 Welcome to Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Equality Monitoring, Summary Report 2012-2013. Introduction As the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body SPCB, we are committed to providing a Parliament that is open and accessible to all groups in society and where everyone is treated equally with dignity and respect. This is reflected in the way in which we conduct our business where equality is embedded into our everyday decision making and planning to ensure that we respond positively to the diverse needs of our members, staff, visitors and members of the public. The SPCB over the past year has supported a number of initiatives demonstrating our continued commitment to equality and showing how we are dedicated to ensuring equality is embedded in the decision making process at every level of the organisation. To demonstrate this progress, we have published our annual equality monitoring report for 2012-2013, which now includes an equality monitoring survey, allowing us to report on all the protected characteristics. This paper is a summary of the full equality monitoring report for 2012-2013. It aims to provide the key highlights from the report and is aligned to the four key priority areas set out in the SPCB Strategic Plan 2011-2016. These include supporting parliamentary business, the Scottish Parliamentary Service, SPS, supporting members and services to the public. In each of these areas, we demonstrated our main achievement and progress towards achieving equality. We also took the opportunity to reflect on our existing practices and identify where further improvement may be required. To summarise the findings, we have provided a brief overview of the main achievements, the diversity profile of the SPS and our commitments for the year ahead. Key achievements. Number one, modern apprenticeship scheme MAS, improving the age diversity profile of staff. For the last three years, data monitoring on age has shown that there were no staff under the age of 24 employed within the parliament. One of the ways for the SPCB to address this imbalance has been the launch of the modern apprenticeship scheme. This operates under the Edinburgh Guarantee Initiative, which brings together businesses from across Edinburgh to work towards increasing the number of jobs and training opportunities being made available to young people in the Edinburgh area. We ran a pilot scheme this year, providing two young people with apprenticeships involving a two-year structured workplace training programme, including an SVQ level three in business and administration. Subject to the completion of their SVQ and apprenticeships, these individuals will be in a strong position to apply for posts within the SPS. Should the pilot scheme be successful, the SPCB aims to continue the initiative as a longer term programme, which will consequently aid the broadening of age diversity within the SPS workforce. Number two, community engagement. Accessible information and access to proceedings. The SPCB has made a commitment to increasing engagement with underrepresented groups. In the past year there have been several key developments in the provision of information related to parliamentary proceedings to the public. As the SPCB recognises the changes that are occurring with regard to access and information delivery methods. These have included making greater use of web and social media channels to provide information to wider and more diverse audiences. Examples of this are the use of Facebook and Twitter to send out key messages about parliamentary proceedings and the addition of all parliamentary videos to YouTube. Specific examples are outlined below. The rural affairs, climate change and environment committee and the local government and regeneration committee have embraced the use of social media through membership and active participation on Twitter. The Equal Opportunities Committee, summary of recommendations in the where gypsy slash travellers live report was published and brought to attention of stakeholders through the committee's newsletter and Twitter feed. Events promotion via short video links uploaded to the parliament web pages, parliament days, the carers parliament and the festival of politics. Online leaflets with images and summary reports to communicate key messages to the public. This builds on the accessibility of information to the public in general and ensures that information is more readily accessible to groups or individuals who find more traditional methods of communication more challenging. Such as people who have learning difficulties and or learning disabilities, people who have communication support needs and people who are blind or visually impaired or deaf or hard of hearing. In order to build on the success of these initiatives, training will be rolled out in November 2013 to staff detailing how to improve the accessibility of online content and highlighting different methods of communication through online means. Subtitling, the SPCB has been researching options for providing subtitling. With the aim of increasing accessibility, not only to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but also to anyone who would benefit from text on screen to aid their understanding. For example, those whose first language is not English. While live subtitling is still far from an automated process, and hence costly, a possible solution has been identified to add subtitles to recorded material where a transcript is available. Technology is not yet at a stage where subtitles can be automatically generated during a live broadcast with any accuracy using voice recognition. However, voice recognition can be used to aid the synchronising of a transcript to a video track. Initial tests show that this works very well for material where there is a close match between the available transcript and the video track. A piloted subtitling service will be provided in October 2013. 3. Time for Reflection Time for Reflection has continued to increase its diversity over the period, representing a wider range of people from different faiths and with no faith. Non-Christian faiths and those with no faith made up 22% of contributors. The programme between April and March 2013 also included disabled contributors, who for example had a speech impairment following laryngeal cancer. 4. Diversity profile of the Scottish Parliamentary Service Every year we monitor the diversity profile of our staff to identify any groups who may be underrepresented in the workforce. This is the first year the SPCB can report on all of the protected characteristics as a result of a new electronic HR system, EHR, that has been developed, allowing staff to update their personal information on the protected characteristics. The Human Resources Office asked staff to provide this information as part of an equality monitoring survey in summer 2012. 5. Disability There is no change in the number of staff who declare the disability. This remains static at 8.9% which is comparable with the 10% of disabled people who are economically active in the labour market. 6. Race Staff reporting that they are from a black or minority ethnic BME background remains significantly low at 0.9%. This has fallen from 1.4% in 2011-2012. The BME Scottish population is now estimated to be 5%. According to the 2011 census results, although the core data is not yet available. As we recognise that BME staff are underrepresented in the workforce, we aim to look at this further as part of a wider project on the agility of the workforce. Religion and belief Nearly half of the staff within the SPS, 46% responded as having no faith. Of the remaining responses, 39% reflected Christian faith and 4.8% reflected other religious faiths. Gender There is a 49-51% male to female split within the organisation, which is comparable with the previous year's report of 51-49% male to female split. These figures reflect the gender diversity within the Scottish population, which is made up of 48% male and 52% female. Gender and part-time status In terms of part-time status, the report shows that 22% of staff work part-time within the SPS compared to 21% last year. In line with the findings for last year, the male-female splits of men and women working part-time is 30-70%. The national figure for men working part-time is 13% and for women is 43%. The SPS figures show that 13.6% of men work part-time and 29.6% of women work part-time. Gender and grade The breakdown of women and men at grade 6 and above has remained the same as last year, a split of 65-35% male to female. At leadership group level grade 7+, the split is also as it was last year, at 82-18% male to female. The solicitor to the parliament, a post held by a female, is not included in these figures. The splits inclusive of this post would be 73-27% male to female. Age There has been an increase in the number of employees under the age of 24 from 0.2% in 2011-2012 to 1.5% in 2012-2013. This demonstrates the success of the SPCB's introduction of the modern apprenticeship programme as outlined above. The majority of staff are aged 40 years and above, 63.9%. Similarly, reflected in the previous year, this is demonstrative of the low turnover of staff within the organisation. Sexual orientation and transgender Figures for this year show that 3.4% of SPS staff have described themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual, LGB. As this is the first year of reporting on this protected characteristic, there is no figure for comparison. It should also be noted that there were 25 prefer not to answer responses. While a question was asked about transgender, the response was too low to be able to report on it. Looking ahead, overall the quality monitoring report for 2012-2013 has demonstrated how equality touches every part of the organisation and underpins all decision making and interaction. In addition, the report has helped us to reflect on what we have achieved and to focus on areas for further development. While we have committed to a number of actions for the year ahead under the SPCB Equality Action Plan 2011-2016, we have also included below the actions specifically identified through this year's reporting on equality. We intend to continue to improve the service provision for people with autism by participating in the Autism Access Award. We will continue to explore the use of British Sign Language and Digital Formats to make parliamentary business more accessible to members of the public and will provide additional training to improve the accessibility of online content for members of the public. Engagement with underrepresented groups will be monitored with a view to establishing means to improve such engagement. This will be achieved through, for example, the Parliament Days Programme introduced in early 2013. Further information. If you would like any further information on how the SPCB implements its equality practices, please contact Anilla McKenna, Equality's Manager, on 01313486853, or by emailing anilla.makenna at scottish.parliament.uk, who will be able to provide you with any advice or guidance on all SPCB equality-related matters.