Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service

MINUTES OF THE EQUALITY ADVISORY GROUP MEETING

12 MAY 2010

CROWN OFFICE, EDINBURGH

Present:

Elinor Kelly (Chair)

Muhammad Sadiq (Minutes)

Members	Delegates
Alan McCloskey Jim Sweeney Joe O'Donnell, HM Inspectorate Marsha Scott Mukami McCrum Pramila Kaur Susan Anderson Tim Hopkins	Bushra Iqbal Karen Kennedy Lesley Shoniwa Morag McLaughlin Sandy Mackie

Apologies:	Attending:
Bill Gray Bruce Adamson Philomena de Lima Linda Cockburn, COPFS Fiona Duncan, Scottish Court Service	Catherine Dyer, Crown Agent David Young, Scottish Court Service

1. Welcome and Introductions:

The meeting welcomed Alan McCloskey from Victim Support Scotland to the group and introduced Catherine Dyer, Crown Agent to the group.

2. Minutes of previous meetings

2.1 Minutes of meeting in Fife on 11th November 2009 were approved.

2.2 Minutes of Community Engagement meeting in Fife, November 2009 - Minutes were approved. Members noted that there was a poor turnout at the community meeting in Fife. The chair suggested that Fife area offices should be contacted regarding any updates since the event

Action Points:

a) MMcL to contact Area PF, Fife to discuss the group's comments.

b) KK to create checklist for both Crown Office based meetings and for community engagement meetings and circulate to members for comment.

2.2 Minutes of the last meeting on 10th February 2010 were approved.

3. Matters arising

3.1. Update from Policy on Hate Crime Conference, 24th March 2010.

LS updated members about the Hate Crime conference. The conference was held at Tulliallan which was jointly hosted by Frank Mulholland, Solicitor General and Mr Ian Latimer, Chief Constable, Northern Constabulary. Patrick Harvie, MSP who sponsored the Bill, gave the keynote address. The conference was held to launch the new legislation to tackle hate crime which came into force on 24 March 2010. The Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act 2009 extends existing statutory aggravations to cover offences motivated by prejudice in relation to disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity.

The aim of the conference was to provide reassurance to those affected by hate crime and to advise them of the robust investigation and prosecution policies of the police and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

Over 130 delegates attended from a wide variety of organisations across Scotland reflecting the different diversity strands - as well as personnel from the police and COPFS involved in equality and diversity work. There were also younger people from LGBT youth and 6th form pupils from two high schools.

LS informed the members about a proposed training programme for COPFS staff focusing on issues relating to LGB & T victims and disabled victims, is in development. It is hoped that Tim Hopkins and James Morton who gave presentations at the conference will assist. Scottish Court Service are considering an invitation to become involved with this training.

There was then a discussion about various aspects of Hate Crime and how it impacts on local communities. It was felt that there was still a lack of knowledge in minority communities about the new aggravations and Hate Crime legislation in general.

TH suggested that it would be good idea to raise awareness of Hate Crime by local office. Recently a Police Constable, Derek Alison, completed an 8 week awareness exercise at a High School and it was noted that there was a drop in number of hate crime incidents by local youths.

Members discussed the case of Shawn Holes, a lay preacher working in Glasgow who was charged with a Breach of the Peace aggravated by religious prejudice.

L.S informed the members about the review of the current monitoring system for race crime which is underway to incorporate monitoring of all hate crimes. The group agreed that it was essential that monitoring continues for all of the hate crimes to ensure compliance not only from COPFS staff but also from the other criminal justice partners and to see whether the new aggravations are having the impact that was intended.

Scottish Court Service are undertaking an exercise to see what information they can provide in relation to convictions.

Action Points:

a) TH will meet with COPFS staff regarding the proposed training.

b) MMcL will send TH a copy of the Sexual Offences guidance.

c) MMcL will send TH a copy of our material about the Shawn Holes case.

3.2. Update from Scottish Court Service on disposals of Hate Crime cases

DY from SCS provided information about their new computer system which is now able to provide breakdown information about the disposal of criminal cases including location details, crime type and presence of aggravations. The group asked if demographic details could also be extracted but unfortunately not in its current version. Equally their new system cannot provide evidence about monitoring and compliance with statutory duties for any of the criminal justice partners who have played a part in the history of the cases. The group concluded that it was unfortunate that all the different justice partners have such separate, incompatible computer systems however considerable infrastructure work has been dedicated to ensuring that all the separate systems are able to "speak" to one another.

3.3. Update from Policy on Accessible Information policy

KK provided an update on the launch of the COPFS Accessible Information policy in March 2010. All non-FOS (Future Office System - bespoke case management system) documents should now comply with the new policy including using the default font Verdana 11. Work to convert all of our FOS templates will take place over the Summer months.

3.4. Update from COPFS HR on current management initiatives

SM provided an update from HR on a new Corporate Values Framework project that the Director of HR, Janice Irvine is leading. The framework will focus on two of our current corporate values: respect and professionalism.

HR also plan to introduce a new Fair Treatment Policy within the next three months, to help strengthen engagement with managers to support our corporate values.

MMcL added that COPFS had applied for entry into the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index - a list of the top 100 employers for LGB and T staff in the UK. We failed to get into the top 100 for 2010 but significantly improved our position from the previous year, which was our first attempt at the index. However, the long term goal of COPFS is to build a culture where all differences will be respected and where people feel comfortable about their identity.

New Business

4. EAG Membership and Chair

4.1 COPFS Budgetary implications for EAG

KK distributed figures showing the cost of hosting the EAG as paid for by Policy Division however it must be stressed that this isn't the true cost of each meeting as COPFS only pays for travel, accommodation and refreshments for the meeting but it doesn't pay for the time of the members. A discussion ensued about how many meetings per year would be the optimum for the group to remain an effective element for COPFS. It was concluded that four meetings per year is the minimum effective number.

4.2 Replacement for Helena Scott

EK has written to Helena, thanking her for her time and efforts for the group. The members are keen to find a replacement with expertise in age related issues. The members were asked to submit any suggested names to the chair.

4.3 Finding a representative from the Chinese community to join EAG

Possible names for a Chinese representative include:

• Monica Lee-Macpherson, MBE. Chairperson of the Scottish Highlands & Islands and Moray Chinese Association and Development officer for the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations (CEMO).
• Sam Chau. Head Teacher at the Chinese School at Stow College, Glasgow and Manager at the Wing Hong Elderly Centre, also Glasgow.

It was decided that Monica would be approached first in order to gauge her interest in becoming a member of the group. EK will contact her and report back at the August meeting.

4.4 Succession Planning

There was some discussion about whether a new chair should be chosen from within the group or externally advertised. There was concern that bringing someone from the outside in to be both a new member AND the group chair would be far too much of a learning curve and would put the new chair in the invidious position of being both the junior and the leader at the same time.

It was agreed that the new chair needs to be aware of "why we are what we are" as a group. Additionally, It was recognised that chairing meetings is a specialised skill in its own right and that not everyone had those skills.

All were in agreement that a subgroup should be formed to explore the various succession options for the group and for COPFS and that this subgroup would make recommendations to the members, via email, as to how to proceed. MS, JS and KK will meet in the next few weeks to discuss options and then an email will be sent to the members asking them to support a chosen option.

EK said that she would chair the August and November meetings but hoped that her successor would be in place for the February 2011 meeting.

Action Points:

a) MS, JS and KK will meet to discuss the succession process and procedure for EAG Chair.

b) KK will forward the proposed process to the members for comment.

5. Paper from COPFS HR - Managing Poor Performance

The group went through the document page by page and found only minor typing errors. No content issues were raised at all and the group commended the authors for producing such a well thought out paper. SM was asked about the procedure when staff are on long term sick leave? He replied that it was a question of balance between poor performance, sick leave and attendance management. He was also asked whether COPFS had a separate domestic abuse policy and replied that COPFS doesn't have a stand alone policy but that this issue would be covered under the Attendance Management policy.

6. AOCB -

KK informed the group that COPFS are proposing to create a dvd for staff about COPFS values and professionalism. She asked the group if they had any ideas for scenarios that could be used in the dvd. Several suggestions were offered by the group and any further suggestions could be emailed to KK.

7. Date and venue of next meeting and proposals for agenda

• 10am on 11 August 2010 in Dundee with invited representatives from the Tayside area community for lunch and discussions after lunch.