Towards an Equality Strategy: page 3

Towards an Equality Strategy:Consultation on the Development of the Strategy

Chapter Two Devolution and Equal Opportunities

On 1 July 1999 the Scottish Parliament assumed its full powers under the devolution settlement. These include law-making powers across a broad range of areas of importance in promoting equality of opportunity. The UK Parliament at Westminster continues to deal with matters that are best dealt with on a UK basis.

Devolved Matters	Reserved Matters
Health	The constitution of the United Kingdom
Education	UK foreign policy
Training	UK defence and national security
Local government	UK fiscal, economic and monetary system
Many aspects of transport	Common markets for UK goods & services
Social Work	Employment law
Housing	Social security
Economic development
The legal system and law & order
The environment
Agriculture, fisheries and forestry
Sport
The arts

Equal opportunities reservation

As many consultees will be aware the Scotland Act 1998 also reserved equal opportunities to Westminster subject to an exception for the encouragement of equal opportunities. This ensures that there is a strong single framework operating throughout Great Britain and a strong and consistent voice on equality matters. The Scottish Parliament has already demonstrated its ability to debate and investigate equality issues with vigour and rigour in the interest of ensuring that the Scottish interest is taken fully into account in developing policy in the devolved areas and in promoting equality generally.

There is a broad definition of equal opportunities in the Scotland Act and the text is contained in Wendy Alexander’s statement in Chapter 3 (page 6).

Scottish Parliament’s commitment to equal opportunities

At the end of 1997 the Secretary of State for Scotland set up a Consultative Steering Group (CSG) to help develop the proposals for the operation of the Parliament and its rules of procedure. The CSG’s membership included representatives from all four major political parties in Scotland as well as a wide range of civic groups. The CSG’s proposals were based on four "key" principles for a 21^st century democracy. These were endorsed by the Parliament and are:

The Scottish Parliament should embody and reflect the sharing of power between the people of Scotland, the legislators (MSPs) and the Scottish Executive;

The Scottish Executive should be accountable to the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament and Executive should be accountable to the people of Scotland;

The Scottish Parliament should be accessible, open and responsive, and should develop procedures which make possible a participative approach to the development, consideration and scrutiny of policy and legislation; and

The Scottish Parliament, in its operation and its appointments, should recognise the need to promote equal opportunities for all.

In support of this commitment to equal opportunities the Scottish Parliament has established an Equal Opportunities Committee as one of eight mandatory standing committees. In addition the Parliament’s rules of procedure require all legislative proposals contained in bills presented by the Scottish Executive to be accompanied by a statement of their impact on equal opportunities. In this way the Parliament and its equal opportunities committee will be assisted in the task of monitoring performance on equal opportunities as well as reinforce the commitment to the effective "mainstreaming" of equal opportunities as part of all the work of the Scottish Parliament and the Executive. "Mainstreaming" equal opportunities means that concern for equality is built-in from the start to the development of policy, the design of services and the monitoring and evaluation frameworks. For a fuller description of what is meant by mainstreaming equal opportunities see annex.