Cross Justice Working Group on Race Data and Evidence minutes: September 2023

• SG – Justice Analytical Services (JAS)
• SG – Police Division
• SLAB -  (Scottish Legal Aid Board)
• Police Scotland
• Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS)
• Community Justice
• Coalition for Racial Equality and rights (CRER)
• The Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations (CEMVO)
• Scottish Policing Authority (SPA)
• Scottish Prison Service (SPS)
• Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS)
• Scottish Sentencing Council
• Risk Management Authority
• BEMIS
• Fire Scotland
• University of Dundee
• Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA)
• Violence Reduction Unit (VRU)

Attendees and apologies

• SG – Justice Analytical Services (JAS)
• SG – Police Division
• SLAB -  (Scottish Legal Aid Board)
• Police Scotland
• Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS)
• Community Justice
• Coalition for Racial Equality and rights (CRER)
• The Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations (CEMVO)
• Scottish Policing Authority (SPA)
• Scottish Prison Service (SPS)
• Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS)
• Scottish Sentencing Council
• Risk Management Authority
• BEMIS
• Fire Scotland
• University of Dundee
• Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA)
• Violence Reduction Unit (VRU)

Items and actions

Introductions and apologies

JAS welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked them for attending, and explained that this was a joint meeting between the Cross Justice Working Group on Race Data and Evidence and the JAS Research and Analysis Forum.  

Review of Action points from previous meeting (21 June 2023)

Action 1

Sharing information: Members had been asked to share information on any planned ethnicity and justice research, provide contact details for a research contacts list and consider if they had any ethnicity research they wanted to talk about at the next meeting.  Members did so, and an “Overview of Research relating to ethnicity and justice in Scotland 2023/24” paper, and contacts list were circulated by JAS prior to the meeting.  The agenda for this meeting was built around the research organisations indicated they wanted to talk about. 

Action 2

Members were invited to provide any written feedback on two papers: a paper summarising key points from the EHRC presentation at the previous (December 2022) meeting; and a paper outlining an approach to collecting equality data on staff in the Justice sector, and asked members if they agreed with this approach.  JAS updated the paper on collecting staff equality data based on comments received and re-circulated it to the group prior to this meeting.

Presentation and discussion on Ethnicity and Employment in Scotland’s Public Sector

CRER presented the findings from their report “Ethnicity and Employment in Scotland’s Public Sector”, around the public sector in general and the justice sector more specifically. The findings in the report come from analysis of data from 208 mainstreaming and employee monitoring reports published by Public Bodies in April 2021.

Key Findings were:

•    Just 2.8% of Scotland’s public sector workforce identify as belonging to a Black and minority ethnic group, despite being over 5% of the working age population

•    12% of public sector organisations failed to publish any information on the ethnic composition of their workforce.  Where ethnic composition of the workforce is reported on, ethnicity is “unknown” for one fifth of the public sector workforce

•    Workforce diversity varies significantly by service area, with the greatest proportion of Black and minority ethnic workers in the higher education sector and health boards. Police services employed the smallest proportion of BME workers

•    Public bodies are employing the highest rates of Black and minority ethnic workers since reporting under the Specific Duties began. On average, the proportion of Black and minority ethnic employees in each service area has grown by nearly 50% since 2013, however, this represents very small numbers in most sectors

•    Despite a decade of mainstreaming equality, many public sector organisations lack a focus on race in their reporting under the employee information duty. Over half of Scotland’s public sector organisations failed to report on the ethnicity of interviewed recruitment candidates and those leaving employment, attending training and receiving promotions

•    Over 10% of public sector job applications came from BME workers. However, despite their large share of applications, Black and minority ethnic workers consistently have poorer outcomes than white workers when applying for jobs in public sector organisations. BME job applicants were half as likely to be appointed than their expected rate, but for white candidates, no evidence of drop-off was found with their representation remaining consistent throughout the recruitment process

•    For the most part, there was little evidence of Black and minority ethnic workers leaving public sector employment at a different rate to their white counterparts. However, within Scottish Government and police services, BME workers were found to have left employment at a higher-than-expected rate

Useful links
•    Link to report "Ethnicity and Employment in Scotland’s Public Sector”,
•    Race Equality Training in Scotland’s Public Sector: Ten standards for training from an anti-racist perspective https://www.crer.org.uk/s/RET-10-Standards-Mar21.pdf 
•    CRER's PSED Portal https://psedportal.crer.org.uk/ -  a directory of documents published by Scottish public sector bodies under the Public Sector Equality Duties (PSED). Currently, this Portal holds an archive of all PSED documentation published during the 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023 reporting periods.

 

Police Scotland, Strategy Insight and Engagement team provided an outline of where their team fits into the structure of Police Scotland, and the service they provide. They then gave an overview of recent relevant research projects.

Police Scotland/ SPA/SIPR useful links

•    Police Scotland Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022/26 - basis of policing together focus
•    Police Scotland projects hub Learning - Police Scotland - Citizen Space. This page highlights some of the research and community projects PS are taking part in or leading to improve the services they deliver. Their purpose is to improve the safety and wellbeing of people, places and communities in Scotland. These case studies tell you more about what they are doing to ensure everyone in all of our communities benefits from an excellent police service they rightly expect and deserve.
•    Police Scotland - Citizen Space engagement hub 
•    Link to Police Scotland live public and community engagement activities Police Scotland Dialogue
•    Scottish Police Authority, Police Scotland and SIPR jointly funded work on Seldom Heard Communities with the reports available here: Seldom Heard Communities Research Published – SIPR and information on the grants here: Seldom Heard Communities Grants – SIPR

Megan O’Neill (SIPR) briefly spoke about research SIPR is in the process of scoping out and will soon be commissioning around institutional discrimination and how it is experienced.  Megan is keen to hear if the group have any thoughts on this research, in particular, whether the research should be extended to include other justice organisations beyond Police Scotland.

Action: If members have any feedback on the proposal for this research, contact Megan directly to discuss m.oneill@dundee.ac.uk  

JAS presented Findings from a review of minoritised women's experiences of domestic abuse and barriers to support.

As this report has not yet been published we are unable to share these slides at the moment.   
 

Actions

•    This was the first time that we have hosted a joint meeting between the Cross Justice Working Group on Race Data and Evidence and the JAS Research and Analysis Forum. The focus was on organisations sharing presentations on ethnicity and justice research.  If members have any feedback on how they found the meeting, or if this is a format they would like again in future please let us know by emailing susan.robinson@gov.scot 
•    Members to provide comments or feedback on the 1st draft of the ‘Overview of research relating to ethnicity and Justice in Scotland’ by Monday 30 October
•    An updated ‘collecting staff equality paper’ to be agreed by the group – any further comments  by Monday 30 October
•    Provide information on current or planned ethnicity research (All who have not already done so)
•    Provide contact details for research contacts list (All who have not already done so)