Scottish Funding Council's 'Tackling persistent inequalities together' document

[OhBuggerandArse]

Morning! Question here probably mostly for any FE/HE people. We've just had a reconvened Equalities committee meeting at my work, and have been told that current guidance for colleges and universities in Scotland is to pick equality outcomes that we want to focus on from this list (scroll down to Annex B) produced by the Scottish Funding Council. It is a very odd document - it lists a number of issues that the SFC have identified as persisting inequalities, but I can't see any links given to the underpinning research (if any?), and there are some very odd moments (such as when they say they have not identified any persistent inequalities associated with Pregnancy and Maternity) and the measures they are looking for in response are vague - chatty kinds of indicators about students reporting feeling safe, etc, which I don't think any standard student satisfaction question sets ask them. Do any of you have any understanding of the background to this document, or any advice about how to deal with it?

www.sfc.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/uploadedFiles/Tackling_persistent_inequalities_together.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawJQl6xleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHbctEktJ1sOmhKII3GFVJjkTQ1BrAFnTM1OQHPorN1bg6DHRBNzpBts0vg_aem_P3ITq1Qsgk_oN284Oeh_Cw

Hi op I work in a partner organisation with this organisation, let me have a look at it properly when I finish work to see what it means. They are all doing various reviews at the moment due to the skills reform review by Withers that took place a couple of years ago so it could be related to that.

Did you get a chance to have a think about this, @AstonsGerbil? Would be very grateful!

Did you find the top level page https://www.sfc.ac.uk/student-interests/access-equality-diversity/ which gives some of the background and some more info? In particular, from www.sfc.ac.uk/publications/national-equality-outcomes-data-and-reporting-guidance/ that

Equality outcomes should not:

• Improve the lives of everyone (not everyone is in a disadvantaged group).
• Duplicate other specific duty
• Duplicate existing Equality Act 2010 obligations.

? (I just googled that up, though, I have no pre-existing knowledge.)

Yes - I still can't see any link to the data they are using to inform their target issues. And in this page https://www.sfc.ac.uk/publications/national-equality-outcomes-data-and-reporting-guidance/ on data collection they don't even include Pregnancy and Maternity in the list of protected characteristics.

Hi no, sorry it does seems to be slightly different from our draft one! I don't know where they have got the underlying research from. It is odd, I'm going to see if I can be brave and casually ask about it next month at the main meeting they are having with various partner organisations. It's a big one to announce the new impact document as we are also currently doing a new document, I don't know why, but I'm wondering if it's going to include a different type of slant. I'm not a manager or high up in my organisation so I haven't seen the machinery behind it sadly.

I don't want to say too much in case I reveal myself a bit, I think a lot of it is still internal only at the minute, which I can't share.

The one thing I am sure of is it will be coming from the government as the idea is all these organisations are linking more strongly together and taking guidance from the government. It's why questionnaire demographic questions have changed recently, which I think I mentioned on another thread.

I'm sure it is coming from the government, but as far as is evident from the documentation the guidance on identifying priorities seems to be based on little more than sloppy TwiX talking points. I really hope that's not the case, but the current climate doesn't give me much cause for confidence. And pretty shocking that they are able to simply leave out an entire protected characteristic - isn't that cause for challenge or review in itself?

I am pondering a FoI request but am not sure how best to frame it - perhaps best to focus in the first place on the claim that no inequality was found in relation to Pregnancy and Maternity, and ask both the SFC and the EHRC what evidence that claim is based on and copies of any correspondence relating to the research process and decision? Is anyone good at getting the wording tight enough on things like this to be helpful?