Note of WNC Commissioners' Meeting

Note of WNC Learning Exchange

10 June 2008

Those Present:

Joyce Gould (JG) Chair

Anita Gale (AG) Commissioner

Sabin Malik (SM) Commissioner

Ranjana Bell (RB) Commissioner

Bronagh Hinds (BH) Commissioner

Nicola Brewer (NB) Chief Executive, Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)

Sonya Thomas (ST) EHRC

Susan Green (SG) Acting Director, WNC

Daniel Barrow (DB) Deputy Director, WNC

Eleri Butler (EB) Policy Manager, WNC

Leon Bond (LB) Business Manager, WNC

Apologies:

Liz Kelly Commissioner

1. JG opened the Learning Exchange, welcoming RB back to the Board after a short break, and welcomed guests NB and ST to the meeting.

2. NB began her talk to the Board, by setting out EHRC's strategic priorities, its proposals for future work and went on to highlight the wide range of challenges the Commission faced. Particular themes and gaps include the poverty gap, the caring gap, the opportunity gap and the power/inclusion/integration gap. NB stressed the importance of building links with stakeholders, including the WNC, and touched on the work carried out with other organisations, such as with EVAW on `maps of gaps' and plans for monitoring of public bodies under the Gender Equality Duty. NB indicated that the `Map of Gaps' report was not a one-off but an ongoing piece of work, and that government and public bodies have been put on notice to address the gaps in services for women. EHRC has an ongoing role following this up, and has funded an interactive website to highlight services for women in particular areas.

3. NB stressed that two leading aims for the EHRC is to enable citizens to achieve freedom from discrimination, and freedom to release their talent and develop their skills. NB described how the Commission was working with the public sector to change attitudes. NB spoke about the joint TUC/CBI report `Talent not Tokensim' which will help both unions and employers to work together to attain greater equality for all people. The EHRC helpline was receiving the vast majority of queries on employment issues and many of these involved employment problems experienced by pregnant women.

4. NB then touched on the ongoing grant programme for organisations; the current inequalities in the pension system including support for Baroness Hollis' amendment; a number of issues around flexible working; a programme of events around Muslim women and business, and developing the potential of the EHRC to submit Shadow Reports as a human rights institution, as those areas where she saw the EHRC making a real and immediate impact. She recognised it was also important to build on the legacy developed by previous Commissions to support NGOs with template letters, guidance and good practice, for example on work on the gender duty. NB expressed the wish to use the WNC partner networks and working groups to reach out to a wider layer of stakeholders and to develop opportunities for joint work with the WNC on specific projects in future.

AP1: Send copy of `Talent, not Tokenism' to Commissioners.

AP2: Circulate EHRC's CEDAW Shadow Report.

5. JG thanked NB and opened the meeting for questions and comment. A number of issues were raised, and included;

NB had said that the EHRC was supporting Baroness Hollis' amendment to allow older women the chance to buy additional pension years. AG asked what was meant by `support' in this context? Did this mean active research, drafting and briefing, or providing background material only?
AG asked how the EHRC was working with devolved nations, and feeding in to the ongoing devolution process? What were its plans going forward, in terms of tackling issues specific to the nations and regions?
Commissioners asked about EHRC staff composition and expertise in the regions and how they cover and specialise in the range of equality issues, and in particular, how they ensure their staff have and maintain their expertise in gender and women's issues?
Does the EHRC view the use of `gender' as a suitable term, as opposed to `women', in the context of inequality as being an avoidance of the fundamental imbalance between men and women in society? Will the EHRC be using `women' in its future work?
Does the EHRC plan to continue the helpful practice of the EOC, by supplying targeted literature and briefing assistance on request, to groups and individuals, to assist them to campaign against inequality?
SM asked if the EHRC will be tackling the view held by many sections of local government, that women's equality is no more than a legal duty to comply with, in the same way as the race duty has been approached, as opposed to approaching it as a fundamental equality issue for them, both as employers and as representatives of the population.
Given the problems of `glass ceilings' and `sticky floors' for women at work, will the EHRC be championing and publicising individual high profile women as examples of how women can reach senior positions, with particular emphasis within the public sector?
The issue of health and of tackling underlying issues like poverty was often overlooked in terms of equality. Will the EHRC be taking up health as an issue to focus on?
A number of Commissioners raised concerns that employment agencies, which are carrying out an increasing amount of initial recruitment for the public sector, do not follow or are even aware of, their legal obligations. For instance young women are not put forward for interview to a potential employer, if the agency decides that an employer would prefer someone unlikely to require time off for maternity, etc. Commissioners asked NB to take this up as a priority.
How does the EHRC see the issue of 'cohesion'? Does it agree that without the underlying basis of equality and a human rights agenda, building cohesion within society is not possible? Also how does the EHRC position itself amidst conflicting rights around faith, gender and sexuality.
How is the EHRC building links and engaging with all political parties to ensure that the views of all sections of society are legitimately represented? Especially as each party may have differing views on the relative priorities between equality strands, approaches, etc. to those of the Government party.
Why there was a specific EHRC focus on Muslim women and business only, and not other aspects of concern around Muslim women?
How is, and will, the EHRC be using its grants programme to build links within communities and between organisations? Also, why were just 16% of the grants provided in the first round, given to women's groups?
Commissioners were concerned over reports that the EHRC did not have the capacity to exercise its enforcement powers? NB was asked to comment on this and the approach that it would take towards enforcement generally, particularly once the Single Equalities Bill is introduced.

6. NB responded to the questions, apologising that due to a pre-existing appointment she would not have enough time to respond on all of the points raised during the meeting. NB said that the questions on health and employment agencies were very important, and ones that she was grateful had been raised. She would need to respond to these in writing, as they identified areas that she felt the EHRC may need to now look at more closely. On devolution, NB gave examples of the way the EHRC was working to engage the private sector and gain cross-party support for its work, for example, moving from emphasising people's right to freedom from discrimination, to their freedom to access opportunities. EHRC was also working to build in to its decision making, the needs of devolved nations and the regions. The regional network of offices, made up of ex-CRE staff around the country were an example of the EHRC's presence in the regions.

7. NB explained that the recent grants programme had been extremely oversubscribed and while many women's groups had applied, there had been a marked variation in the way bids had been drawn up. Many smaller organisations had not been able to fully bring out the outcomes they were hoping to achieve from their bid, so had not been scored as highly as others. NB explained that this had been mitigated through the checks built in to the process, which ensured that all `protected groups' and geographic areas were covered in the final list. To try to improve the spread of successful bids in the next round of grants, the Commission had set some funds aside for capacity building and assisting groups to draw up effective bids in future.

8. JG again thanked NB for coming to talk to the Board, adding that it had been an extremely useful discussion. JG explained that WNC would write to NB on those remaining issues which NB did not have time to cover, which NB welcomed. It was also agreed that plans for regular meetings between the Commissions needs to be made, and this would be explored between officials.

AP3: Thank you letter to be sent to Nicola Brewer, to include those items that were not addressed in discussion.

AP4: Agree and set up regular meetings between WNC and EHRC colleagues.

9. NB thanked JG and the Board for inviting her and explained that she would be raising the Gender Equality Duty in her discussions with departmental Permanent Secretaries, later that evening.

10. JG closed the meeting, reminding Commissioners to meet later at the House of Lords to continue discussions over dinner.