A Letter from Scotland - Bathgate no more, Linwood no more, Equality no more

Nicola Sturgeon - elected not
 to redeem the £280 + million
 equal pay IOU

In the last few months, Scottish government has tried to stir up the apathy on an independence referendum by re-shuffling the brat pack that is the cabinet.  It attracted slightly less media interest than did the buffoonish Mayor of London getting stuck on a zip wire at the Olympics.

Until the re-shuffle, Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for Health, had responsibility for equality tucked away in her jaggy tweed suit pockets.  Nicola's footnote in history will not be because of anything she did to eliminate discrimination or deliver such as equality of opportunity.  She will probably be remembered as the woman with the power to have made equal pay happen in Scotland's NHS, but who elected instead not to redeem the £280+ million equal pay IOU.

And who has been handed that IOU ?  None other than Scotland's own economics guru, the 'shovel ready' Alex Neil.  It was Alex who said, in a bad tempered evidence session in March 2011 with the Equal Opportunities Committee as he tried to bounce them into accepting poorly drafted specific equality duties for Scotland, on some of the criticisms of plans for impact assessments the Committee had heard :

'Shovel Ready' Alex Neil

I do not accept the criticism—quite the opposite. The criticism is ill founded.

For those who follow these things, the 'ill founded criticism' was heeded by the Committee, the draft specific equality duties thrown out, and Alex sent away empty handed.

Keen to see which of the new re-shuffled brat pack now had equalities in their bag, I checked the Scottish government web site.  In what is clearly a tribute to Stalin, equalities have been air-brushed out of the various portfolio splits.  Time to get the Proclaimers to revisit 'Letter from America'?  Bathgate no more, Linwood no more, Equality no more.

Bathgate no more, Linwood no more, Equality no more.

When I asked Scottish government why we were not asking ministers to build equalities any more in Scotland, I was told :

The portfolio responsibility for Equality remains with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Well-being.  I have contacted Mr Neil’s private office and they will ensure that the website is updated and that Equality is added.

the staff in the government's equalities
unit had not noticed they now had
no political master and were adrift and
abandoned on the high seas of
government's flotsam and jetsam

 It strikes me as odd that it should have been dropped in the first place.  One can only hope that other equally important responsibilities have not been left on the bus.  It does also make me wonder why the staff in the government's equalities unit had not noticed they now had no political master and were adrift and abandoned on the high seas of government’s flotsam and jetsam.

The response was dated 11th October.  The web site page remains unchanged.  Equality remains a low priority and is clearly unloved, unwanted and adrift in the high seas of discrimination and prejudice which pollute Scotland's public sector.