When is enough, enough, in LGBO equality in Scotland ?

In the Scottish Government's most recent mainstreaming equality report published in 2019, the reader will find her/himself overwhelmed by data sets and tables spread over 233 pages which makes nonsense of the concept of accessibility and buries in the mud of apathy any semblance of accountability between government and citizens.

Some of the pages provide stark insights as to how equality is not happening in Scotland's government as an employer.  On page 114 of the report data is offered on the ethnicity of the government's workforce.  For 2018 [the most recent year for which data has been gathered] just 2.1% of the workforce identified as what Scottish government calls 'minority ethnic'.  The report helpfully provides another line of data sets which provide the reader with a benchmark against which to judge performance.  This line advises that the benchmark for 'minority ethnic' staff in the workforce should be 4%.  Any sense that this has triggered alarm bells in government quickly vanishes on a reading of the other 232 pages of the report.  There are no real, significant, coherent plans to dismantle the discrimination in the employment culture and practices of government which act as barriers to Black Minority Ethnic [BME] people working in government.

When looking at the government's record as an employer in relation to disabled people, the sense of just how ineffectual government is in eliminating discrimination is hardened on a reading of the report's page 115.  The benchmark for employing disabled people is 19%.  The actual rate of people who identify as disabled in the government's workforce is 7.6% at 2018.

One area of the report where this trend of failure is reversed relates to what government describes as 'LGBO' - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Other [see page 38].  The benchmark used by government to assess performance on employment equality is 2%.  The actual figure recorded for all employees identifying as LGBO in 2018 within government is 3.6%.  Heterosexual employees make up 62.3% of the workforce, against the benchmark of 96%.  The remaining 34.1% of the workforce are logged as either 'prefer not to say' or 'unknown'.

Please sir, who decides
when enough is enough ?

When asked what government would be doing to remedy an imbalance between LGBO and heterosexual employees, according to their own benchmark, it was explained that the 34.1% of employees logged as 'unknown' prevented government from having 'sufficient data' to make policy decisions about over- or under-representation.  Such a take - and position - is clearly indefensible.  No matter which way one allocates the 34.1% of 'unknowns' between the cohorts of LGBO or Heterosexual, the percentage of the Scottish government workforce identifying as LGBO will be, at absolute minimum, 3.6% - well in excess of the benchmark of 2%.  Put another way, the number of LGBO people working at Scottish government would, if the benchmark translated into actual reality, give a count of 185 people.  There are in fact 335 people identifying as LGBO in government's workforce.

In isolation, this could be said to be a good thing.  But the data sets presented by Scottish government - and all other employers - cannot and should not be looked at in isolation.  

If, instead of just 2.1% of the government workforce identified as BME, this figure increased to 8.1%, in that scenario, non-BME people would have a strong claim to being discriminated against in the employment practices and cultures of Scottish government.  If the figure of 7.6% of the workforce identifying as disabled people increased to 27.6% [against a benchmark of 19%], non-disabled people would have a strong claim to being discriminated against by government.

Nicola Sturgeon - unable to answer,
when  is enough, enough ?

Ducking difficult decisions is something government's do, especially when they have been in power too long.  On this issue - the employment of LGBO people - Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister is failing to offer a lead to employers across the public and private sectors on how to answer the question - when is enough, enough ?