The Equalities Review

Review Panel meeting, 1 September 2005 at 1.00pm

Venue

22 Whitehall
London

Attendees

Review Panel
Trevor Phillips (Chair)
Sir Bob Kerslake
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas
Nick Pearce

Review Team
Rosie Seymour
Stephen Earl
Uma Moorthy
Sarah Martyn

Apologies

Carol Lake
Cathy Francis

Agenda item 1 – awayday reflections and actions

1. Trevor outlined the key points from the awayday. The Panel had defined concept papers and research that was required, whilst basing the work on life cycles rather than on work strands. He then asked the Panel to provide any further comments on the awayday. The following points were made in discussion:
   • the work needed to focus on those chronic and persistent failures
   • early focus seems to be right, but the Panel still needs to decide what success should look like
   • further scoping would be required to see what the most important themes were to follow up on, and to recognise what was beyond the scope of the Review
   • the Panel needs to try and find a way to make rapid progress in some areas
   • the Panel also needs to think about the role of the report in influencing behaviours and lifestyles, need to find evidence around understanding the ways in which people behave
   • the Panel would like to commission some attitudinal survey evidence for the Review.

Agenda item 2 – draft paper: ‘What is equality?’

2. Trevor explained that this paper and the next paper on the limits of public policy are early drafts and very much work in progress. The Panel agreed that the final paper needs to be robust and defensible and relatively short around two or three pages. It will need to include:
   • the Panel's working definition of equality
   • consideration of what principles might define fairness of outcomes
   • the relationship with human rights
   • inequalities experienced by different groups.

Agenda item 3 – draft paper: ‘The limits of public policy’

3. The Panel asked for further work to be done on.
   • What we mean by ‘intervention’, and looking at alternative terminology.
   • Assessing current policy interventions in terms of their impact on reducing inequalities, particularly ‘basic’ interventions such as the state education system.

Agenda item 4 – autumn programme of work

4. The Panel agreed that meetings with government departments should be set up but noted that:
   • it would be crucial to get the correct department people round the table
   • the meetings should use a workshop format
   • meetings should cover existing and planned reviews including the Spending Review, and see if the Panel can tap into them
   • meetings should include looking at what department's are currently spending – for example looking for evidence that spending should be re–focused or more targeted to reduce inequalities
   • the Team would follow up with Panel members to agree who would attend each meeting.
5. The Panel asked the Review Team to contact academics at this stage for their input. In terms of visits, the Panel agreed that it would do a number of visits focused on a particular locality, using a set programme of events covering a range of services and organisations, rather than lots of little visits to different projects. The team would work up an outline programme and suggest a number of possible places.

Agenda item 5 – any other business

6. The Panel agreed that there would be two further awaydays – one at the end of November and the other around Easter.