The Equalities Review

Equalities Review Panel Meeting, 15 June 2006

Venue

Room 1.35
22 Whitehall
London

Present:
Trevor Phillips (Chair)
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas
Sir Robert Kerslake

Rosie Seymour
Cathy Francis
Emma Cole

Apologies
Carol Lake

1. Chair's update

Trevor set out the overarching aim for the meeting - to discuss the proposed programme of work for the remainder of Phase 2 of the Review and give the Team a clear steer on priorities.

Trevor updated the Panel on recent meetings with with Hilary Armstrong and Gordon Brown. Hilary Armstrong was keen to support the Review and asked for a further update in the Autumn. Gordon Brown similarly expressed his support and advised that he expected the final report to contain significant priorities for action that were focused on the big picture - and not bogged down with detail.

Action: Trevor advised that he would speak to Gordon Brown's office about a possible secondment of a Treasury official to the Review Team.

2. Process leading up to the Final Report

Rosie outlined the workplan between now and December and explained how inputs such as policy seminars, feedback from consultation responses and research would feed into the production of the Final Report.

Action: Rosie undertook to provide the panel with a draft outline of the Final Report in July.

The Panel agreed that it would be crucial to plan for a number of drafts of the Final report and that it was important to seek feedback on draft chapters as early as possible.

3. Consultation Update

Trevor invited the Panel to give their feedback on the consultation events. Members had found these extremely useful and said that they had gone well. The Panel had welcomed the opportunity to hear people's views.

Some of the key themes that arose from the events, which the Panel wanted to address in the Final Report, related to:

• (Institutional) discrimination and its contribution to persistent inequalities.
• The value of the work of lobby groups and the part that they have played in reducing inequalities.
• The lack of focus in the Interim Report on Human Rights.
• The concept of capability and the need to express this more clearly.
• The concept of triggers and vulnerability. It would be important to look afresh at how this was presented, including use of language, and consider whether or not the usefulness of this approach had been overstated.
• The need to present the moral and social case in stronger terms in the Final Report.
• The lack of attention in the Interim Report to health inequalities and also to ageing.
• The need to acknowledge the inequalites faced by transgender people and other marginalised groups whose experiences are often overlooked.
• The potential for applying a social model, based on the social model of disability, more broadly across inequality domains.
• Ensuring that explanations of complex frameworks were communicated as simply as possible, and the need to test out key messages with a broad range of stakeholders before publication.

Action: The Team would provide an update on the written consultation responses at the July Panel meeting.

Final Report: Supporting Documents

Having reflected on the consultation events, the Panel felt that the Final Report would need to be a simple document that clearly set out the recommendations and policy innovations. Members thought it should be supported by documents covering:

• Qualitative analysis which recorded people's experience of inequality.
• Related quantitative research, such as the analysis of employment discrimination undertaken by Professor Heath.
• A story of equality and equality practice. This should cover, for example, the conditions and key drivers for change.
• Analytical innovation. This would include, for example, the technical work on the costs of inequality.

4. Research

Cathy Francis gave an update on the planned programme of research which was dependent on additional funding. The Panel said that it would be important to build on the attitudinal analysis undertaken in phase one, not least because the key themes from that analysis were not as sharp as they might have been.

On employment disadvantage, the Panel wanted to be clear on how the Berthoud and Heath research relate to each other. This would be an important outcome of the employment Roundtable due to take place on 20 June.

Action: Trevor undertook to provide further comments on the specification for the social history research in light of the discussion on the supporting documents to the Final Report (see paragraph 3). The Team would then amend the specification accordingly.

The Panel was otherwise content with the proposed content and timetable for the research.

Action: The Panel asked for the full briefs for the various pieces of research to be circulated to all members. They also wished to be kept informed of emerging research findings.

Action: Similarly, Trevor asked for all papers from the Team to be sent directly to all Panel members from now on, without going to him separately first.

5. Seminars

Rosie Seymour referred the Panel to the paper setting out a programme of seminars and working groups over the summer and autumn.

The Panel felt that several additional areas of work needed to be addressed in seminars:

• Gender-based violence and community safety
• A seminar on the role of Local Government might be required
• Data collection (which could be covered in the Framework of Measurement working group)
• Representation (in decision making, in government, etc. - are there common principles of representation that could apply to different sectors?)
• Human Rights (after the Framework of Measurement Working Group had begun looking at this, a separate seminar would need to be dedicated to this issue alone)

Action: The Panel requested a paper for the July meeting, scoping these additional seminars.

6. Any other business.

Action: The Panel requested an update in July on Equality Impact Assessments

The next meeting would be on 19 July. Trevor suggested extending this from 2-4 to 2-5pm, as there would be a lot to cover.

Equalities Review Team
June 2006