Elsewhere on this blog, you can read how research has exposed inescapable evidence of institutional racism in the culture and practices of Scotland's public sector, where in the over 488,000 jobs it takes to run Scotland we can find room for just 9,766 BME people. Scotland is no big fan of giving Catholic people equality either. Even though Catholic people make up over 15% of Scotland's population, we can find room for just over 6% of people who are Catholic in that ocean of 488,000+ jobs.
Politicians in Scotland regularly chastise Westminster for cutting welfare benefits, on which many disabled people rely to attain a sense of independent living. It is of course possible to argue that being in work for many disabled people would not only provide the financial means to live independently, but would also provide the human dignity of having the opportunity to be seen to be an active contributor to shaping and forming what we call society, and not being marginalised and rarely heard in that work.
There can be little if any influence exerted by Westminster over the employment cultures and practices of the public sector organisations which use over 488,000 jobs to run Scotland and deliver much-needed services. Scotland has even adopted its own legislation on just how the public sector should go about identifying and eliminating discrimination in jobs and in services, rightly claiming to be much more progressive than the lightweight equivalent used in England. All of this should mean that disabled people are increasingly being brought in from the margins, barriers to work dismantled, and taking up more and more of the 488,000+ jobs in the public sector.
The table below, based on data published by all these public bodies themselves, suggests both governments are equally good at the rhetoric of what will be, maybe, in the future, just not today, and equally bad at making equality a reality for disabled people. With Scotland having around 20% of the population having a disability, Scotland's fabled tolerant, barrier-free, public sector where all too often some homespun couthy kailyard quote from Burns takes the place of solid, hard-nosed, well-thought through public sector policy, has only managed to find room for 1.8% of disabled people in that ocean of 488,000+ public sector jobs.
A couple of years ago, research showed that Visit Scotland, the government agency that tried to promote Homecoming 2009 as a whites-only event, found itself reporting in 2013 that it had just 1 worker identifying as Catholic, out of a workforce of 763. When challenged on the potential for sectarianism hidden in the data, there was much corporate bluster, lifting of carpets and feverish brushing under of embarrassing data sets.
This year, Visit Scotland decided not to bother with the carpet and instead adopted the classic wood/trees approach to hiding data. In a report it was explained, with one presumes the straightest of corporate faces, that in gathering data on the religious profile of the workforce :
A number of religions and beliefs were stated by employees in the ‘Other’ category. These include: Atheist, Catholic, Humanist and Jedi.
This is just a tiny sample of the corporate culture and practices on religious equality in public sector Scotland in 2015. The table below shows that even with Scotland's population having over 15% of people identifying as Catholic, Scotland's public sector has managed to significantly exclude Catholics from working in the sector.
To paraphrase Alex Salmond's comments on the speech recently made by Hilary Benn on the bombing of Syria, John Knox will surely be spinning in his grave with joy at the discrimination still facing Catholics in Scotland.
Recent research looking at most of the major players in Scotland's public sector gathered data that these organisations published this year and which showed how many Black Minority Ethnic [BME] people were on the payroll. For any of these organisations to show whether racism has been eliminated from their cultures and practices would require two simple things.
Firstly, an open acceptance and acknowledgement that it, just like the Metropolitan Police force back in the days when Stephen Lawrence was alive, is institutionally racist. Secondly, that it now employs a reasonable proportion of workers who identify as BME and who occupy positions at all levels in the hierarchical structure.
Reading all the reports which organisations are required to publish this year on progress with their duty to eliminate race discrimination, you will find no such acceptance, no such acknowledgement that there is or even that there has been institutional racism in any organisation.
As for the proportions of the workforce who identify as BME ? Read the table below - based on data published by the organisations themselves - and decide for yourself whether the profile of Scotland's public sector of over 488,000 workers represents a place where the deep roots of racism are being dug out or cultivated through neglect.
Most people think of councils or health boards when they think of the public sector. When nudged, they might recall that universities also form part of Scotland's public sector. Research over the last few months shows that these parts of the public sector are struggling to make equality happen, although you will never find any organisations acknowledge that they are struggling to eliminate discrimination from their cultures and practices. All the equality reports they are required to publish proffer a glossy window-dressing on progress with eliminating discrimination which is on a par with the glitz, glitter and make-believe filling the Christmas windows of Harvey Nichols.
Tired of peering in the equality shop windows of the usual suspects in the public sector, I have recently been looking in the shop windows of other public sector bodies, not usually at the forefront of the general public's mind, and not forming a recognisable sector of common activities. With a combined budget of almost £4 billion, agencies like Scottish Enterprise, the National Library of Scotland, the Scottish Police Service Authority and a number of others should be playing a significant part in how far and fast Scotland is identifying and eliminating discrimination in what they do, as employers and service providers.
The reality, as with any shop-window, is that the glitz and glitter of glossy reports on progress with equality from these public bodies reveals that not a lot changes in the public sector and that where change appears to be underway it is at a pace where even melting glaciers appear to be indecently hasty by comparison. Given discrimination has its roots in the robust defence by the status
quo of the current hierarchical distribution of power and privilege, including
access to paid work and career progression, it is perhaps no real surprise that the evidence shows that those people who encounter discrimination as part of daily living are unlikely to experience real equality of opportunity in their lifetime.
In race equality, the baseline figure is that these 19 public bodies employ, between them and in their 33,000+ workforce, just 1.26% of people who identify as Black Minority Ethnic [BME]. Scottish Enterprise, the agency leading the industrial regeneration of Scotland, clearly has a white-tinted view of equality when it states in its report :
Our percentage of non-white employees has slightly increased.
Instead of regenerating attitudes along with industry, Scottish Enterprise with its choice of language seems content to promote a mind-set where being white is the 'norm'.
This part of Scotland's public sector does appear to perform better - just - than other sectors when it comes to the employment of Catholics. Scotland's universities employ, between them, 1.78% of people identifying as Catholic. Councils report an average rate of 3.86% and the NHS reports a rate of 9.89%. This other part of Scotland's public sector employs, on average, 10.56% of people who identify as Catholic. Given the population of Scotland has over 15% of people who identify as Catholic, none of the public sector averages suggest that sectarianism and discrimination has been eliminated in most of Scotland's public sector workplaces. Not even close.
While Skills Development Scotland and Scottish Enterprise appear to have created a workplace culture where sectarianism and discrimination against Catholics has been considerably reduced or eliminated, Visit Scotland offers up bizarre evidence of constructing a method of gathering workforce data which allows a corporate hand-washing over the employment of Catholics. The Visit Scotland progress report, when setting out data on the religious profile of the workforce adds a footnote :
In all tables, this list includes only those religions or beliefs that are represented in the VisitScotland workforce. A number of religions and beliefs were stated by employees in the ‘Other’ category. These include: Atheist, Catholic, Humanist and Jedi.
This has to be one of the most breathtakingly arrogant instances of sweeping any evidence of sectarianism - and so the need to do something about it - under the plush and paid for by the taxpayer deep-pile carpet of corporate double-speak.
Disabled people continue to be excluded from jobs in this backwater of the public sector. With an average employment rate of 2.98% of workers identifying as disabled set against the population of Scotland having around 20% of people identifying as disabled, the institutionalised discrimination in the public sector which excludes disabled people from work remains deep, unchanging and corrupting.
On employment equality for people identifying as Lesbian, Gay or Bi-sexual [LGB], Scotland's other public sector bodies finds room for jobs being held by 1.86% of people identifying as LGB. Given Stonewall and government agree that the proportion of the population identifying as LGB is between 5% and 7 %, an employment rate of 1.86% suggests barriers remain.
Many of the reports published and claiming to show progress with making equality happen tend to be couched in language which suggests the struggle is relatively new, with many rarely looking backward much more than to the 2010 Equality Act. In reality the struggle for equality of opportunity has been going on for decades. The tables published here form an important part of any honest report card on the reality of Scotland's progress on equality. It can be summed up thus :
At this pitiful and embarrassing rate of change, too, too many of the people who encounter discrimination as part of daily living in Scotland will live out those lives and will then die, before genuine, measurable equality of employment opportunity becomes available.
