Hansard

That is fine; that is a private sector example. However, there are more than 100 public sector organisations in Scotland, and I would have expected the EHRC to do a gap analysis against the nine protected characteristics, because it is quite clear that many of those public bodies are not following the law.I will give you a local example that has generated much of my caseload over the last year and which concerns two swimming pools in my own area: one in Aberdeen City and one in Aberdeenshire. One of the swimming pools—Bucksburn swimming pool in Aberdeen—was the only swimming pool in Aberdeen that had single-sex changing. The issue concerns people who fall under three of the protected characteristics: women, women with disabilities and women who are elderly. When the pool was threatened with closure, the local community fought tooth and nail to keep it open, because people from all around Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire came to use the pool, because they wanted to change safely and in privacy. For some, that was important because it can take someone with Alzheimer’s or other disabilities extra time to change. The community, including mental health workers, said, basically, that the pool was a lifeline, both physically, for those with disabilities, and psychologically. The community got together and kept the swimming pool open but it had to take the council to court to do so. One of the guarantees was that it would keep the single-sex changing facility—bear in mind that it is the only pool in Aberdeen City with such a facility, and one of the few in the north-east.The other pool, in Stonehaven, got a refit that involved mixed facilities. Women complained about that, as did I—I even took it as far as the chief executive of the council, and the head of legal was here in front of our committee, giving feedback on the PSED. However, the council said that it was still going ahead with the refit. Women and women with disabilities have protested against the proposal, and even some of the men have said that they do not feel comfortable changing in front of little girls and using mixed showers. However, the complaints, including mine, were just dismissed. When I raised the issue with the director of the council, he said that the council was waiting for the outcome of the Sandie Peggie case, which has now happened.You talk about your enforcement powers, but this issue concerns something as basic as swimming. The issue has hugely negatively affected many people’s lives, yet we, including me as the MSP, are being dismissed, and the council is just saying, “We are waiting, we are waiting”. Aberdeen City Council has kept one pool and Aberdeenshire Council says that it is not breaking any laws, and it is not listening to the community or to me as the MSP. There is a separate issue in Angus Council, where teachers say that they like the mixed-sex changing facilities because they can keep an eye on all the children. However, what about the young girls?My final point concerns an inquiry that was conducted while I was on the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee—if you have not read the report, I would be happy to share it with you—that looked at why women and girls exclude themselves from sport. You can overlay the other protected characteristics, and it is not rocket science to observe that women and girls are self-excluding. However, that report has not been taken forward, and it is obvious why.I am coming to my question. I know that I have rambled a bit, but I am here speaking passionately about the women, the women with disabilities, the children, and the men who do not feel comfortable when they are in the mixed-sex facilities. A report by the Women’s Rights Network, which I am happy to share with you, said that only six of the 31 local authorities that responded to a freedom of information request said that they offer any form of women-only swimming sessions, and that, of those, only three sessions—just 10 per cent—are guaranteed to be genuinely single sex.Here is my question. Given that the public sector equality duty requires public bodies to advance equality of opportunity between women and men, what steps, if any, has the EHRC taken to understand the problem that I have outlined and give guidance, so that local authorities such as the three that I have mentioned—and leisure trusts, because councils give over a lot of their management to leisure trusts—provide lawful, clearly advertised and genuinely single-sex swimming sessions and changing facilities for women and girls and men, especially those with disabilities, particularly in the light of evidence showing widespread inconsistency in relation to what I have said about people following the old rules and misunderstandings of the 2010 act, not just in my region, but across Scotland?10:30