 Good morning and welcome to the 22nd meeting of the quality and human rights committee. You can remind everyone to switch off their mobile phones or put them on silent and for members to keep them off the desk. We have apologies this morning from our colleague David Torrance and we're going to move straight in to our first agenda item this morning because we have two panels in front of this morning. I'm reminded to give about 45 minutes to each panel so we have already warned the members quick questions and if we can have succinct answers that would be really helpful indeed. So we continue with our stage one on the agenda representation of public boards scrutiny and we have as I said two panels this morning. With us this morning we have Bill Thomson who's a commissioner and Marilyn Estronach who's a public appointments officer from the commissioner for ethical standards and public life in Scotland. Lynn Welsh is the head of legal for Scotland Equality and Human Rights Commission. Liz Scott is a quality manager from Highlands and Isles Enterprise. Professor James McGoldrick is a convener of the Scottish Social Services Council. Fiona Moss is a head of health improvement and inequalities at Glasgow City integration joint board. Can we welcome you all to commit to this morning and thank you so much for all your written evidence. It was very helpful indeed. I'm going to go to each member of the panel and ask us just to give you a quick understanding of who you are, what you do and your thoughts on the Bill. I think that we can start with Liz. Yes, thanks very much for inviting me to come along today. Highlands and Isles Enterprise Economic and Community Development Agency for the North and West of Scotland. We are keen to promote the business and economic case for diversity on boards, both across the public sector and also into the private sector. We welcome the Bill. There are opportunities to ensure that we increase the number of skilled and capable women who are able to come into positions of decision making and governance on boards. We have worked quite closely with the Scottish Government over the last few years. As a result of that, we have increased the diversity on our own board quite significantly. We have worked on some interesting initiatives that are around both to help to increase the talent pipeline coming through and also in our own board membership. Thank you very much. Professor McGoldrick. Hi, I'm Jim McGoldrick. I'm the convener of the Scottish Social Services Council. We are the regulator for the social services workforce. That's 100,000 people are currently on our register. That's a big workforce, but we are relatively small board than part of it. My contribution today will be some of the issues that are around a board that's got 10 people on it because a small number can make big percentages in terms of a 50-50 target. We are also the sector skills council for the social services workforce in Scotland. Thank you very much. Fiona Mawse. Thank you very much. I'm Fiona Mawse. I head up health improvement and equalities in Glasgow health and social care partnership. We were obviously created through the public bodies joint working act in 2014, along with all other integration joint boards in Scotland. We are the largest integration board in Scotland. We put a return in because we are not listed in the bill, but we have about 9,000 staff over £1 billion of spend providing health and social care for all age groups in Glasgow city. We were surprised not to be in the bill. We would support gender parity in boards, including our integration joint board. Thank you very much. Fiona Mawse. I won't repeat my title because it takes up too much time. In terms of my interest in public appointments, that is limited to regulated appointments, which are specified in the statute. I support the gender representation objective in section 1 of the bill. I thought it might be helpful if I clarify what I understand the current position to be in terms of women appointed to public boards in Scotland. I'm limiting my comments to regulated appointments. 640 posts spread across 94 public boards, which is slightly smaller than the total number of boards covered by the bill. In the evidence, you have had various figures for the number of women, including 36 per cent, which was the position in 2014. In 2015-16, in the spice briefing, 42 per cent of regulated posts were held by women. In 2016-17, that increased to 45.1 per cent. Sorry, that's very precise. That's a whole person. As of September of this year, the number of women in regulated posts was 45.8 per cent of the total. If you split that down between chairs, where there are far fewer women, the number of chairs that represent 25 per cent of the total, but the number of board members excluding chairs is actually 48.9 per cent are women. I think that it's helpful to be aware that ministerial appointments in 2014, 45.6 per cent of appointees were women. In 2015, that had increased to 53.6 per cent and in 2016, 58.6 per cent. For the last two years, more women have been appointed by ministers to regulated posts than men. I hope that's helpful. We'll come back to that. Melanie Stronick, Public Appointments Officer, I work in Bill Thompson's office, so I'm here as, I suppose, a specialist in that area for the work that bill does. I'm the head illegal at the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Our job is to promote and protect equality across Great Britain, and we share our human rights mandate with our sister organisation, the Scottish Human Rights Commission. We obviously therefore have a direct interest in the legislation that's going through, and I suppose particularly it's interaction with the Public Sector Duties that are in the Equality Act, which we have a very particular role of regulator in relation to. Thank you very much. It gives us an overview of where you're all at and where your influence is, but we're going to go straight into questions, and I'm going to start with Mary. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel, and thank you for providing written evidence for us. It's very helpful. Can I just ask a specific question about the definition that's used in the bill? Because while I absolutely understand and support the principle behind the bill, some of our witnesses have raised concern that the bill isn't of transwomen, and it has a binary definition of gender, so there is no way of incorporating or including people that identify as non-binary. I'd be interested in the panel's views on that, because there is legislation across EU states that has a similar aim, but uses a different definition of gender, so I'd be keen to hear the panel's views on what can be done to achieve this. As you probably are aware, the Scottish Government is restricted in how it can legislate in this area by the devolved competence that it was given under the Scotland Act which requires the legislation to, in effect, fit with protected characteristics of let's set out in the Equality Act. I think that there is that restraint to some extent on what the Scottish Government can do. I know, however, that the equality network has suggested an amendment that would in effect extend the bill to cover transwomen also, and as long as that fits with the protected characteristic definitions in the Equality Act, I can't see a reason of why that wouldn't be possible. My interest is in diversity in its broadest sense. I accept entirely what Lynn has said about the statutory limits of the Government's ability to operate in this area, and I think that the Government, by the way, I don't think it's just my view, is interested in diversity in its broader sense, so I have no problem with what you're suggesting. Legally, I can see there might be a difficulty. In what way? Because the bill is addressing protected characteristics, as I understand it, which is what the Scottish Government has power to do as I understand it under the 2016 act, but there's also, as you're probably well aware, there's an exception in section 4.4 of the bill, which allows, certainly in terms of ministerial appointments, reference to other characteristics or circumstances which I would have thought is broad enough to cover the issue which you're raising. I guess I'm not an expert on the legal side. We did have some thought around how we would deal with that as an integration joint board, and we would look for a way in which the gender that someone wanted to be known by was recognised in their membership on our board, obviously within legal constraints, so I wouldn't see that this bill would necessarily make that particularly difficult. It would, of course, make it difficult if someone identified as non-binary. I think the issue for us is that in most terms people identify a particular gender they're with. That might not be the gender they were born with, but a gender that they identify with, and we would look to recognise that where we could within legal confines. I don't know the legalities of that, I'm afraid. Okay, thank you. James Orliss, do you want to comment at all? No, I think that the, for us, one of the big challenges is around the other protected characteristics. We've tended to have a pretty balanced gender profile of our board over the years, but if that comes up later on perhaps I'd say a little bit more then. Okay, thank you. If I can just add something to that, I think that probably some of the other colleagues here are more afraid with the legal definitions, but I think certainly to ensure that we're covering all the protected characteristics it would be really good to be able to cover those non-binary issues. But I think where it becomes more difficult is if we're requiring people or organisations to report on proportions of board members at an individual board level, because that's where the small numbers come in. I think it would be right to be able to cut across all the protected characteristics at an aggregated level, so if you're looking at across the public sector as a whole, across the different sectors within the public sector, health sector, transport, whatever. So I think that the principle is good, but it's a practicality that those small numbers that I think create an issue. Okay, thank you. Okay, we are here from the trans-aligns next week, so hopefully we can interrogate this a bit further, but if you've got any other comments on that we're happy to hear it. I wondered if anyone on the panel had any thoughts on the financial implications of the bill in terms of how various organisations who will be subject to meet the requirements might have to deal with, for example, additional or other wide variety of things that could affect them wide, including additional recruitment costs, management of the reporting mechanisms or even at government level the monitoring and reporting and management of this entire process, given that there are quite a substantial number of public bodies that it affects. Does anyone have any views on, specifically, on the financial implications of the bill? I'd be quite keen to hear those. I can make a comment. In terms of particularly the point that you made about reporting, if we have to have a different set of reporting arrangements other than the fact that we naturally report our activities, that might have a financial implication for us, but otherwise we think that if we can report through our normal, our annual report having a section that covers gender equality, we don't see there being a big implication as things stand. Right. If I could comment, I think for organisations that are close to gender parity or have gender parity at the moment, the costs will not be substantial, but for those organisations that are quite far away from it, that will be the case. I did have a look, as you do on Google, at the gender representation on some of the organisations you've listed in the bill, and some are there, some are quite far away. So there is a bit of which, if I was an organisation that had only a third or less women on my board, it would involve quite a lot of work from me, because I would need to go and put a whole range of efforts in place to be able to bring forward women to apply, women to be supported, women coming through organisations in different professional roles, if that's what you have on your board. So it depends on the business of that organisation as to the costs. So there will be some, like ours, where actually I would be saying, we have gender parity now, so we don't have that cost. There's others that would be significant. Can I pick you up on that then? Where do you think that money should come from? Given that these are primarily publicly funded bodies with finite budgets, if an organisation is so far away from where they need to be, 50 per cent, say, two-in-ten or three-in-ten, for example, and there is going to be fairly substantial costs to get them up to that level, should those organisations be paying for that, should additional funds be made available to them to help them to meet that commitment? What a horrible question to ask me. As a public organisation, I would always say that we need some additional funding. The reality is that it's probably a blend of the two. It depends on how quickly you want it to happen and how far away they are. If you need it to happen more quickly and you're quite far away, you will probably need to give something to enable it to happen or support particular developments. We're interested in mentoring schemes that bring on more women to certain areas. You might want to support that kind of activity for those organisations or the range of organisations that are further away. I wouldn't want the potential costs to be overstated. There's substantial support and available information. Organisations who can assist with how that work should be done, partner up with a perhaps a board who's already excellent in that area. I don't think that the monetary cost would be that substantial. When you weigh it against equality and the huge benefits that are got from having women on your board, I think that it's a very reasonable cost that would be involved. I think that there's no denying that equality has no price in that respect, but it's important to recognise that boards have budgets to manage. Any additional costs will need to come from either existing budgets that are already spent or additional funding made available by the Government. I think that it's a fair observation. I guess also that these organisations as public bodies will have been covered by their public sector duty apart from other legislation for a number of years and arguably should have been building their work in this area for quite a period of time and not hit with a sudden bill. It would be good if they would take the responsibility now perhaps for some of that work. I think it's also important to be aware of other resources that could support the points that Fiona made about boards that are far away from the target, because there is a, and I don't know if this comes up when the evidence from the IOD, but there is a Scottish Government IOD partnership around its developing board potential, particularly for gender representation. There is a resource already there that I suppose is being aware of that and being able to tap into that as opposed to an additional cost to a specific board. Officers have been doing some work with the Scottish Government Public Appointments team. Maybe if you can give us some insight into the work that you have done in advancing some of the public organisations. Yes. Our experience is that there's a combination of things required in order to improve the diversity on boards, and most of them have actually been mentioned from other witnesses already this morning. Part of it is the profile of the board so that people know that it's there. Part of it is making sure that profile makes it interesting so that people want to participate. I'm talking in diversity in the broader sense, not yes, gender diversity is very important. There's a momentum towards gender diversity already, I would suggest, at least in terms of regulated appointments. I don't think it will cost very much more for that momentum to carry forward, but there will be other underrepresented groups who are more difficult to reach, more difficult to interest and who may have greater needs in terms of being board ready. You've heard about mentoring. There are quite a few mentoring schemes under way. I think that those are very effective. If you want to keep the process open, which is what it should be, which is to avoid cronyism, it's the whole reason for having any regulated public appointments in the first place, you have to be careful to try and keep the pipeline sufficiently open so that it's not just a particular cohort that are taken through a pipeline, come out at the end and then are appointed. Yes, there is work involved in that, there's effort. It also requires, whether ministerial appointments, it requires the minister or certainly those who are advising the minister to think carefully about what they're looking for, because if you ask the same questions, you'll get the same answers. One of the things that has changed is that ministers in the specification for the role are asking different, they're setting it out differently, effectively asking different questions and therefore getting different answers. How much that costs, I'm not in a position to say. Jamie, do you want to come back in? No, okay, Alec O'Harmann. Good morning to the panel, thanks very much for coming to see us today. I should say from the outset I wholeheartedly support the principles behind this bill, but I am concerned that when we legislate and we don't put sufficient teeth behind that legislation, particularly in the qualities agenda, we become dangerously close to virtue signalling, because legislation for legislation say when it's not backed up by sanctions or anything that can actually implement the will of that bill is pretty pointless. I know that I'm not alone on this committee among colleagues who are concerned that there is a profound absence of sanction or teeth behind this to compel or induce boards that are dragging their heels to bring their standards up to what we would hope them to be. I wonder if the panel would like to reflect on perhaps how we could strengthen this bill beyond the reporting duty, which to my mind is really the only measure that is going to put pressure on boards to up their game, and in what sections of the bill do you think that strengthening could take place? Lynne, would you have something to say on that? I'm just thinking that your role is a guarantor almost here. Yes, yes. There's a fine line to be walked, I think, it's fair to say. Obviously we have to keep on the side of positive action and not positive discrimination, we're constrained by EU law in that regard, and one of the issues that has come through in various cases at EU level is if your sanctions, if you have sanctions at all or too severe, do they breach the positive action idea and move to positive or encourage boards to take positive discrimination and therefore the actual sanctions are unlawful or the positive action can be unlawful. There's a balance to be struck, and I suppose it depends how much you want to push and how much you want to pull. I can see that some form of regulation or sanction may get boards who haven't taken the issue seriously to date to take it more seriously. What those would look like, I suppose, is open to discussion. Being public authorities you wouldn't, I guess, want to see substantial fines, which may be counterproductive, I guess. And so it would be something I get, I suppose, that actually got the work done that was required to meet the bill. So, for example, in the public sector, usually we can, as a regulator, issue compliance notices, which are an effective sort of action plan or get the body to do, this is the action I will take. We will hold you to that legally and can enforce that through the courts. So the sanction and effect is taking the action you failed to take so that you actually are achieving something rather than simply being punitive. As a board chair, this is a question that I have tussled with a little bit and I think that the idea of sanctions is for non-compliance and I worry about the law of unintended consequences is that you appoint to meet the compliance requirement as opposed to the broader aim of what the organisation is trying to achieve. I think probably that, with what's currently available, the non-compliant boards are naming and shaming kind of sanctions probably available anyway, but I do take the point about fines and other things is that I think it would potentially disrupt the work of a board. Bill, you've given some guidance in the past on how, you know, boards should operate, so maybe. My guidance is really for ministers in terms of the appointment process which I think takes me to my main point in answering the question. The certainly regulated appointments are made by ministers, not by the public bodies. The public bodies have a role and the better they play that role provided the ministers aware of what's going on, I'm sure they will be, the better the contribution will be. Bodies do have two requirements under the bill, which is to promote gender equality, but because they don't make the appointments, I think it would be very difficult sensibly to apply any penalty to the board given that the appointment is made by somebody else, and I think the teeth, as you put it, actually need to be looked for in slightly more subtle ways. You, as a committee, this Parliament does hold ministers to account. Ministers, as I understand it, have a sponsorship arrangement with the bodies whom they support, and I believe, and you'll need to ask somebody else for the detail, I believe that those sponsorship arrangements are changing so that there's greater emphasis on diversity on what the board is doing if there is a diversity issue within the board. That won't be public, obviously, but the minister will be able to answer questions on that. I think that naming and shaming public reporting is more powerful than it might sound. There have been a number of boards in the public eye of late in an uncomfortable way. I don't think anybody in their right mind wants to be there, and if public opinion is strongly enough behind gender diversity or diversity more broadly, and a board falls foul of that, I think that would be an extremely uncomfortable place to be, and I don't see anybody sitting there for very long. Fiona Hyslop. I just add to what Bill has said around the integration joint boards. It's set out in legislation, the members of our board, so we have an equal split between elected members and non-executive members of NHS boards. In reality, our board membership is on the whole determined by bodies that we don't control as an integrated joint board, so I think that it just gives an example to Bill's point. I would also agree that all your public bodies want to be doing the best job they can, so we do not want to be singled out for our ill performance and not achieving. So, there is something where we do want to work to be good in that. Hold on that point, chair. Our board is 10 people, one of whom is the chair of the care inspectorate, so the gender of that person is determined by nature but in terms of appointment. Our terms of reference say that we need to have two people who are registered with the SSC and we need to have two people who have experienced as carers or users of service, so there's actually about half of our board. We almost have no control over who that person would be, so it would be a complicating factor for us. I'm grateful to you all for those very fulsome answers. I think that Bill makes a very good point in terms of reporting and how strong naming and shaming can be. We have a reporting duty in this Bill, but that's only a duty on the public bodies to report to ministers. I think, to my mind, I'd be looking to amend this to have a duty on ministers than to report to Parliament on that process, so there is a more public airing of how we're doing on this issue. If I may convene it, just in terms of strengthening, Mr McGaldrick talked about provisions within the Act and I'd like to come to them. It seems to me that we still give quite a significant degree of subjectivity and wiggle room in the closures of the Bill at the moment, particularly in terms of phrases like section 5 of encouragement of applications by women, a pointing person for a public board must make such steps as it considers appropriate. Again, that's a very subjective phrase and I think there's no test to that, there's no threshold or suggestion. I think that in terms of the consideration of candidate section, subsection 4, the pointing person must consider whether the appointment of a candidate identified under section 2, who is not a woman, is justified on the basis of a characteristic or situation particular to that candidate and, if so, may give preference to that candidate. Again, a very subjective clause which anyone could find a reasonably coherent narrative as to why they picked this man over this woman for a particular circumstance to that character. Will the board offer us their reflections on whether they think those sections are strong enough and how we might tighten those? Bill Thomson. Can I just point out? Ministers are required to disclose the reasons for appointment, so that has to be credible. If it's not credible, anybody disappointed by the outcome has, first of all, a right of complaint, and ultimately, although this is extreme and probably would never happen, could take minister to the court for judicial review. It has happened at a UK level, fairly spectacularly. So I don't think it's as free and easy as it might sound. We're not just talking about ministers here, we're talking about people who are pointing boards at lower levels within public authorities as well. The bulk of these are regulated appointments that are made by ministers. Ministers publish statistics, whether they do it directly or not. By the way, I didn't come here to blow my own trumpet. My annual report contains a lot of statistics that are figures provided by the Government, and they're checked over annually. A lot of the information is out there already. People just, in a broad sense, haven't been interested enough to take enough interest in it. I think that what this bill is trying to do is, given that there is momentum towards gender diversity, it's trying to make sure that there's no backsliding, that we don't lose the gains that have been made. The margin at the moment is quite small in terms of gender diversity. I don't think that we should get too worried about the discussions that are in the bill because it won't always be appropriate for women to be appointed. I think that you illuminated us with statistics about how things are improving organically out there, and that's great news. You make the point rightly that this bill is to stop backsliding so that should we have a slightly more less progressive administration in the future that wasn't very interested in diversity, that they would be held by the strictures of this act. My concern is that there aren't many strictures in this act because there is a lot of get-outs and wiggle room like the idea that they've taken such steps as they seem appropriate. In relation to taking such steps as it considered appropriate, I would agree that it's not the strongest wording you could have. Reasonable steps perhaps would be better, at least that has an objective definition, or can be looked at objectively. The change, I think, to the reasons why you wouldn't appoint the women in a tie break situation. I think the wording previously was exceptional, circumstances, and it's now basis of a characteristic. I like basis of a characteristic because I think for us that makes clear that the other diversity which the man may hold may be important at that point in the diversity of the boards that may be from the BME community or disabled. I think those are issues that should be looked at. It could amount to those exceptional circumstances. I think situation particular to the candidate is certainly weaker. So again perhaps some kind of middle ground there. In relation to the reporting you're probably aware there's already for an awful lot of the organisations here a reporting duty in the public sector duties specifically in relation to diversity on boards. It should have came into force last year the first reporting should have been done this year but has been delayed for various reasons and that is not only saying how many men and women you have in your board, it's also setting out the actions that you've taken to improve diversity in the board and the actions that you intend to take going forward. So it's very explicit and we'd expect boards to be actually publishing this is what I've done, this is what I'm going to do this is where I'm at and that's public reporting. Now that will not cover I think all of the bodies that are listed here certainly at the moment I don't know whether there's a way of bringing those other bodies into that kind of reporting regime I'm guessing that's why the reporting bit has been left to regulation to try and work out how those two pieces will fit together but I think that's a relatively strong reporting duty that's there. Miss Scott. I think it's quite interesting around what public sector bodies are required to report and I think it's really important that what public bodies intend to do what they've done and how that's actually improved the overall proportions of gender or other characteristics on their board is it really important? I think keeping the specific requirements around the progress that's being made rather than the individual numbers is probably quite important again for the reasons of you know boards with very small numbers it actually gets quite difficult to report on that so I think it probably is more important I think to focus with the reporting on the actions that are being taken and the progress that has been made as a result of the actions. Okay just on progress Bill Thompson who gave us some incredibly interesting figures at the start from 36% all the way up to 45.8% is there any particular actions that were key in making that change because that's only over about two and a half years? Is there anything key that has been done in that intervening period that has allowed that progress? My view of that is political will has changed the whole agenda and the climate and of course it's at a time when there is wider interest in gender equality across society not just in terms of private sector financial performance it is an issue which is on the agenda in a different way and if I have any concerns about this Bill it is simply that it puts the focus on gender equality where significant progress is being made and there is a risk albeit a small one that other areas of diversity where improvement is required have to play second fiddle as it were. We hear that. Wales, you wanted to come in on the tie break question and I thought that was a really good segue and then I've got Gail so we've got a short amount of time left. Thanks convener, morning panel. Obviously Lin had touched on the tie breaker sort of an issue that we've came up against last week and this week and looking through the Bill for me there's no there is no actual we must achieve 50-50 in the Bill because we know it's anonymous applications as well so we know when on the sifting happens what would happen if we to get to get gender balance we needed a female on the board but during the sifting process it was two males who come up again I know we'll get parts in the Bill that say as long as consideration has been put in place in reasonable structure however if we are trying to achieve 50-50 we must actually have something there because merit sits at the heart of this Bill as far as I can see however how do we then encouragement is absolutely brilliant I would encourage anyone to apply for any aspect of life to get more women involved but I don't see how the Bill actually gets us to 50-50 completely. I'm sorry this is not the answer you're looking for I think you have to have faith in the ability of women I absolutely do I'm sure you do but if you have faith in the ability of women if the process is truly open and if appointment is made on merit then it follows logically that at least 50% of appointees will be women. Can I just come back in at that point absolutely I encourage women wholeheartedly however if it's an anonymous sifting at the start and two men for example come out as the initial candidates how do we make sure that we are not we need to have something in place because we know from past experiences that women undersell themselves we know men will if there's eight items on a a jobs list men will say I can do seven or eight of them women will naturally say they undersell themselves and it's been proven however I would love to see gender diversity on boards but the tie break situation as well also excludes other characteristics are we taking gender BME over disability over LGBT what I don't understand and what I don't get from the bill is there is nothing there in place to say that if we need two female members for the board we will get that through what the bill is trying to offer I don't see that completely Bill Thomson unless I'll come back to you If a man is the best candidate then the man should be appointed because I'm concerned because I think merit is the key to this but the process has been opened up you're entirely correct women have a different attitude people like me are more willing to have a go and just put our names forward and in generalities women don't feel the same way about it so there have been adjustments made to the process to the way that the criteria have been set and although the political will has been critical to that that political will allows people to put effort into doing that in a way which allows women to put themselves forward and I agree it shouldn't just be women Lynn Wells made the point earlier the best candidate may be a man who's also disabled he may be young in the sense of the character the bar set at 49 a lot of us wouldn't think 49 is particularly young but we're struggling overall to get people under 49 on boards if you have a 45-year-old man why not Liz Scott I think it just stresses the importance of really building that talent pipeline coming through and there are lots of initiatives that are around through people like changing the chemistry who are really trying to build the capability of good women who've got potential, who've got the ability to contribute to boards and I think it just really stresses that those areas, those women will come through so that when you end up with your selection you're getting many more women coming through who've got the level of ability to get the appointment on merit it's good, fun it depends how you define merit what you're actually looking for as importantly there's been the right to take positive action for a number of years and that can include not only encouraging people to apply you don't have to do all your shifting anonymously, it is good practice in lots of different areas and gender actually is some very good suggestions about how you can make sure that women are being interviewed but at the end of the day it must be on merit because otherwise you're discriminating but how you get people to the point where you're making that final decision there's a lot of availability of positive action that would be lawful that you could take to ensure that women are at that interview stage I think just one thing I absolutely agree that we need to encourage women to get the pipeline, I think mentoring is a fantastic thing again the anonymity of applications is probably one of the things that I would still be quite concerned because I know that's what happens just now on public boards it's not a requirement it's not a requirement lots to think about Gail Ross it's a round up question we've heard that the figures for gender balance are actually quite good at the moment through voluntary measures there's a lot of good work being done to encourage and inform women about what their role would be on a board how they can use their experience and knowledge to influence decision making and there's a lot of good work I'll reference the HIE paper on occupational segregation as well which is very important if all the good work is being done through voluntary measures is this bill therefore necessary? and why? because there is very good practice in the number of organisations and none in some and a way has to be found to lift those perhaps more recalcitrant bodies to the correct level I also think it sends out an excellent signal in relation to equality all together there's a lot to speak about boards this will start to trickle down into all sorts of other areas that these boards will be in contact with the workforce that I mentioned at the start of the session is largely a female workforce and I think that gender representation is very meaningful in that context I would say yes as well we ask for more legislation but the reality is as a society it's good for us as an organisation it's good for us so we would fully support it Liz? It's an important way of raising awareness not just within the public bodies but across Scottish society about the place that in this case women can take in public boards but it is also important that that's reflected across the other boards Bill, you mentioned earlier that we needed a legislation in order not to have a rollback would you perceive that if there was a change of political will because that was one of the drivers that you said that was making the change if there was a change in that political will if we don't have the legislation do you perceive there would be a rollback? There certainly would be a risk of that I agree I've got a final question and it's on guidance that we had a rose last week from the two panels that we had was organisations looking for actual guidance and the bill doesn't give provision for public guidance on public bodies thinking what would your opinion be of having a set of guidance that goes along with the bill would that help because I know that you've been involved in writing some guidance There is guidance in terms of ministerial public appointments others have already mentioned there's quite a lot of guidance available already the government produces a document, an online document called on board which has a certain amount of guidance and I think it would be relatively easy to expand that if it was felt that there were things that were missing there's also quite a lot of guidance in the composite of action more generally it might be at least a good basis for more specific guidance for the legislation if that was thought to be needed Thank you Is there any other comments from the panel this morning you've all been very disciplined, well done I appreciate that we've done a quick round on whether you think the legislation is required or not I didn't quite get to the conclusion whether you think further enforcement or sanctions should be included and I wondered if we could just have a quick yes or no on that What the sanctions are because that was the conversation True but I got quite mixed feelings on it I personally don't think the sanction would be appropriate other than through the reporting and the naming and shaming means that we already have available Thank you I think something like our compliance This type of sanction might well be appropriate Anybody else? I was very intrigued with James's comment I don't think that is necessarily the way to go but there are other ways of holding us to account Thank you Reporting Building Bill, do you have a view on this? Okay Okay Thank you so much Thank you so much this morning for your contributions and my usual proviso if you go away and you think I should have said this or offered that, please do that because we've got a bit of a journey to go on this bill and we'll be keen to hear from you but we're very grateful for your written evidence I'm going to suspend committee for a quick comfort break for about five minutes to allow us to change panels so I now suspend Good morning and welcome back to the Equality and Human Rights Committee this morning I'm going to continue on with our agenda item one which is a continuous scrutiny of the agenda representation on public boards Bill and with us on our second panel this morning we have Ken Mulroy who's the chair of Collegy Scotland Sheena Stewart who's the university secretary University of Aberty, Dundee and the convener of the secretary's group of University of Scotland Stephanie Miller who is the senior policy advisor at the equality challenge unit and Mary Sr who is a Scotland official at the University of College Union Scotland and Andrea Bradley who is the assistant secretary for education and equality at the Educational Institute of Scotland Thank you all for coming along this morning we're really keen to hear from you and thank you for your written evidence I think you gave us all lots to read this week and I'm very grateful for that it helps us to inform our questions I'm going to do the same as I did with the first panel and ask you just to very very quickly give us a bit oversight of who you are what you do and why you think the bill is either is important or not important and if we could start with you Andrea Okay so as you outlined I'm assistant secretary with the Educational Institute of Scotland which is the biggest teacher trade union in Scotland so we have an interest in this because of the public board and the diversity governing bodies dimension to it and in addition to that we're a part of the wider trade union movement and the women's committee in particular of the STUC has been a long standing advocate for 50-50 representation on public boards so within my remit as assistant secretary with responsibility for education and equality this is an area that cuts right across significant parts of the work that I do so the EIS has made all contributions in the legislative process around this and in other fora related to this campaigning issue so it's an on-going long standing area of interest for us Okay thank you very much Ken Good morning convener committee members College of Scotland welcomes the opportunity to give evidence to the committee College of Scotland is the membership body for all of Scotland's colleges 26 colleges across our regions so we're providing training and education to 227,000 students we employ 11,000 staff 61 per cent female 39 per cent male Governance has been critical to the sector over the past few years since the regionalisation of the college sector and we've supported that through the establishment of the colleges good governance steering group it has produced a code of good governance that was published in 2014 and then updated in 2016 so diversity issues have been part of our considerations in terms of our overall governance position we've done a recent snapshot just in terms of where we've got to in terms of our board position and it's slightly improved in terms of gender equality from the position in the paper so we're now at 59 per cent male, 41 per cent female I would say that probably about a third of our members of boards across the country are appointed externally so we're looking at probably about two thirds of those appointed by the boards themselves Thank you very much morning I work for the equality challenge which is a UK-wide organisation that supports universities across the UK and colleges in Scotland to implement their equality responsibilities as effectively as possible we work across governance staff and students in Scotland and a significant part of our work at the moment is supporting college governance we produced research in 2014 governing bodies equality and diversity in Scottish higher education institutions which unpack some of the issues around diversity for the board itself but also their knowledge in terms of diversity and we've also produced guidance for college board members and university governors on their roles and responsibility in relation to governance Hello convener I'm Mary Senior I'm from the University and College Union and in Scotland UCU represents academic and academic related staff in Scotland's universities and we're the largest union in the higher education sector so our interest is primarily in relation to university governing bodies often known as courts and we're very clear that there's been real progress over the past couple of years in terms of gender balance in university governing bodies but we're clear that this is no doubt due to the scrutiny that's been on the university sector over the past couple of years particularly around governance and that there has been criticism in the past in terms of diversity and I think that focus and the spotlight that's been on the sector has really encouraged the sector to make changes and we're very much welcome those changes but our message today I think is to not take the foot off the gas in terms of this issue and actually to cement the good progress that has been made and that's why we're very supportive of the bill that you're considering today Thank you Mary Thank you I'm Shona Stewart I'm currently convener of the University of Scotland secretaries group as the representative body of the 19 higher education institutions in Scotland and the secretaries as a group responsible for corporate governance and for managing the appointment of governors so it's a matter very close to our heart as a sector we're very supportive of the aim set out in the bill in terms of gender and the requirement to have the best qualified candidate and as Mary said we've worked very hard successfully over the past few years to have more balanced gender representation on our governing bodies we have an issue about being included in the bill however we're not public bodies we don't have public boards we are autonomous not-for-profit charitable institutions but that's not to say we're resistant to the aim at all and the practices included which we think are standard practice for our institutions we have a code which was produced in 2013 where equality and diversity and having targets are a core part of that we're just about to publish an update to that where there's a further emphasis to leadership of governing bodies, inequality and diversity and we currently have 47% of positions that are pointed by governing bodies are women so that excludes those who are elected who are excluded from the bill 10 of the 19 institutions exceed the bills currently so 5 in fact have more women than men so a huge amount of work has gone on not just through the points mentioned earlier in terms of sort of pressure to change but I think internally as well we have changed as a community a lot of work working with the quality challenge unit and other organisations such as the leadership foundation to have a more diverse board in many respects including gender thank you very much a nice round up there of what you do I'm going to go straight into questions and start with Mary again good morning panel and thank you for providing us with your written evidence I'm going to pose the same question to this panel that I did to the previous one and that's around the concerns that have been raised that the bill is not inclusive of trans women and non-binary individuals so people that identify as non-binary are not included in this in this bill and I'd be interested in your view on whether or not some change should be made to the legislation but in addition to that given the organisations that you represent can ask what each organisation does to make sure it is inclusive of trans women and non-binary individuals who'd like to start point in our submission regarding that very point that you're making there because obviously we have a lot of dialogue internally regarding trans matters it's a matter close to our students heart so we felt that that was an issue if you are going to have something it should be inclusive I'll just leave it at that I think and allow others to answer I guess one related issue a point that we've made in our submission is the need to have at least 50% women on a board as opposed to 50-50 gender balance because I think most trade unions and organisations which have set quotas to say have gone for the at least approach because it can be more inclusive in the way that you're saying Mary in terms of work that UCU has done in terms of encouraging trans participation within our organisation I guess at a UK level we've set across an open and inclusive message and we have had a recent seminar on trans and other LGBT issues but I think all organisations can do do more on this agenda okay thank you I think for us there is a wider point I fully accept that the definitions in the bill maybe aren't broad enough to include anything outside the binary question but for us we would like to see that the bill went further than that again there is the fat focusing on gender alone actually is taking us down a route which is forcing people to overemphasise one protected characteristic over another protected characteristic to get back to your original question though UCU recently produced guidance on supporting trans staff and students in colleges and universities which might be useful and there's nothing in that bill that wouldn't be able to be extended to governance the guidance okay can I just come back when you say that the bill should go further can you be a bit more specific in what you would like to see for us the focusing on gender it is important but I think as Ken said that sometimes the difference in men and women on boards may not be as strong as in other places and most colleges and universities and all colleges and universities are legally required under the equality act to report on all protected characteristics and under section 6A to plan in advance on board accession in terms of all protected characteristics and our concern is slightly that having a focus on gender may take away from the current legal requirements because they're only in regulations okay thank you that's helpful Ken we noted that that is an area of concern in our submission and I don't think that's reflected in terms of the specifics in the processes that we have in place just now so if we were wanted to be minded to be much more inclusive and actually take this I think we would need to give that further consideration and perhaps there is a need for some further guidance around how that might be achieved but it's not an area that we've actively looked at through the good governance group okay thank you it's an area that I think we referenced in our submission to suggest that there was potential to the bill to be more inclusive of transgender women in particular in terms of the work that the EIS has done around that we have an LGBT informal network which contributes quite significantly to policy development within our organisation and there are events that are organised by and for that network of LGBT members and it has been particularly active in the last couple of years so it's an area that is gathering momentum in terms of the interest of our members and in terms of the confidence of our members to identify around those characteristics and to be active around it the S2UC recently produced guidance on transgender workers which may be of interest to you that's guidance that we've recommended to our own members and in the last few years we updated guidance for our members around LGBT matters not only applicable to teachers and lecturers but applicable to children and young people who may identify as being lesbian, gay, bi, trans or some other gender identity so we've done quite a lot of work in that in recent years okay, thank you, thank you, Christina thanks very much, Jamie hi there, I'm going to deviate slightly from my previous line of questioning if that's okay okay, then yeah, well we have a different panel so I'm quite keen to to get, I'm sorry I'm getting a lot of feedback on my microphone, I'll set it away can you hear me okay can I ask, I have a very specific question to EIS in your submission and this will maybe widen this out to the rest of the panel you say that you welcome the decision to legislate in this area because volunteer initiatives have not been sufficient to achieve equal representation I don't know if you were here for the last panel or not but we just heard from the commissioner that we're currently sitting at 45.8% to me that sounds like quite good progress so could you justify your position on that 45.8% falls short still of 50-50 and the progress towards that percentage has been relatively slow certainly in recent years there has been a gathering of momentum around it and a lot of that progress has been relatively recent I think we were working with maybe different stats from you we had stats gathered in 2015 that suggested that women's representation on public boards was sitting at something around about 35-36% so there's still quite significant deficit there so we were working with a different set of statistics from you at the point at which the submission was made in terms of why we would say that the legislation was necessary clearly volunteerism hasn't delivered the 50-50 balance that we would be looking for or at least 50-50 balance that we would be at least 50-50 female representation that we would be looking for so we would suggest that the legislation could add further propulsion towards the realisation of that ambition obviously legislation on its own won't achieve that there are other cultural changes that need to occur but we think that the legislation could be a further precipitation towards that aspiration Do you think the legislation actually does that in its current form I think some of the members in the committee feel that perhaps it doesn't really go far enough to do anything it just states that you should consider candidates upon merit first and foremost and then if you're in a present situation where you have two candidates a vehicle merit one male one female preference should be given to the female and if you don't all you have to do is report that you didn't so does it actually achieve what you want to achieve? We're not suggesting that the draft legislation in its current form is perfect and is going to be the panacea to this but it's certainly a step in the right direction and it may be that over time there have to be amendments or adjustments to the legislation if this is not found to deliver the ambitions as are set out our position is that not just in relation to this piece of work but ambition on its own doesn't deliver on aspirations there has to be other support organisations in order that they can shift mindsets and change people's perceptions in order to have everybody working together towards what the aspirations should be thus far there hasn't been enough done to balance the representation of women on boards and not just on boards but within employment structures and promotion structures and so on so this is really just one part of a bigger piece of work that needs to be undertaken over a longer period of time but we have to start somewhere and this is a start okay thank you I'm happy to open that out to the rest of the panel thank you just for your information we already have quite a transparent regulatory regime in this respect for example our code of practice is accepted by the Scottish funding council as good practice and it requires us to set targets in this area and we're required to report on that so it's a reporting regime as well in addition we submit our statistics including the diversity of our governing boards to the higher education statistics agency so in addition to the code of good practice and the requirement to meet that it's a condition of grant as well that we address those issues so there is already that regime in place within higher education institutions I can just pick you up on that point it slightly conflicts your opening statement in the sense that you want to be exempt from this because you're autonomous non-public bodies but you've just referenced the Scottish funding council which is very much a public funding body so how do you square that circle? We don't see it as contradictory at all the relationship there is that for a certain amount of proportion of our funding comes from the public from the Scottish government and other sources but for that part where we are given grant it's quite right that we have responsibility to report on the use of that grant and so for those aspects we are quite comfortable with that code of practice and the complier explained approach through that link on public funding we have other authorities across the UK that we have to respond to The gender balance is only applicable on the public element of the funding I'm not at all you can't divide it up that way at all we recognise that we are autonomous institutions but we have responsibility to those who grant us funding and that in some cases will be the funding council in other cases it will be for example research councils when we are undertaking research we are also required to demonstrate equality of opportunity etc so I think in being autonomous institutions in responding whether it's to the Oscar, the charity organisation whether it's the funding council whether it's the research councils we have embedded it in mainstreamed equality and diversity and that's right and good but I think that's different from seeing as having public boards which we don't and that's been acknowledged by for example Audit Scotland and I think in some of the government's own papers for the bill autonomous institutions she and is right universities are autonomous bodies but they do receive £1.5 billion quite rightly of Scottish Government money to do the education research teaching etc so I guess that's why we think it's really important that they are accountable and should be included in this bill I think it's also right that universities have made real strides forward in terms of gender balance over the past number of years but I think that's because there has been a lot of scrutiny that have been under the spotlight and politicians Scottish Government ministers have been asking questions I think one point to pick up a point that Sheena had said about the number of women on boards in universities I guess boards only appoint so many a proportion of their members directly and there's other categories of members either from staff from senate from alumni sometimes from local authorities and so on and we actually think incorporating all of those members within the ambit of this legislation would be a very positive step because it then encourages other bodies or places an owners on other bodies such as local authorities such as student associations such as trade unions ourselves when we are presenting nominations to the governing bodies we too have to take gender balance into account and we think that's really important and the legislation as it currently stands wouldn't include those or the local authority alumni and so on and I think we would ask that you do include all of the parts of the university body because we are contributing and then it has a knock-on effect to other areas of society which should be taking diversity and gender balance into account Okay Jimmy Thank you Good morning to the panel Thank you for coming to see us today At the last session we heard about the organic growth and the differential in the statistics Andrea that you identified that yes that was a position in 2015 quite significantly since then however I think it was Bill Thompson that rightly made the point that this legislation is to hear to stop backsliding so that should we happen upon a less enlightened time where that organic growth were to be reversed that there would be legislation to underpin it to make sure that we couldn't however I made the point at the last session and we picked it up and I'd like to do so again that without meaningful teeth or just disability this bill is largely meaningless if it's about if there's wiggle room if there's not sufficient sanction within it I'd like to ask the panel about that we do have the reporting duty and that is all we have right now and the last panel seemed to think that that was sufficient and that naming and shaming institutions that weren't meeting the aspirations of the act would be enough but I'd be very keen to hear your view on that and whether we need anything else in the bill In relation to the two aspects that I'd like to address in relation to the first point I would agree with Bill there has been quite significant progress in the college and university sector for the past few years, the numbers are increasing they're not going far enough and there is a risk that by not providing some legislative underpinning as you say there could be backsliding that could be from a national agenda but it could also be from a local perspective as well if you have a change of board members who don't take it quite as seriously there is a risk that that could go backwards so I think from that point of view the bill is necessary in terms of a follow-up on that then is that if you're talking about sanctions you need to then understand there are lots of reasons why boards have board member fluctuations and how difficult it can be to get board members at all types of board members that you would be specifically looking for so in terms of measures to approach that we would suggest that colleges and universities currently have to comply with the specific duties regulations in Scotland and report on equality progress every four years with updates every two and something that either fed into that process or mirrored that process partly to reduce onerous workload on institutions to do all of these other things as well but also just to smooth the process over sanctions especially punitive ones could actually have a slightly detrimental effect on how people approach this and it could ultimately lead to a lack of meritocracy because a sanction would mean they'd have to appoint women rather than a woman of merit anybody else I mentioned the number of members that we have across our boards in the college sector the majority of them are volunteers so they come from communities right across Scotland the majority of our boards are charitable organisations so I would be concerned about unintended consequences in terms of sanctions that we actually put people off giving of their time in terms of what they want to give back in terms of the college sector or other public services so I think we need to think carefully about the sanctions issue I think the reporting the monitoring and the visibility of that is really important and I think if the bill goes to reinforce that I think that's welcome but the sanctions I would caution around that Sheena? Yes, I agree with that we have volunteers from all parts of the community on our boards and we have the reporting that Stephanie talked about we have transparency in our annual accounts where we talk about these aspects as well and also I think in addition the committee of Scottish chairs own name of having 40-40-20 allows for that flexibility that we need to have at some points people have periods of office of two or three years sometimes they may step down early you have a period of time the balance may change temporarily so I think having that wiggle room if you like is very helpful and for someone like me who's managing the process and trying to find good applicants coming through having that scope is helpful Okay If I may communicate, thank you you mentioned the word wiggle room Sheena and I know that I'm not alone in this committee in believing that there is a substantial amount of wiggle room on the bill so far particularly in clauses around the justification principle in terms of when we decide to appoint a man over a woman and indeed in the encouragement of applications of women which talk about the appointing person taking such steps as they deem appropriate in the absence of statutory guidance because we understand there will be no statutory guidance underpinning this how can we strengthen that to be sure that it isn't just entirely subjective so that people will tick boxes if we just had to appoint the guy I'd be very keen to hear how the panel think we could A, strengthen the bill but B, do you think we actually do need statutory guidance to define what appropriate steps mean? I would wholly endorse having statutory guidance underneath the bill partly because if you are considering sanctions it's an unbalanced process if you're considering sanctions without giving boards very adequate support and a framework particularly when you're talking I think it's caused for about the choosing between two suitably qualified candidates if you don't have that guidance underpinning your you are arguably setting boards up to fail on that as well Great Can you say on your submission that we thought that there should be greater or further consideration of the application of sanctions because volunteerism thus far hasn't delivered the ambitions that we've already talked about but we didn't suggest that this be a heavy handed blanket approach that there would have to be some kind of monitoring and maybe interrogation of why a public body hadn't met the requirement to achieve gender balance on its board and maybe sanctions applied appropriate to the reasons why the body wasn't able to deliver on that so a kind of mechanism that allowed for dialogue around that but whether to be a penalty or the other way of thinking about it would be incentives provide incentives to encourage public bodies to accelerate their progress towards this we've seen that applied in other aspects of public policy but our coverage of the sanctions area in our submission did suggest that there needed to be further consideration to that for the reasons that you've outlined yourself to give the legislation more teeth thank you okay sorry, I was thinking of something else good morning and thanks I asked a question at the last session just on the tie break situation we've kind of covered it a little but I think in Alex's question how do we ensure that if we are looking for one member of a board to take that to 50-50 how is it done at the moment I would be interested to know how it's done at the moment with the universities but also how do we ensure from kick-off that we are going to guarantee 50-50 on a public board if merit is at the heart of this bill could I start on that one just in terms of how it happens within universities we are pointing and seeking applicants and making decisions usually we all drop skills and gender matrices so we are identifying whenever a vacancy arises or is about to arise what the A first of all the skills are that the board will need and some of those will come from our governing orders or statutory instruments and secondly we are looking at all aspects of diversity age, gender disability etc so that we know sort of going in what and that can help in advertising specifically our nominations committees which usually involve I think all of them involve staff and student governors as well will have that usually they will have had training unconscious bias etc and there will be an awareness that first of all we are looking for those skills to be applied and be that we will have a view we will have that known matrix of what our gender breakdown our diversity breakdown is on our boards so we are going into the interviews of nominations committee meetings with that information to hand I can expand on that if you like but I think that's hopefully sufficient to give you an idea so thank you very much for that do we exclude anyone during that process then so if we are going in with a gender matrix and a sort of a skills matrix are we then excluding anyone from being a member of that board due to their gender or other diverse characteristics? Yes we try and take it across protected characteristics I think that there has been a difficulty and you've probably heard this from other people about attracting women to put their names forward and to apply and people with disability ethnic backgrounds etc so we have worked closely with the quality challenge unit to try and reach out in various ways one way we've dealt with it is in some universities and higher education institutions is inviting people to be co-opted on to committees of the governing body where they can get insight on the lackings of the board and determine for themselves whether they are interested in applying or not and that's been a very helpful route to broaden out what was traditionally I think seen as a very sort of monotone board so I think the main thing for us will be the skills these are multi million pound organisations the skills could be varied it could be having a view of a stakeholder so having some of our alumni who know what it's like to be a student there that could be an aspect of the skills that we're looking for it needn't necessarily be technical skills it could be that insight so we try and look at everything across the piece that way but then we will know I think that the skills has to be the main focus of it she's got a quits up on this particular point and I'll bring you back in just a quick question on how things are currently done at the moment sorry good morning I forgot your new panel are your interview panels gender balanced? I can only speak for my own institution in this case and I was yes they are we draw upon the whole governance and nominations committee which includes independent governors includes staff governors and student governors and we will keep points go through training so that they have the support that they need to go through the interview process it's not we can't guarantee it every time just depending on availability sometimes but we do strive for that can I just ask the rest of the panel I did I wanted to come back to the original the original point about positive action and meritocracy in terms of positive action our research in 2014 with the HTI governors did show that actually governors weren't quite sure what positive action was and they misunderstood the legality of it we currently run two Scotland wide projects looking at positive action in terms of student recruitment and promotion within staff and what we're finding is there is a drag towards positive action but positive action is a spectrum and people are much more comfortable advertising a different types of press having gender balanced interviews than actually looking at something like choosing between two equal candidates based on a protected characteristic that they're not sure about the legality of that so if we are going to look at a positive action measure such as choosing between two candidates on the basis of a protected characteristic that needs to have a fair amount of guidance underpinning that and support because the sector at the moment doesn't feel that it has the knowledge to be able to do that fairly and successfully in terms of whether that leads to or the diversity across the board and merit I would say that comes back to how you actually define merit on the board and that maybe we need to rethink some of the things that we're looking for in terms of board members and build diversity within that rather than trying to do diversity on the system that we maybe currently have Do you have a question to the other panel members about gender balanced interview panels? My most recent experience of appointment was our principal in North East Scotland College so there was gender balance on the shortlist and the longlist panel so yes, it was very visible When you're appointing members of staff as part of the leadership team they're appointed by panel of lay members and there's gender balance within that panel of lay members In terms of the question in terms of public bodies I guess I don't know As Sheena says, there has been real improvement and institutions are very mindful of this and this legislation would do more to really cement that so I think or including that in some of the guidance could be could be really helpful Annie, do you want to come back to your substantive point? No, I think I've probably got the answer that I need and obviously Gail's follow-up questions that I've got, that's a thank you very much Gail, if you get anything else you want to ask Yeah, just my usual wrap-up question I think we've got quite a good flavour of whether you think the legislation is necessary or not but just to get it on the record do you believe that the legislation is necessary? Yes, I'm just reiterating we don't believe it's necessary for higher education institutions we have a regulatory regime we have a code of good practice and we have more than half of our institutions exceeding the current goal We do believe the legislation is necessary and I think universities do have made good progress particularly on those members who are directly appointed by the board but it isn't 50-50 by any means and this legislation really helps to move that forward and we certainly think universities should be included Yes, we would also agree that the legislation was necessary while recognising that huge progress has been made recently legislation would actually show a clear direction provide national leadership with caveats we would like a broader diversity to be considered within this and guidance to be added underneath Thank you very much, Ken College sector welcomes this I think it reflects what we've been doing on a voluntary basis and reaffirms what has been achieved over quite a short period of time so, yes Thank you, Andrea I would concur exactly with what Stephanie has said this is a really strong starting point that is completely consistent with what we are doing within the trade union movement towards achievement of greater equality and diversity and I think that it sits very well with other parts of Scottish Government ambitions, so, yes, we would say necessary Sorry, it's another clarification at the end Sheena, just to clarify the question was do you think the legislation is necessary I appreciate you gave your own position on the groups that you represent and I respect that but do you think the legislation should be applicable to everyone else, I guess even if you don't want to be part of it? I think we have seen what codes of practice can do this is not just coming from government and others it's coming from the population at large this is a groundswell if you like I wouldn't like to comment on what the public public authorities in Scotland would want to do, but we've shown that it can be done we have very good results voluntarily albeit within a code of practice Okay, thank you Given that JMA exercise has right independence in the committee this morning, the outstanding question that we've got left is the one on financial impact and whether you feel there was any financial impact you'll have heard the questions earlier and you'll understand where we're coming from as far as financial impact on organisations in the panel earlier had said that if you're already doing this and you're a monitoring officer and you're putting all those checks and balances into place then it shouldn't be an impact on you but if you're far away from where you should be that maybe that would have a financial impact because it would involve incentives or staff training or all of the other things that come along thoughts, feelings, insights Andrea you're nodding away We've stressed that there is definitely room for further training of staff who work for public bodies but also for current and prospective board members around all of the aspects of equality and diversity that are pertinent in this discussion but I suppose we also need to consider what one of the aims of this is is to make public bodies more effective and so while there might be short-term financial cost in order to achieve this gender balance of greater effectiveness and productivity and more effective outputs in the interests of the public in the longer term so surely that's an investment that is not only worth making but is necessary to make in order that our public bodies are truly serving the whole diversity of the public in Scotland The code of good governance that the college sector has is supported through the college development network with training for our board members so we already have things in place and we can prioritise within that training programme that's funded through the public purse through the funding council so there's opportunity to influence and shape that from the policy perspective to ensure that that's embedded in the practice I think that the aspect that I would welcome and we're beginning to see that within our sector but across the public sector and I think that we can learn from different bits of the public sector some of the good practice that's been going on for many years Stephanie, your organisations and other organisations helping them to make this progress so you maybe have an insight into the cost benefit to that That was... I can't talk necessarily about the financial implication there will be some boards that have to consider their skills matrix their recruitment process there could be cost attached to that especially if the staff resources that are needed as well but I would echo Andrea's point which is ultimately there is fairly solid research to show that a diverse board is massively advantageous to the organisation as a whole both financially and just from an effectiveness point of view and I do think that those things can be balanced that counter balance is very strongly any initial financial outlay that might be necessary I'm going to follow up Stephanie and Andrea's points a more diverse board is responding more effectively to its stakeholders its staff and students in the case of university so it's potentially addressing issues around the gender pay gap, occupational segregation making the universities more responsive to the needs of all students and the broader community that investment if there is any additional cost is well worth it in terms of the outcomes that the board and the organisation then provides we're already investing in our boards and in our staff to support our boards for example two weeks ago I our student president and one of our league governors attended one of the equality challenge events we have been putting in place training that will continue it's a process of continuous improvement so no big increase in costs because we've already invested quite a bit but on-going maintenance and improvement and as you say there is already reporting in place for higher education institutions so that is already there thank you, do you have any comments on no I mean it's I guess that the previous panel asked if there is additional funding required who should be paying for that should it be coming out of your budgets or should the Scottish Government make more money available to your public institutions I think we could guess the answer I mean the bill as it stands says there's very little reference to additional funds being made available to enable this legislation to take place so Mary I guess that one of these things are things that public body should be doing already if a female board member needs childcare costs or travel expenses public body should be providing that already so I think that the previous board indicated that most public bodies do require greater funding and we'd be happy to make the case for increased revenue for universities and we will be doing that but I'm not sure it's to spend it on boards necessarily I've got a final comment from Alec O'Cham and it has to be quick and final It just struck me that this is unquantifiable with that statutory guidance so if we're asking appointing persons to take such steps as they deem necessary there's no guidance to say what the standard is for that then we don't know what if that's going to cost any money so I think that there's a catch 22 there Anything finally that we've missed that you've been itching to tell us no, I think we've exhausted you this morning we've exhausted ourselves we're very grateful for your attendance at committee this morning, for your written evidence and again if you go away and you think I should have said this please let us know we've still got a way to go on this legislation we want it to be as informed as possible we're incredibly grateful to you thank you so much and I'm going to suspend committee to get into private now