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Race Equality Advisory Forum

3 Introduction

On 20 July 1999 Jackie Baillie, MSP, then Deputy Minister for Communities in the Scottish Executive, announced the establishment of a Race Equality Advisory Forum. A list of Members of the Forum is in Appendix A.

3.1 Remit

The Forum's remit was to:

• advise the Scottish Executive on the preparation of a race equality strategy;
• develop detailed action plans to tackle institutional racism and promote race equality; and
• advise the Scottish Executive on consultation with, and for, minority ethnic communities.

The Forum was established to work in parallel with the Steering Group set up to oversee implementation of the Scottish Executive's Action Plan in response to the Inquiry chaired by Sir William Macpherson into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The Steering Group, Chaired by Jim Wallace, QC, MSP, Deputy First Minister and Minister for Justice, included a number of members of the Forum (see Appendix B).

This cross membership was designed to support collaborative working and promote the more effective sharing of learning and actions to tackle institutional racism. It also reflected the Scottish Executive's view that the potential for institutional racism was not restricted to the Justice system and its agencies.

The way in which the Forum was to operate also reflected the four key principles upon which the Scottish Parliament was founded: openness, accountability, the sharing of power and equal opportunities.

Finally, the Forum was created at a time when the Scottish Executive was developing its own Equality Strategy for Scotland. By providing the Executive with independent advice on the promotion of race equality and on consultation with minority ethnic communities, the Forum has worked to make a contribution to progress in these specific areas but also across the whole range of equality issues and interests which the Equality Strategy has sought to address.

3.2 Composition

Individuals from a range of communities, backgrounds and areas of interest were invited by Jackie Baillie to join the Forum which she was to Chair. These individuals were chosen following consultation with relevant statutory and voluntary organisations, including organisations representing the interests of minority ethnic communities in a number of different spheres such as housing and health.

From the outset Jackie Baillie emphasised that the Forum was to be a means of drawing on the experience and interests of Forum members as individuals and as members of diverse communities rather than as representatives of particular committees or organisations. It was to ensure a free flow of information about the work and experiences, concerns and suggestions of minority ethnic communities on tackling racism and promoting race equality.

Members saw one of their key roles as identifying the concerns of communities. They also entered into dialogue with different sectors about those concerns and how they might best be addressed. The action plans are the Forum's recommendations on how communities' concerns can best be addressed within those different sectors.

3.3 How the Forum Worked

The first plenary meeting of the Forum was held on 23 November 1999 and members were asked to commit to working for "about one year". This time limit was seen as an essential safeguard against the Forum itself becoming institutionalised. The Forum's life was extended to allow it to reflect on the changes to the law introduced by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. The Forum decided to conduct its work through the establishment of four working groups. These would look in detail at what was required across the range of devolved responsibilities and prepare action plans accordingly. The four working groups were:

• Education;
• Enterprise and Lifelong Learning;
• Health and Social Care;
• Local Government, Social Inclusion, Housing and the Voluntary Sector.

The Commission for Racial Equality proposed cross-cutting strands which could usefully frame discussion within the working groups: accountability, engaging communities, planning tools, planning cycle, and training.

The four working groups made every effort to ensure that consultation was a central feature of the way the Forum worked. They did this by consulting with many different interests in several different ways.

In summer and autumn 2000, each of the Forum's four working groups held consultative events to discuss the Forum's emerging ideas for the strategy and action plans (see Appendix F for participants and other contributors). At these events, the Forum was able to hear from both practitioners and communities about the main perceived problems and barriers to race equality in Scotland. Community members were also able to suggest solutions. Through these events, the working groups hoped to create action plans which reflected minority ethnic communities' real needs and concerns.

At these events and subsequently, the Forum also consulted with public, voluntary and other sectoral interests. This process of dialogue was valuable in two different ways:

First it meant that the public sector was informed at a very early stage of communities' concerns and perceptions of key areas for change.

Secondly, it gave the Forum the opportunity to test its ideas and recommendations on the public sector. Public sector feedback, generally on draft action plans, was very important in helping the Forum to target its recommendations effectively.

While the action plans were being developed by the working groups through this process of consultation with communities and sectoral interests, the Forum continued to meet as a whole in a series of plenary sessions chaired by the Minister for Social Justice. These sessions gave Forum members the opportunity to look at issues which did not fit neatly into the different working group remits. It was at these plenary sessions that the cross-cutting issues covered here in the overarching report were discussed, as well as Forum members' concerns around the 2001 Census and suggestions on how to improve consultation with minority ethnic communities. Notes of the Forum's discussion were published on the Scottish Executive website as an additional way of improving the flow of information on its work.

3.4 Achievements

In the time allotted to it the Forum aimed to lay foundations and start a process of change. The Forum has made an important start to this process by:

• identifying the experiences and concerns of communities;
• providing a structure for considering race equality issues;
• developing new ways of building and improving dialogue with minority ethnic communities; and
• developing action plans building on consultation with and advice from sectoral stakeholders and minority ethnic communities.

3.5 The Language of the Report

Unless the context otherwise requires, the term "minority ethnic" is used here and throughout the Forum's Action Plans. The Forum opted for this overarching terminology to capture the diversity of minority ethnic communities in Scotland. It is used in its broadest sense to include all minority ethnic communities and particular groups such as asylum seekers, refugees, Gypsies/Travellers, as well as religious and faith communities. The Forum acknowledges however, that the debate on language and identity is fluid and must be ongoing.

For the purposes of this report and in the interests of clarity and consistency the Forum has avoided terms such as "black" or "white", which are explicit or implied in both the 1991 and the 2001 censuses. Similarly, the Forum has avoided the use of terms such as "black and/or ethnic minorities". Our African colleagues in the Forum, other Forum members and others were particularly concerned and objected as a matter of principle to the way in which the census treated people of African ethnic origin differently from other minorities. Issues about the use of terms such as "black and/or ethnic minority" were also raised and debated within the Forum.

There was an emerging view that whatever the past or present relevance and significance of these terms there was a need for a wider debate on their continuing relevance and acceptability to the diversity of all within minority ethnic communities. The Forum recognises and understands that this is going to be the start of a process of addressing many issues including the language individuals and communities use to define themselves as well as relate to one another. To support that debate the papers discussed in the Forum are being placed on the Scottish Executive's web site alongside the notes of the Forum's discussions.

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