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CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION TO THE GENDER EQUALITY SCHEME

Background

1.1 The Scottish Executive's work on equality encompasses age, disability, gender, race, religion/belief and sexual orientation. It also includes activities to tackle violence against women and address issues key to the well-being of Gypsy/Travellers and, refugees and asylum seekers. Our approach to progressing equality matters in Scotland is shaped by legislation and by the strategic commitment to "mainstreaming equality" which lies at the heart of the Scottish Executive's Equality Strategy. Mainstreaming means integrating equality into the everyday work of the Executive across Departments. Underpinning this mainstreaming approach is work on improving dialogue and participation, developing relevant research and statistics, and raising awareness, and changing the systems and processes which inform and support the work of the departments.

1.2 Our Equality Strategy was published in November 2000. It remains the main document for the Executive's work on equality and we are continuing to take forward its key priority of mainstreaming equality. There have been two reports on progress, in 2001 and 2003. We have also reported regularly in relation to specific equality groups, for example, the Social Focus on Women and Men (published 2002) and an update of progress on the recommendations from the Strategic Group on Women's Report Improving the Position of Women in Scotland: An Agenda for Action, published in March 2006.

Public sector equality duties - a move towards promotion of equality

1.3 The legislative landscape on equality has changed significantly since the last formal report on our Equality Strategy in early 2003. Following the move to a proactive race equality duty established by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, two further statutory duties on disability and gender have been introduced through the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 and the Equality Act 2006 respectively.

1.4 Public bodies are now required to promote equality of opportunity in relation to race, disability and gender. In addition, key public bodies are required to demonstrate how they are taking forward their responsibilities under the duties by publishing schemes setting out what they will do to promote equality and eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment. The Scottish Executive's race equality scheme was published in November 2002 and updated in November 2005. The Scottish Executive's first disability equality scheme was published in December 2006. This document is the Executive's first gender equality scheme.

Gender equality duty

1.5 The "general duty" lies at the heart of the gender equality duty and it is against the general duty's requirements that progress needs to be considered.

1.6 The general duty requires public bodies, when carrying out their public functions, to have "due regard" to the need:

a) to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment, and
b) to promote equality of opportunity between men and women.

1.7 The general duty includes the need to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment against transsexual people in the fields of employment and vocational training (including further and higher education).

1.8 Following consultation with the Scottish Transgender Alliance our gender equality scheme aims to go further and include all those people who identify as transgender. Transgender is an all-embracing term for those whose gender identity or presentation conflicts with the "norms" expected by the society they live in and includes transsexual people, transvestite people, third-gender people and others.

1.9 Coming into effect on 6 April 2007, the general duty covers all public authorities, with a few limited exceptions. It applies to all their functions including employment, budget setting, procurement and setting the framework within which the organisation will deliver services.

1.10 The purpose of the "specific duties" is to help public authorities to better perform the general duty. Specific duties, set out in The Sex Discrimination (Public Authorities) (Statutory Duties) (Scotland) Order 2007, require listed authorities:

• to publish a gender equality scheme by 29 June 2007;
• to review its scheme and prepare and publish a revised scheme every three years;
• to publish a report annually summarising the actions that the authority has taken towards the achievement of the objectives identified in their scheme.

Equal pay statement

1.11 The Gender Equality Duty also ask public bodies to:

• to publish an equal pay statement which outlines that authority's policy on equal pay between men and women by 28 September 2007;
• to review its equal pay statement and publish a report on its equal pay policy every three years.

1.12 The Executive's equal pay statement will be published by 28 September 2007.

Scottish Ministers duty

1.13 Scottish Ministers are required to publish by 1 July 2010 (and every 3 years thereafter) the priority areas that Scottish Ministers have identified for the advancement of equality of opportunity between men and women in Scotland and provide a summary of progress in those priority areas. These priority areas will be "high level" in nature and are not intended to introduce a further round of reporting for public bodies in Scotland.

1.14 The Scottish Executive will work with the Scottish public sector to develop a strategic approach to this.

Coverage of the Scottish Executive's gender equality scheme

1.15 The Scottish Executive is the devolved government for Scotland. It is responsible for most of the issues of day-to-day concern to the people of Scotland, including health, education, justice, housing, local government, economic development, environment and rural affairs, and transport. The work of the Scottish Executive is carried out by Executive departments and agencies. The Scottish Executive's gender equality scheme covers all Scottish Executive departments and agencies (other than those listed at paragraph 1.18).

1.16 Executive departments are the mainstream civil service in Scotland. Current departments are:

1.17 Agencies are established by Ministers as part of Executive departments, or as departments in their own right, to carry out a discrete area of work. Agencies are staffed by civil servants. Current Scottish Executive agencies are:

1.18 The National Archives of Scotland and the Registers of Scotland are Scottish Executive agencies that also have the duty placed on them directly and must produce their own scheme. The Scottish Prison Service and Scottish Courts Service are Scottish Executive agencies that have chosen to publish their own associate schemes rather than be included within this document. Links to these agencies' websites can be found in the Annex.

1.19 Non-Ministerial Departments are departments of a government that are not headed by a Minister and answer directly to legislature. These are not covered by the Scottish Executive's gender equality scheme.

1.20 Non-departmental Public Bodies ( NDPBs) are not covered by the Scottish Executive's scheme. Many NDPBs are listed bodies and will be producing their own gender equality schemes.

1.21 NDPBs can be defined as bodies which have a role in the processes of national Government, but are not a Government department or part of one, and which accordingly operate to a greater or lesser extent at arm's length from Ministers.

Developing the gender equality scheme

1.22 The Scottish Executive is a large organisation with a complex structure, delivering services and exercising functions that cover a vast range of issues which impact upon all the people of Scotland. We made early contact with relevant national organisations for discussions on the gender duty and in particular asked them to highlight key issues and priorities for the Executive. These discussions have informed our Scheme and further details about our consultation and our wider engagement with women and men is provided in chapter 3. This section focuses on the internal structures which we established to help us develop a strategic approach to gender equality and to producing our gender equality scheme.

1.23 Our internal approach to implementing the duty has been led by the Equality Unit and started with the establishment of our Equality Scheme Implementation Group ( ESIG) in April 2006. This group included officials from across departments and agencies and provided an oversight of our activities. In addition, to enable us to take forward our work plan and timetable for the implementation of the public sector equality duties effectively, we established a network of contacts across departments and agencies. Officials in this network were involved in the dissemination of information across the organisation and the co-ordination of action.

1.24 Working with ESIG, the Equality Unit developed guidance on the gender equality duty, developed an Equality Impact Assessment Tool and put in place a system to allow departments to provide strategic, co-ordinated input to the content of the scheme. We also delivered a programme of briefing sessions for senior management, departmental business planning officials and other key advisers. This has been followed up with a large number of briefing sessions for staff across the Executive on the new public duties and the Equality Impact Assessment Tool.

1.25 Executive officials also engaged with the Equal Opportunities Commission in determining our approach to the scheme.

Structure of the gender equality scheme

1.26 Our gender equality scheme contains nine chapters, structured as follows:

• chapters 1 and 2 introduce the scheme and set it in the context of the Scottish Executive's approach to gender equality;
• chapters 3 discusses the consultation undertaken to support and inform the development of the scheme and how we will involve relevant groups during the life span of the scheme;
• chapter 4 sets out our high level objectives;
• chapter 5 describes our approach to gender equality impact assessment;
• chapters 6 - 9 set out Scottish Executive corporate functions and describe how we will take forward gender equality in these areas, including information gathering;
• chapter 10 contains departmental action plans setting out how the policy work of departments and agencies will deliver the gender equality duty;
• an Annex referring to other documents and websites is included at the end.

Reviewing during 2007

1.27 In our scheme we set out departmental action plans, which include key policy priorities for taking forward gender equality over the period 2007-2010. However, we are mindful of the fact that there will be Scottish Parliament elections in May 2007. The outcome of these elections could impact on the policy priorities of Ministers and we are therefore committed to updating our gender equality scheme as required by the end of 2007. We will also take the opportunity provided by this update to give more detail on our website of how Scottish Executive policies are advancing gender equality.

Annual reporting

1.28 The gender equality duty requires the Scottish Executive to report annually on the progress which we are making to promote gender equality It is our intention to use the opportunity provided by these annual reports to report across all six equality strands and to publish the first of these reports in December 2007

Comments

1.29 We are keen to engage and involve those who are affected by our work on gender equality or those who have an interest in it. We would like to know what you think about our gender equality scheme, and how we are making progress, and we will give serious consideration to how you think we could do things better. We take the view that our gender scheme is an organic document, which will change over the life-course of the scheme in order to take full account of new policy objectives and new and emerging evidence.

1.30 We would therefore welcome your comments on this scheme. Please send them by e-mail to equality.unit@scotland.gsi.gov.uk; or by post to Charlotte McHaffie, Scottish Executive, Development Department, Equality Unit, Area 2-G, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh, EH6 6QQ.

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