on the Board at all. 

There is clearly a need for fundamental change to doing the same old, same old, in Scotland on race equality.  The evidence shows that approach is not working and that institutional discrimination on the basis of race remains embedded and ingrained in how Scotland is run.  It is this embedded racism which finds just a few years ago Visit Scotland having to rush out a hastily air-brushed revision of a tourist poster for a government-backed Gathering in which all faces in the crowd were white.

Racism remains a huge challenge for all, 50 years on.  Channel 4 recognised just how big that was when in January this year it published a fairly radical 360° Diversity Strategy.  As Channel 4 puts it :

"In the past, some elements of diversity have been put in the 'too difficult' box.  Our 360° Diversity Charter sets out to smash that box, by using all the talent available - both inside and outside our industry"

They have  set ambitious targets on employment and on how Channel 4 makes and commissions programmes, and links delivery of those goals by 2020 to the pay of senior executives.

I recently asked First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, if government would give serious consideration to a similar strategic approach [to that of Channel 4] and if not, why not ?.

"government is not considering adopting
an approach linking equality targets
and the performance pay of senior staff"

What I got was "government is not considering adopting an approach linking equality targets and the performance pay of senior staff".  No 'why not'.  That was clearly something for the 'too difficult' box.

Looked at another way, our First Minister is happy to go on paying Chief Executives of Scotland's 22 health boards and 32 councils all of their basic pay and any performance bonuses, even though they are failing to deliver race equality in any measurable sense after 50 years of being told they needed to make it happen.  Yet another way to look at the First Minister's refusal is to conclude that, unlike Channel 4, she does not want the best talent available in running Scotland's NHS or Councils.

The BBC, Priest Holes, the Tardis, and the Magic Roundabout

Research shows that some organisations in Scotland's sprawling public sector are quite good when it comes to employing Catholics and offering evidence that sectarianism can be eliminated in the employment functions of the public sector.  Organisations like Skills Development Scotland and Scottish Enterprise had, as at April 2013, 16.4% and 15% of their workforce identifying as Catholic, setting a benchmark for the rest of Scotland.

Sadly, they are the exception rather than the rule, with just 10 Scotland's 32 councils gathering data on the religious identity of their workforce.  Just one council, Dundee, managed to match the best, with 15.84% of its workforce identifying as Catholic.

Scotland's NHS fares little better, with just 2 health boards managing to come close to the benchmark, while the average employment rate for Catholics across all 22 health boards was a paltry 7.63% at April 2013.

In Scotland's 16 universities, just 3 managed to publish data on the level of employment of Catholics in their workplaces.

Not a pretty picture of Scotland, where the issue of sectarianism, so readily understood and recognised when it erupts around football matches, is an issue which dare not speak its name when it comes to jobs in the public sector.

Given the place of the BBC in society, with its capacity to shape and form opinion, whether through news reporting or through programme content, it seemed germane to have a look at its performance as an employer.  

After several months of searching online and more recently in direct contact with the BBC Trust which handles workforce diversity in the BBC, it emerges that the BBC does not gather data on whether workers are Catholic, Protestant or other, confining itself to asking if they identify as Christian.  Except of course in Northern Ireland.  Even in Northern Ireland, they did not publish the data gathered on their 682 staff there, but will do so from now on [or 'going forward' as management-speak would have us say].

Astonishing.  A UK-wide organisation with around 20,000 workers [not easy to get the precise number] and which plays a major role in informing and shaping the political discourse, does not routinely gather data which would allow it to analyse whether its employment culture and practices are free from sectarianism.  The BBC has, belatedly, accepted the link between its programme content and output and how well it performs in eliminating racism and seems willing to change.  It has workforce equality targets for BME people, disabled people and gender, but nothing on sectarianism.

It is some 400+ years since the persecution of Catholics in England was such that they dared not celebrate Mass, even in their own home.  Priest holes were created in many homes to allow people and their priests to, covertly, celebrate Mass and provide, in the event of a raid, somewhere to hide while the house was searched for the priest or where the vestments could be quickly hidden.  It is as if the BBC has created a 21st century equivalent of priest holes [a variant on the Tardis, perhaps] and so convinced themselves, in another twist to that classic British [mis]-management strategy, that if Catholics are not there it does not need to check if they are being discriminated against.  

Those of you lucky enough to have grown up with the BBC's Magic Roundabout as part of their transition from child to adult, will recall Dougal and how he usually brought the episode to an end with 'Time for bed'.  Wonder if we need to get Dougal back for a meeting with the BBC Trust, and this time end the meeting with 'Time to count the Catholics and Protestants'.

Time to count the Catholics and Protestants