 Welcome everybody to the Equal Opportunities Committee. It's the 13th meeting of 2015. Can I ask you to put any electronic devices into flight mode or switch off please? I'd like to start with introductions. We're supported at the table by the clerkin and research staff, official reporters and broadcasting services, and around the room by security office, and also welcome to those observers in the public gallery. My name is Margaret McCulloch, and I'm the committee's convener, and members will now introduce themselves in turn, starting here on my right. Good morning. It's Sandra White MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, deputy convener. Good morning John Finnie, MSP Highlands and Islands. Good morning, Christian Arad, MSP for the North East of Scotland. Good morning, I'm James Baxter, MSP for Miss Scotland and Fife. John Mason, MSP for Glasgow Shetleston. Thank you. Today we have one agenda item, an evidence session on removing barriers on race, ethnicity and employment inquiry. I welcome the panel and can I ask the witnesses to introduce themselves? Can I also invite the witnesses to outline the work of their organisations and any current projects that you're actually doing? I can start with yourself please. Good morning. My name is Akugo Imijulu. I'm a senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, and I'm also the co-director for the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland. My research interests focus on the political sociology of race and exploring racial and ethnic inequalities in Scotland and beyond. My name is Dr Juna Nato, and I'm an associate professor at the Institute of Social Housing, Housing and Environment and Real Estate at Heriot-Watt University. I have a long standing interest in issues related to race and ethnicity, and in more recent years I've been concentrating particularly at the sharper end of extreme poverty looking at issues related to race and ethnicity. There are issues related to low-paid work, extreme housing exclusion, and most laterally looking at destitution among a number of different groups that's been an ongoing area of interest for a number of years. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Olawali Olabamiji. I'm a solicitor working with Ethnic Minority Law Centre in Glasgow. Ethnic Minority Law Centre was established in 1991 to provide free advice and representation to minority ethnic community that have problems in our area of practice, which are immigration, employment, discrimination, and criminal injury. We also have an office established in Edinburgh in 2006 to provide the same service. Presently I part coordinate a project funded by Big Law Tree for the next three years to extend our services to the whole of Scotland. In recent times we have been trying to, and we also provide training to other advisory agencies across the length and breadth of Scotland in our area of practice. We also have secondary advice system whereby people of minority ethnic people that have problems in our area of practice phone in to ask questions on how they can come out of their problems. That's what we do in minority ethnic. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Chris Oswald. I'm the head of policy and communications at the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Scotland. The EHRC is a GB body working across England, Scotland and Wales. We will promote equality across the nine strands of equality covered by the Equality Act. We also have a small legal case work service, where we both take cases and intervene in other cases. We have full primacy over equal opportunities legislation across Great Britain. We share our human rights remit in Scotland with the Scottish Human Rights Commission. There are about seven or eight specific projects that relate to race equality and employment that we're involved in just now. I could list them just now or they may just come up as we go through discussions. That's fine. Thank you very much. Can I ask when you want to answer a question, if you indicate to myself or the clerk on my left hand side that you want to speak and we'll take it in turns? We'll start now with John Mason. Thank you, convener, and good morning. Obviously, we're looking at the whole area of race, ethnicity and employment. For many people, the starting point, especially for young people, is modern apprenticeships. We're getting the impression that there is not a proportionate share of people from black and ethnic minorities getting a share of modern apprenticeships. I'd like to start off by asking for your comments in that area if you think that is the case, if you think there's a problem and so on. Chris? Thank you. We published the first research into modern apprenticeships or apprenticeship schemes across Great Britain two years ago, and that was the first time that the ethnic minority data became visible prior to that Skills Development Scotland had only really published gender data. The most recent data that I have seen came out about two or three weeks ago. 1.4% of modern apprenticeships in Scotland are held by ethnic minorities against a base population, which we would say, as a minimum, would be 4%. If you look specifically at areas like Glasgow, you would expect that base population to be far, far higher. Obviously, in areas like Orkney, you would expect it to be far lower. However, that has been a persistent problem from the time when we first looked at the data in 2012. We have been working particularly with the employability team alongside the wood commission. There are three issues that we have particularly highlighted, both to wood and also to the Scottish Government, and also in conversation with Skills Development Scotland. Those are the current unreliability of the data. We do not capture in Scotland data about applications for modern apprenticeships. So, whilst we know the result, the 1.4%, we do not know how many people are actually applying for those. The second issue is that there have been no targets in place. For many years, it would appear that Skills Development Scotland has not been keeping as close an eye on this area as a public body, bound by the Equality Act and the specific duties, as we would expect. We have encouraged, both through wood and also in our conversations with Skills Development Scotland, to start to establish targets, not quotas, but targets for attainment. The third area of work that we have been involved in with Skills Development Scotland is specifically about procurement and contracting. The responsibility, as public money is dispersed to colleges, employers and training providers, is that those targets and the desire of the Government to boost ethnic minority participation are reflected in the contracts. That is something that we have been working on most recently with Skills Development Scotland. Is that spread across all types of apprenticeships? Do you see that there are particular subjects or areas that are doing better or doing worse? The most recent data, under the quarterly data that is published, does not go into that sort of detail. It does not go into the specific ethnicities either. We have a global figure. It could be that there are no Chinese people participating. They could be the entire cohort. We do not know that. That would be something that Skills Development Scotland would be able to answer. From memory, and again, I can go back to the research and supply the committee with written evidence, there was a bias towards administration, towards more public service areas, areas like construction, which was one of the big areas of modern apprenticeship, were particularly weak. I think that is reflected in the census data as well, that you see particularly low numbers of ethnic minority people in those types of industries. I think that the other industries are at the top of my head, or from my notes. Can I come back to that? Yes, that is good. If you wish that. Do you know? I would like to say that we carried out major study on low-paid work in both Scotland and England. It was found that modern apprenticeships, where they were used by ethnic minorities, were seen as very valuable. But in that study, it was just a very small number of ethnic minorities who had actually been through the modern apprenticeship schemes. Certainly, along with the other, because of the study which included ethnic minorities as well as the white majority, the benefits of modern apprenticeships were clear, equally valuable to people from ethnic minority groups as they were to the majority population. I would suggest that there is a need really for much greater publicity about the nature of these apprenticeships and about what they involve. The valuable bridge that it provides between training and employment, because especially given the disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities in low-paid work, it is a very valuable route, especially within a wider context of growing in-work poverty. Actually, for all groups, it is a very valuable means of moving beyond low-paid work and also, of course, including ethnic minorities within that. It is a need for much more positive action to promote the modern apprenticeships to diverse sections of the population, to involve voluntary organisations and ethnic minority community organisations in work to improve the uptake of modern apprenticeships from diverse communities. Perhaps Kyl Scotland can work a little bit more closely with both training providers as well as community organisations to increase the uptake of modern apprenticeships. Also, there is a need for employers to be more aware that when they are recruiting apprenticeships for modern apprenticeships, they need to make employers more aware of the need to recruit from a diverse workforce and to make sure that training opportunities are available across all sections of the workforce. What we found in our study among low-paid workers is that there are, in many public sector organisations, adhered to formal equal opportunities policies and processes. In terms of informal processes, for example, access to training, access to development opportunities, which are often informal, there they can be exclusionary practice. There has been quite a lot of progress in terms of recognition of formal equal opportunities policies and practices, but there is a need to be more sensitive to informal processes, which can exclude people from benefiting from developmental opportunities to escape from moving work. Given that the modern apprenticeship would be linked to a job, is the employer the main most important person in this to change things? It is a complex picture because employers have a role in terms of whom they recruit, whom they identify as appropriate for modern apprenticeships. In terms of widening knowledge about modern apprenticeships to the population at large, including minority groups, who may not know about modern apprenticeships and community organisations, who may not realise that there is a lot of government investment in modern apprenticeships. From what Mr Oswald said, we do not know that because we do not know who is applying, so we do not know whether people are applying or not getting them, or, as you say, they do not know about it, therefore they would not be applying. There could be barriers at that point in terms of actual applications, as well as who is being informed about them. I want to add to what Gina and Chris have said. We need to look a little bit earlier and look at the educational pathways for minority ethnic young people. For the most part, minority ethnic young people have better educational outcomes than their white counterparts. In many ways, modern apprenticeships are not for them, because they are overperforming. This is not a traditional group that would necessarily see that modern apprenticeships are for them. There is something else that we have to look at here. There may well be barriers, there may well be a process of not knowing enough information about apprenticeships, but is it fit for purpose for an incredibly highly skilled, highly qualified young workforce? There is perhaps a mismatch between educational outcomes and the role and purpose of apprenticeships to begin with. Potentially, I am not saying that it is, but it could be a good thing that there are fewer ethnic minority people in modern apprenticeships because more of them are doing academic and they are doing other forms of education? No, because when you look at the labour market outcomes for minority ethnic young people, they are still unemployed and underemployed and over-concentrated in low-skilled, low-paid work. There is still a problem here. There is still an ethnic penalty that minority ethnic young people experience whether that is in terms of, we do not have the data clearly, whether that is in terms of accessing apprenticeships or when they are out in the labour market. Institutionalised racism is what is going on that depresses their outcomes. There is something going on here, but I think that what is important to note is that modern apprenticeships are not the magic bullet here because we see different kinds of educational aspirations for minority ethnic young people. That will only capture a small but important group, but maybe it does not address the broader issue. When you say those different aspirations, because I thought that your paper was very interesting and you are making the point that there is a huge range of ethnic minorities, those who have been here for three or four generations and have tremendous English and so on, but others who might be commending and struggling, so would there be a variety within that about the aspirations? Of course. Absolutely, but in the paper provided by Susie McPherson for Spice, she outlined incredibly well how regardless of the ethnic background, all minority ethnic young people, whether they arrived in 2007 or they have been here for three or four generations are still performing better and they are not seeing any kind of benefit in the labour market as a result. So we have to take seriously this issue of institutionalised discrimination in the labour market and targeting apprenticeships better for minority ethnic young people because there is only one small part of that process. Do you know? Olawale. Okay. As Acoco continued, she covered some of the points that I wanted to cover, but to say also that it is not a uniform picture, aspirations are changing and we shouldn't presume that modern apprenticeships may not be attractive to some sections of the population. There are particularly some very deprived communities, minority ethnic communities, who might well find these apprenticeships very attractive because at the moment there is such a problem of unemployment is very high in certain communities and in modern apprenticeships provide a route into employment which people might well take up even if they might be viewed as over-qualified. They might well see that this is a route into employment which I would not otherwise benefit from. So these opportunities do need to be publicised as well as we need to have a closer look at the nature of the apprenticeships to make sure that the apprenticeships themselves are appropriate for people with different skills levels, different qualifications levels and that it is also seen as a measure not just into a route into employment but a route into career progression. So it's part of a working to learn culture within organisations. So the apprenticeship schemes should be seen more broadly as tools for working to learn, to promote working to learn environments within organisations as opposed to learning to work cultures within organisations. Can I ask you when you're replying to keep your answers concise? We've got quite a few people that want to come in. Okay, sorry. Thank you very much Margaret and I think this barrier to career progression for instance is even more pronounced when you look at legal profession for instance whereby you are expected to have two years of traineeship. Apart from ethnic minority law centre in Scotland or not so aware of other organisation I stand to be corrected in any case whereby people from minority ethnic background have opportunity to gain access into mainstream legal profession and I think it's more pronounced in Scotland than in England. Okay, thank you. John Finnie. Thank you convener. Maybe a dangerous question to ask a panel with two academics on it but I'm going to ask it anyway. We obviously receive a lot of papers and we're grateful for the information we've had from yourselves and notwithstanding what Chris has said about some research there we're advised there's a dearth of robust data that would inform our decision making. I don't want to suggest that the rest of our morning is wasted but are these gaps so sufficient that we can't draw an accurate picture probably without? When you see gaps, what gaps are you referring to specifically? I'm referring to the gaps I'm told they exist in the range of data that we have there. There isn't robust enough information around which to draw absolute conclusions. Yes, I mean in some senses yes but in other respects no because if you look at the other end of the spectrum if you like looking at the top jobs for example then it's almost across the board the very small numbers as you go higher up the organisational ladder the representation of ethnic minorities becomes smaller and smaller I think that's a fairly clear picture in terms of organisational representation within public sector organisations within local authorities within NHS it's fairly clear picture it's due to that. Can I comment on that though? If we're talking about data how can you actually get up to date data when it's down to the individual when they're completing the application to identify what background they come from because it's up to an individual to say if they're white or Asian or whatever or disabled so how are you going to really have 100% accurate information if that's information is voluntary? Chris? This is an area that we're particularly looking at just now from the commission because we're assessing the performance of public bodies in terms of all of the employment data that they had to publish across different characteristics on April 30 this year and there are big gaps in that data I'm not particularly singling out what Greater Glasgow Health Board for any other reason than I recall it but in Greater Glasgow Health Board 75% of people declared their ethnicity that means that 100% members of staff did not that's such a huge gap that you can't really say anything particularly meaningful we also find that GB data is often collapsed around employment into very very broad categories like Asian or African and Caribbean so the granularity what we really need because the outcomes for different communities are wildly different sometimes there is I think definite we encourage more people to do that we're currently working with the Scottish Government and close the gap the equal pay project specifically to look at what the reasons for the data gaps are sometimes they're administrative they don't have the systems in place to do this but particularly are there issues about the questions that are being asked which are putting people off I think the interesting thing is that the question that is asked is very often the census question which had a very high completion rate what we hear back from public bodies and I think this would be mirrored by private sector as well is that whilst they are able to capture data reasonably reliably about new starts it's the group of people who have been in place for a long time that they have particular difficulty capturing that data from Mr Finnie makes a good point but I wouldn't I don't think we can say there's nothing but we have to accept that the data is incomplete and at times unreliable but the data only tells you the outcome what it doesn't tell you and the real difficulty in terms of research what we need more research is that why are there concentrations of groups in particular industries why hasn't that changed particularly over time and what is it that is creating the barrier is it a lack of information or is it a lack of desire to go into particular areas of industry okay, thank you I've got two of the committee members we'd like to come in very briefly on the back of that and then we need to move on to the next question and it's Christian and then Sandra are you okay Christian? Just a point of clarification on two of the data the first one Chris Owlge said 1.4% only of BMEs are going into a modern data partnership 1.4% but after what Dr Emery George said and we've got the data here that a lot of people are going into higher education is that difference of 3% could be just explained by visa have we done some research into this? Again I would very much agree there is a huge spectrum of experience we see particular ethnic minority groups largely overall there's far higher numbers of people involved in higher and further education so yes that's one explanation particular in some particular ethnic minority groups Pakistani community in particular women's economic activity in that critical age range is far far lower so we have the issue but that isn't carried across to other ethnic groups as well so there is a real variation but I think yes you're more likely to see people in higher education you're more likely to see people unemployed you're also more likely to see in some communities far lower levels of economic activity and the second point and that's very important for the inquiry Dr Emery George you talked about people more likely to be in low pay and low skill work but this data we are collecting includes all the people who are coming as migrants as adults so they are not being in the education system so it makes it very very difficult to compare the data of education to the place of work how could we how would you suggest we run our inquiry to make sure that we don't get confused but when we talk about people in employment how can we separate the people who have not been educated here from the people who have been educated here well the very straightforward thing and this is what I argue in my paper is a much more subtle and complex understanding of who we mean by ethnic minority because at the moment the way in which it's treated it's everyone who's not a white scot and that's not sufficient because I guess I'm an ethnic minority I'm American and I live here I've been here for about 15 years so my experience is lumped in with Polish migrants which is lumped in to 4th generation Scottish Pakistani groups what do we all have in common there's something quite important that I would strongly encourage if I can do that strongly encourage the committee to do is to be more is to be clear about who you mean and so if you want to capture the experiences of recent migrants from Eastern Europe say that but don't use the label as such of minority ethnic because then people will say but are you talking about people who are born and bred in Scotland but are non-white people of colour so I think that's the issue about being specific about who you mean so you can better track people and just to, I'm sorry I know you wanted to move on but just to go back to this Mr Finney's point about do we have enough data yes, yes we do have enough data there's a question about monitoring which is, and there's a question about how public bodies capture and analyse data but I'm sitting next to one of the leading researchers in Scotland who's been doing this work for almost 20 years we know what the problem is we know what the issue is and the issue is the issue is institutionalised racism and the issue is a lack of real action to address these problems we know what the issue is and I don't think we should confuse the problem no no no that's why I'm like rubbed up and so I guess it's not a question of want of data because I do a lot of sociological research to actually try to explain the why's and the how's of why there isn't enough action being taken and so I think it's important not to confuse the issue of the problems of collecting data via public bodies with the actual lived experiences of educational and labour market inequality okay thank you and we'll move on to the next questions from Jane Baxter still on the theme of employment support advice and employability I'd like to explore whether you think there's anything additional or things that could be done better by the various support agencies and with the aim of improving outcomes for ethnic minority customers people who seek employment what could be done better or differently I think sorry I think again it's important to disentangle for example the needs for example of people who are newly arrived so refugees asylum seekers refugees who are allowed to work their primary needs for many of them not all but for many of them would be access to all classes so there's a great need for those classes to ensure that they've got access to a vital stepping stone into the labour market so the requirements of new migrants are very different for entering into the labour market are very different from those who are born and brought up in Scotland and who see Scotland as their home and this is where work really to be done in terms of widening opportunities available for people in terms of careers advice in schools in terms of the work that voluntary organisations undertake with young people in terms of outreach work by employers who are interested in setting up major employers who've got access to apprenticeship who will be using apprenticeship schemes so a lot of outreach work which can be undertaken and some of this work can be taken in a very targeted way Chris spoke about targets but also the work can be targeted geographically so you could go to areas where you know for example within Glasgow where certain established minority groups live and you can target those areas specifically and say there are these opportunities here so far we don't seem to have many people from ethnic minorities applying and just kind of make simple statements these are opportunities that are open to all and I think that despite the high proportion of people who with despite having good educational qualifications qualifications there will be interests because alternative the alternative is either unemployment or working in family businesses and aspirations are changing or young people don't want to work in they don't want to work in the shops owned by family businesses and they've got wider aspirations not all of them of course some of them will pursue family businesses but others will be interested in wider opportunities and will see it as a stepping stone they're already armed with educational qualifications so they might well see it as a stepping stone I was very struck by some questions that Liam McArthur was raising about head teachers and the complete absence of ethnic minority head teachers in Scotland and this was from data which is almost complete so we can rely on that and this raises the question of positive action across Great Britain positive action programmes are lawful positive discrimination is not accepting very exceptional circumstances so where you have say a profession later positive action pardon me to that part about positive action later shall I back away from that just now yes just now thank you and they also want to say to that no okay Olawhale based on our own experience of people of minority ethnic people who come to us as our service we discover that majority of them are highly educated but they are employed and we believe they are for them to be able to gain access to employment there must be something in place for them to acquire experience which employers are actually looking at which they are going to be looking out for because they are more often than known over qualified you have PhD students I mean you have people with PhD who are doing cleaning as in people that have master's degree who are working in care homes but because there is no opportunity of something like volunteering maybe I do we don't really have that data to be able to establish that all but I think there is a kind of a barrier in gaining experience that will enable them to move into mainstream employment sector Alexander wants to come in the back of this thank you I just wanted to clarify and pick up on what I think Gina had said also when you mentioned people with PhD and master's etc of working in care homes and cleaning are these migrants who have came in to the country or they have been born and bred and got the PhD but they can't get a job to that level because I think it's important as you had said Gina that we need to focus in various groups so the people you are speaking to are these migrants that have came in and that is the only job they have been offered to answer most of them are migrants why some of them are minority ethnic people that are born here I just wanted to clarify that point because as Gina had already mentioned if you are coming up through the system the educational system there is a gap there you are not attaining and then there is a difference in migrants coming in with the qualifications but you can't get that job I think because of the immigration because of the necessity to wanting to extend their visa so that they can legally in the United Kingdom most migrants want to progress their educational career so as to attain the 10 years requirement of applying for settlement in the United Kingdom and as a result of that they realize that they have been studying for a very long period of time they don't have opportunity of putting what they have been learning into practice that will now result into them gaining employment in the mainstream sector I think maybe if something can be done in this area it will assist migrants in that class in that category from moving and progressing there sorry thank you in terms of all those agencies who are delivering employment support do you think there is an appetite amongst them to get better at what they are doing are there any incentives for them to improve their outcomes and what can we do to incentivise carrot or stick, how do we get those agencies to address this issue and work harder to achieve better outcomes thing public on you go Public sector quality duties are one ensuring for example that organisations take seriously their public sector quality duties is one root in monitoring that reviewing, monitoring that looking at whether organisationally encouraging organisations to review their progress in terms of making sure that their workforce is diverse and it reflects the local population and that will vary from area to area so for example in the highlands and islands you might have a different picture than in Glasgow so it's being sensitive to the local population and making sure that organisations particularly like the NHS local authorities that they reflect the local population that they serve because of course having the people from community within those organisations will enable them to provide better services to those groups as well as providing employment Chris I would very much agree with the public sector duty is absolutely central here the problem I think is that the vast majority of the public sector has been downsizing for the last 8 or 9 years rather than recruiting so I think minorities are attempting to penetrate into organisations which are shrinking at the same time so it's an unfortunate coincidence but I think it then becomes particularly incumbent on those bodies which have responsibilities under the public sector duty particularly around training, education and development that they are putting additional effort in here and I'd say certainly in terms of schools development Scotland and the contractual arrangements that they may have had with colleges or training providers that type of push has not been evident I think it's starting to become far more evident now but the race equality duty has been enforced in one way or another since 2002 so we have a long time that these public bodies could and should have been directing their effort towards these areas and we're not seeing a significant change whilst you can't make direct comparisons between apprenticeship schemes in Scotland, England and Wales I think it's interesting that in England and Wales, ethnic minority participation in apprenticeship schemes is more or less at the level that you would expect in Scotland it is very unusually lower Can I comment on that as well when we're talking about employment support and advice the statistics that we've got from the Scottish Government, the pupil census it actually says that the Chinese group achieve the highest qualifications Is there any work done on speaking to these groups at that point when they leave the education system to actually monitor what their choice is and where they go what is their destination when they leave the school or further or higher education to get a feel for what their choice is about employment accu will go and increase Just to say very briefly there is some interesting work about transitions and what we see is that for the most part speaking very broadly for those minority ethnic young people who enter higher education and then leave concentrated in professional and in the professions solicitor, engineers all those identifiable professions and so that's what I was saying before about the mismatch between apprenticeships and educational aspirations and outcomes that absolutely at least the stereotype is that most apprenticeships are about getting into construction and all those kinds of things that's not necessarily matched by what minority ethnic young people tell us about where they see their future careers so that's what I was saying about the issue of the mismatch So what's needs done in schools then to actually better inform the pupils of various options then Chris? I think that Chinese and Indian communities are particularly interesting in these areas because in the Indian community the census suggests that just under 40% of the Indian community are involved in some kind of wholesale retail activity in the Chinese community about a third of the community is involved in catering or hotel areas I think that what we're seeing is a generational divide that we see particularly in Indian and Chinese communities parents are investing significantly in their children's success that they are directing their children towards professions and universities often at their own expense Now, I can't prove this but it's a common pattern of migration that you defer your own success for that of your children's We're seeing that lesser to an extent I think in other communities but again I think it's if we concentrate solely on young people we're missing a huge pool of talent people who have high qualifications but who have settled for service industry work which is obviously in the middle of a recession is very precarious to concentrate on their children's success going forward so I think we're seeing differences both between communities but also quite sharply inside communities inside communities as well Very briefly John Mason That would suggest that if we wait a generation it's going to sort itself out Unfortunately the data that I've been looking at across 91 census, 2001 census suggests that we're not and that we still have these very high concentrations particularly in Asian and Chinese communities in service industries as I say and that seems to be rolling through generations it doesn't quite make sense the way that I would agree with you it should make sense but it does suggest that people's perhaps employment aspirations are being blunted at some point and they're then going into traditional family businesses areas which they perceive as being safe self employment as we know is far higher amongst ethnic minority communities Can we move on now to John Finnie We've covered some of the background that's given rise to workplace discrimination and it's a question for Chris and Olawale Are these issues being reflected in discrimination cases that are coming to you and to what extent are we learning lessons from these cases then All right Thank you very much From our own experience because most people that have come to us are minority ethnic people and in terms of discrimination in employment places we have we can say to a largest tent that when clients complain of being discriminated against majority of them pinch it on their race that all my employer is doing this to me and I believe is because of my nationality is because of my color but there is another problem that we found out especially with the introduction of employment fee at the tribunal it has we've realized that it has significantly reduced the number of discrimination that gets to the employment tribunal because when someone alleges that he has been discriminated against by his employer and for instance maybe he has suffered unjust dismisser and is also at the same time expected to pay 1200 pounds to be able to lodge his claim at the employment tribunal this is somebody that has not worked because he doesn't have money and at the end of the day we realize that most discrimination especially based on race we go on reported we not proceed to employment tribunal stage and at the same time again apart from that because migrant minority I think people in code are vulnerable when it comes to employment some of them would rather not report discrimination they would rather prefer to keep their job they would rather prefer to be at the receiving end or I don't want to sue my employer because it took me like four years to get a job if I take them to court where am I going to get another job so we realize that it goes on and on until maybe for instance our client feel that oh there is nothing I can do at this moment I just have to sue my employer so it's going to go on report most of them go on reported most of them will not proceed to tribunal stage because of the employment fee and because majority of them want to keep their job because they knew what to go through before they got the job okay thank you John Chris sorry I have the data on employment free applications for Scotland in front of me in 2012 2013 there was 157 race cases in 1314 there were 90 this year to date and I'm lacking about a third of the data there were 65 so there's definitely a drop but if you compare it to sex discrimination and equal pay claims where they have been decimated the drop hasn't been as distinct I think the interesting thing and I very much agree here is that people do not want to go to tribunal it's the absolute last last car that you can throw down on the table there has never been a hiding number of race discrimination cases going through in Scotland clearly they've been affected but I think people find other ways to deal with the discrimination that may be by walking away it may be by just accepting that this is unfair but they can't do anything about it I think the fees have had an impact but in terms of race discrimination it's nothing like the impact that we've seen on equal pay or particularly around sex discrimination Gino Can I add that when we did this I alluded to a major study we did on low paid work a couple of years ago and what that showed interesting patterns of discrimination in the sense that certain forms of discrimination were not evident were not evident what people were talking about were more subtle forms of discrimination so for example access to training access to developmental opportunities seeing some colleagues being taken under the wing being offered opportunities given advice and others feeling excluded from that that kind of more subtle discrimination not knowing about all the opportunities that are available and part of it is really it's really quite subtle it's a kind of workplace culture who's in, who's part of the mainstream who's on the margins so I think as well as looking at formal equal opportunities policies and processes attention is needed really more on the informal aspects they're too intertwined because if you don't hear about developmental opportunities if you don't hear about access to training then you don't get to benefit from them and then you don't get the opportunities to progress within the workforce so it's quite closely related to informal and the formal and other forms of discrimination people were talking about were in terms of volume of work so for example some migrants felt that they were seen to be physically stronger for example you know we're talking about people in low paid work so they were given more responsibility because of their physical strength other forms and other more highly scale people said they were given more in terms of complexity complexity to do that they felt that people at the same level their jobs were not as complex as their own so these have to be interpreted quite carefully because there is qualitative research and it's how people perceive their treatment but there was enough evidence across different when we talked to a wide range of different people to kind of substantiate some of this that it didn't seem to be isolated examples it seemed to be a pattern in terms of the kind of more subtle forms of discrimination that takes place in our workplaces okay thank you Oda Bale and thank you very much and going forward when we realized that majority of minority ethnic people that access our service in terms of employment matter complaints of racial discrimination and I hope I'm not jumping gun at this moment we began to like going from secondary school to I mean from different secondary school to educate them on how they can report it how they can report discrimination how they can deal with it where to go and how to find soccer if it happens and I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure how it happens okay thank you, Jon I think that the proponents of fees for employment tribunals have already achieved their aim that's rewarding bad employment and racial practices in the workplace I wonder, and that's an issue that pwysidol i'w ddisgystal â'n gynnwag yma? Rhydd yn ddiwethaf rhyw fath o'r cyfle i siaradwyr i gynnwag ym immigration ac mae'n ddiwethaf mewn bwysig a'u bod yw rydw i rhaniaeth arfer y cwylwgr a'i edrych eu cyflym yn gweithio'r cyfrym yn ei ddim yn khawdd caseshodd. A oedau'r cyflym ymddai o'r cyflym a ddim yn adrwyd i'r cyflym g fisheri ar hyn oherwydd mae angen hwnnw'r cyflym yn cael ein sgwrdd insecure qualifications to people from the White Majority population, so the less likely to be called for rush interview and less likely to be selected at interview so that research has done some considerable time ago but we don't have more recent research that would tell us things are any different The promotion experience would perhaps suggest that things aren't any different because ok, John I want to raise a number of them, particularly about the opportunities. I think that we went through a lot in regard to Careers Advice, outreach workers, etc. in regard to improving employment opportunities. Would you say, perhaps, and I hear what Olawhall has said about outreach working in schools, starting in schools education is important, but perhaps we could also involve, as you say, the local communities, trade unions perhaps as well, which could give advice, particularly in apprenticeship aspects of it. Really what I'm trying to say is what measures, apart from what we've already spoken about, can we do to ensure that these opportunities are given to everyone? I talked about in my paper that I think there's something problematic about assuming that this is an issue with labour supply. Do you know what I mean? The issue about why minority ethnic people are not being selected for an interview or not being recruited or not being promoted, that this is somehow the problem of labour supply and there's an issue about the deficits of people not understanding, not having the information, all the rest of it. I think it's actually important that we say, no, this is a problem for employers. Actually, the action needs to be taken by employers. I echo the advice that SPICE has given about extending the two-take scheme that is currently in place for people with disabilities to minority ethnic candidates, because I think it's that kind of positive action, that kind of targeted action to ensure that minority ethnic people get some sort of equality in the recruitment selection process. I think it's only when we put that kind of pressure on employers to do that that we're going to see some sort of action. Of course, not to say that outreach work isn't important. Of course it is. All that is crucial, but I just have to just emphasise again that this is not a problem of labour supply, this is a problem of employers not living up to their public duties. Yes, just to portray the point that the last speaker has just said, I think if we look at the cause or is a kind of mindset, is a kind of stereotype that, okay, you look at the barriers that prevent minority ethnic people from gaining employment or moving into mainstream of their career. An example that really comes to my mind is one of my colleagues who, before she had his experience, that is from minority ethnic background, and before she was able to gain the first employment, she has to change her name to reflect, because someone told him that he wouldn't be able to get a job with this kind of long name on your CV. So, and that did magic. So it now comes to, when he changed his name, and that was what I mean, what I call he narrated. And what really comes to mind is, oh, is from ethnic minority background, it's not going to be fluent in English. I'm going to have a problem when it comes to, if it's a migrant, is on work visa, what if his visa is coming to an end? I'm going to be responsible for extending his visa or leave to remain in the UK. So in that case, I would rather go for somebody that I know that wouldn't, I wouldn't have to do anything to retain him or her in my employment. So in that case, and I think one thing that can be done is, and I will narrow it down to what we do, for instance, if a minority ethnic person that is on work, work visa loses his job today, he has within 60 days to get another job or has, whether he has 10 children or five children living in United Kingdom, he has to be out of UK within two, within two months of losing his job. So, and that means that person will do everything to keep that job once he gets a job. And I think that comes to the issue of discrimination going unreported, because if a similar person, if someone that is set to, someone who is British, who finds himself out of job, he can go on, for instance, an EAA national, can go on employment support allowance for six months at least. So maybe if there is a kind of, if there is a kind of a leeway like that, it will give, it will give a kind of, how do I, a kind of opportunity and stability for minority ethnic people, especially who are on work visa, based on our experience, they want to do everything to keep their job. And I think apart from running ESO classes for minority ethnic community in order to improve proficiency of their English language, that will encourage and will make employ, will make them to be appealing to employers, then in terms of running cultural awareness training for, for, for employer also, we go a long way, because most of this thing is like a kind of a stereotype. We, based on our work, we discover that if, if employer become aware of other people's culture, maybe there will be a kind of, there will be a kind of a soft landing and a kind of a measure to be, to be, to be employ more, more ethnic minority. Thank you. Yes, Andrew. I just, I just wanted to sort of bring that forward a bit and I was very interested in the two tech system and I know we're going to go on to that. But I wanted to ask Chris, in your line, obviously, you have the ability, the legislation, you know, about discrimination, would having the two tech system basically make it easier for you when you looked at data to be able to take, you know, action against employers who discriminate? Would that be the way forward? Or do you have enough tools in the box basically at the moment to take employers, you know, to tribunios or whatever it may be in regard to discrimination? I think it depends what we're talking about in terms of the two tech system. Equality legislation is what we describe as being asymmetric. It is always lawful, or you can always lawfully, positively discriminate in favour of disabled people and that's been a principle of equality legislation for many, many years, and that's the inception. It's only applies to disabled people. If you were to prefer ethnic minority candidates at interview, you could then be accused of positive discrimination, which would be unlawful. So I think we need to be careful about what we're doing. We also know from the Scottish Social Attitude Survey that positive discrimination, whenever it's being proposed, is deeply unpopular. So it may not actually favour people. It may favour people in the short term. We don't know. Certainly, I think there needs to be a great deal more attention in terms of— Would you get the moment—sorry for interrupting. Do you think at the moment that you do not use yourself but, you know, you're doing enough to work with employers in regards to discriminatory practices? No, I mean, if I had the control over the resources and the equality and human rights commission, I would obviously suggest we might be getting a little bit more. I think there's a particular deficit, though, and this is something that's been pointed out to me by a number of ethnic minority organisations that, say, 10, 15 years ago, there were a lot more case workers on the ground. There were a lot more advice agencies on the ground. Race equality councils took employment tribunal work themselves. Now, there is almost very—with the exception of the Ethnic minority Law Centre—there are very, very few skilled people on the ground that you could go to. And remember, in terms of employment law, you have three months to lodge a complaint. If you don't realise you've got a complaint, if you don't seek advice quickly, if you don't have somebody who is knowledgeable and experienced in that, you have no case. So given that with the disinclination of anybody—black or white—to go in front of an employment tribunal because it's a very, very stressful experience and one which could backfire on you in the future, my emphasis would be much more on what particularly public bodies are doing and, again, particularly around areas like procurement. We've seen examples with the living wage where the Scottish Government is able to lever social benefits out of public sector procurement. I would certainly see myself, like to see much more in that sense, incentivisation, but also disincentives for not doing so. I would, however, always stress that the outcome data is a combination of choice, circumstance and also discrimination. So it's hard to say that one group is—their unemployment is purely a result of discrimination. It could also be a factor about choice, it could be a factor about education, it could be a factor about location. We've run some of the census data about Edinburgh and Glasgow. There are different employment outcomes for the same communities. Can I comment on that as well? I'm just thinking that probably about 98 per cent of businesses are SMEs. We know that the public sector is very proactive in recruiting people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Employers from the SME backgrounds need more information on how to access groups of ethnic minorities to advertise their vacancies, but I'm also thinking as well—you can probably answer that. Do you think that some employers are frightened to recruit ethnic minorities in case through the sort of probationary period? Maybe that individual, for justifiable reasons, is not doing the job satisfactory and then they're frightened to take them on in case when they get to that period, then they're accused of racial discrimination? Is that a possibility? If that is the case, what can organisations like yourself do to reach out to those businesses to educate them? There is no evidence that I've come across that the fear is under performance. I've not come across that at all in terms of employers' reluctance to take people on. I think in the private sector, often there are a lot of informal networks which operate, so they don't even advertise. They know people through the networks and so you get employed through that way. Sometimes, to be fair, that actually works in favour for certain jobs, low-paid jobs, for example, like a Polish network of people who are in cleaning, for example, cleaning offices. If a vacancy arises, it can easily get a replacement through that network. They don't need to advertise. That works in the favour of private sector employers. In one short term, it might also provide employment for people within that community. It's only low-paid work, so they're trapped in that type of low-paid employment because that's what's most easily available. Thank you. Is that finished? Christian? We talked already about positive discrimination. I would like to find out why you would be your advice for a Government, for a Parliament who would like to encourage positive discrimination. In the tone of the debate that we have around ethnic minority and migrants today, do you think that there is a way to approach it to make sure that the public out there will understand the need for positive discrimination? Do you think that positive discrimination has a too-negative view around the general public out there? Chris, the engineer and I can go. I'll try and cover off the legal end of it. Positive discrimination is almost always unlawful. There are certain circumstances, for example, if it's a genuine occupational requirement. For example, Shackty Women's Aid, who deal with women who have experienced domestic abuse, could advertise for a Bangladeshi worker because of the cultural issues involved. There are very, very few other circumstances. They were set out in the paper where that can happen. It's very, very used. I don't see a particular desire to change that at the moment in Great Britain, and I would wonder what the consequences of that would be. Positive action is something entirely different, and I'd happily cover that. That's exactly what's going on. It's when you talk about positive action that the public out there automatically said positive discrimination, am I right to am I right? I think you're absolutely right. We saw it just a couple of weeks ago with a BBC weatherman applying for encouraging disabled people to come forward. They weren't holding jobs for disabled people. They were just encouraging, completely misinterpreted by the press and then the public. Should I set out just what positive action is, if that would be helpful, very briefly? Positive action, in terms of its lawful schemes, if you have an industry or a profession where you know, where you can demonstrate that there are lower numbers of applicants or successful candidates from a particular group, an ethnic minority group, a specific ethnic minority group, Chinese people, in terms of gender or disability, you can set out training courses, work experience, shadowing, all of those things that better equip people to compete. You cannot reserve posts or quotas on the basis of ethnicity, so it takes you up to the point of interview and supports you to there. Two very good examples currently happening in Scotland, positive action training and housing, have been going for many years, relatively small operation, and I think it could be very helpfully extended. That is helping ethnic minority people to get into the housing profession, where we know that there is a huge deficit. Similarly, NHS Lothian has got lottery funding to do a thing about career progression for ethnic minority medical staff, where there has always been that accusation of a glass ceiling. It gets you to the point of having greater skills, greater knowledge, greater training, it does not reserve a job for you. That is the way law is just now in Scotland. If we were to move forward from that to suggest positive discrimination, I think that we would really need to have quite a serious debate about what do we mean by this and what the potential consequences may be. I am not saying that we should not do it, I am just saying that we need to talk about it. I agree with all that Chris has said. In terms of positive discrimination, given all that we have been speaking about, in terms of people having qualifications, the issue is in labour supply, it is recognition of skills. The positive discrimination is not required. My understanding of positive discrimination is that if you have two candidates, one ethnic minority, one white, under positive discrimination, you would take the person with fewer qualifications from an ethnic minority background to increase representation within the workforce. The problem here is not that. It is not the fact that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are coming in with fewer qualifications. It is quite the reverse. It is actually making sure that they actually get recognised at the point of interview and at the point of recruitment, application and recruitment. I do not actually see a need for positive discrimination. I do see a need for a lot more positive action and a lot more onus on employers to ensure that their workforce is representative, but better awareness and embarrassment is valid. It is not embarrassment that it is not representative. In Scotland, which prides itself of being very accepting of people from other countries, there should be embarrassment in a workforce that is not representative of what is typically a very welcoming attitude towards people from other countries. As long as positive discrimination is off the table, then I feel as if policymakers are not going to be able to address deep-seated racial inequalities in the labour market. I think as long as this is outside the realm of actual policy, then we are not going to be able to deal with many of the issues we have been talking about today. I disagree with my esteemed colleagues here on that point. We should reflect on where we do see positive discrimination. We see positive discrimination in political parties. What we have seen in the Conservative Party, in the Labour Party and in the SNP is that you cannot get women to stand unless you have all female shortlist. So political parties have done that precisely. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I am sorry Ms Goldie, but as you know it is coming. It is coming. What we know is again and again women cannot get a seat, cannot get selected without some sort of quota system. Clearly the political parties have seen that unless you take some sort of positive discrimination, you are going to see a systemic reproduced sexism and racism in who gets selected, who gets to represent us. If that is the case for political parties, why are we not doing the very same things for tackling labour market discrimination? When we look at evidence in the United States with affirmative action, it has transformed the labour market particularly for white women and also for middle class African Americans and Latinos. So we can say that that is a policy success and as long as we cannot contemplate that, this is an important policy tool that is off to the side. And I guess I would just kind of urge the committee to really take a leadership role in trying to shape public debate because yes of course positive discrimination is not popular. Affirmative action in the United States is not popular, but you know oftentimes we don't do what's popular, we do what's right. So there's a nice little kind of value judgment here about saying I would love to see a debate about how do we actually tackle in some sort of systemic way this kind of deep-seated discrimination? Thank you, Christian. Yeah, so how can we tackle it? How can we get whatever is positive discrimination or positive action? How can we make the public out there and employers particularly because you talked about the employers, you talked about the parents as well. How do we get them buying it to that idea that we need to change? Do we need to have a kind of campaign? Do we need to have, for example I just participated to I'm a migrant campaign and that worked very well. I think do we need more of this type of campaign? Do we need more of this kind of recognition that we are a very diverse community? Yes, well I mean what you see at the moment the success of the 5050 campaign is fantastic and so it's one of these things where you know and the success of you know getting Jane Austen on the what is the five pound note or the 10 pound note you know until we actually talk openly about racism we can't address racism and so there's something about naming the problem and that's part of a public debate led by elected members but also by the public as well that until we can talk about and name these things and say that it's going to be uncomfortable people are going to get upset all the rest of it then we can't see this kind of change and we can't actually contemplate the ramifications the consequences of saying we want to consider an issue such as positive discrimination. Okay, thank you, Christian. Oh, anybody else? Anyone else? No. Okay, can I move on now to Annabelle? In a thank you and firstly may I apologise to you and my colleagues in the committee and to you the witnesses for my late arrival. It's a great pleasure to be here and I'm sorry I missed the introductory remarks but I've picked up a lot just listening to the responses to questions and I wasn't in any way wishing to be disrespectful at Rugo. My own party did not actually go down that route and yet I think we've a pretty impressive record of bringing forward a females and also one of my colleagues in the House of Lords is of course Baroness Nashina Mabarak who's been a tremendous star for my party so it's just to see I think there are other elements to this debate and it's important to take note of that. In relation to Christian's questions about positive action, Chris you refer to two examples, positive examples, one is positive action training and housing and one is NHS Lothian but what interested me was you said it got lottery funding to do whatever it's doing and I'm curious about two things firstly are these basically the only two examples we know about deploying positive action and secondly I mean for the public sector would we not expect that to be a core obligation within the public sector which doesn't require extraneous funding? We haven't done an audit of who are using formal positive action schemes and those were the two examples which came to mind most readily. I've seen it pop up in different areas in different professions very often associated with gender less so perhaps to do with ethnic minorities and race. I think there's there are a lot of areas where it potentially could be used I'd refer to area to Liam McArthur's research on Prince of Head teachers in schools and it is really quite astonishing I think that we have no ethnic minority head teachers in Scotland and we don't have an awful lot of principal or deputy principals either to me that would seem to be an area of which would be wide open for certainly exploration and potentially for development. The funding of it I was myself a little bit surprised about the lottery funding the NHS Lothian one myself but clearly it needs to be funded from somewhere and they sort of being socially desirable to do so it's something which we would say again it fits inside very much the public sector duty 270 public bodies are covered by that significant amount of purchasing power significant players in the employment labour market there's a lot that could be done by public bodies particularly working together not suggesting that Midlothian council just goes off and does it itself but you know Cozzler is an organisation the NHS is a block FE and HE colleges working together I think there could be significant advances that we could make of getting people to the point where they are able to compete and to overcome some of the perhaps some of the stereotypes that have been around before so it's an area which has always been significantly underused much more used in terms of gender far less so in terms of disability far less so in terms of race and I think given what we see from the labour market statistics some communities are in the position of potentially prospering other communities are not and the thing which I think always strikes me is that we concentrate a lot on youth on younger people and we concentrate to a certain degree on new arrivals into Scotland a lot of my concern is about third fourth generation people from Pakistani Indian Chinese communities who are in low paid segregated long hours low work and I think there's an awful lot that we could and should be doing in those areas to increase their opportunities to increase their participation and to reduce the poverty which we know is a significant factor to worklessness okay just just to confirm that I think with what Chris has said that there are very few models of positive action in Scotland established models and in my experience only the one that the positive action in housing is the only one that I know of I hadn't heard of NHS one but I also know that positive action in housing they had tried actually to it seems to be a model that works and they had tried actually to extend that model to social work to other areas because you know it seems obvious you know if it works in one field why can it work in another but I think there were issues around funding that work because I haven't seen it being extended into other areas and it does seem a very useful way of encouraging of enabling more workforces to be more reflective of the local population I wanted to say in relation because the issue of gender arose again and just something around positive action which is also around making sure that there's appropriate affordable childcare you know that's also appropriate for minority groups for women to ensure that you know for example we're talking about Pakistani and Bangladeshi population particularly where women are underrepresented in the labour market and I think issues around childcare could play a part in that and also need to be looked at in terms of looking at provision childcare provision that's available that's appropriate culturally appropriate and that's affordable that's very helpful because I think you've partially answered my next question which was the examples we have which seem to be good examples although there may be a small number of them presumably if we could provide greater education to other elements of the public sector or to employers in general about these good examples of practice then hopefully that might you know set the standard a bit higher and people might become more vigilant about how they approach employment policy. Gina, an increase. Well certainly I think I think I'm delighted to hear the focus on employers really the focus on educating employers and looking at that side of the equation making sure that employers actually are equipped and equipped with the tools to recruit and to look within their workforce as Chris alluded to very few top jobs being held by ethnic minorities you know and that is an area that could more work could be done certainly looking at what are the blockages where organizations where there is ethnic minority representation which levels are is it at one way that's been suggested is really looking at performance management systems of managers if managers could actually be held to account to looking at the developmental needs of their staff and to ensuring that the developmental needs of their staff are met you know in terms of performance management frameworks then managers themselves would take it a lot more seriously if they were held to account in that way that's very helpful and I think Chris wants very briefly on the issue of cost yes I mean this is very much a priming exercise that you are taking action over a relatively short period of time the onus will probably fall on the public sector to fund that but you have to balance that investment against the consequences of sustained economic inactivity low pay and that perception a very very strong perception of unfairness and the distortion in the labour market around race so there are social consequences to this as well and I think that if you know yes finally and really I think this is a question for Chris what regulatory measures are the equality and human rights commission currently taking we've heard you outline some of the opportunities and facilities available to you but is there anything else we should know about um bear with me um we have recently completed um not an investigation but a large piece of research and influencing work around the cleaning sector that is across Great Britain um we identified a number of issues particularly around migrant labour um ethnic minority labor but also women as well and that particular congruence of ethnic minority women who are concentrated in the industry we've also looked at the meat and poultry processing industry down south very similar we're starting to do a little bit of exploratory work just now in scotland around fish processing and around farming because again we just it's an area where we're not going in with any expectation we're simply going in to speak to at this point some of the people involved in the area researchers thrown up a number of problems in um in the areas um we are looking specifically at recruitment agencies and this issue of word of mouth recruitment it's particularly um about access in eastern european communities and how the very informal systems we're looking at pay gaps between ethnic minority and um white communities we are doing some research around that to try and identify well we know there is a pay gap we're trying to understand why there's a pay gap and what that might mean we've also been doing a lot of work on the very associated issues of religion and belief in employment so again particularly barriers for muslims um for some christian groups but again so a lot of what we do is we develop evidence we establish whether or not there is evidence in an area and they will tend to to move either to an inquiry mode if that's appropriate or very much more often we will do more intensive work with the industry we'll give guidance i think one of the areas we've probably been most successful is in the back of a meeting poultry work where the engagement with the supermarkets has actually been the most effective intervention that we've made is to get the supermarkets to purchase us to put pressure on the supply chain and say well actually we're not happy about the way this is working we want to see better social outcomes we pride ourselves as an industry as being socially responsible we want our suppliers to be socially responsible and to me i think that the power of influence the powers and jena described it as being embarrassment i think there's an awful lot of soft power that we could be using in these areas and harder power in terms of government and local authority procurement particularly where we can start we could really expect to see far greater outcomes for the big social and financial investment that the government and other public bodies are making okay join me some oh sorry and and i build you out it was just to say following on all of that specifically anything being done to increase awareness and understanding of positive action um we are going to publish this is a specific piece of work around the broadcasting industry um we have already we have guidance on positive action which is easily available on our website whether a small employer would go and look for it i can't say we are going to be issuing a particular piece of guidance which is tailored for the broadcasting industry be launched at the Edinburgh festival tv festival during the the Edinburgh festival in august that guidance although it's aimed at broadcasters is absolutely applicable for any other industry thank you very much indeed join me some yeah it was really to go back to dr imidula's comment about positive discrimination if i may which i found interesting i mean i do i suppose i find myself torn because we've just had words coming from mr Oswald about like soft power influence embarrassment which a number of witnesses have used and in a lot of areas i suppose in our equal opportunities that's the way we go and yet your example of the political parties is an interesting one and i mean my own political party the SNP we a few years ago made a decision not to do that and just to kind of keep encouraging women through and the majority women in our party were against that and then we've now come to the position where we're making so little progress that a decision's been made to do it and i think Labour were ahead of us on that one um and i mean i just wonder does there come a time when the softly softly gentle gentle approach we just feel we're not making progress we're going to have to do something more dramatic which at the moment is illegal but obviously the law could be changed a cubico do you want to comment well i think i know what you're going to say oh you know my my point i think that's the point for chris absolutely chris or is that a rhetorical question would you prefer not to comment chris no no we've looked at this in terms of the proposals around women on boards and public appointments in scotland our position is that currently as the law stands it would be unlawful to do this so we would need to change the law to enable that to go forward it's we're a regulator we don't make policy in that sense what i would say and what we put in our submission very strongly was that we need to have a discussion about this as a country if we're going to do this let's do this consciously let's not just talk about gender let's talk about ethnicity let's talk about disability because the evidence of disparity of outcomes is just as strong in those areas as it is around gender but we need to be conscious about what we're doing and i would strongly suggest that we don't do it in a piecemeal way it has had a significant impact a positive impact in america into creating something as i could refer to as a a black middle class which wasn't there before but if we're going to do this let's be very very conscious of what we're doing because it's a major departure from british and european practice that's been built up over 30 or 40 years i'm not saying don't don't do it i'm just saying let's be very conscious about it and we need to have a very large conversation because there are negative associations and hostility to the concept you mentioned disability and we used to have a target on my right in saying for disability was it three or four percent it was that was tied up with the the two ticks thing was three percent right did that not work or why was it dropped i can't remember i think i think a lot of disabled activists said it was patronising that they didn't want to be and also they felt that they could become a ceiling rather than a floor that it was effectively a quota that was being introduced and again simply saying we want to have x percentage of the workforce from a particular group doesn't necessarily get you around the barriers for the rest of those people who are trying to come up so we need to look much more carefully at the systems that are in place women may not be succeeding because of upfront sexism they also may not be succeeding because of a lack of affordable childcare because of the way that the workplace is organised because of subtle assumptions that are being made i think we said earlier on and i think this is an experience in the ethical law centre that sometimes it litigates us it's incredibly rare that we see upfront discrimination somebody being told you're not getting this job because of your colour it's it's very rare these days it's much more subtle and it's much more harder to find finish john i think so yes thank you can i ask chris as well you've mentioned a few times about procurement and at the start you says that colleges training providers through the procurement process and this should be looked at as and maybe a percentage of the modern apprentices should come from ethnic minority backgrounds and john mason mentioned as well in passing that its employers that recruit the individuals for the modern apprenticeship programme i don't see how maybe you can explain to us how by targeting train providers including colleges who have the contracts to deliver the modern apprenticeship programme that they can actually achieve those targets set through the procurement process if it's down to employers to actually recruit the apprentices i was under that impression myself and i'm speaking to skills development scotland they assure me that you do not have to be in employment to access among the apprenticeship so i think i've got to actually about declaring interest because i did work in that field and to be a modern apprentice you do have to be employed that was always my understanding as well but when i speak to maybe something you'd want to ask skills development scotland when they come through i would say that maybe with the employability fund which is less prescriptive in terms of him whether or not you need to have an employer the ethnic minority participation rate is 2% so it doesn't even make a huge difference i think one of the issues which comes up though with modern apprenticeships is if we know that indian people chinese people are particularly concentrated in an industry catering wholesale retail what is being done to encourage that industry to put forward candidates for modern apprenticeships and that would then come back to skills development scotland because they actually determine what occupational areas they would actually fund and things like the manufacturing processes and the care they do at i believe that is one of the occupation areas they do actually cover so that would be achievable then what but other areas of procurement you're talking about as well for the government to look at through the procurement process what can be done that way to encourage more uptake of ethnic minorities maybe do you know yes i mean a lot of a lot of low-paid work is actually outsourced you know cleaning catering all of that is outsourced it's sort of making sure that people in those in those occupations throughout public sector organisations can do a lot of contracting in of work in those sectors and it's making sure that for example that that those supplies are paying the living wage you know making sure that they are that they have equal opportunities policies and processes within their workforce so that i suppose is the carrot you know the kind of carrot approach you know saying we can't i don't think you can actually force supplies to do that but you can you can certainly encourage them to do that in awesome at contract renewal times so what have you done you know yeah thank you does any of the members have any other questions they would like to ask the witnesses no we do have a bit of time if any of the witnesses would like to give us some other information they feel that's important that actual hasn't come out during this session you've you've got time just now is anybody like to say anything no okay right if you do when you go away and you realise this points that you want to put across that actually haven't came through in the in the sort of question and answer session please write to us and give us any more information you feel would be benefit to the committee in our inquiry but i would now like to actually close the meeting and i'd like to thank you all for coming and giving us such really valuable insight and information into the situation and that concludes today's meeting our next meeting will take place on the 3rd of september and i'll now close the meeting thank you