Meeting of the Parliament (Virtual) 14 January 2021
Presiding Officer,
“They don’t want to be known for being BAME, they want to be known for the person they are and for the skills that they bring”.
Those words, lifted directly from the young women lead report that we are discussing, highlight the importance of the issue. At the heart of what we are discussing is that we must all ensure that we recognise the talents, celebrate the diversity and utilise the unmatched skills of our young minority ethnic women, and value their contribution in the workplace. I thank young women lead Scotland, the young women’s movement, and of course, Linda Fabiani for the excellent, thorough and welcome report. I also thank Ms Fabiani for bringing the debate to the chamber.
The report highlights key challenges, as exemplified by the international engagement undertaken by Linda Fabiani and those who were involved in compiling the report. We know that those challenges are not unique to our country, but they are challenges that we must address with some urgency. Everyone should have equal opportunities to gain fulfilling work that is fair, develops their skills and talents, values them and rewards them properly.
We know that the employment rate of the minority ethnic population in Scotland is lower than that of the white population, and the latest data shows a minority ethnic employment rate gap of 13.1 percentage points. That gap is wider still between minority ethnic women and white women.
A range of factors contribute to that, and many of them have been alluded to today, but we know that minority ethnic women often face barriers that can hinder their career prospects because of the intersection of their ethnicity and their gender, a point that Close the Gap has made to me many times.
The report makes a number of important recommendations in the areas of education and employment. It rightly calls for more to be done in schools to increase awareness and uptake of science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects. That is why, through our STEM strategy, we are changing perceptions about STEM and challenging assumptions about who does what job. Education Scotland’s dedicated gender balance and equality officers work with schools to tackle gender bias, and to improve gendered participation and subject choice. Up to December 2020, they have engaged with 512 schools and held more than 4,900 engagements with practitioners.
More widely, we are refreshing our youth employment strategy, developing the young workforce, to reflect the adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Scotland’s young people, and aim to ensure that all young people have equal access to all opportunities on offer. As part of that, we are rolling out DYW school co-ordinators, who will provide support for young people from minority ethnic communities. We will work closely with Intercultural Youth Scotland so that their ambassadors can work with school co-ordinators in order to ensure that minority ethnic young people are supported in the choices that they make.
Representation in our schools is of course also extremely important. We are committed to doubling existing teacher numbers by 2030. We have pledged to champion diversity in Scotland’s education system, by developing bespoke mentoring and pathways for educators from minority ethnic backgrounds.
On careers advice, we understand the importance of good-quality and consistent advice to the development of young people’s aspirations. As we make our way out of the pandemic, the importance of that advice will be crucial in giving young people opportunities to develop their future careers.
Ruth Maguire highlighted that the report brings out negative experiences that some young people have faced in accessing careers advice. Although the report acknowledges some of the measures that are in place, and the progress that has been made, one negative experience is one too many. I am committed to working with our partners, in particular with Skills Development Scotland, to understand what further measures we can put in place to deliver our vision that everyone should have access to a world-class, professionally led, aligned and flexible system of careers support services that deliver for every citizen regardless of where they live in Scotland, their age or circumstance.
On employment, we have announced a range of measures to support those who are most disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Our £60 million young persons guarantee will benefit minority ethnic young people. They will be central to the design and implementation of the guarantee, to ensure that the issues that matter to them are properly reflected in the work that we take forward. We are working with organisations such as Intercultural Youth Scotland to ensure that young people are meaningfully engaged as we implement the guarantee.
I am determined that we do more to understand and address the multiple barriers that young minority ethnic women face, which are at times coupled with discrimination, whether that be unconscious or overt. That is why, as we review our developing the young workforce programme and implement our young persons guarantee and various other priorities across Government, we will reflect the voice of those whom we want to benefit from the work that we are undertaking. On that, I say to Linda Fabiani and others that my officials from the young persons guarantee division in the Scottish Government have contacted the young women’s movement to set up a meeting to discuss the report and how it might affect and inform the young persons guarantee.
More widely, our workplace equality fund continues to support a range of organisations to become more diverse. In 2019-20, and to the tune of £800,000, we funded 25 projects, of which 13 provided targeted support to minority ethnic people. One project, led by Adopt an Intern, involved job-seeking black and minority ethnic women in speaking to companies, so that employers could hear at first hand about the barriers to work that are faced by that group.
More recently, our minority ethnic recruitment toolkit, which was published in September, will give advice on the importance and use of workforce data to help determine approaches for recruitment campaigns. That will help employers to create more diverse workplaces that are properly reflective of the communities that they serve.
Those actions are designed to make a difference, but I am clear that we must go further still. That is why we have outlined a range of commitments that we will be taking forward in response to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee’s inquiry and findings on race equality, employment and skills. I thank Ruth Maguire and her colleagues on the committee for the work that they undertook on that.
If we truly want a diverse Scotland that realises all the talents of all our people, it falls not just on the Government. There must be a cross-societal effort to make the difference that we so desperately need to see. To return to Linda Fabiani’s point, I intend not that we should simply tick boxes, but that we should open doors and effect real change. I will continue to listen to and work with partners and, collectively, we can—and we will—ensure that Scotland is a fair work nation for each and every one of our citizens.