Speech by Scotland Commissioner Morag Alexander at The Gathering, SECC, 25 May 2007 

 

I would like to thank SCVO and GCVS for hosting this event, and the Scottish Voluntary Sector equality and Human Rights Coalition for supporting it today and for inviting me to take part. You should know that this is my first speech at Scotland Commissioner for the CEHR and I’m very pleased that I’m speaking to friends who share the CEHR passion for equality and human rights.

I would like to congratulate SCVO and GCVS on the Building Bridges programme – it is important that we build capacity in the voluntary and community sector and that we enable more people to understand equality, diversity and human rights. Embedding equality and human rights in all areas of policy and practice is a good start to winning the hearts and minds of everyone to create a fairer, more equal society for all.

My colleagues and I at the CEHR have a vision for our society – which is a Nation at ease with its diversity, based on fairness, respect and dignity for everyone. We hope that the CEHR will be an advocate for, and defender of disadvantaged people, but it will also be more than this. It will have a leadership role, and will be able to use its legal powers to build a society that recognises the worth of all people, and ensures that no-one is excluded. We need to recognise that people’s identities are multi-dimensional, and so, often, is the exclusion they face. The CEHR has to be able to respond to this. We will be taking on the role and functions of the existing equality commissions and adding in new responsibilities for sexual orientation, age, religion and belief, and human rights, as well as new powers and duties. However the CEHR will be more than just the sum of these parts, it will champion equality in the round, using the human rights framework to ensure that everyone has equal chances to participate in society and to exercise their rights.

A lot has been done to raise awareness of equality and human rights in Scotland, the excellent work of the EOC, CRE and DRC, of the Equality Co-ordinating Group, the Scottish Parliament, particularly the Equal Opportunities Committee, the Scottish Executive and the many other organisations who have worked to promote equality and human rights. But much more remains to be done. Achieving equality in Scotland and across GB is not just about getting people to say or do the right thing, it is about winning hearts and minds. This is not the work of one Commission, it is the work of all of us, for every generation, until equality and human rights become second nature.

In Britain as a whole, equality and human rights are at a crossroads. Not only will there be the CEHR, but in Scotland also the Scottish Commission for Human Rights. In addition there is the forthcoming Single Equality Act. A lot is changing in the field of equality and human rights and it is a fascinating process and an historic time to be involved.

We have taken to saying that there are two big challenges facing the world today. The first is the toxic bundle of issues exemplified by climate change. The second is the recognition of human diversity and the need to guarantee equality across all identities and communities. The second challenge is the major one for the CEHR.

These are going to be the huge issues that will define the shape of our societies for generations to come. We’ve come a long way since the first pieces of equality law and practice and we owe this progress to the efforts of activists and communities like you, but there is still a long way to go. Demographic and political change and labour market transformation all pose challenges to this agenda but also present opportunities for us.

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Equality is no longer a matter of concessions to individual groups or strands; it is a central question about our whole society. What its aims are; how it’s organised. Equality can no longer be a minority business. We can act positively, do the right thing, and reap the benefits of a fairer, more equal and more prosperous society, or we can become complacent or neglectful and face a future of economic underperformance and social division.

To be able to face these challenges the CEHR must be more than the sum of its parts, not only in relation to identity but in relation to geography. Devolution, as CEO, Nicola Brewer says must be at the heart of the CEHR. There is much that can be learned from Scotland and much that we can learn from colleagues elsewhere in GB. By working across GB the CEHR will be able to highlight the best in equality and human rights and use this as a lever to level up practice across GB. Given the recent changes in Government in Scotland and potentially in Wales, and the distinctive challenges and opportunities this will bring it is vital that the CEHR is well placed to respond to this.

In Scotland one way this will happen is via the Scotland Director and the professional staff based in the main office in Glasgow, or via the presence in Edinburgh. There will also be the statutory Scotland Committee. We are in process of recruiting for this committee just now, looking for the unusual suspects, people who are as passionate about equality, diversity and human rights as the CEHR is. The Scotland Committee will provide informed, impartial and balanced perspectives on a range of sensitive and complex issues in relation to Scotland. Committee members will ensure that the CEHR delivers its functions in a manner appropriate to Scotland and that it can learn from the Scottish experience of equality, social policy and human rights. If you think this might be you then please think about applying.

As Scotland Commissioner, I also have a key role to play in this, not only as one of the public faces of the CEHR in Scotland and as chair of the Scotland Committee, but also I  will be the main champion for Scotland within the CEHR board ensuring that they take cognisance of devolution and the broader Scottish context and experience and assisting them to deliver the CEHR vision and mission across GB. However I hope that this role will not just fall to myself but that all Commissioners will be advocates for Scotland, England and Wales. I truly believe that this is our opportunity to do something different in GB taking full account of devolution. We may not get it right at first but we hope that you’ll find we’re listening and that you’ll keep us right if we stray to far off track – and that is where you all come in to – the direction of the CEHR will be as much the responsibility of everyone here as well as the Commissioners.

I, and my fellow commissioners, will be guided by your input as stakeholders and by the Scotland Committee to ensure that the CEHR we develop is one which is fit for purpose in Scotland and across GB in the 21st century. It is more than just a merger of the existing equality commissions and a tagging on of new strands. This is an exciting new opportunity to find new and better ways to challenge discrimination and to promote equality and human rights, however we will also need to consider the legacies and lessons from others.

The CEHR will not work in isolation in any form, however particularly pertinent in Scotland will be its relationship with Parliament, Government and local authorities, and also with the Scic Scotland and the voluntary and cector. We have been working closely with our colleagues in the Scottish Parliament and Executive, in particular on the relationship between the SCHR and CEHR, and we look forward to the appointment of the Commissioners for the SCHR in due course. We have also already had fruitful discussions with a number of other NDPB’s and Commissioners in Scotland, such as the Scottish Commissioner for Children and Young People, the Information Commissioner and the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. I intend to build upon these relationships.

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As I have already said there is much that we can learn from the voluntary and community sector. The mapping work which we undertook last year highlighted the amount of good practice that exists – good examples of partnership workings and ideas that could be developed further.

It is that partnership working that the CEHR particularly wants to emulate. We want to build relationships with people and organisations who share our vision and mission, we hope that you will want to work with us too.

So what of good relations? I’ll be listening carefully to what Evelyn Collins has to say about this. I don’t have a definitive answer to that yet, and I suspect we may not ever get one definitive answer to the question of “What are good relations?” I suspect that this will be a fluid, organic  concept which reflects the changing nature of society. That said I welcome the discussions here today and look forward to hearing what good relations meant to all of you. Nearly a year ago now we asked the same questions to a large conference of people like you involved in equality and human rights – here are some of the things they came up with:

“good relations is ‘more than an absence of war’ but about something more positive which brings communities together.”

“good relations is about dealing with stereotypes, resolving tensions between communities and changing attitudes.”

“Good relations is about promoting dignity and respect for everyone in every community and between those communities, so that even where the views of the individuals or communities do no agree they will still be able to act towards each other in a dignified and respectful manner.”

“good relations is not just about minority communities but it’s about everyone – its how different communities get on with each other.”

Good relations is a new duty for the CEHR, though not to society. We’ve conducted some mapping work on good relations in Scotland – this has highlighted a whole range of work and good practice across Scotland.

Good relations goes beyond what we’re used to from the existing equality commissions i.e. the CRE and race relations, or even the experience of Northern Ireland in community relations. Good relations can include sectarianism, domestic violence, and intergenerational practice to name but a few examples.

We talk a lot about community cohesion and about integration but sometimes we forget that the first and unarguable condition for greater community cohesion is equality. Nobody wants to cohere with anyone else or be part of society if they feel they are going to be a second class citizen. Equality is an essential characteristic of a socially cohesive society.

We need to take a grassroots approach to good relations rather than a top-down instruction, and it is important that we remember that the demographics are different across GB, Scotland is the only part of GB which has an ageing and declining population, this has an particular impact on good relations for example with major implications across trhe board on issues such as housing, workforce planning, health and active participation in society.  We also need to recognise that communities are not homogenous, everyone has multiple identities which overlap and it is their choice how they identify. We must be careful not to pigeon hole – whether you see my gender, my ethnicity or my abilities first these may not be how I identify myself. We need to be alive to this and also to the tensions which can exist within and between identities, whether that’s sectarianism within a religion or between religions, tensions between religious beliefs and sexual orientation, or tensions between Gypsy Travellers and settled communities, so much of these are caused by ignorance which the CEHR hopes to challenge.

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We also need to recognise there can be crisis points for good relations, these can be triggered by dates, people, places, attitudes or events. The CEHR will need to be able to respond to these appropriately, and be able to measure ongoing relations to be able to judge whether things are good, bad or requiring improvement.

The public sector duties on race, disability and gender are good tools for promoting good relations, as are the CEHR’s duties and powers on human rights.

An active human rights culture could provide us with a means of framing the discussions that are needed to promote integration or tackle difficult issues between communities. Human rights do not require any substantive agreement between groups but they can set the conditions under which a discussion can take place. This could be one tool that helps bridge the gap between groups and change the way we treat each other.

The human rights framework won’t dictate how people should behave but it does provide us with underlying values to help establish how we can learn to live with each other. In a diverse society the shared values are the fundamental glue that holds us together and the way we behave towards each other is the outward manifestation of our values.

The media has a key role in influencing community relations and how it communicates the human rights agenda.  It is essential that the media take responsibility for their actions and do not act in a way which either prejudices good relations or misinterprets the meaning of human rights.

These will be the types of challenges the new Commission will face.  I’m sure, though, with those challenges will come huge opportunities.  The new Commission while ensuring that the good work of existing policies and initiatives is carried through, will need to show that it is able to provide a blueprint for new thinking and action in our public policy and services – from support for families, tackling health inequality, increasing employment opportunity, and ensuring equal access to personal security.  It will be essential that CEHR optimizes the opportunity presented by its human rights remit.

Its not going to be easy, but it is certainly going to be an adventure!  And its an adventure that I can’t wait to take part in and I hope that each of you will be part of that.  The new Commission has a real opportunity to deliver – to ensure that we are society and a nation that is truly at ease with diversity and at ease with itself.

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