Who is responsible for keeping Scotland's NHS workforce a refuge for white male privilege ?

In recent months, research has shown that Scotland's NHS is struggling to shake off decades of institutional discrimination as an employer, especially when it comes to recruiting and retaining people who are Black Minority Ethnic [BME], who are disabled, or who are Catholic.  The research was shared with the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Shona Robison, and she was asked to indicate if she would :

"be looking at undertaking very clear and specific actions by government to ensure that the next time public sector employers are required to report on employment data, in 2019, the NHS at least complies fully with the letter and the spirit of the specific equality duties ?"

The response was the usual civil service waffle, including empty phrases such as :

The Scottish Government is determined to lead in advancing race equality across Scotland.

A pedant would ask what it has been doing for the last 10 years.  Another pedant would query exactly what 'advancing' means.  It does not convey a sense that government will, within the next 10 years say, ensure that the NHS workforce includes an agreed in advance percentage of BME people.  That would be leadership, and it is leadership that government is failing to give.

Another part of the response points out :

NHS Boards, as employers, have fully delegated responsibilities in relation to the recruitment and retention of staff including compliance with the public sector equality duty.

Put another way, the government's Cabinet Secretary for Health has no power to direct any or all of the Health Boards in Scotland to shred their racist, pointy-headed, KKK employment culture and practices.  

Cabinet Secretary for Health has no power to direct any or all of the Health Boards in Scotland to shred their racist, pointy-headed, KKK employment culture and practices.

Another part of the response points to data gathering by NHS Scotland which shows, the letter claims, that the proportion of the NHS workforce identifying as BME is 3.2%.  No attempt is made to reconcile this centrally gathered figure with the 2.44% established by the research which has used data published by Boards themselves.  If the data being published by Boards every two years is crap, Boards need to be called out for publishing crap data.

No attempt was made in the response to deal with other major findings in the research.

That Boards are gathering data of varying quality at recruitment stage, but not using it to identify discrimination or to change how they recruit and so improve the rate at which they employ BME people, disabled people and Catholic people.

That while Boards are gathering data on workers in post, none of the Boards has built an understanding of what the ethnic profile of their workforce would look like with discrimination removed, meaning that working towards eliminating racial discrimination is being conducted in the absence of a clearly articulated and evidenced goal.

That while Boards are gathering varying qualities of data on people leaving NHS employment, there was a lack of evidence that Boards were using data on people leaving their employment to find out if racial discrimination was a factor in the reason to leave and using this to identify areas of institutional discrimination in the culture and practices of NHS Boards as employers.

Boards left entirely to their own resorts will
 continue to sustain a workforce employment culture
which provides a well-paid and comfortable workforce
 for white, non-disabled, non-Catholic people

Put simply, the Cabinet Secretary for Health has no plan to direct Health Boards to improve their performance on equality and, research shows, Boards left entirely to their own resorts will continue to sustain a workforce employment culture which provides a well-paid and comfortable workforce for white, non-disabled, non-Catholic people.