���˿���

I want to tease that out a little bit more. I am familiar with the turnaround from using the term “hard to reach” to using the term “seldom heard”. The framing that I like is “easy to ignore”, because that makes it very clear whose responsibility it is to engage. However, even those terms can fail—that might be because of one incident or maybe decades of incidents of discrimination and prejudice by the police—because communities or individuals in communities do not want to engage with the police and might even feel threatened and intimidated by them. How do you foster good relations in those situations?

We could probably go on with this conversation—

Thank you, convener, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your comments so far.

You have all said in different ways that you think that you and your colleagues have a good understanding of what is required of you under the public sector equality duty. One of the reasons why we are undertaking this piece of work is that, in the absence of the Scottish Government’s human rights bill and the opportunity to talk about rights realisation through that, it has become very clear that there is a need to ensure that local authorities and public bodies are attuned to their duties under the Equality Act 2010 and, in particular, to the PSED, especially given that inequalities are rising in certain sectors between certain groups and also within certain protected characteristics.

To what extent do you think that the PSED, as it stands, is delivering for the people of Scotland, bearing in mind that there are still many significant inequalities issues across the different protected characteristic groups, between them and in communities as a whole?

Thank you—that is useful. It is great that we have this range of witnesses today, because that is exactly the kind of variation that we must understand. One size will not fit all across Scotland, and we must ensure that we understand what will and will not work in different places.

Three ���˿��� on the committee cover Aberdeenshire, so we will try to not pick on you, Martin.

We know that the Scottish Government is in the process of reforming the equality duty, and you have all mentioned, in slightly different ways, crossovers, the regulatory landscape and the need to reconnect some of the pieces—I think that Nareen used the word “harmonising” when talking about the regulatory landscape earlier. Do you think that some of that work is under way as part of the Scottish Government’s proposed reforms of the PSED, or do you think that those reforms do not go far enough? Do you see that harmonising in those reforms, or is there still work to do? I will come to you, Nareen, and then go around the table.

Thanks—that is helpful. Alyia, do you want to come in on that?

Can you give specific examples? You say that you bring communities together. How? What do you mean by that? What does that look like for East Ayrshire?

Good morning, and thank you for joining us.

I think that you were all present during the previous panel, when I suggested that one of the drivers for the work on the public sector equality duty is that it is a tool that is available to us in the absence of additional human rights legislation and in the absence of all the discussions that would happen around that, including conversations on duties and responsibilities. I am very pleased that the committee is doing this work, because I think that the duty has some key drivers that we can use to make things better for people. Indeed, you have all spoken about outcomes in different ways.

Perhaps I can start with Jillian Matthew. We have had the PSED for a long time now, but what, in your view, is the barrier to ensuring that we deliver on the outcomes that we all want? Why is it taking us so long to understand what needs to change and to deliver that change?

Your comment about who owns the relationships is interesting, because the question is: how do we foster good relationships? How do we act and treat each other with compassion, if we are not controlling the spaces? If there is more that you can provide on that after today, I will be interested to read it. Thank you for the offer.

Nicky, you talked earlier about the challenges that Police Scotland has faced and the recognition of institutional racism by two chief constables. How does Police Scotland foster good relations, given that charge, which has been accepted by the institution that is Police Scotland?

Creating the spaces for those conversations to happen is important, but it can be challenging to do that when you are dealing with two opposing groups who are potentially in conflict. Do you see public bodies as having an awareness of their duty to consider fostering good relations, or do you think that that is actually a kind of a sideline that is forgotten about and not really spoken about because there are no clear metrics and data around it? Should this committee or the Scottish Government work on that a bit more?