The EHRC has reminded public bodies that discrimination exists in any number of ways in the workplace, and that it can be found in the pay systems public bodies use. The EHRC’s draft Code of Practice on Equal Pay says, on page 9, paragraph 11 :
Although this code relates to equal pay between women and men, pay
systems may be open to challenge on grounds of race, age or other protected
characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.
The research provides a timely reminder that there is another hugely important perspective to unearthing discrimination in pay systems other than the obvious one of conducting an equal pay audit. I believe that there is more than a whiff of discrimination wafting through the corridors of public sector workplaces and their policies, practices and culture. When great swathes of any public sector workforce are unable, unwilling or simply afraid to identify themselves by the commonly used equalities criteria, then that public sector employer gives safe haven and succour to prejudice, bigotry and discrimination.
My research reveals that in Scotland's councils and health boards, 21% [51,022 people] of council staff are unwilling to identify their ethnicity. In health boards the proportion of staff unhappy about identifying ethnicity is at 32.36% or 46,270 people. In other words, after more that 30 years of 'work' on race equality in the public sector, close to 100,000 people working in Scotland's public sector cannot be persuaded to positively identify their ethnicity to their employers.
When it came to people being asked to identify if they had a disability, 26.21% of council staff [62,353 people] are unable, unwilling or afraid to positively identify in this way. In health boards the proportion of staff afraid to positively identify rockets up to 61.98%, or 91,232 people. Disability equality 'work' in the public sector goes even further back than the decades of 'work' on race equality, and yet in 2012 over 153,000 people can't be persuaded to identify their disability status to their employers.
For whatever reason, people working in the public sector are clearly not trusting their employer to know who they are in terms of mainstream equality criteria. I believe it reflects not only a lack of trust, but also that this lack of trust is based on an observed failure to evidence equality of opportunity for all as a real lived experience for people in their workplaces. It reflects an experience of discrimination for many people which is systemic across the major structures of public life. Scotland's workplace closets are overcrowded with people who are too scared to come out and reveal to their employer just who they are.
The conclusions in my research on remedying this flaw in work being done by public bodies to meet their legal duties on equal pay are :
There would be merit in government
considering the setting up of a centrally located additional support and advice
resource for public bodies to ensure that they can win the positive support of
their workforce in reducing the levels of ‘unknown’ counts to less than 10% by
2015, and to less than 5% by 2017. This
central resource could draw heavily on the good practice of those public bodies
which currently have low level ‘unknown’ counts.
Alongside that, and for those
public bodies with high ‘unknown’ counts, there would be practical merit in
them using the requirement to set Equality Outcomes as a vehicle for
demonstrating a high level organisation commitment to reducing the ‘unknown’
counts in workforce profiling. This
would provide stakeholders with a clear measurable target which can not only be
tracked over time but also leads on to provide an evidence base of equality not
only in such as equal pay but also in occupational segregation and career
development.
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