Making Scotland's future - a recovery plan for manufacturing: equality impact assessment

Recommendations and Conclusion

To address the opportunities set out above the following actions should be considered/implemented:

Age

Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing includes a commitment to Fair Work principles, reflects equality issues and statutory requirements under equality law and includes proposed actions aimed at encouraging employers to upskill the existing workforce, retain, adopt and retrain apprentices and to promote progressive Fair Work practices. The plan also proposes actions to mitigate the impact of graduate unemployment, mainly affecting young people, creating meaningful work experience, training and employment across the manufacturing sector.

The plan is designed to secure a strong, sustainable future for manufacturing in Scotland and will benefit people of all ages across Scotland both directly and indirectly through safeguarding jobs and creating opportunities for growth.

Implementation of this plan will promote people of different age groups sharing and developing skills.

Disability

Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing includes a commitment to Fair Work principles and reflects equality issues and statutory requirements under equality law. The plan is designed to secure a strong, sustainable future for manufacturing in Scotland and will benefit people across Scotland both directly and indirectly through safeguarding jobs and creating opportunities for growth.

The opportunities provided by the recovery plan to design and introduce new technologies and working practices through supporting the transition to a low carbon manufacturing sector, provides the opportunity to develop universally accessible tools, equipment, machinery and work processes, and make the manufacturing sector a more inclusive employer for disabled people.

We recognise there may currently be a barrier for people who may have impaired sight or blindness due to Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing only being available online and in written English. Accessible versions such as braille or large print can be supplied on request.

Sex

Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing includes a commitment to Fair Work principles and reflects equality issues and statutory requirements under equality law. The plan is designed to secure a strong, sustainable future for manufacturing in Scotland and will benefit people across Scotland both directly and indirectly through safeguarding jobs and creating opportunities for all sexes.

The plan identifies Skills and Workforce as a priority area to be focused on as the sector recovers. It includes a series of actions aimed at improving recruitment and workforce development in the manufacturing sector. This provides an opportunity to address longstanding issues in the gender balance of employment in the sector. The proposed actions comply with Fair Work practices and seek to embed these practices throughout the sector.

The opportunities provided by the recovery plan to design and introduce new technologies and working practices through supporting the transition to a low carbon manufacturing sector, provides the opportunity to develop universally accessible tools, equipment, machinery and work processes, and make the manufacturing sector a more inclusive employer for women.

Pregnancy and Maternity

Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing includes a commitment to Fair Work principles and reflects equality issues and statutory requirements under equality law. The plan is designed to secure a strong, sustainable future for manufacturing in Scotland and will benefit people across Scotland both directly and indirectly through safeguarding jobs and creating opportunities for all people.

The plan identifies Skills and Workforce as a priority area to be focused on as the sector recovers. It includes a series of actions aimed at improving recruitment and workforce development in the manufacturing sector. This provides an opportunity to address any issues which may be creating barriers to employment during pregnancy or for those on maternity leave. The proposed actions comply with Fair Work practices and seek to embed these practices throughout the sector.

Gender Reassignment

Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing includes a commitment to Fair Work principles and reflects equality issues and statutory requirements under equality law. The plan is designed to secure a strong, sustainable future for manufacturing in Scotland and will benefit people across Scotland both directly and indirectly through safeguarding jobs and creating opportunities for everyone.

The plan identifies Skills and Workforce as a priority area to be focused on as the sector recovers. It includes a series of actions aimed at improving recruitment and workforce development in the manufacturing sector. This provides an opportunity to address any issues which may be creating barriers to employment for this group of people. The proposed actions comply with Fair Work practices and seek to embed these practices throughout the sector.

There is little evidence to suggest how the plan may directly affect people in this group but the strong commitment to Fair Work principles throughout the plan will ensure that they are considered when actions are implemented.

Sexual orientation

Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing includes a commitment to Fair Work principles and reflects equality issues and statutory requirements under equality law. The plan is designed to secure a strong, sustainable future for manufacturing in Scotland and will benefit people across Scotland both directly and indirectly through safeguarding jobs and creating opportunities for everyone.

The plan identifies Skills and Workforce as a priority area to be focused on as the sector recovers. It includes a series of actions aimed at improving recruitment and workforce development in the manufacturing sector. This provides an opportunity to address any issues which may be creating barriers to employment for this group of people. The proposed actions comply with Fair Work practices and seek to embed these practices throughout the sector.

There is little evidence to suggest how the plan may directly affect people in this group but the strong commitment to Fair Work principles throughout the plan will ensure that they are considered when actions are implemented.

Race

Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing includes a commitment to Fair Work principles and reflects equality issues and statutory requirements under equality law. The plan is designed to secure a strong, sustainable future for manufacturing in Scotland and will benefit people across Scotland both directly and indirectly through safeguarding jobs and creating opportunities for growth.

The plan identifies Skills and Workforce as a priority area to be focused on as the sector recovers. It includes a series of actions aimed at improving recruitment and workforce development in the manufacturing sector. These actions are informed by Fair Work practices and seek to embed these practices throughout the sector.

The recovery plan is an opportunity to address and overcome barriers faced by, and attract, talented ethnic minority people to a career in manufacturing.

We recognise there may currently be a barrier for people who do not have English as a 1^st language due to Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing only being available online and in written English. Community language versions can be supplied on request.

Religion or belief

Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing includes a commitment to Fair Work principles and reflects equality issues and statutory requirements under equality law. The plan is designed to secure a strong, sustainable future for manufacturing in Scotland and will benefit people across Scotland both directly and indirectly through safeguarding jobs and creating opportunities for growth.

The plan identifies Skills and Workforce as a priority area to be focused on as the sector recovers. It includes a series of actions aimed at improving recruitment and workforce development in the manufacturing sector. These actions are informed by Fair Work practices and seek to embed these practices throughout the sector.

This provides an opportunity to address any apparent barriers which may be preventing people from certain faith backgrounds from seeking employment in the manufacturing sector.

Marriage and Civil Partnership^[26]

Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan For Manufacturing has been developed in collaboration with public and private sector partners including industry, trade union and academia. There is no evidence that this plan will affect people who are married or in a Civil Partnership.

In summary, the Scottish Government has found that there is no evidence to suggest that the actions set out in Making Scotland's Future: A Recovery Plan for Manufacturing are discriminatory towards people who share any of the protected characteristics. The implementation of the plan provides several opportunities to mitigate existing inequalities in the manufacturing sector and to advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. The strong commitment to Fair Work principles throughout the plan will ensure that the actions are taken forward in a way to maximise on these opportunities.

The one area where potential discrimination was identified was that the plan is currently published only in written English. This could be discriminatory towards people who do not have English as a first language or who have a visual impairment. As set out in the EQIA results, we have mitigated this by committing to provide a copy of the plan in an alternative format, such as braille or a different language, on request.

Intersecting Protected Characteristics

Everyone has different layers of protected characteristics and is unique, i.e. ethnic minority woman with children from middle class background, older white disabled LGBT man from lower end of socio economic scale, young ethnic minority Muslim man with degree, white woman who works part time and cares for elderly relative. These unique and intersecting characteristics can exacerbate the barriers to work.

It is important that we understand how intersecting characteristics exacerbate the different barriers to employment in the manufacturing sector for each of the individual protected characteristics groups.

Flexible working opportunities in the manufacturing sector will benefit people in every protected characteristic group. Where there are intersecting characteristics, flexible working has the potential to alleviate multiple barriers to employment in the manufacturing sector, and reduce inequality.

The opportunities provided by the recovery plan to design and introduce new technologies and working practices through supporting the transition to a low carbon manufacturing sector, provides the opportunity to develop universally accessible tools, equipment, machinery and work processes, and make the manufacturing sector a more inclusive employer for women, disabled people, older people and men who are not the average size or shape.