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.