Hansard

It is wonderful to be back with the committee, however briefly. I am pleased to be here today to consider the instrument. The draft regulations propose to make routine amendments to the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 in consequence of the establishment of new public bodies and office holders in Scotland. That follows the order that the committee approved on 5 February, which added to the list of bodies that are subject to the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act 2010. All those additional bodies are now listed in the schedule to our draft amendment regulations. If approved, the draft amendment regulations will ensure that recently established bodies and office holders will become subject to the 2012 regulations—our Scottish-specific equality duties. Those bodies include Historic Environment Scotland, our health and social care integration joint boards, regional boards for colleges, Children’s Hearings Scotland, Revenue Scotland and Food Standards Scotland. The committee will be familiar with the Equality Act 2010, which introduced the public sector equality duty that requires listed public authorities to have due regard, when exercising their functions, to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. The purpose of the Scottish-specific duties is to help those authorities that are listed in the 2012 regulations to improve their performance in relation to the general equality duty. The regulations came into force on 27 May 2012, so they are still relatively new. They set a robust and proportionate supporting framework for the duty in the 2010 act, based on data collection and evaluation, transparency and accountability. In that way they help public authorities to perform better with regard to their public sector equality duty. The framework requires listed public authorities to report on mainstreaming the equality duty; publish equality outcomes and report progress; undertake equality impact assessment of new policies and practices; gather and use employee information on equality and diversity; publish their gender pay gap and a statement on equal pay and occupational segregation, if they have more than 150 employees; and consider award criteria and conditions in relation to public procurement. I should add that they go quite some way beyond the comparable duties in England. Listed public authorities were first required to publish equality outcomes, mainstreaming reports and employee information by April 2013 and progress reports were due by 30 April 2015. Statements containing equal pay and occupational segregation were required at the same time, and new statements were to be published every fourth year. The draft amendment regulations propose that the new authorities are subject to the same reporting requirements and intervals as the 2012 regulations. Initial reporting deadlines of April 2016 are proposed for all the new authorities except Historic Environment Scotland, which we propose should report one year later, by April 2017, with intervals continuing as normal thereafter. Historic Environment Scotland will replace the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland—better known as RCAHMS—which was a public body established by royal warrant, and Historic Scotland, which was an executive agency within the Scottish Government. Historic Environment Scotland has the general function of investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland’s historic environment. The new organisation is already subject to the public sector equality duty and is currently operating in transitional mode with the two existing bodies prior to taking on sole responsibility from 1 October 2015. Historic Environment Scotland will be ready to report on the Scottish-specific equality duties within two years. The draft regulations will change relevant references to ensure that the 2012 regulations continue to apply to publicly funded colleges and universities. Finally, I assure the convener that we have consulted the Equality and Human Rights Commission in keeping with our statutory requirements and it is content with our proposed consequential arrangements. I hope that the committee will recommend that the draft regulations be approved.