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IMPROVING THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN SCOTLAND: AN AGENDA FOR ACTION

SECTION THREE

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND POLICY APPROACHES

An agenda for women in Scotland, or strategy for gender equality, requires to be advanced through the particular set of political institutions and policy machinery that currently exist in Scotland. There are a range of policy approaches that can be adopted or strengthened as a means of promoting gender equality. Because some of the key issues which women are concerned about are reserved to the UK Parliament, this means that there also need to be effective working relationships between the Scottish Executive and Whitehall departments. This section sets out what the key areas are and objectives that relate to those areas.

THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT

The Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament debated issues of concern to women on a number of occasions in its first session, most notably the issue of domestic abuse. The Group welcomes this, and hopes that women's issues will continue to be the subject of debates in the Parliament, including the report of the Group itself. The Group also recommends that gender should be mainstreamed throughout the business of the committees of the Scottish Parliament, and should not be the responsibility of the Equal Opportunities Committee alone. A mechanism should be put in place to ensure that monitoring of such mainstreaming is carried out.

Recommendations:

• The Scottish Parliament is invited to debate the Group's report on key issues for the agenda for women in Scotland;
• The Scottish Parliament is invited to consider creating a mechanism to monitor the mainstreaming of gender issues in all committee business.

Equal Opportunities Committee

The Equal Opportunities Committee is an important vehicle for promoting equality. It is generally felt that the committee was slow to get started and to determine its role. However towards the end of the first parliamentary session, it had grown in confidence and was becoming more effective. It has championed mainstreaming within the Parliament and has held the Scottish Executive to account on equality matters. Women's organisations have concerns that the focus on women has been limited although the gender stock take, review of research on gender inequality in Scotland, and the work on Gender and Best Value provided a focus latterly.

The Group recognises that the Equal Opportunities Committee's work should be supported and that women's organisations should be encouraged to engage with the committee. The Group hopes that the Committee will consider how it can more effectively address the needs of women and play its part in shaping and promoting the women's agenda.

Recommendations:

• We hope the Committee will give a higher profile to the issues of women's inequality and it should seek to engage with the relevant women's organisations that can provide evidence as appropriate to areas of policy development and legislation.
• The Committee is invited to take this report into account in drawing up its next workplan, including its work to mainstream equalities into the work of all of the other committees in the Parliament.

THE SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE: POLICY APPROACHES AND CONSULTATION WITH WOMEN

Mainstreaming equality

The Scottish Executive has committed itself to a mainstreaming approach to gender and other equality areas in its Equality Strategy, and has begun to put in place mechanisms for taking this forward. This includes training for Scottish Executive staff, improvements in data and research, consultation with various groups, mainstreaming pilots in particular policy areas, and work on equality proofing budgets. But there is a lack of clarity about what mainstreaming means and how to measure success. In addition, since mainstreaming is a long-term strategy, it is necessary to ensure that mainstreaming initiatives are sustained.

The Group recognises that mainstreaming equality is a long-term process which requires substantial organisational shift and systemic change, and that it is therefore too early in the process to determine success. It is, however, having an effect on policy development, legislation and presentation of budget information, and can be seen, for example, as working through the equal opportunities provisions of schemes such as Community Planning, and Best Value.

Recommendations:

• All new policy development and draft legislation should consider the impact on men and women and different groups of men and women from the outset, and should seek to reduce gender inequalities. This should entail use of existing research or commissioning of new research as appropriate, consultation with groups likely to be affected by the policy, and the development of evaluation and monitoring systems as an integral part of policy development.
• Progress on mainstreaming needs to be kept under review and annually reported on, 'champions' who will promote mainstreaming within each department should be identified, information on mainstreaming should be included on the Scottish Executive website by the end of 2003, and mechanisms for measuring success should be developed by the end of 2004.

Monitoring, research and evaluation

In the course of the Group's discussions reference has been made to briefings on relevant research ⁷. This research underpins many of the recommendations in this report. This has made it clear that though there is a growing volume of research on women's and gender issues in Scotland, there remain many deficiencies, with little relevant research being available in certain key areas. Furthermore where there is relevant research this has often not been reviewed or applied to policy making. Systems for evaluation of gender impacts are at an even less developed stage, and the existence of data that might be used for such evaluations is variable and patchy.

The Group recognises that improvements are occurring in the development of research and data on gender inequalities in Scotland ⁸, but much more needs to be done to provide the evidence base and methods of evaluation required for an effective mainstreaming strategy.

Recommendations:

• A body of in-depth empirical research in Scotland is required which describes, analyses, and offers explanations for persisting gender inequalities, and which is applied to policy making as a matter of course. The development of systems of evaluation that provide assessments of gender impacts of policies, and which are integral to policy making, is also needed. This work should start now.
• By the end of 2004 all new projects should be properly monitored or evaluated and guidance on how to do this should be made available to project managers. Data collection should be standardised; key policy areas where mainstreaming can be more effectively developed by integrating gender analysis of data and research should be identified; and more effective strategies to disseminate the results of gender research to policy makers and others should be developed.
• All Scottish Executive Departments and other stakeholders should think through what their role should be in taking forward the recommendations listed in this report, and whether/what research would be required to facilitate them to do so.
• As a matter of course, there should regular reporting on all objectives listed in this report, and research and evaluation programmes should be put into place alongside practical initiatives. This should specifically include the following:

1. Employment

• Review evidence on the gender pay gap, and women's participation in the labour market, across the Scottish economy;
• Assess the impact of pay reviews;
• Collect data on the position of women in decision-making in business;
• Promote research identifying the benefits to business of diversity, and of flexible working arrangements.

2. Childcare and other forms of caring

• Calculate the value of unpaid caring, both of childcare and care for adults;
• Provide better data and research on demand for and usage of childcare, including evaluation separately of benefits for mothers and for fathers.

3. Poverty and exclusion

• Systematically incorporate evaluations of gender impacts of projects and initiatives into social inclusion policies;
• Review evidence of gender awareness in public service delivery.

4. Violence and Safety

• Assess whether work on domestic abuse and violence against women is addressing the specific needs of minority ethnic women, disabled women, and women in same sex relationships.

5. Influence and decision-making

• Promote research on women and decision-making across areas where data is currently limited, such as business, trade unions, voluntary and civic organisations, and research on models and approaches to capacity building.

Statutory duty requiring public bodies to promote gender equality

The recent introduction of a statutory duty requiring public bodies to promote race equality, and provisions in Northern Ireland and Wales on the duty to promote equality, have aroused a lot of interest amongst women's organisations as an approach to the promotion of gender equality. A statutory duty is likely to be included in the new Disability Bill going before Westminster, and UK Government Ministers have said they will consider introducing a gender duty at some stage, though no appropriate legislative vehicle is yet in sight. A number of Acts passed in the first session of the Scottish Parliament have included clauses on the promotion of equality of opportunity, requiring that various services carry this out as a statutory duty, e.g. education, housing and local government.

As yet there is limited evidence of the impact of statutory duties ⁹, and work therefore needs to be undertaken to evaluate whether a statutory duty is an effective means of change. Consideration should also be given to how a statutory duty on Scottish public bodies to promote gender equality could have the same catalytic effect as the Race Relations Amendment Act.

Recommendations:

• It is recommended that an assessment of the impact of statutory duties in promoting gender equality should be carried out, and that consideration should be given to how this policy approach may be applied in Scotland as part of an overall mainstreaming strategy.
• In addition evidence of the impact of the relevant equality clauses of legislation passed in the first session of the Scottish Parliament should be reported on regularly. If it is being found to be effective, an equality clause should be included in all Scottish Executive legislation.

Awareness raising and campaigning about gender equality issues

Many gender equality issues are not popularly perceived to be major problems, and the persistence of serious gender inequalities is not widely recognised. Many individual women remain unaware of their existing rights or how to enforce them. Campaigns, such as those on domestic abuse, are regarded as having been effective. Other campaigns on issues affecting women include those on the gender pay gap, and promoting age diversity in the workplace, though these have been lower profile. As yet there are no campaigns, other than the widely acclaimed anti-smoking campaign, addressed to teenage girls, and this is a gap that needs to be filled. The Group considers that such awareness raising campaigns are an important part of the process of setting a women's agenda.

Recommendations:

• The Scottish Executive should raise the profile of women's inequality and the issues facing women through a campaign, such as those run on domestic abuse and anti-racism. In particular there is a need to dispel the myth that women have achieved equality and there is little left to address. Any campaign should include the strategy set out in this report and key forthcoming events. Such awareness raising campaigns could include looking at the information which is given in schools and in particular should consider making information on employment rights and entitlements available.

Consultation with women

The Group recognises that the Women in Scotland Consultative Forum (WISCF) has made an important contribution in identifying the range of organisations in Scotland with an active interest in women's issues, and that it provided a means of communication on policy issues between women's organisations and Ministers ¹⁰. However, in the form which it existed it did not satisfy fully the desire of women's organisations for active engagement in discussion on policy issues. It is time to move forward, therefore, with the development of new mechanisms for consultation with women's organisations that can build an agenda on women's issues in Scotland.

Recommendations:

• The Scottish Executive should provide a vehicle for women's organisations in Scotland to come together to discuss issues, to provide a further channel for them to engage with the Scottish Executive, Scottish Parliament and other institutions; and to provide strategic input from women's organisations into policy development in order to mainstream key issues of importance to women in Scotland. The new Scottish Women's Convention should be looked to to take over most of the intended work of the WISCF; the Forum should live on as an annual meeting to celebrate International Women's Day. The Convention should provide a strategic input into policy development on particular topics. To do that it will need to be properly resourced and have access to and engagement with the relevant people in the Executive, Parliament and other decision-making organisations. We would invite the Women's Convention to consider this report.
• Local events and consultations involving the Executive, Parliament and women's organisations should continue, to allow discussion of issues that are of local rather than national importance.
• The Minister for Communities should enter into dialogue as soon as possible with the different women's interests and organisations working with other groups of which women are potentially members and explore in more detail the issues arising from multiple identity and/or compound discrimination. This report could serves as a basis for that dialogue but the Scottish Executive should be open to broadening the agenda if required to encompass the different perspectives which must be reflected.

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE AND THE UK GOVERNMENT

Relations between the Scottish Executive and the UK Government

The responsibility for many of the key issues and policy areas which impinge on the daily lives of women are devolved to the Scottish Parliament e.g. housing, education, health, transport, economic development, local government, crime and the justice system. This is why developing an effective women's agenda in Scotland is so important.

However, a number of the key levers of influence in women's lives are reserved to the UK Parliament at Westminster e.g. employment and equality legislation, tax, benefits, pensions policy and minimum wage levels. In each of these areas there may be issues that are specific to Scotland or at the very least ways in which information about and application of these measures will vary in the Scottish context. Problems can also arise when both devolved and reserved responsibilities have a role to play in addressing broad policy areas or are involved in delivering programmes, such as the New Deal programmes. Social security policy underpins or in other ways touches on many devolved areas, including housing and community care. As such establishing and maintaining a strong relationship between Scotland and Westminster is crucial if we are to be assured of delivering fully for women in Scotland.

Prior to the recent creation of a Department of Constitutional Affairs in the UK government, the Scotland Office provided the interface between the Scottish Executive and Westminster and had a responsibility to ensure that Scottish interests are assured in decisions at Westminster. Whilst in some areas there has been a willingness to take a proactive approach to promoting the equal opportunities agenda in Scotland on reserved matters, e.g. equal pay, the proposed single equality body and the changes around Article 13 and the Employment Directives, (EU legislation affecting equal opportunities), in other areas there has been little evidence of proactive work. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Scottish position has not always been effectively explained, or taken into account. We hope that the new arrangements will provide for a more effective working relationship between the Scottish Executive and the UK government on matters of concern to women.

The UK government has recently conducted a consultation on the possible creation of a Single Equality Body to replace the existing Equal Opportunities Commission, Commission for Racial Equality, and Disability Rights Commission, and to take on responsibilities for new areas of equality legislation on sexual orientation, religion, and age. It is widely anticipated that the government will make this change. In the event of the creation of a Single Equality Body, the Group strongly recommends that the Scottish Executive should make a full and convincing case for devolving as much authority to Scotland as possible within this new structure, and that it should be resourced appropriately.

Recommendations:

• The relevant government departments should be invited to take a more proactive role in promoting UK policies in the Scottish context and in working collaboratively with the Scottish Executive where these dovetail with Executive activities more generally.
• The Scottish Executive has an important role to play in ensuring that the views of women in Scotland are reflected at a UK and European level through the appropriate government machinery, and should consult with the Equal Opportunities Committee as part of this process.
• The Scottish Executive should provide better information on gender issues on its website and provide links to the Women and Equality Unit, and other departments in Whitehall.
• The Scottish Executive should make a strong case for as much devolution of authority as possible to Scotland within the structure of a Single Equality Body, and for adequate resourcing of this.

Division of devolved and reserved matters

The table below outlines the division of responsibilities between matters devolved to the Scottish Parliament and matters reserved to the UK Parliament, with respect to the key areas listed in Section Two.

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