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CHAPTER 3 - CONSULTATION
Background
3.1 Effective consultation is vital to developing policies and practices that meet the needs of people in Scotland and in helping to identify and address the inequalities that continue to exist between men and women in Scottish society.
3.2 Our Equality Strategy sets out our commitment to consultation with equality groups to help us make better policies and provide better services and highlighted the need to support the development of dialogue with equalities groups in Executive policy and decision making.
3.3 Since 2000 the Executive has worked hard to develop its networks and dialogue with equality groups as well as supporting individual departments to engage directly by, amongst other things, producing Good Practice Guidance - Consultation with Equalities Groups to ensure that engaging with equalities groups in the policy making process is mainstreamed across the Executive.
3.4 This scheme should be seen as a working document, the contents of which are open to review. We recognise that with the forthcoming elections, some of the content of this scheme will have to change as a new Government takes responsibility for pushing forward gender equality in Scotland. For this reason, we have committed to updating this scheme after the elections. Readers of this scheme should therefore see this document as a continuation of the ongoing consultation process and should share with us their views on how to take forward the gender equality agenda in Scotland.
Our approach to consultation on gender equality
3.5 Our approach to consultation on gender equality has developed over a number of years and has aimed to foster ongoing dialogue and engagement around gender equality with a particular focus on directly engaging with women in Scotland.
Our key initiatives to facilitate consultation on gender equality include:
- the establishment of a Strategic Group on Women that reported in 2003;
- establishment of the Scottish Women's Convention;
- financial support for women's organisations;
- the development of a Women in Scotland Database;
- supporting the Scottish Transgender Alliance; and
- engagement with organisations on specific policy areas such as National Group on Violence against Women and the Forced Marriage Network.
Strategic Group on Women
3.6 In 2003 the Executive established a short life Strategic Group on Women to take a strategic look at the issues facing women in Scotland and to suggest an agenda for action. Their report Improving the Position of Women in Scotland An Agenda for Action considered the current position of women in Scotland and provided 77 recommendations for the Executive on addressing inequality and improving their position in Scotland.
3.7 The report highlighted recommendations in six key areas to ensure equality between women and men including employment; childcare; caring and personal assistance; poverty and exclusion; violence and safety; and influencing and decision-making. A detailed Executive response was published on 18 March 2004 and set out how the Executive intended to take forward the Group's recommendations. An update on our action to implement the recommendations was published on 30 March 2006.
Scottish Women's Convention
3.8 The Executive, in partnership with women's organisations, established the Scottish Women's Convention in 2003 to take forward, in a more strategic way, the consultation work that had been done previously by the Women in Scotland Consultative Forum and through local events.
3.9 The Convention is an independent body that provides opportunities through policy groups, events, roundtable discussions and consultations a way for women's voices to be included in policy development work. It aims to:
- engage with the Scottish Executive, Scottish Parliament and other institutions;
- ensure that issues important to women are considered throughout the policy process;
- make a real contribution to policy development in Scotland; and
- include as many women as possible from all groups in Scotland.
Support for women's organisations
3.10 We have funded Engender since 2003 to facilitate strong and effective consultation between organisations working on women's issues and relevant Scottish Executive Departments, the Scottish Parliament and non-governmental organisations, and disseminate information on Government policies affecting women.
3.11 Engender's priorities for 2006-08 include increasing women's voice in public life by improving their representation and participation in the democratic process, and raising the profile of women's issues with public bodies and decision-makers.
3.12 We are also continuing to provide support for a number of organisations including: Women onto Work, Women@Work and Amina: The Muslim Women's Resource Centre. These organisations work with women to develop their skills and confidence through education and training and through the provision of high quality information to help them to improve their lives and address the barriers they face.
Women in Scotland Database
3.13 The Executive funds the Glasgow Women's Library to maintain, update and expand the Women in Scotland Database. The database holds the details of approximately 480 women's organisations in Scotland, mainly local grass-roots groups that cater for the needs of specific groups or women. The database aims to enable groups to network more effectively and also helps the Executive to contact and consult with women's groups on relevant issues.
Consultation in the development of the gender equality scheme
3.14 Along with these existing consultation mechanisms we have also held a number of specific events and discussions to consider our approach to our gender equality duty and our scheme including:
- specific roundtable discussions with women in preparation for the gender duty;
- discussions with key organisations on issues around men's equality
- discussions with the Scottish Transgender Alliance around transgender equality;
- meetings with STUC and trade union representatives including the Council of Scottish Executive Unions who represent Scottish Executive and some agency staff;
- seeking the views of our staff through our Part-time, Carers, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender ( LGBT) and Senior Women's staff networks.
Roundtable discussions with women
3.15 As part of our consultation on taking forward our gender duties and to help us to consider our key priorities for promoting equality between men and women we organised five roundtable events, three with the support of the Scottish Women's Convention, to identify and consider particular issues for older women, minority ethnic women, disabled women, lesbian, bisexual and transgender women and women from different faiths.
3.16 In addition we held a further roundtable discussion considering how to take forward the women's agenda in Scotland, which identified six priorities for action:
- gender stereotyping in education;
- occupational segregation;
- equal pay;
- childcare;
- women's participation in decision-making; and
- violence against women.
3.17 The views and information gathered from these events has been considered and reflected in our departmental action plans and in our overarching objectives. Reports of these events can be found on the Scottish Executive website under our gender equality section.
Discussions with key organisations on issues around men's equality
3.18 We were conscious when considering the development of our equality scheme that much of our work in the past has necessarily focussed on developing mechanisms to engage and listen to the views of women. However, we also recognise that there are areas where men experience particular disadvantage such as the high suicide rates amongst young men, higher level of deaths from preventable and treatable cancers and higher levels of alcohol and substance misuse. We therefore need to ensure that we also listen to the views of men in understanding and addressing the disadvantages that they face.
3.19 As part of our work to consult men in the development of our scheme we approached Men's Health Forum Scotland ( MHFS) and Children in Scotland's Fathers in Scotland Project ( FSP) to hear their thoughts on the key gender equality issues for men in Scotland. The key issues to emerge included:
- impact of gender stereotyping and perceptions of masculinity;
- occupational segregation;
- collection, analysis and use of data;
- access to services;
- flexible working and childcare; and
- training.
3.20 In addition both MHFS and FSP indicated the importance of developing appropriate mechanisms for consulting more widely with men to involve them in identifying and finding solutions to the particular equality issues that affect them.
Scottish Transgender Alliance
3.21 We recognise that we have not engaged fully with transgender women and men and that the capacity within the community to respond to requests for dialogue has, in the past, been limited. We have therefore agreed to provide funding to support the Scottish Transgender Alliance ( STA) to help the Executive engage with and understand the issues for transgender men and women in Scotland to ensure their particular needs are considered in the development of our policy and practices. In February 2007 we funded an EOC conference on transgender issues and employment which was very successful. The proceedings of that conference and the input from transgender women and men on that day has been incorporated into this scheme.
3.22 We also met with STA to specifically discuss the development and content of our scheme. STA highlighted a number of areas where transgender men and women experience discrimination and prejudice and made some suggestions about how our scheme should address these areas including:
- access to and experience of services particularly single sex services;
- attitudes towards transgender men and women;
- training; and
- lack of research on Scottish transgender issues particularly qualitative.
Talks with trade unions
3.23 We met with representatives from the STUC and trade unions including the Council of Scottish Executive Unions who represent many of the Scottish Executive and Agency staff covered by our scheme to help identify our priority objectives for improving gender equality. The highlighted a number of areas, which they thought the Executive as an employer needed to address including:
- issues identified in the Executive's Equal Pay Reviews;
- occupational segregation;
- improved internal monitoring;
- workplace practices/culture; and
- staff training.
Seeking the views of staff
3.24 To seek the views of Scottish Executive staff on promoting equality of opportunity between women and men we sent out a questionnaire to our Carers, Part-time, LGBT and Senior Women's staff networks asking for their opinion on what the key gender equality priorities for the Executive should be.
3.25 Responses from staff showed there was a general consensus about the key issues for the Executive. Issues highlighted for action fell into a number of areas including:
- recruitment and promotion - staff raised concerns around the potential impact of the current devolved recruitment and promotion procedures, including the use of temporary promotion on equality between men and women in the Executive.
- flexible and alternative working patterns - the Executive should do more to encourage men and women to take advantage of flexible and alternative working patterns and facilities like the Executive's job-share bank.
- childcare - the availability and affordability of childcare was seen as an important factor for both women and men in being able to assist those with childcare responsibilities access opportunities and progress in the organisation.
- attitudes - responses highlighted the need for the organisation and particularly senior managers to challenge sexism and discriminatory attitudes and to prevent and tackle discrimination across the Executive.
- training - training was raised in a number of contexts both as a way to address discriminatory attitudes and to raise awareness of peoples rights and responsibilities and that more should be done to ensure that training opportunities are more readily available open to staff working part-time or flexibly
- leave and performance policies - there was some concern that the current maternity and paternity leave policy might contribute to reinforcing gender roles around caring responsibilities and that the Executive should review its policy with a view to introducing a more flexible paternal leave.
3.26 To ensure specific issues raised in this consultation, including suggested solutions, are considered by Human Resources we have provided them with an anonymised summary of responses to consider in the development of their action plan.
Consultation over the life of the scheme
3.27 We recognise that consultation is not a "one off" exercise; real consultation is an ongoing process throughout the development, implementation and the monitoring and evaluation of policies and practices.
3.28 To effectively implement the gender duty we know that we must continue to develop and support appropriate ways to engage with women and men from different backgrounds and experiences throughout the life of the scheme.
3.29 We recognise this will also mean developing better ways to engage and listen to the views of men to help us to understand the positive and negative impact of current and future policies and practices and to listen to their views of how to address key areas of inequality for men in areas such as health and education. To do this we will identify relevant organisations and individuals to work with us to consider the most appropriate way of taking this forward.
Involvement of disabled people
3.30 We were conscious in the development of our scheme of the need to involve disabled people and had originally planned to publish our disability and gender equality schemes together, but given the final size of the documents we did not think this was feasible or practical to publish them together. Our dialogue with disabled people in the preparation of the schemes was placed in the context of both gender and disability. The Executive is committed to involving disabled men an women in the development of its policies and procedures and have over many years, developed different ways to engage with disabled people across departments to help inform policy. These mechanisms are set out in more detail in our disability equality scheme. To build on these existing relationships with disabled people we held a specific roundtable discussion with disabled women in 2006 to hear their views and understand the key issues for them on improving gender equality. The outcome of these discussions are included above.
3.31 We recognise however, that whilst we had the discussions above, that our engagement with disabled people centred primarily on the disability scheme and that our work on gender in this regard needs to be developed further. We know we need to do more to ensure that the involvement of disabled people is strengthened and maintained in the long term. Action to develop the involvement of disabled people is set out in our disability equality scheme. We will ensure that this action will also consider how we can use these mechanisms to better understand gender issues for disabled women and men.
What you told us
3.32 Our discussions on implementation of the gender equality duty were very productive and showed clear areas where you think the Executive should focus to produce real improvements for women and men (including specific issues for transgender women and men) in Scotland. The key issues that came out of our consultation are reflected in the objective outlined in chapter 4.
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