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Please do. I would be happy to receive that correspondence.

There is no simple answer—if there was one, we would have solved the issue—so I am in the position of extracting the different threads, some of which concern competency, some of which concern capability and some of which concern cultural change. I heard from some of the contributors to your committee last week that they felt that there was often resistance, too. The other side of that, which I referred to in response to the first question, is that there are often different ways of seeing things and different perspectives.

My focus, which I think I share with you, is on the actual impact at the end of the day. We need to ensure that, although we have bureaucracy, duties and expectations, the processes are outcomes driven and impact driven, as opposed to being mechanistic and bureaucratic. I am trying to avoid using the term “tick box”, but I want to get away from that tick-box approach, and we recognise that, traditionally, there has been a danger of that.

If we are trying to embed a human rights approach in the delivery of all our public services, it is incumbent on us to make that our starting point as opposed to that consideration coming in later, when it is almost too late and we are then looking at mitigation. We want to be strategic, which is why we are taking a phased approach to reform. In that way, we can learn from each phase what is working and what is not working and then ensure that we distil that down into concentrating on the specific actions that will lead to change. I referred to that as scaffolding, but I can go a bit further into what that looks like, namely providing the training and the toolkits and ensuring consistency of delivery.

That is where the visible leadership bit comes in: people see that I am on this, that I am rolling my sleeves up and that I am engaging extensively with more than 100 different duty bearers. I am going to continue with that work. There is a relentless drive to improve consistency.

It is a complex trajectory and the value that I can add is to make it clear that I expect this way of working to be embedded and not seen as additionality. I understand what people are saying; I worked in the public sector for decades, and I know that there can be a fear of additional expectations being put on already hard-working people who are trying incredibly hard to work on equalities. Often, the reaction to this sort of thing is, “Oh, here is another thing we have to do,” but I want to shift the narrative to, “This is about how we as public authorities approach and do our work.” It is not about the amount of work to be done; it is about improving how we do the work. That is not additional work.

That is where the committee can add value, if that is one of its recommendations. A lot of public authorities already have anti-racism action plans. For instance, in the teaching sector, a lot of excellent work has been done over a number of years. I have seen the trend of moving from multiculturalism to being positively anti-racist in order to prevent those harms, as opposed to just having policies to deal with matters once the harms have come about.

It is only right that there is a phased approach. Every local authority or public body will be at a different stage of developing a plan, but my expectation is very clear that it is good practice to have that plan as part of the body’s supportive policies.

Absolutely. I hope that the toolkit and the guidance that goes with it will provide direct and practical support.

I have sympathy with the EHRC’s position. Every organisation wants to be as effective as possible. I would be very supportive if the UK Government increased the EHRC’s resources. I know that its budget has been cut substantially over the years, which is unfortunate in these challenging times, when, more than ever, we need to be leading on equality across the four nations in the UK. I would support any moves for the EHRC to have additional resources.

I gave the bit about fostering good relations some thought and I listened to the views that were presented to the committee by other witnesses. I have a two-fold approach to fostering good relations. We want to make sure that we maintain and advance cohesive communities. That is essential. We also have to make sure that we always deal with conversations with communities in a compassionate way. The two-fold bit is that communities can come together and public organisations and bodies have a role to play there. Moving on from that, it is also about increasing understanding between different communities, and education is needed to make sure that we do that in a compassionate way that shows that building strong, cohesive communities is important.

There was an example of that during the summer when there were the unfortunate situations in Southport. As a minister, my approach when tensions were heightened—it was led by the First Minister; there was leadership right from the top—was to bring together people with different views and experiences in order to communicate, to aid understanding and to provide clear expectations and leadership. You are right, in as much as the fostering of good relations does not get the profile that it deserves. It is quite hard to do that bit. Nick Bland may have more to say.

I totally understand the issue. The statistics are stark, which is why we are taking a lead on the matter and, as I said, my focus on those issues is relentless. As a minister, I am mindful that my duty is to serve all the protected characteristics. As a black and minority ethnic woman, I have extra knowledge of the matter, so I assure Pam Gosal that it is definitely in my mind to be aware of the intersectionalities.

However, the same principle—that we are not one thing—applies to all protected characteristics. One day, your colour might be the most important thing; on another day, your gender might be causing the barrier; on another day, it might be your socioeconomic background or communication skills. That is where mainstreaming comes in, to ensure that we are in fact cognisant of all those different strands.

I will bring in Nick Bland to speak about the regulation on pay gap reporting. Pay gap reform is quite complicated and it might be beneficial to hear a bit more about it.

I agree that there is a need to be clearer and to have a more integrated approach to embedding equality into the work of all public bodies. I am not going to sit here and say that everything is hunky-dory. There are people in our communities who still face inequalities, and it is incumbent on us all to recognise that.

I stress that we are aware of the issue and that we are working on it very actively. I assure the committee, and I hope that I can demonstrate to it, that we are using all the levers that we can, which are probably more limited than we would like them to be; however, that is the nature of what we are working within.

Taking that integrated approach to embedding equality is important, and it applies to the PSED more broadly as well. That is why we will publish our equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy later this year.

On the issue of pay gap reporting in particular, in our consultation, most respondents were supportive about expanding reporting, but we need to do that in a way that makes a real difference. As I said, I accept that there is a disparity in perception around this. I am not minded to get public authorities and public bodies to gather data just for the sake of it. Data is very important, but we must triangulate the qualitative and the quantitative as well as lived experience and direct stakeholder engagement. That is the best way to make it robust.

Part of that is about recognising that you must take people with you. I understand and accept that some people will say that they have been doing such work for a while and that it is not going fast enough. However, we all recognise that it is a complex area. There are examples of public organisations that are already extending their reporting, voluntarily, to include disability and ethnicity data—the Scottish Government, for instance, does that voluntarily. We can learn from existing practice.

You are right that there are multiple questions in there. I will do my best to address them; if I do not, I am quite happy for you to write to me and I can give you further information.

My role as an equalities minister is to balance the rights of various people. As you quite rightly said, there are nine protected characteristics, which were protected over time because it was recognised that people with those characteristics face additional barriers, systemic discrimination and harms. We want to ensure that people in each of those categories have a better life and have access to what everybody else has access to.

My job is to balance those rights in a compassionate and kind way that is within the law. It is not a competition, nor is it a hierarchy. If we strip back the approach and look at what underpins it, it is a human rights approach. If we accept that human rights must be at the heart of everything that we do to advance equality, we see the human who is in front of us and make sure that they have dignity and respect and are not in difficult positions.

I understand that there is a bigger debate around the issue, which has become very polarised, and that there are very strong feelings—it is difficult—but my position is that rights are not a competition or hierarchy. If we start from a point of dignity and fairness then, of course, nobody should be getting undressed in a situation that they feel uncomfortable in.