Hello and welcome to everybody who is joining us by Zoom or by Facebook live for this conversation with Professor Salwaad Azadi, who is a professor at the University of Tehran and a dear friend of mine who I spent time with during my recent trip to Iran in October of last year. Salwaad, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Hello to everybody who's watching and listening. And I hope that the minutes that we'll spend together would be fruitful for everybody. So, I know we have some new things that are happening today, new sanctions being imposed, but I want to just start off with asking you what the atmosphere is like on the ground right now and what it's been like for the past week. You know, the country has been under sanctions for many, many years. Just an hour ago, the United States government announced new sanctions and so the sanctions are designed to pressure the government, the Iranian government. In reality, they pressure ordinary citizens more than anyone else. We have some people in Washington that want to change the Iranian government for regime change as they call it. I remember reading John Bolton's tweet after the assassination of the Iranian general. The last line of the tweet said that we need to have regime change. So Bolton is not in the White House, but there are a lot of people that think in similar lines and believe in the same concept. And some of them at least would like to pressure the Iranian people so they come to the streets because of economic difficulties and that's a way of overthrowing the government by sort of putting pressure on ordinary citizens. So they get tired of economic hardship and they do something about it by changing the government. And I don't know that that has ever worked. This is not the first time that the U.S. has tried that. The U.S. government calls this. Sorry, go ahead. Yes. You know, one place that has not worked is Iran because it has been practiced for many decades and you don't see the government falling. In fact, after the assassination of the Iranian general, we had this nationalism sort of enhanced and people actually a lot of people rallied behind the government. The aim is to change the government, but in practice, a lot of people here realize that it was the United States that left the nuclear agreement. And many people blame President Trump for the economic difficulties that they have, not their own government, not President Rouhani. And the end result is that maybe the Trump administration wants to change Iran's government, but what they are doing is actually in a way is helping the government by justifying some of the mismanagement because they can always blame the United States for the economic hardships. And from what we've seen here, the government is not about to fall. They are sort of dealing with the difficulties that they have and the assassination of the Iranian general actually resulted in a new generation of Iranians sort of feeling anti-Americanism the same way that the generation that orchestrated the 1979 revolution felt that way because they thought of the general as someone who was providing security for the country. We had a lot of U.S. tank tanks and media outlets that thought of him as someone who had fought ISIS. In fact, Newsweek had a cover story a couple of weeks ago talking about the fact that if Iran is pressured more, it would be a win for ISIS. And during the time that ISIS was taking over a lot of territory, Iran and the United States sort of were working in a way together to confront that sort of ISIS advances. But after the ISIS defeat, the United States government seems to have forgotten the contribution that Iran made in terms of fighting ISIS and they assassinated the general that was in charge of ISIS fighting activities of Iran. So overall, I think when the assassination took place when I saw the news, I know I was quite shocked and surprised just to see the braveness of the Trump administration to assassinate such a high level member of Iran's government. What was the, was there a shock and surprise on the ground or was this more expected given the U.S.'s past interference in Iran? And if you could talk a little bit about the history of U.S. interference in Iran. You know, the history starts from 1953 with the coup d'etat. And you know, there are always difficulties in countries, but this is a sign of disrespect, I think, when another country comes and tries to overthrow a government in a manner that the United States did in 1953. So Iranians are proud people and they generally don't want interference from others, even if they have internal difficulties. So they don't like the disrespect. And I think a similar feeling was very much present when the news of the assassination of the general was announced. A lot of people felt disrespect. You know, a couple of months before the assassination news, we had demonstrations in Tehran, other cities, against government policies. And so the country was very much divided and what the assassination did was that it actually ended in uniting the country against a foreign force. And so we had, I don't know if you have seen the videos, we had hundreds of thousands, some people estimate millions of people in different cities showing up, not necessarily supporting the government, but opposing the assassination of general that was quite popular in public opinion polls. He was actually the most popular individual in Iran because he did not get into political faction fighting. He served the country. People thought of him as someone who's serving the country and protecting the borders. So when you assassinate the most popular person in a country, you will have people coming to the streets and that's what happened. And in a way, U.S. action united the country and actually helped the government solidify its power because at the end of the day they could point to President Trump as someone who is disrespectful of Iran. And that message was reinforced by him when he threatened to attack Iranian cultural sites. And so a lot of people thought that he is someone who doesn't like Iran, not just the government because the cultural sites are made by Iranian ancestors. You know, the historical sites are not, you know, you have visited Iran, some of them date back 2000 years ago. So when you disrespect a country's cultural and historical sites and you threaten to attack these sites, which is a war criminal war crime, then you are sending the signal that there is a level of hatred against the country of Iran, not just the current government. And so the way President Trump tweets and conducts his business is basically making a lot of people think that his animosity is with the Iranian people more than the Iranian government or at least at the same level as the Iranian government. And we have been reading the news of Iranian Americans. I'm not sure if any of them are listening to this broadcast, but Iranian Americans who went to Canada for the holidays when they came back, although they were U.S. citizens, they were questioned, some of them spent hours answering questions, and sort of this type of harassment is something that bordered a lot of people, which is another sign of the Trump administration not liking Iranians, even the people, Iranians who have gotten U.S. citizenship. So this is tragic, I think, and I hope the people who are listening would realize the damage that the Trump administration is doing to the United States and its status internationally, and the opinion of people in Iran is really turning against the U.S. government, even the new generation, the younger generation that experienced in 1953 could have or even don't remember the Shah are developing the same type of feelings towards the United States as their parents and their grandparents. So I want to go back to sanctions, but before I do that, I want to let everybody who's joining us know that we will be taking questions. If you're participating through Zoom, you can type your questions in the chat box. And if you're participating through Facebook, watching the Facebook Live on Code Pink's Facebook, you can email any questions to me. My email is r-e-l-a-r-i-e-l at CodePink.org, and we can ask them of Professor Salad. So back to sanctions, one of the things that's been especially concerning for me and for all of us at Code Pink has been the reports that humanitarian aid, life-saving medicines in particular, such as medicines for cancer and epilepsy, and to treat injuries, eye injuries sustained by the use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war are not making it into the country. And this is despite the Trump administration saying that the sanctions that humanitarian aid is exempted from the sanctions. So I'd like to ask what you see of that in terms of medicines not being able to come into the country, any of those effects that you're aware of? You know, the Trump administration is saying the truth that the sanctions legislation exempts humanitarian material medicine through the staff. That's actually correct. That's what the law says. But the problem is that in order for Iran to import medicine or the humanitarian aid that they need, they need to pay for it. And in order to pay for it, they need to have banking transactions. And it's practically impossible to have banking transactions because of the sanctions. So the sanctions exempt humanitarian aid and medicine, but they don't allow Iran to pay for the medicine that needs to be bought. So in practice, although medicine is not sanctioned, in practice it is sanctioned. And you can see that every day. You know, I take blood pressure medicine, which is a very popular medicine. A lot of people have blood pressure. And for a while, I couldn't get my medicine. And the medicine was actually made by an Iranian company. But the reason they couldn't provide that to the pharmacies was because a small portion of that medicine, a component, was coming from abroad. So they made more than half of the medicine internally. They had this stuff to do it internally. A little bit of it was coming from outside. And because they couldn't get that small portion, they couldn't make the medicine internally because of that component. And they couldn't get the component because they couldn't pay for it. Not because they didn't have the money, but because of the banking sanctions that existed. So even for blood pressure medicine, people had difficulties. And there are some medicines that are not made internally. So they have to buy the whole thing from outside, and that's even more difficult. And we don't know how many people have died in the last many months because of the United States talking about exempting medicine. But in practice, and not allowing medicine to come in, we had the issue of instincts, this setup that the European countries wanted to create for this type of exchange that Iran could actually pay for medicine and other things that Iran needed under European supervision. And just an hour ago, a US Secretary of Treasury announced in the White House that they're going to sanction people who are involved with instincts, this European initiative that was designed to basically resolve some of these problems. So it is sad to say that although the US government officials talk about supporting Iranians or wanting to help Iranian people, but in practice, they are not even allowing them to get the medicine that they need. And I'm not sure how these guys sleep at night, knowing that they are killing people on a daily basis, but apparently they have no problem sleeping. We at Code 10 do not sleep well at night, knowing that. And we have a question, who would, Steph would like to know, what do Iranians think about the in-depth system to circumvent the banking sanctions? Do Iranians expect it to become a reality at any point, given how delayed it's been, and then I want to add to that, that when Mnuchin announced the sanctions today, Mnuchin and Pompeo, they outlined that instincts, in fact, would be subject to secondary sanctions. So this might affect the question as well, but do Iranians feel any hope for the system and any sense of foreseeing that it might ever be implemented? You know, after the US left the nuclear agreement in May of 2018, it's about, you know, one and a half years almost that the US left. Iran didn't want to leave, because the Rouhani administration negotiated very hard for two years to get that agreement. And what the Iranian government said was that we want to stay, but we need to get some benefit out of the agreement. And as you may know, the European governments also did not approve of the Trump administration leaving the agreement. And they came up with this project instincts that would allow Iran to pay for medicine and other humanitarian aid that Iran needed. And Iran has been waiting for this initiative for over a year now, but in practice, not even one dollar was allowed to be transferred to the other side. It has not started working. And given what Mnuchin, Secretary Mnuchin said about an hour ago, it seems that it's not going to operate anytime soon. So the question is whether it's going to start or not. I think that was the question. And based on what we know, the answer is no, because the US government wants to exert maximum pressure campaign. And part of that maximum pressure campaign is to prevent Iranians from getting the medicine that they need it seems. The Pompeo today said that when Iran struck the US base in Iraq, that they had full intentions of killing US forces. Of course, I know that you and no people ordinary people can can know for sure the full intention. But if you could say, what is what is the feeling on the ground from the Iranian people about that strike, and the fact that it's not hit any US forces, it also didn't hit any Iraqi forces. Do the Iranian people think this was intentional? And are people glad that it didn't hit people, or do they wish that there had been a larger hit that way? You know, I think you know me long enough to know that I oppose war. So I don't like the fact that governments engage in activities that result in people dying. But what happened was that after the killing of the general, this is what I see in the people that people some at least became scared that the US is basically doesn't have any limitations on user force. If you kill a general and you know the Iraqi Prime Minister issued an statement saying that the Iranian general was carrying a message. The Iraqis have been mediating between Iran and Saudi Arabia for some time and the general was carrying a letter which had Iran's answer to that mediation effort. And he was supposed to meet the Iraqi Prime Minister at 8am and he was assassinated a few hours before he could do that. So when people in Iran saw that the United States is willing and able to kill a general when he is on an official visit, even there were announcements that he came through normal channels, he got his passport, the stamp, like anybody else who is visiting foreign country. And when they see that, then people become concerned that maybe the United States next step would be to attack Iran as we have some US politicians talking about. We had Tom Cotton, the senator, I think he's from Arkansas, if I'm not mistaken, talked about a war with Iran would be one strike. Trying to say that it's going to be an easy job.  So that type of mentality exists still in some US politicians. And if they have that mentality and if they have influence with President Trump and then who knows they may want to orchestrate another war with Iran. The same way they did with Iraq. And obviously people in Iran become very concerned because they know what happened to Iraq next door. And no one wants to experience what Iraq experienced in 2003. So when the strike happened, some people became happy. And the reason they became happy was because they thought that okay, the country is not weak. There are missiles that can be used. And some people at least thought that this is a good measure because it sends a message to Washington that attacking Iran or Iranian people has a cost. And so the argument here was that if attacking Iran or Iranians doesn't have a cost. If there are no ethical standards in Washington, then going to a war would be easily justified because the cost is not going to be that much. So creating cost for that type of behavior was something that some people in Iran like. And the end result is that people did not have problem with people that many people that I saw and sort of talked to. They didn't have problem with Iran striking that base because they didn't want to have the United States thinking about attacking Iran problem. We have another question. Since this most recent crisis. Americans have been paying much closer attention to the situation in Iran and, and have been taking to the streets I would, I think we probably the largest anti war mobilization. A very long time. Did Iranian notice were they aware of that and what were the reactions.  The videos are available online so they get subtitle and social media and television, people see that. And they actually appreciate what they see because they don't want to have a war with the United States, you know, the US Army is much larger than the Iranian Army. The US spends over 700 billion dollars a year on military spending 700 something and that something is three times larger than the Iranian military budget. So I think that the number this year was 735,000 735 billion dollars, 735 billion dollars. And that 35 billion dollars is three times larger than what Iran spends on its military Iran's military budget is about 10 billion. So no one really wants to have a military conflict with Iran. And then they see Americans also coming to the streets and opposing war and opposing militarism and opposing policies that at the end of the day are going to help the United States. Also, because Americans, soldiers get killed in wars and American resources and treasure are going to be wasted when they see that they are, let me say, good Americans that sort of don't want to have this type of foreign policy. And then they become happy and they realize that you have Trump and then you have a real gold, which is, you know, someone who opposed this war. And I think that's very, that's very important that because we don't want Iranians to feel have this feeling of anti American people that's not going to really help. And by having these anti war organizations participating in this type of activities. You are sending this message to the Iranian people that American people, at least some people in the United States don't want to have war with Iran. We have a question from Julie. What if any, how do you feel the sentiment has changed between Iran and Iraq, in terms of what people are talking about. So what President Trump did with the killing of the general was that it enhanced nationalistic feelings in Iran. As you know, there was a Iraqi general also that was killed the same night that he had gone to the airport to welcome Iran, the Iranian general. So the Iraqi general was also killed. And so you had this nationalistic feelings in Iraq as well. And similar to Iran, not too long ago, you had demonstrations in Iraq against the government there. And the killing of the Iraqi general had a similar result in Iraq. It sort of increased nationalistic feelings in Iraq. And the end result was that the Iraqi parliament voted a few days ago to ask the US to leave Iraq. I know that President Trump likes oil. He talks about liking oil. He uses that sentence often. He says, I like oil. But I think the Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqi people, not President Trump. The US is an energy rich country. There are plenty of oil inside the United States. So it may be a good idea for President Trump to like American oil, not Iraqi oil. We have another question. What is your perception of the role that Europe is playing in this ongoing conflict? Is Europe and especially Germany considered a partner of Iran? You know, Europeans announced their disappointment with the Trump administration after the US left the nuclear agreement. Because, as you know, we had this P5 plus one and you had, so within that P5 plus one, you had the UK, France and Germany and EU representative being part of the nuclear agreement. So it was basically a European initiative that invited Iran to join and invited the United States to join. And then you had Russia and China in that P5 plus one as well. So European governments and I think European people were disappointed with the Trump administration left the agreement. But since that time, Europe has not been able to do much besides being disappointed. We just talked about instincts. That's a European initiative, but it's not really a starting. And, you know, before, you know, just a few years ago, Germany was Iran's number one partner in terms of trade. So Iran-German relations were quite good. Iran was buying a lot of goods from Germany. And because of sanctions, trade between Iran and Germany is quite a small now. So we have countries like China replacing European countries when it comes to partnering with Iran. And I don't think the European governments and people like being out of the Iranian market in Iran. Iran's population is over 80 million. There are a lot of places for investment and trade. There are a lot of places in Europe that need to export their goods to Iran. And they're prevented to do so. And not because of what their governments want, but because of the pressure from the United States and the legislation that is passed by the U.S. Congress, which is a violation of countries' sovereignty. The U.S. Congress can decide to pass laws that prevent American companies from trading with Iran, but passing laws that prevent German companies from trading with Iran is a violation of German sovereign rights. But, you know, the U.S. seems not to care about international law. You know, the nuclear agreement was part of a UN Security Council resolution, 2231. And U.S. during the Obama administration signed up to the agreement. And so the UN resolution, 2231, is international law. You know, UN resolutions are supposed to be followed by UN members. So what the U.S. government is doing now is not only not following the resolution, the U.S. government is sanctioning any country that is trying to follow a UN resolution, which is very strange because the U.S. is part of the Security Council. So that is a violation of not only Germany's sovereign rights, it's also a violation of international law and UN Security Council resolutions. Nadia Benjamin of Code Pink, who I know you know well, I would like to know if you have any thoughts on why Europe isn't doing more to oppose Trump's push for war. It's, I think, you know, they are under a lot of pressure from the United States. You just saw an hour ago a U.S. Secretary of Treasury threatening Europe, you know, Instincts is a European initiative. And they have threatened European government officials, they have threatened European companies, they have threatened European individuals that are part of Instinct setup. They have told them that they would be on the SDN list, that it's a sanctions list, and they have told them they would never get a visa to the United States. So the type of treatment that Europeans who want to follow the UN resolution get from the United States is not much different from the treatment that Iranians get from the United States. And I think that's a big problem that Europe has. And because of historical facts, because of historical relationships, it's difficult, it seems, for Europe to have a more independent foreign policy. And so, and this is going to be damaging for themselves because they're losing trade and they're losing also political linkage and cultural linkage because of the law that someone passed in the United States or the executive order that the president signed. So as we prepare to end, I want to ask if there is anything that the people and especially your students would like to see from us here across the world and here in the belly of the beast, as we call it in America. If there's ways that we can show our support and our opposition to our own government. Well, you know, I mentioned this webinar to my students at the University of Tehran, and they wanted to join, sort of come and share their thoughts. And I told them maybe we can do this next time. You know, the people in the United States can do things that Iranians cannot. They can influence their government to follow policies that are good both for the United States and Iran. Preventing war would be one example. Iranians cannot demonstrate in Washington because of the Muslim back, you know, they cannot come to Washington, even if they had the money to do so. But Americans can do and sort of fighting these type of policies. I think is a patriotic thing to do for the Americans because we have seen what the Iraq war did to the United States. It's soldiers, it's treasure, you know, even President Trump used to or at least until some months ago talked about the fact that $7 trillion was basically wasted. And, you know, and his policies have led the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi Prime Minister to ask the United States to leave after wasting all that money and having four, five thousand Americans killed. So sometimes to be honest with you, I wonder why we don't have more Americans joining the anti-war movement. And given the fact that these type of policies hurt these Americans, the anti-war, you know, war policies, militarism policies hurt people in Iran because we are on the receiving end. But they also hurt Americans because the country that engages in needless wars is not going to be a country that people look up to. So the idea of American exceptionalism is turning to the US government is exceptional because they engage in a lot of wars. That's how they're exceptional. And preventing that and fixing that problem is something that Americans can do only, not others. Well, I want to thank you so much for joining us. And we would love to do a follow-up interview with some of your students. And so I will chat with you about that and we can figure out a day and time and we will let everybody know when that is. And we just want to as well, we at Code Pink want to express our solidarity and support and our desires for peace and our love for all of you in Iran and our hope for your safety as Donald Trump continues to try to provoke a war. Thank you for providing this forum. Thank you for having me. I'm going to be available anytime you need me and students. This is the exam week. So give them a couple of weeks so they can pass the exam and then and then they'll be happy to be with you in the next term when they start. Best of luck to all of your students on their exams and we look forward to that. Thank you so much.


Welcome, everyone, to the Eco Opportunities Committee. It's the 19th meeting of 2015. Can you please set any electronic devices to flight mode or switch off please? I'd like to start with introductions. We are supported at the table by the clerkin and research staff, official reporters and broadcasts and services, and around the room by the security office. Welcome to the Observers in the Public Gallery. My name is Margaret McCulloch and I'm the committee's convener, and members will now introduce themselves and turn, starting here on my right. Good morning. I'm Sandra White, MSP Glasgow-Kalef, and I'm the deputy convener. Good morning. Good morning. I'm John Finne, MSP Highlands and Highlands. Good morning. I'm Hannibal Gold, MSP West of Scotland. I'm John Mason, from Glasgow Shetleston. Good morning. I'm Christian Allard, MSP for the North East. Thank you. The first agenda item today is a decision in taking business in private. You're asked to agree consideration of evidence heard during today's meeting at item 3 in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much. Agenda item 2 is an evidence session with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners' Rights on our inquiry into removing barriers, race, ethnicity and employment. I welcome the cabinet secretary and his accompanying officials, Gavin Gray and Leslie Musa. Is that correct? Can I start by asking you, or your officials, to introduce yourselves and invite you, cabinet secretary, to make any opening remarks, please? That's great. Thank you very much indeed, convener, and thank you for the opportunity to be here. Obviously, I'm the cabinet secretary with primary responsibility for equality issues, although it's a responsibility as shared across the Government. Gavin works under Rosanna Cunningham's portfolio in relation to employment and fair work matters. Leslie works in the equality units, specialising in racial equality and other relevant issues. I'll say a few opening remarks, but I'll keep them fairly brief, convener, if that's okay with you. First of all, I congratulate the Equal Opportunities Committee on conducting this inquiry and showing the leadership on the issues that are extremely important. Obviously, as I said, thank you very much indeed for the invitation to come this morning and discuss them with you. I think that it's particularly timely, given the new emphasis on addressing in-work poverty within the programme for government and by the Scottish Government. Any quality is very much at the forefront of Scottish Government policy, since the publication of the programme for government, with equality firmly at the core of wider Scottish Government agendas, including the fair work agenda. The Scottish Government values Scotland's diverse and ethnic minority communities, the contribution they make, and the important role they play in enriching Scotland socially, culturally and economically. We know that this is not a homogenous group. There are big differences between ethnic groups and, of course, within them. For example, between men and women, with some groups having more traditional views on the position of women in the family and not working. We know that minority ethnic groups are disadvantaged in a range of measures and indicators throughout the area of employment. Research suggests that minority ethnic people experience disparate levels of unemployment, underemployment, mismatches between education and education. There are educational qualifications and types in quality of employment and employment discrimination. Poverty rates are also higher for minority ethnic groups. That is why employment has been identified as one of the four key areas in the development of a new racial equality framework for Scotland. The public sector is leading the way in developing good employment practice. The committee has already received a wealth of evidence about initiatives designed to improve the experiences and employment rate of ethnic minorities. We have a comprehensive vision to put the public sector equality duty at the heart of workplace practices. However, there is more that can be done. Making progress towards a vision will depend on organisational cultural change at local level, which promotes the value of equality and fosters a more trusting working environment. A positive culture shift will help drive an increase in employee equality declaration rates. This improvement will help build employee data baselines needed to improve local practice in the recruitment, development and retention of staff. The Scottish Government is very committed to helping unemployed people to achieve their full potential. We recognise that more help is required for those most disadvantaged in the labour market and recognise that the public and private sector are key partners in this work. I welcome the opportunity to discuss with the committee what the Scottish Government is doing to tackle discrimination and inequality in the workplace to ensure that every citizen has the opportunity to fulfil their potential. I am happy to answer any questions. We are working to quite a tight timescale this morning. We have conducted a real interest inquiry with the removing barriers. We have taken quite a lot of evidence from various organisations, local authorities, trade unions, HR professions and the private sector. We have been out to visit a few organisations working with ethnic minorities to help them to break through the barriers that they are experiencing. I would like to ask the cabinet secretary the previous Scottish Government initiatives that have been put in place prior to our inquiry on race equality in the labour market. What effects has these inquiries had and have you monitored them to see the impact of any progression to help people from the back ethnic minorities to move up the employment scale? First of all, there has been a fair amount of work done, particularly research work. We are keen to take all of that forward and have been taking it forward both inside the Scottish Government as an employer but also more recently with Roseanna Cunningham's appointment as a cabinet secretary for fair employment with the private sector and other employers right across Scotland. There are examples of where we looked at the feedback. We monitor very closely all aspects of that. We publish information on a regular basis about equalities in Scotland. Of course, Mr Swinney's equality proofs the budget before it is presented to Parliament to make sure that the budget is being fair to right across the equality agenda both in terms of racial equality as well as gender equality and the other relevant equalities. It is some of the interesting work that we have done more recently. For example, among ethnic minorities there is a concern, and I do not put it any higher than that, that almost since the establishment of the equality and human rights commission that the issue of race equality has slipped down the agenda somewhat. Obviously, in recent times, if you look at the media coverage, there has been much more coverage of gender equality. There has been much more coverage related to the Equal Marriage Act of issues around the LGBTI community and the issues around them. While there is obviously, particularly in the present time, a lot of publicity around refugees and asylum seekers, I think that there is a concern that the issue of racial equality and the need to tackle that has perhaps lost a degree of momentum. We are actually looking at re-establishing an advisory group, specifically to deal with that issue so that the profile of dealing with racial equality is raised, because clearly we have still a lot to do in Scotland to promote racial equality. You just need to look at the employment and unemployment figures. You just need to look at the correlation between educational achievement, where many of the racial minorities achieve well above the Scottish average in terms of educational attainment, but when they go into the workplace, if they get into the workplace, in the first place, then the types of jobs they get, the chances of getting a job, the types of job, the quality of job, the grading of jobs, the pay of jobs is quite inferior to that. That is what you would expect for someone with their qualifications, so there is still a lot to do. That is excellent. Thank you very much Cabinet Secretary. I will move on now to John Mason. It is kind of following on from what Margaret was asking you and you have touched on some of the things that the Government is doing. I do not know if you would like to expand on any more of the Government's doing. Other agencies, such as SDS and some of the councils, my feeling was that we had a bit of a mixed response from some of the councils. A lot of them would say things like, our policies are in place, and I accept that they have policies in place, but that is not working through to the actual result. I think that it was Five Factory that told us that we reckon that we have got roughly the right number of people from an ethnic minority, but the numbers were going more different from the census. To some extent, we felt that they were not taking it seriously enough. In the latter point, it is fair to say, John, that there is a wide variance in performance on all those issues between different councils, not just in relation to racial inequality and the need to take a more proactive approach, but also in terms of the equality agenda more generally. Some councils are better than others, to put it mildly. Some focus in on one or two areas of inequality to tackle them, sometimes maybe to the exclusion of other areas. I think that we have all got to take a very generic approach to tackling inequality, because inequality in all its guises, in my view, has to be tackled in Scotland in all circumstances. Let me give you some of the examples of what we are doing as an employer ourselves, because part of our strategy is to be ourselves an exemplar as an employer in terms of what we are doing. That is our objective. We have our own equality and diversity advisory board within Government, and that monitors and proactively pursues the issue of not just racial equality but ethnic minority equality, but all equality in terms of employment practices in the Scottish Government and its agencies. As you know, we have set a target that, by 2017, 90 per cent of the Scottish Government staff respond to diversity monitoring. This has been slow to build up in terms of the data collection, because people are naturally suspicious about why they are asking them about their ethnicity, sexuality and religion and a whole range of other things. We have, I think, built up enough trust with people to get them to realise that there is no sinister hidden agenda here other than trying to pursue a more equal objective in terms of recruitment, retention, grading and all the rest of it to try to make sure that minorities get a fair and equal chance of employment and good quality employment and promotion and all the rest of it within the Scottish Government. Let me give you some other things. We are working with staff diversity networks to establish the barriers to the declaration of diversity information. We are talking to the people themselves about why some people are reluctant to give us the information that we need in order to monitor things more systematically or more in-depth. We are trying to simplify the data capture processes and procedures within the Government so that it is not a complicated thing for people to understand and we are trying to help staff to understand the process and the reasons why we are asking for diversity data and we have produced detailed guidance and all of that. We are working with people and with our employees in Government and in our agencies to try to get to a position, ideally by 2025, where we have a broad equality within employment in the Scottish Government. You might say that 2025 is ten years from now but one of the lessons, and this goes back to the convener's first question about lessons learned, is that this is not a short-term agenda. The short-term initiatives that have been done in the past, while well-intentioned, have not had the impact that we would have wanted. One of the clear lessons in terms of equality strategy is that this is a long-term game. Persistency and stamina is extremely important in pursuing this until we achieve our goals on a permanent basis. Therefore, I think that it is realistic to talk in terms of, within the next ten years, getting to a much, by in ten years time, I would hope, when you look at the profile of employment inside the Scottish Government, and indeed in the wider public sector, that we will get broadly equality between the different minorities. Will you talk about the data? I think that some of my colleagues will follow that up and explore that area. I was going to ask you about a target and you have given us a target, ie 2025. I totally agree with you that it is a long-term thing. On the other hand, 2025, you and I might not be here. The danger is, I suppose, that we feel well if nothing much happens for a year or two, then that is okay. Can I just say one other thing? I am specifically thinking of some areas where it seems pretty clear that ethnic minorities are not progressing. For example, the fire service, police may be coming in but not getting promoted, and the NHS also a lot of ethnic minority people are at a lower level but may be not getting promoted. How do you see that moving forward? Can I make two points? It is not a case of we are not doing anything until we get to 2025. It is a process. I think that you do this by building on platforms of success. We are in a far better place today than we were ten years ago, far, far better place than we were ten years ago, but we still get a way to go. When I say by 2025, that is when we should reach an ideal state, as it were, but we want to make progress year by year in this agenda. That is one of the reasons why we set up the fair work convention, which was set up in April this year. In fact, the next meeting of the fair work convention is next week. Actually, the core of your question is the main item on the agenda, not just in terms of the public sector employment but also starting to look in depth much more at the private sector and the third sector as well. Let me just give you one example. One of my jobs is housing. Obviously, we have announced a nearly 70 per cent increase in the building programme for social and affordable housing over the next five years. We will only achieve that if we address the skills gap that exists in the construction industry across Scotland at the present time. One way in which we can solve the construction project is to have far more women in the construction sector. When I used to travel a lot more in business, if you went on a building site in Germany or particularly in Eastern Europe—actually, I did a lot of work for the World Bank in Eastern Europe—you went on a construction site, sometimes there were more women than men in construction sites in Eastern Europe and some of them were far better workers than the men. Also, not just in terms of the bridging and the joinery, but the engineering, the design work, the surveying, the architecture in all of these professions, we still haven't achieved anything like equality for women, let alone all the other equalities that we are trying to achieve. The fair work convention is taking that on as a core activity. We have the co-operation and support of organisations such as the STUC in doing that. I am going to ask Gavin just to give you a bit more detail about that. The convention was established in April. It is made up equally of trade union representatives and employer representatives. They have been looking at a whole set of issues around fair work since April. As you would expect, equality is one of the issues that has been at the forefront now, and it just so happens. As the cabinet secretary said, the meeting next week is taking evidence from a number of equality groups and representatives, and there will be further engagement on that. The core things that they are looking at in the convention are around security of work. In relation to the agenda about opportunity, access to progress and working to move forward, there are also themes about being treated with respect in the workplace and about the employer voice and how employees are able to engage in the workplace and how fulfilling work is and the impact that that has on why they are wellbeing. That is the kind of things that they are exploring at the moment, and they will be taking specific evidence next week from equality groups. Can I just finish in answering this question by giving you a very specific example of one of the projects that we are working in partnership with? As we have developed that, we are working with ethnic minority clients, a toolkit for employability partnerships and projects, and that is in partnership with Glasgow Works. That toolkit seeks to highlight some of the issues that affect the employability of people from ethnic minority communities and builds on examples of good practice. Part of our job is to spread good practice where it exists, and that is in your own home territory, John. I was struck with something that you said about the Scottish Government's attempts to dispel fear in the part of applicants about why they are being asked to disclose information about their ethnicity. You said that, being an improvement, has the Scottish Government introduced some proactive measure in its application forms to reassure applicants that there is a genuine positive reason for seeking that information? The main issue is the guidance, but also the kind of face-to-face activity that we engage in with the employees to get them to understand. Of course, we have been doing this for a number of years, so we are publishing information and they realise that it is not a tool being used for purposes for which they would be concerned. I think that we have gradually built up the trust in the whole process, but I will ask Leslie to give you some more detail on that, Annabelle. I think that it is really in the guidance and in the work that the staff diversity networks are doing, and then we use our own internet to put articles up and to have lunchtime seminars to work across Scottish Government employees, and that is continuing work. By that time, they are in the system, and that is great. They are in the system and they are employed. How do you dispel the fear of applicants who decide to apply for a job and wonder why they are being asked about ethnicity background? I think that that is something that I will probably have to come back to you, because that is work that the HR is carrying out just now, and they are looking at how to do that. I think that when that work is finished, we can come back and update you on where we are with it. We have a particular issue of applicants, particularly given all the external events that are happening, not just in the past couple of weeks, but more generally. There is a degree of concern, and it is one of the things that our HR department regards as a priority. I just wanted to come back in on what John Lennon has mentioned, and you mentioned the Fair Work Convention. We have had evidence in the fact that careers, career choice for ethnic minorities and the advice that they are giving as well. I think that it was Joseph Rowntree Foundation last week that mentioned perhaps we should look at changing career advice into either matching it with job vacancies or a job centre type of office. I wonder how you feel about that, Cabinet Secretary, and also whether careers advice that has been given to people from ethnic minority groups is proper career advice. I am not close enough to the career advice to give a specific response to that, because clearly career advice, particularly in schools and colleges, is handled through Angela Constance's function. I did some work before I became an MSP on reviewing the career service in Scotland. At that time, there was a wide variance in the quality of advice that was provided and the support provided. My own view is that we need more resources, probably an earlier stage in terms of career advice. Before young people either get prejudices against construction sector early. One of the reasons that it is difficult to recruit people to the construction sector at all is some of the prejudices that people have that are built into them at a fairly early age. Similarly, with ethnic minorities, they require real support and advice. At the other end, we are obviously going to get new powers under the new Scotland bill. There is a direct correlation between what I am about to say and the answer to the question. I will explain that in a minute. For example, one of the things that we are going to do is remove the fees for tribunals. Ethnic minorities suffer because of the £1,200 upfront fee to take a dispute to a tribunal. I am not going into that specifically at the moment, but what I am saying is that when that happens and you know that you have the right of redress, that helps to give confidence to people. It also deters people who otherwise might treat ethnic minority people in a way that they should not. The fact that you have an effective redress system and the tribunal system traditionally has been a very effective redress system, but in recent times because of the fee, there is clear evidence that people do not have the money to be able to get to a tribunal and therefore not using the tribunal system. The tribunal system itself was an educator because what happens to the tribunal very often is reported publicly and then people see that there is a right of redress and also if a tribunal makes a specific ruling for example on the matter in relation to how people who are a minority group are treated, then people pick that up and they learn from it. It is an example. I think that it is a bit of a pincer strategy that we require. I do not think that there is anyone silver bullet in terms of all of this. I think that it is a very broad brush approach and tackling it from all angles. I was going to ask you a number of questions about data, but you certainly seem to have answered most of that, but there are two issues in the data that I wanted to ask. Perhaps it fits into apprenticeships as well about the drop-out rate for apprenticeships. We know that we can get women into apprenticeships but the drop-out rate is high and the fact that ethnic minorities get them through the career service into apprenticeships, but we do not seem to have the data on the drop-out rate. Is that something that you would perhaps be looking at drop-out rate from apprenticeships in particular? The drop-out rate from the modern apprenticeship programme is available, Gavin. We can provide you with that. Once we get more details on the new apprenticeship levy, given that a levy is involved, I would have thought that collecting drop-out rate data will become easier because there is money changing hands in that situation. We are happy to provide you with the data that we do have. We certainly will have data on drop-out rates and analysis of drop-out rates in relation to modern apprenticeships. That is important because it is dealing with the age group primarily up to 25 or so, but it is also dealing with a range of different sectors. It is a national programme and, of course, the throughput in the apprenticeship programme is well over the 25,000 target and is going eventually to 30,000. It is a substantive data, so I will ask Gavin to make sure that the committee gets a copy of the data available on drop-out rates. Any other information on modern apprenticeships that you require? That would be great. Just one last question. Some people will leave a job because they do not particularly like it or there are other reasons, perhaps even a cultural reason. We do not seem to have data on exit strategy because it is very difficult if somebody is interviewing you for a job and you have to go to the same person to say why you are leaving that job. Is there any way that you could get round that to look at collating data in that? I know that there are suspicions there as well, but it would be interesting if you had something like that. We will certainly ask our HR department if we have any data in terms of people who leave government employment. I suspect that in most cases it is because they have been offered a better job, they are better paid elsewhere or they are taking early retirement or something of that nature. We will see if there is any systematic data available. I have not seen any, but there may well be. We will ask our other colleagues, for example in the national health service, if there is any data available on the reasons why people leave. There is some data in the Scottish Government's equality mainstream report on exit from the Scottish Government anyway, so that is published so that we can send you that. On the SDS, I think that the two issues are in careers and modern apprenticeships. On the SDS, I know that you took guidance from them, but they are publishing their equality action plan before the end of the year. We would expect that that will cover a lot of those things in terms of how the SDS is pulling all those things together around data, modern apprenticeships, career service and what they are doing in that space. I think that the SDS collects data from modern apprenticeships that leave their programme, write out them or email them and gather that evidence. I have not seen the SDS evidence, but the problem is always getting responses on the data because it is obviously not compulsory. There may be a multitude of reasons as to why people do not want to provide that information, but we will certainly provide you with copies of whatever is available. That is great. The problem with modern apprenticeship data is that a large majority of modern apprentices do not register what their ethnicity is. There is a much higher percentage of people from ethnic minorities on the modern apprenticeship programme, so that is something that we really need to look at and be able to capture. Sometimes the modern apprenticeship programme prevents early drop out elsewhere. Let me give you an example. When I was health secretary, one of the things that we did was step up substantially the recruitment of modern apprenticeships into working in our hospitals. I went to deliberately speak to a lot of those modern apprenticeships collectively and individually. What I found was that a lot of them wanted to go into nursing and probably had the entry qualifications to go into college to do a nursing degree. However, they had decided that they would like to do a couple of years or whatever as a modern apprentice first. My view is that we will need another two or three years to see if I am right in that, but I am pretty sure that that will contribute to lowering the drop out rate in the first two years of a nursing degree. A big reason for the drop out is that once you move from the theory to being in the wards and doing some of the things that you have to do as a nurse, you realise that it is not for them. In that case, recruiting modern apprentices in my view, who then go on to do degrees, will probably substantially reduce the drop out rate. At one point, the drop out rate in first year of nursing degrees was as high as 35 per cent. It is a very high figure indeed. It is down now to near 20 per cent. That data is not yet available because it takes years before we can prove that that is the case. I think that we need to look at this in the round. It may not just be confined to ethnic minorities. Anybody going into nursing, if they have had some practical experience, it lets them find out if it is really for them. Applies to all modern apprentices go into a profession as well and help to retain them. I do not know whether you want to come in, John. No, I do not. John Finnie, thank you. Cabinet Secretary, I was going to ask a number of questions around the role of the Scottish Government as an employer. You have addressed a number of issues, but I will push a bit further on some of them. A lot of interest in this in, for instance, from outside groups, as you would understand. The Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights tells us that only 1.4 per cent of the Scottish Government's workforces from the ethnic minority. What is the Scottish Government doing to address that specific? We are taking positive action. Let me give you an example of some of the positive action that we are taking. Clearly, we want to get that figure up. We have an equality and diversity programme plan. It includes some of the following activities. We have appointed diversity champions and role models, and they are in place at board and SCS level to challenge assumptions, champion difference and support changes. We have the SG 2020 vision for equality and diversity, and the aim of the Scottish Government is that senior leadership gender balance is reached by 2020. It is part of the overall 50-50 by 2020 campaign. That is not specifically ethnic. It is gender balance, but it is all part and parcel of the same thing. We are introducing a single workplace adjustment passport, including introduction of pilots of flexible job design for employees with physical or other health conditions. Again, that will benefit some ethnic minority people. We are reviewing our recruitment processes that can act as barriers to some groups such as ethnic minorities. For example, we are reviewing promotion policy as part of our SG 2020. Again, promoting ethnic minority people will be included in that. We are promoting mentoring and shadowing opportunities for different groups of staff across the Scottish Government. Again, that is all minorities, but it includes ethnic minorities. Those are examples of the kind of practical things that we are already doing. They do not sound all that sexy, but it is part of the grassroots work that needs to be done on the coalfaces that we are trying to tackle the problem of making sure that there is equality of chances in promotion and grading. That is all very positive. The question of the figure that I gave you, the 1.4 per cent, is that there is a concern that it does not include what is referred to as white minority. For instance, the significantly growing Polish population, is that something that the Government is aware of? I think that we are aware of that. There is an issue here about defining minority ethnic groups and how we tackle the different experiences of different groups. We are working with the Registrar General for Scotland in partnership. We have been doing so over a number of years to develop an official ethnicity classification. That work includes a wide-ranging consultation with stakeholders and extensive question testing. The classification was agreed by the Scottish Parliament and used in the 2011 census. It is also currently used in Scottish official statistics. The classification is used in the collection of data on ethnicity, which provides information on Scotland's changing population and information to help target public services and eliminate discrimination. Data on ethnicity is collected routinely in a number of Scottish surveys, including the Scottish household survey, and the results are analysed, made publicly available and used by a wide range of stakeholders to inform policymaking. The information is also presented on the Scottish Government's Equality Evidence Finder website, which is used by public authorities across Scotland in the reporting of progress on the Scottish-specific duties. During 2014-15, the Scottish Government carried out a comprehensive equality analysis of the 2011 census and published its findings to fill evidence gaps in policy topics, including health education, housing and the labour market. The data also feeds into Scottish Government policy and strategies such as the race equality framework and gypsy traveller policy. We are aware of the intersectional issues arising across employment issues, for example gender, religion and disability, and promote measures that are taken to account the needs of individuals who have intersectional needs. All of that relates to Scottish Government employment policy. We use that data to inform that as well. As you can see, we are very conscious of the issue of classification and definition of ethnicity. Getting that right is a prerequisite to having reliable data. The percentage that is quoted here is 21.7 per cent, which has not been declared in ethnicity. Is the campaign to explain why that is relevant, rather than just dry stats, is important? Absolutely. As we have already said, that is part and parcel of the work of the diversity champions of the work that is being done that Leslie referred to inside the Scottish Government, the equality networks operating within the Government. All of that is part and parcel to try to get people to declare their ethnicity and to fill in the data. The more data we have, the more we know what we have still got to do to achieve equality. Just one final question relates to staff diversity networks. Can you say a little bit more on that? In particular, is there active involvement for the trade unions and staff associations who play a pivotal role in the workplace? There is, but Leslie can give you more details on that. Certainly, as far as I am aware, the HR department that runs them has very close liaison with them. I can certainly give you a breakdown of what networks there are and the membership of them. I can provide that in more detail for you. John Finnie mentioned that 1.4 per cent as the figure that was being referred to, and you explained how you are trying to raise it. Do you accept that 1.4 per cent, or are we saying that 1.4 per cent is the people who have said that they are from an ethnic minority? On top of that, there is an unknown number who have not said. Is the reality that we do not know if we are achieving this or not? I think that our feeling is that that is an under estimate, but we do not have the quality of data at the moment because, as John referred to, a fifth of people do not declare their ethnicity. We think that a large proportion of those people are people who are from ethnic minorities who do not want to declare their ethnic minority status. Therefore, we think that 1.4 per cent is an under estimate. That is why we have put so much emphasis, John, on trying to get people to provide us with data and on looking at the quality of the data, such as the definition of ethnicity and the classification of ethnicity. That is also one of the reasons why it takes so long and takes another ten years to get to where we want to be. I was dying to come in because I had so much. I feel that I live in a parallel universe on data. John just said that you have got 1.4 per cent of the Scottish Government workforce, and he asked you if you thought you were confident with the data. John said it is a non-known number of the workforce who have not responded to the data. For the change, I do agree that data that is a known number is 21.7 per cent of the workforce have not reported ethnicity. You have been telling us all morning that you are going to get better data, but at the same time you tell us that it is very difficult to get better data. Can I put it to you? You talked about the refugees, and that is very important to put it in context. But if you look at the last 20 years, there were very few people from ethnic minorities living in Scotland. It was a lot easier to collect the data. Now we have got a big influence of refugees coming in. We have got a lot of people who came in in these countries the last five, ten years. But they are not only coming, they are coming from diverse regions of the world. So if we cannot get proper data now, what chance have we got to get proper data in five years' time, in ten years' time? Are you going to come back in 2025, when your successor will come back in 2025 and say that there is no way that we could have achieved this, that data is impossible to gather? Are we spending our time trying to gather data that we have no chance to get? No, I would not be so pessimistic, Christian. Although there is about one-fifth, do not complete that part of the data request, we are working, and as we said, we will explain to how we are working with people to try to encourage them to fill it in. I think that in any survey you will find a very large proportion of people who are always reluctant to give personal information, and the information that we are asking for is quite sensitive. It is not just in terms of ethnicity, there are other questions as well about sexuality, about religion and about a range of other things. You are asking very personal questions, so I fully appreciate why some people are reluctant to complete that information. Of course, the other thing in all of this is, and this has become much more of a political issue in the last 10, 20 years, that people are worried about data being stolen, about data being hacked, about data being misused for different purposes, sometimes worried about sinister purposes. So, we are working against all of that, cynicism, skepticism about completing data. I put it to you that on the Scottish Government workforce, 21.7% of the workforce have not reported the ethnicity. What do you think this 21.7% are? Are they more likely to be white Scottish or are they more likely to be ethnic minorities? After all you said this morning. By definition, I cannot absolutely put a hand at heart and give you a detailed breakdown of the ethnicity of the people who have failed to complete the ethnicity question, but the anecdotal evidence that we have, when it is anecdotal, is that a lot of those people are from ethnic minority communities. I am not saying that it is a majority or anything like that, but a significant number of ethnic minority communities are skeptical and concerned about completing the relevant data. Can I add to it something else as well? People are mixing more and more, so it is going to be absolutely impossible for the person, even if the person is willing to fulfil the survey, to fulfil it. Good luck to the people who are going to decide how the question should be phrased, because there are far too many people. In actual fact, I think that that is the important point that you are raising. It is a very important point because this conversation can be accused so far of taking a very traditional point of view about ethnicity. Supposing that you are somebody who is from another country within the European Union and you have married somebody from an ethnic minority community and you have had children, those children might be some of the people who are now being asked to fill in these forms and might find it difficult to define themselves as being from an ethnic minority community and if so, which one? That is important. The point that you are raising is one of the reasons why we have to be looking at this data objectively. As you say, we are living in a much more complex world today than what we were 10 or 20 years ago. Scotland, which is obviously one of our most famous national poets described as a mongrel nation, is more of a mongrel nation today than it was 20 years ago. So, inevitably, one of the reasons why some people may not fill in the form is that they do not see themselves as from an ethnic minority or if they do, they might not be sure where to classify themselves. Are you Polish or are you originally from sub-Saharan Africa and you came to hear via Poland and you were in Poland for 30 years? How do you fill it in? That might be an issue. Are we asking his own question? Sorry, I wanted to have something. It is going to come in with our analytical colleagues. We are working with NRS just now to look at the census for 2021. That is very much what their consideration is, is looking at the changes in our population now and into the future and to look at the categorisation and that will be done in consultation with the wider population as well in preparation for that census. Thanks for this. What we heard a lot in the inquiry so far is that the more worrying it is, the more you try to detail the data, the more irrelevant it is, because it is so little samples, but it means absolutely nothing. I heard early on talking about drop out rate in modern apprenticeship. If you try to separate it by ethnic minorities, your sample will be irrelevant. These are all very valid points about the challenges, but let us not forget that the purpose of collecting the data is to establish whether we are achieving our policy objectives in relation to equality. If we completely abandon any attempt to collect the data, we will have no idea whether we are anywhere near achieving our policy objectives. You can, for example, our enquiries in barriers and employment. If you look at the employment, I think it is your figures from 2015 by ethnic group percentage of people in employment. The average in Scotland is 63%. White Scottish is 62%. Bangladeshi, mixed or multiple, other white, African, Indian, Caribbean or black and white Polish are all over the 63%. Only other Asian, white Irish, Pakistani are under the average. Chinese and Arab are very, very low, 47% and 45%. But there is an asterisk to it. These groups are particularly high numbers of students which affects their economic activity rates. We have a global picture. If you try to detail far too much, I don't think there is a way to sort out any problem. There might be another way. The other way, and we saw it, is maybe to focus on particularly problems that we have identified, for example, at the point of interview, as opposed to promotion or over qualification. Can we not find a way as a Scottish Government trying to target those problems as opposed to try to collect more data and try to define data which will get us nowhere? I think that we need to try to do both. We are trying to do both, but I accept the point that you are making about if you deep mine the data too much, then you may end up with a totally distorted picture and you may end up with a distorted policy as a result of that. I think that we are very mindful of that indeed. Let me just go back to the levels of employment figures that you quoted. I don't think that the issue so much is the level of employment. I think that it's the quality very often of the employment.  Are they getting a fair crack of the whip in terms of promotion, grading and recruitment? I think that the point that you are making is that that is where we can make the biggest difference. There is a lot of validity in what you are saying. I am quite happy that you are focusing. What I am scared about is that we are going to try to pigeonhole and herd battery this morning, pigeonhole certain ethnic minorities and try to push them arbitrary to some kind of professions just because they are underrepresented in that particular profession. I think that, with all due respect, the point of the policy is not to say that 1 per cent of the population is from a particular ethnic minority. Therefore, 1 per cent of every grade of every time of job and every promoted post has to be from that minority. What we are trying to find out is that, if they are not in a promoted post, if they are not being recruited because of their ethnic origin, we are not saying that the picture of equality would be proportionate percentages for every ethnic minority. The purpose of the data is to find out and to satisfy ourselves that any ethnic minority is not being discriminated against in terms of recruitment, in terms of promotion, in terms of pay grade and all the rest of it. That is the purpose of the policy. That is a very good reassurance but it is going to be very difficult to define what you are exactly trying to do. Are you trying to guess the biggest right or are you trying to really help people to have a variety of choices? The purpose of the policy is to be absolutely sure that there is no discrimination against anybody because of their ethnicity or any other reason. That is the purpose of the policy, that everybody has a fair and equal chance to be recruited, to be promoted, to have a top pay grade, to be in a senior position. That is the purpose of the policy, not to have some kind of statistical equation that says that you are 1 per cent of the population and therefore you must have 1 per cent of all the graded jobs in the Scottish Government. That is absurd. Tristan, sorry, I have already given you one. You would be quite happy to have great differences. As long as it is not based on discrimination against people, that is the issue. John Finnie would like to come in very briefly. It is a very short comment. To me it is terribly important that people self-determine that it is about people, it is not about raw statistics. That will send different messages about how people want to determine themselves as being Scottish. I mean, these are badges. It is for people to pin the badge that they want on themselves as part of the more integrated and rich mongrel nation that we want to be. Absolutely, absolutely. Annabelle? Sorry. What is my turn? My session? Sorry. I lost track of all my initials here. The cabinet secretary, since I entered this Parliament, has had this effect on me. Cabinet secretary, we came across a term that, initially, under the cloak of management speak, seemed to be technical. Indeed, it was routinely referred to by organisations, but on further examination, this term has caused the committee, I think, to be deeply concerned. The term to which I am referring is unconscious bias. Now, to illustrate, NHS National Services Scotland said to us, and I quote, For managers, we have a robust training programme and recruitment that covers issues such as unconscious bias. When I asked race organisations on 1 October to say what they understood by that term, the committee got a very blunt response. Indeed, Naeira Ddaar said, and again I am quoting, to me, the term unconscious bias is just a get-out clause and a means of hiding institutional discrimination. Cabinet secretary, what I want to ask is, is there agreement that this phrase unconscious bias has become a fig leaf to mask racism or euphemism? Actually, the whole debate would be clarified if that term was discontinued. I think your question is, is there a decision reached, is there a consensus, and I think the answer would be no. I think, you know, it's obviously clearly some of the evidence you've taken. There are many people who believe that there is unconscious, but rightly or wrongly, they believe that there is unconscious bias in some institutions. One of the things that we are doing internally is we are trying to train people and we are trying to deal with this as an issue internally to make sure that we don't have anything that could be described as unconscious bias, whether it's explicit or implicit. I think that I would be interested to see what the committee actually says about this issue and how it should be treated, because it's certainly one of those areas where I think some more work needs to be done. And certainly there's no consensus. I think that a lot of people, particularly people from ethnic minority communities, would argue that there is such a thing as unconscious bias and that some people are victims of it. Now it's an area where probably more research is required before we can establish the validity of that claim and if it's true the extent to which it's happening. But certainly, and you've quoted some of the evidence that you've received where people do believe there's such a thing as unconscious bias. And I'm not in a position to say there isn't, but it's a difficult thing to prove. Cabinet Secretary, maybe I didn't make myself sufficiently clear. No one disputes the existence of the term. The discussion surrounds what does that term mean, what does it actually disclose? Because if in an organisation someone is guilty of unconscious bias, by any analysis that means that that person, for whatever reasons, has held within themselves a view which by any other assessment is racist. That's why I posed the question, would there not be greater clarity to this whole debate and discussion if we accepted that, and I have a lot of sympathy with the evidence that we heard from the race organisations, that that phrase has become a useful and a convenient management tool to try and address something. Wouldn't there be greater honesty if we said, look, anyone who appears to be guilty of unconscious bias, whether they like to accept it or not, is exhibiting behaviour which to some extent is a form of racism because it is making a judgment about a person which is and can only be based on their ethnic background. That's a very fair point and we're training our assessors in the Scottish Government to be able to tackle that very issue because whether it's conscious or unconscious bias, whatever description you give it, it's unacceptable. It's the bias that's the issue and the bias is unacceptable. That's my position very clearly. I think that that's got us somewhere, convener. Very briefly moving on, if we accept that within organisations whether public or private we've got an issue with institutional discrimination and the evidence has clearly confirmed that that is an issue, what to you cabinet secretary would be the most important steps to be taken to ensure that organisations are not institutionally racist? I think that if you go right back to the inquiry after the Lawrence murder in London where the accusation was made that the Metropolitan Police were institutionally biased, I think that from that day on there's been a lot of work done in tackling institutional bias, particularly obviously in the Metropolitan Police. I don't think that we have institutional racism in the police in Scotland. I'm not saying that there isn't the odd individual who might hold such views but certainly they would not be tolerated if that were known. I do think that if there's any suspicion of institutional bias, then you have to take very proactive action to deal with it. If it's at an individual level, that person, depending on how serious and what they've done, would need to be certainly disciplined and certainly if they're staying in the organisation to be retrained or made very clear to them that it's a condition of staying in the organisation that their behaviour completely changes, it's totally unacceptable. I think that people will have different definitions of institutional bias because there's one individual or even a small number of individuals in a large organisation who are biased or racist. You can't say that the whole organisation automatically is racist, but where you could criticise the organisation is if they don't take robust action against those who are racist and biased. That's the point, where it's found it's got to be rooted out. Can I come in on that as well about the employment opportunities that's really difficult for people from ethnic backgrounds? When we went to NHS Lothian, we spoke to a group of nurses from a whole wide range of ethnic backgrounds and they were going through a particular course to try to help them to move up the employment ladder within the NHS because they were finding that there is barriers there. They were moving up from grade 5 to higher levels, despite the fact that they have multiple degrees, including a PhD. A couple of things that came up were that people found that English wasn't as good as it should be. That's probably the case for a lot of people from ethnic backgrounds. It could be a barrier to them actually progressing because their English isn't as good. That is something that I was wondering whether the Government would look at providing more English as a second language course. There are four ethnic minorities coming into the country, including people from refugee countries, to help them to go on the employment ladder. I felt quite sad to hear how hard those individuals were trying to get jobs within the NHS. They were going through all the courses, all the qualifications, but they were hitting those barriers all the time and they just couldn't progress any further. What can be done to help move those barriers within those organisations to help people that we actually get jobs? As a former Cabinet Secretary for Health, the NHS recognised the problem, which is why it is providing facilities to train those people to help them overcome those barriers. If it is an English language issue, they should get help with English language. If it is a qualification recognition issue, that needs to be addressed as well. More generally, we fund English language courses for refugees and others coming into the country. As part of our arrangement with the Home Office in relation to the Syrian refugees, there is provision within the Home Office money being allocated for English language training. We are very keen to ensure that that happens. However, the other issue is not just that the national health service is a broad issue about qualification recognition. If you have achieved a doctorate in another country, it may not be recognised by the relevant authorities in this country. I am going to give you more detail, but we have done a lot of research on that as a Government. The time for action has arrived in doing more to ensure that we have recognition at what level. We have the Scottish Qualifications Framework already. That is obviously concentrated on the relationship between different degree and diploma levels in Scotland and where they relate to each other. For example, if you have a college diploma, where does that sit? Does that mean that you can skip year 1 of a degree course? A lot of that is all completed and done and implemented. We now need to do the same exercise and implement something similar in relation to the recognition of overseas qualifications. Sorry, I probably did not make myself clear enough, but those are UK qualifications that are doing well this year. The barrier that we are hitting is at the interview stage within the NHS and that is the barrier that is stopping them to progress as well. That is what the NHS is trying to address to ensure that any barriers are being removed because the NHS is very committed to ensuring that people have the equality of opportunity in terms of promotion within the NHS. There is still a way to go, and Lothian, to be fair, has been leading on that work on behalf of the whole of Scotland. The NHS is addressing that issue quite robustly, but everybody is addressing it as robustly as they could and should do. There is an issue there more broadly about people hitting barriers to promotion. Very briefly, Christian and then John Mason. Just a point of clarification on this. The group that we met had a very good English. They knew very well how to speak, a lot better than I did, and they were overqualified in fact. The problem was the accent. I knew that changing an accent is very, very difficult. We know that because of this migrant nation that we are now, there is more and more accent coming in. I was very disappointed when we met these people that even if the English was very, very good, but because of the accent and because of the culture as well. They couldn't go through the barrier of interviews. Now, there are two ways we can deal with this. We can try to stop people having the accent that they have, which is in my case impossible. Or you can try maybe to target the other people, the people who sit on the panel and the people in the organisation itself, to try to see how they can maybe be trained to understand better that people could come from other countries. They could have different culture and different accents. A strong accent doesn't mean that you don't have the qualification or you don't have a good understanding of English. I think that these are very fair points and I hope that I will open your report that you make these points. I just wanted to clarify it. It's not a question of not having a good understanding of English. I shoot for the record, Christian, and say that you're the only person from Aberdeen that I can understand. Very good point. John Mason? Yes, in a slightly different area. I mean, we've briefly mentioned the private sector up till now, but procurement, I just wonder if we could be doing more when the public sector, either the Government directly or through local government, and we've got things like Glasgow and the Clyde Valley city deal, could we be doing more to get these employers to really be signed up to an acting on employing ethnic minorities? Yes, absolutely. Can I just say that the sustainable procurement duty of the Procurement Reform Act 2014 requires a contracting authority before starting a procurement competition to consider how, by the way in which it conducts the procurement process, it might improve economic, social and environmental wellbeing, in particular reducing inequality, facilitating involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises, third sector bodies, etc. So we already now have it in law that there is a requirement for them to demonstrate how they will reduce inequality in their organisation. Working through in practice? Just passed and just being implemented, John. I am absolutely sure that, I think it's John Swinney or Keith Brown who's responsibility for this. Either one of them, I'm absolutely sure, will be making sure that that's adhered to. At the other end of the private sector, because we had some larger companies in here and I think on the whole we were quite impressed with their policies, but what about the two or three or four man or person little business, which doesn't advertise, they recruit probably from a friend's son or daughter or that kind of thing. How can we break in there and how can ethnic minority folk break into that kind of company? Well, that's subcontractors, you mean? No, no, I just mean totally separate, just, you know. It was SMEs, right? Yes. Then I get my carpets replaced this week, they're both guys, they're both white. Yes. You know, how will they ever take on somebody from ethnic minority? Well, of course they're covered by the general equality of legislation, so if they're discriminating against somebody because of their race or gender or orientation or whatever, then they are breaking the law. But if they only recruit friends and never advertise, and if all their friends are white, then these small businesses will always be white. Well, as long as they're not discriminating, as long as they're not discriminating on the base and just a friendly thing, I think it'd be very difficult to do anything with that quite frankly. Okay, thank you. Does anyone get any other questions or like to ask? No, okay. That actually concludes the public part of today's meeting, and our next meeting will take place on Thursday, 26 November. I'd like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for coming along, thank you very much. And I now suspend the meeting for the committee to move into a private session. Thank you.