Race Equality Action Plan programme board minutes: September 2019

Attendees and apologies

In attendance:

• Paul Johnston, Director-General, Education, Communities and Justice (Chair)
• Dominic Munro, Director for Fair Work, Employability and Skills
• Kaliani Lyle, independent member
• Joe Griffin, Director for Early Learning and Childcare
• Sean Neill, Deputy Director Health Workforce
• Lisa Bird, Deputy Director Equalities, Human Rights and Third Sector
• Bryan Goodfellow, Head of People Services, Social Security
• Gavin Henderson, Deputy Director Civil Law and Legal System
• Joanne Streeter, Head of Diversity and Inclusion
• Nicky Richards, Director, People Directorate
• Laic Khalique, Deputy Non-Executive Director

Apologies:

• Adam Reid, DD Fair Work and Labour Market Strategy
• Dave Wallace, Chief Executive, Social Security Agency
• Shirley Laing, Interim Director for Housing and Social Justice
• Graeme Logan, Director of Learning

Secretariat:

• Hilary Third, Equality Unit
• Harry Dozier, Equality Unit

Items and actions

Welcome

Paul Johnston welcomed Laic Khalique who is joining the Board in his role as SG Deputy Non-Executive Director. Laic is a senior strategic and operational delivery leader with extensive experience within health and social care.

Though she has stepped down from her formal role as Independent Race Equality Advisor, Kaliani Lyle agreed to continue as a member of the Board as an independent member. This will help provide continuity as the current action plan is largely based on her recommendations.  

Minutes

It was noted that in future, minutes will be cleared prior to meetings to allow for more time for discussion. 

Some corrections were noted in the previous minutes. Updated minutes from the previous meeting would be circulated with the latest minutes.  

Update from Delivery Group and strengthening internal delivery 

Lisa Bird presented a paper on the work of the Delivery Group who are responsible for driving actions in the plan. 

As we are halfway through the life of the Race Equality Action Plan it was timely to do work around prioritisation of actions to ensure that the work we do is delivering the best impact. The Delivery Group would do an assessment of actions, provisionally agree which should be prioritised and work with Directors to validate. The Race Equality team would work with strategic partners as ‘critical friends’ in this process. 

The Programme Board agreed this was a reasonable approach to provide overall assurance of delivery of actions, while the Board continues to focus on employment through to the end of the year.  

The Board agreed the importance of engaging regularly with stakeholders, with clarity around purpose, roles and responsibilities.

Employment

A paper was tabled from the Employability, Skills and Labour Market Analysis Unit. Verbal updates on employment were also shared by Fair Work, Health and Social Security.

The role of the Board in monitoring, guiding and demonstrating leadership to address the minority ethnic employment gap was discussed. 

It was noted that the prioritisation work that is being done on current REAP actions would provide a helpful focus around driving and measuring progress. 

It was agreed that further work highlighting where data demonstrates clear inequalities would be helpful and that stakeholders should be invited to contribute to this. 

Paul confirmed that Joe Griffin had agreed to lead the Board’s work around minority ethnic employment coordinating with the Scottish Leaders Forum, Fair Work, Race Equality and various policy teams in Scottish Government. The majority of the following meeting would also be devoted to employment as the key focus of the Board’s work. 

Next meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 20 November, 13.00-14.30 4E01 SAH.