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Thanks. I will leave it there for now.

I just want to shift the focus a little bit. There are three top-line needs in the public sector equality duty: the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation; the need to advance equality; and the need to foster good relations. We have heard over the past couple of weeks and in written submissions that people tend to focus on the first—elimination of discrimination—with advancing equality and fostering good relations being kind of lesser cousins. Do you agree that that is how people are operating the PSED, whether or not that is the idea behind it?

Good morning. Thank you for joining us this morning and for your comments so far.

I will pick up on points about consistency and the overall impact. John, in your opening statement, you said that the point of the public sector equality duty is to identify areas where things are not maybe working as well as they might and to improve things so that groups and individuals with protected characteristics get the services, quality support and other things that they need.

We are very aware, from the evidence heard in the past couple of weeks and previously, that the PSED is maybe not delivering. That is the point of the reforms and there is an on-going discussion. Other members will pick up on reform specifically.

I am interested in the point about compliance. Bill Stevenson, you talked about top-level compliance and the variable responses below that. Last week, we heard that only 38 per cent of public authorities are meeting their legal requirement to report on occupational segregation, which means that 62 per cent are not. That does not sound like a high level of top-level compliance to me. Could you unpick that a bit?

I suppose that that thematic or sectoral approach allows you to get into the nitty-gritty with the different agencies and authorities involved. That kind of makes sense when, as you say, and as we heard last week, your resources have reduced over time.

Following on from that, and thinking about consistency a bit more specifically in relation to the characteristic of race, which covers colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, BEMIS Scotland is clear that colour is well understood and well worked through in public bodies but that the others quite often are not. How might we tackle that? Is that something that the reforms need to deal with, or is that stuff that should be happening now, with PSED as is?

Good morning to you and your officials, minister, and thank you for your comments. I am interested in a couple of things that you said in your opening remarks and in response to Karen Adam’s questions about consistency. One of the challenges is that some groups and individuals might rely quite heavily on the PSED to deliver positive outcomes for them, and we are not necessarily seeing consistent outcomes through the processes. What is the main reason for some of the challenges or the failures to deliver positive outcomes? We have heard quite a lot about the focus being on process rather than outcomes. Why have we not seen the shift to outcomes for individuals and for people with protected characteristics?

I hear that, and your commitment to this is very clear. You have just mentioned the value of leadership. One of the EHRC witnesses in the previous session, when commenting on the consistency of compliance—particularly with the first of the needs covered in the PSED—said that it depends on the seniority of the person completing the report and on how data is gathered.

I do not want to get into data gathering and that kind of thing, but how do we ensure that we get leadership from the top of all the public bodies on the requirement to comply with the PSED and that it is not just left to one person to try to pull everything together? How do you see your interventions driving that leadership through organisations?

Is there something about understanding, measuring or defining “fostering good relations”? My second question, on the back of your initial response, is to ask whether work needs to be supported between the EHRC and the Scottish Human Rights Commission in order to get connections between that need, as it is set out in the PSED, and the human rights obligations, with which the SHRC would have more direct engagement? Is that even on the horizon, as far as you are aware?

You mentioned the Gypsy Traveller community, which is one group of people with protected characteristics that, for a range of reasons, often falls through the cracks. People who are included in the race section might have different national origins or identities, and service provision and the requirement to uphold rights in Scotland can come into conflict with immigration policies, for instance. Where do you see the potential value or use of the PSED—as a blunt tool or otherwise—in enabling public authorities to provide services to people who have no recourse to public funds but to whom we still have obligations under those duties?

It is about public authorities understanding that the PSED could be a tool but that it will not necessarily solve problems relating to someone’s immigration status.

I want to shift the conversation a little bit, minister. Within the public sector equality duty, there are three high-level needs: to pay due regard to eliminating discrimination, harassment and victimisation; to advance equality; and to foster good relations. In the past couple of weeks and this morning, we have heard that two of those needs—advancing equality and fostering good relations—are often overlooked, not given as much importance or not well enough understood. How would you describe the need to foster good relations to the people you are talking to, such as public bodies, public agencies or others with responsibilities under the PSED?