As the Commission in Scotland publishes its latest report on public bodies' performance under the Scotland Specific Equality Duties, Scotland Commissioner Lesley Sawers said:
Over the course of the last four years the Commission has been regularly assessing public bodies’ compliance with the public sector equality duties, and aspects of their performance against its requirements. These assessments have been published as our Measuring Up? series.
April 2017 marked the end of the first four year cycle for the specific duties in Scotland. This provides a good opportunity for us to reflect on what impact the duties are having on helping public bodies in their work and whether they are delivering improvements for the people that public bodies serve.
We welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to reviewing the duties over the course of the next year and we hope that our Measuring Up? work will be helpful in contributing to this.
Our review has identified areas of weakness – most notably in regard to the setting of measurable equality outcomes, and the collection and use of employee data – which have led to direct interventions or testing new ways of approaching persistent problems.
We have also commissioned additional research to provide a deeper assessment of public body’s performance in terms of the quality of their work to date. We aim to publish this in Spring 2018.
The duties remain a vital tool in helping public bodies. We believe that in reviewing the effectiveness of Duties to date the Scottish Government will be able to build on the progress already achieved and implement improvements which will better equip the public sector to ensure that everyone in Scotland has the opportunity to flourish and to create a fairer and more inclusive society.
Read the latest Measuring Up? Report 7 or catch up on the previous Measuring Up? reports.
