Hansard

I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to share some of the work that we have been doing and to look at our future priorities. I am here with my colleague Lynn Welsh, who heads up all our legal and compliance work in Scotland. Between us, we lead the work of the commission in Scotland. As I am sure the committee is aware, the Equality and Human Rights Commission is Britain’s equality regulator, and we are also an A-rated national human rights institution. However, in Scotland, we share our human rights mandate with the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and we have a very good working relationship with it. Late last year, some new commissioners and a new chair were appointed to the commission. In Scotland, we also recruited some new members to the commission’s statutory Scotland committee. With the 10th anniversary of the Equality Act 2010 and the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act 1970—two landmark pieces of legislation—2020 looked set to be a significant year for the commission. Of course, other events overtook 2020 and, like everybody else, we have been overshadowed by the impact of the Covid pandemic. We think that its effects on equality will be with us for some time to come. Our work is dictated by our strategic plan priorities. Our current strategic plan covers the period 2019-22, and our core aim is to ensure that strong equality and human rights laws work to protect people. In our current plan, we have five other priority aims covering equality challenges in areas such as access and fair treatment at work, education, public transport, fair treatment in institutions, and redress in the criminal justice system. When the impacts of Covid became clear, about a year ago, we quickly reviewed our work and priorities. On the back of that, we paused or reduced some work we had been planning to do in the year just gone, particularly in education and transport. We quickly noted the impact that Covid seemed to be having on some communities, such as the black and minority ethnic communities, and on care homes and elderly and disabled people. We have developed new priorities and programmes of work to look at the equality aspects of those impacts. In June last year, we launched an inquiry into the impact of Covid on low-paid workers in health and social care organisations who are from BME communities. We also developed a programme of work to look at the impacts of Covid on the social care system through an equalities lens. We anticipate that both those programmes of work will continue into next year. Every five years, we are obliged to produce a state of the nation report on how equality is doing across Britain and in Scotland, and we were due to publish that report later this year. However, we have decided to delay publication by a year so that we can review and incorporate the evidence of the longer-term impacts of Covid on equality. We felt it was important to do that. In October, we published a shorter report that brought together evidence of the more immediate impact of the coronavirus on equality and human rights, and that report contains some recommendations for the Governments across Britain. We continue to prioritise the use of our unique legal powers and compliance tools, and we have produced a range of guidance to support employers in dealing with different aspects of the pandemic. In June, we published the findings of an inquiry that we undertook into the challenges of people with disabilities or mental health conditions in navigating their way through the barriers that they face in the criminal justice system. The strategic use of our legal powers last year included two Britain-wide investigations: one into antisemitism in the Labour Party and one into equal pay at the BBC. In Scotland, we reached a settlement with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in a significant case on ending the unlawful detention of adults with incapacity. In our policy work over the past year, we very much focused on working with policy makers and legislators to ensure that the fast-changing environment of the coronavirus and the policy regulations and legislation that were put in place to meet the challenges of it met the requirements of the equality legislation. Looking ahead to the coming year, we will continue the work that we have started on our race inquiry, and we anticipate publishing the findings of that in June. We will further develop our work on the impact of Covid on the different aspects of our social care system, and we will move to support the focus of equality in the important work of economic recovery. We will also look at the particular impact of the pandemic on women and work. We have noted the Scottish Government’s commitment to reviewing the public sector duties, and we hope to be involved in that work. In addition, we are considering other work such as a potential inquiry into how aspects of the work of the Department for Work and Pensions impact on people with disabilities. The coming year is the final year of our current strategic plan, and we will consult on the priorities for our new strategic plan, which is due to come into effect in 2022.