Category Archives: Blog

Meanwhile, in other business…

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I am remiss in blogging the things I am doing outside of the Equality Bill – but I am still doing the usual level of meetings, events and so on. I met with the Gurkhas at Parliament to support the campaign for equal pension rights. I met with a local woman who is starting a campaign to get a counsellor (talking therapy kind – not Haringey Council) into every primary school. I think this is a very good idea – and in principle am supporting her campaign. I met with a Japanese reporter who wanted my assessment of the key issues around the Baby Peter case as they have a similar case in Japan – where they don’t have children’s social services. I did a lecture on ‘ A Different Future’ to a progressive group – expounding my theories that we mustn’t return to the same old same old greed and avarice – both in banking and in politics. I did an interview with the programme ‘How to Look Good Naked’ and no – it didn’t involve me in taking my clothes off – and no I am not going to reveal here what it was about! All will be revealed in the autumn when the program goes out! I did an interview with the Westminster Hour (pre-recorded) on the Parliamentary procedures around Bill Committee – don’t get me started – just so wrong.

I visited a local hostel run by St Mungo’s – famous for its work with rough sleepers and the homeless. This hostel works with those coming out of prison – and is doing really great work with some of the most difficult and challenging persistent offenders. They are having quite a lot of success in reducing re-offending – which in my view is the way to go. Currently re-offending rates are astronomical – but often because those in prison have mental health or substance issues and come out with no skills, sometimes illiterate and no home or job. The work that St Mungo’s do is to give people the ability to take their place back in society by helping them with all those things.

I went to Abyssinia Court – a local sheltered housing scheme – where a local volunteer had organised a fantastic afternoon. Yolanthe had persuaded local therapists and nutritionists to come into the home to talk about important, really important things for the not so young – like nutrition, exercise, yoga, homeopathy and many other alternative therapies. There were talks explaining the different things in the main room – and then you could go to any of the advisers or therapists for a taster. What a fabulous thing to do for our older citizens. And then there’s been the the Hornsey Carnival and Bazm-e-shero adab at Wood Green library!

15th and 16th sitting of the Equality Bill Committee

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On we went to the 15th and 16th sitting of the Equality Bill Committee during the week. The first part of the day was spent on the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Tim Boswell (Tory) had tabled an amendment that sought to add protection of an individual’s human rights to the public sector equality duty. The argument he made (rightly in my view – and I have a new clause along the same lines next Tuesday) was that the Bill should not only be about stopping discrimination on specific grounds – the ‘protected characteristics’ such as race, sex, disability, religions, sexual orientation and so on. It should also be about more general promotion of human rights – which, apart from the practical implications would also be an important message of principle about human rights being for everyone and not simply a collection of specific niches. In response, the Solicitor General did not really address the point, just saying that she did not think this amendment would add anything to the protection already in the Bill.

The debate moved onto the frontbench Tories arguing (or probing) the Government as to how they wanted the public sector equality duty to apply to private companies who are contracted to deliver public services. The duty certainly extends to their delivery of the public service for which they are contracted – but not it would seem to their own organisation.

The Minister argued against this, saying it would put companies in an uncompetitive position. If Group 4, for example, in its public function of running prisons was also thereby required to follow the public sector equality duty in its other commercial ventures – say delivering cash to banks – then other companies that did not have this duty could have a competitive advantage.

There was also a very long section around religious organisations who also operate commercial functions. An example would be Catholic adoption agencies – which under the duty would be bound to facilitate adoption to a gay couple. Given that they feel this transgresses their ethos, the argument was that they should not have to do it.

The Solicitor General answered that in the provision of adoption services such an agency should be able to offer every option for a child – including gay adoption if necessary. I don’t think this is something that there will ever be agreement on – but the law moves to make a public function non-discriminatory.

In the afternoon, I had two amendments which questions why the Government exempted schools and children’s homes from the protection from age discrimination. My arguments were around the inequity of children in children’s homes being arbitrarily moved because that children’s home was registered for, say, 10 – 14 year olds – which can be bad enough in itself, but even worse if it means they are separated from siblings with whom they are meant to be kept. Under 18s have, in my view, the same need for protection from discrimination as adults – if not more. How young people and children are treated shapes them for the rest of their lives. If treated with respect – they will grow up respectful. It was a very long argument – but once again – the Government maintained it was just fine if children had to put up with being shunted around to suit the system rather than their needs.

The BBC then came into the debate in the form of a probing amendment that sought to find out whether they would be subject to the public sector equality duty in their programming. The Minister assured the Committee that the duty applied only to that which was outside of the content of their programming. Phew!

Baby Peter – Haringey even worse than we thought!

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The Ofsted Report on Haringey Council’s progress on child protection since the fall out after Baby P and since the installation of a new Director of Children’s Services was published this morning.

It makes miserable reading as the key findings are that the situation in Haringey Child Protection was even worse than we thought with a 400 case backlog. Either Haringey didn’t know how bad they were or they were hiding how bad they were – either way a terrifying prospect.

The report states: ‘Significant shortcomings remain which means that children and young people in Haringey are not yet consistently safeguarded.’

And goes onto say: ‘The Council has made limited progress overall in addressing the areas of weakness identified in the November 2008 joint area review … Capacity to improve within the Council and across the partnership is limited overall.’

Whilst the report rightly recognises the efforts that have been made by staff to improve the service and safeguard the borough’s children, the main message is that children and young people are still not safe and that progress is limited and the capacity to improve that situation is also rubbish.

Peter Lewis (new Director on very high salary) said it would take him three years to really turn Haringey around. However, this report would seem to indicate that he is not track – or at least a fast enough track – to do so.

I will be seeking a meeting with him – to find out why there has been such slow progress and what the issues are. Certainly there is a shortage of social workers – and they are not rushing to Haringey to help.

But I have to say if things don’t speed up in the next six months maximum – then Ed Balls is going to have to put Haringey into special measures. We cannot continue with our children not being safeguarded properly.

Equality Bill: equal pay

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There were four sessions of the Equality Bill Committee last week, so for this post I’ve picked out the arguments around unequal pay between men and women. So to the normal anonymous commentators who take exception whenever I blog about discrimination about women – I expect to hear from you shortly!

First up – hypothetical comparators. When you bring a case for discrimination in pay, currently the woman has to point to a similar job being done by a man – i.e. there has to be a real comparator to prove discrimination. This is quite different to any other case you can bring on discrimination. If you are black and believe you have been discriminated against – you don’t need a comparator at all – for example.

The reason this continually comes up as an issue – and as a barrier to women being able to bring claims – is that there are many jobs that are almost solely done by women – dinner ladies, lots of carer jobs, seamstresses etc. Traditionally these ‘women’s’ jobs have been paid poorly as women’s work has always borne the stigma of not being as important as men’s work and consequently is paid at a lower rate.

I am not sure why the Government continues to resist the introduction of the ability to use a hypothetical comparator. However, resist the Solicitor General did. My arguments weaved around the fact that there often isn’t ‘evidence’ because men don’t do the comparator work – and so insisting on a traditional comparator locks out whole areas of possible discrimination from action. This argument has been put many, many times by others before. It is used elsewhere quite commonly to resolve the issue around women’s work not having a comparator. And it is clearly outrageous that it is only in discrimination in women’s pay that a real comparator is required. So – shame on the Government on this one!

Another big issue was Clause 73 – gender pay gap information. This is the one you may have heard about – and is the Government’s proposal that companies of over 250 people will have to publish the pay patterns for their male and female employees – so that employees can see for themselves if they are being discriminated against and external bodies like the Equality and Human Rights Commission can judge if there is systemic discrimination.

Problem from my point of view is this clause only suggests that the information be published and leaves it as voluntary until at least the year 2013. As the Equal Pay Act was passed 39 years ago and women are still paid 17% less then men for equal work – we are sick of waiting.

So instead of this weak measure, the Lib Dems think there should be compulsory pay audits – and that if companies (and we think over 100 employees would be a much better number to encompass a reasonable proportion of the population 80% of whom work in the private sector) had to publish this information – women would be able to bring claims as they could see if they were unfairly paid. So could men for that matter.

So our argument is about letting employers off the hook for another four years. And as I pointed out to the Minister – we don’t know what hue the next government will be and if (heaven forefend) it is a Tory government – then hell would freeze over before they introduced the compulsory element.

I used many a persuasive argument. Some of the Labour backbenchers in committee agreed with me. But the Minster was determined to keep it voluntary – referring continually to the CBI, the Equality Commission and the Government agreeing on ‘metrics’ by which progress could be measured. So – I might as well have been whistling Dixie as the Minster was set in stone and clung to somehow this all being alright in the future.

Then there was the issue of allowing ‘representative action’. Currently, if a woman believes she has been discriminated against in terms of pay she can take the claim to an employment tribunal. Firstly – you have to be quite brave and assertive to take a claim forward. Secondly, the resources for tribunals etc are so inadequate that there is currently a backlog of women waiting – and waiting – and waiting. Thousands and thousands of women are held in this backlog – and women have actually died waiting for justice. There is nothing in the Bill that increases resources – and that would not be the whole answer anyway.

The proposed amendment would allow ‘representative action’. This would mean that if there were other women who were discriminated against in the same way – they could be represented as a group by either the trade unions or indeed the Equality Commission. But again the Government resisted this most obvious of moves forward – backed as they proudly claimed by the CBI.

Well – we were backed by all the women’s’ organisations you can imagine – who are just sick of warm words from the Government but no real action. For we don’t just need laws about equal pay – there also needs to be the ability to bring cases.

The Government, I think, got the message – as the Solicitor General said they were going to consult (again) and whilst she attacked me stridently over the suggestion during the debate – at the end she conceded that they would probably be able to bring something along these lines back in the autumn when the legislation passes to the Lords for its scrutiny there.

So – we fight on – and will bring some of these key issues back at the Report Stage of the Bill in the Commons chamber. The Government is clearly in thrall to the CBI and refuses to take the steps that would deliver equal pay. How can a Labour government fail so monumentally – even if only as their legacy – to deliver this most important of steps towards equal pay for women?

Anonymous job applicatons: who's afraid of a bit of evidence?

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So – the Mail on Sunday is sounding off about some of the work the Government is undertaking to prove or disprove the theory that discrimination exists in the form of applicants for jobs getting eliminated because they have names that give away their ethnicity, gender or age.

Apparently the Department of Work and Pensions sent out two thousand applications using false names to judge the response. The Mail characterises it as to see ‘if they are racist’. And how dare they waste businesses’ time. And the CBI joins in. How dare they etc.

Well – I say well done Government. I am glad they are carrying on testing my idea about anonymous job applications because if my theory is proved that by removing names and replacing them with a number on applications we end up with people not being discarded from the first sift of applications because their name shows they are black, female or old – that will be a very, very good thing. And it won’t cost business anything virtually.

And if the CBI are confident that I’m wrong? Well, they shouldn’t be worried about evidence being gathered to find out!

Proof is in the pocket: the Equality Bill

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Earlier this week I did a blog post for e-Politix.com:

Proof is in the pocket

Perhaps you have to be a solicitor to understand why it is necessary to rewrite the law to say the same thing. Working on the Equality Bill has been like a labyrinthine legislative version of spot-the-difference. On the one hand a myriad of regulations and legislation spanning 40 years, and on the other a new single tome – the Equality Bill.

To be fair, there are a few obvious differences – such as ending disparity of protections between different types of discrimination, most notably age. However, it will come as no surprise that, as a party with liberty and equality at the heart of our ideology, we wanted more than just a re-stating of existing law. Just tidying up the legislation implies that those who face discrimination are well enough protected. This could not be further from the truth, particularly when it comes to the workplace.

The flashing fluorescent elephant in the room when it comes to employment discrimination is of course equal pay for women. What the government is proposing is new, but not radical. The bill gives powers that require companies with over 250 employees to publish rudimentary information about the difference between what their male and female employees are paid.

When it comes to equal pay, equality campaigners could be forgiven for thinking they are stuck in a time-warp. Flash back to the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the government of the day imposed a time delay to allow businesses to comply. Forty years later, the government is giving businesses time to comply voluntarily with its pay gap publishing requirements. How much more time is needed, and more importantly, how much longer should women wait? My thinking is that they have waited long enough.

Good regulation must engage all stakeholders. Only through listening can government understand how to give the greatest effect to its intentions and to make sure any possible negative consequences are properly accounted for.

Businesses have legitimate concerns about how new equal pay requirements might affect them. In a time of recession when margins get even tighter, new regulations that impose compliance costs must be carefully considered and where possible mitigated against, for example by excluding smaller businesses.

My experience is that businesses are alive to the problem of unequal pay, but I am slightly more suspicious about how they think it should be solved. If the business lobby is to be believed, the pay gap is all the government’s fault, because of the poor quality of careers advice given to young women. Careers advisors telling girls to be hairdressers not bankers does not account for the systematic discrimination against women that sees them receive roughly 17 per cent less pay. If only the problem was that simple to solve.

The issue goes much deeper, to the core of business practice. It is about their policies, their culture – the whole way of doing business and how this impacts on employees both male and female. All too often equal pay is seen as just a women’s issue, but what about the business culture where it is frowned upon for a man to take emergency time off to look after a sick child who has been sent home from nursery. More often than not this duty seems to fall on the mother. The implications of this mentality will ripple throughout her career and will ultimately be reflected in her (and his) pay.

To tackle this we must expose the impact of such practices through revealing the true extent of pay disparity. The government’s pay gap information is a feeble, half-hearted measure that even businesses agree won’t do what it is designed to. A proper pay audit is when you get under the bonnet of a company and actually look at the nature of the jobs, comparing them and how they are paid. Government should support businesses in this process by making it as simple and as inexpensive to carry out as possible.

As the bill passes through Parliament, where the minutiae of the differences between old regulations and new law is raked over, I can’t help fearing an opportunity to tackle gender pay inequality head-on is being missed. I very much hope it is not another 40 years before this inequality affecting half the population is looked at again.

What to do about the Muswell Hill bus stop?

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Yesterday first meeting of the day was with Transport for London (and Cllrs Martin Newton and Gail Engert) with regard to the bus stop (W7 and 144) sited about 100–150 metres down Muswell Hill from the roundabout.

The problem is that older people, mothers with buggies and those with mobility problems have real difficulty getting to this crucial bus stop because of the gradient of the hill. It is a very busy bus stop – and it becomes even more crucial with the imminent opening of Hornsey Central Health Centre, as it is only this bus that goes directly from Muswell Hill to the centre.

A little child coming down the hill towards the bus stop fell over whilst we were standing there – as if to illustrate the point. TfL understood the issue. They have now gone away to see which option might be possible: resiting the bus stop (unlikely), adding in a stop at the roundabout (most possible of the alternatives), extending the route to enable a bus stop along Broadway or Fortis Green (less likely). Anyway – as I said – TfL have now gone away to look at the options. Let’s hope that they take the proper action – because it really is a huge issue for older people who have to get to their doctor or to the centre for other health checks and cannot negotiate the hill safely.

At lunchtime I went to a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV/AIDS. One of my constituents was there – and we are going to meet up locally to see how we can take forward both the normalising of HIV / AIDS so that the stigma is further reduced and more people learn that there is really no difference between someone with HIV/AIDS and someone without the chronic disease – except the illness, which isn’t catching and no longer means dying. We have let this slip off the agenda a bit – but I think it needs another awareness campaign. And perhaps even more importantly – a campaign to get people to come forward for testing. There is still a reluctance – but if tested early – the treatments now are fantastic (although tough at times). There is no longer a death sentence to having the disease – but you have to get tested to get the medicine!

Then it was off to New Scotland Yard to meet with the Trafficking Unit. I wanted to meet with them because locally I have been concerned about the girls working in a massage parlour and the extent of the adverts in the back of some of our local newspapers which blatantly advertise things like ‘new girls arriving all the time’.

In fact, in terms of the newspaper ads (which I thought would be an easy thing for the squad to tackle) they say it’s a difficult line between trafficking and prostitution, and chasing down ads doesn’t really address the organised crime and the challenges of bringing and persuading trafficked girls and women to safety. The unit is really targeting enforcement and has had some success. Sadly – the Government seems keen to stop their funding – which is clearly insane given they are the only unit tackling this and it is highly, highly specialised.

We looked also at the issues around trafficked children – and Haringey is an area where there are some concerns around this issue. I remember there was always discussion as to whether Victoria Climbie had been trafficked. Having met her parents I find it hard to believe. But there definitely is a trade in trafficked children and I will be setting up some meetings (hopefully) with someone who can get into that community and help the police. Anyway – a very interesting briefing – and hopefully very useful.

Anonymous job applications – ending discrimination

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I have blogged several times about my idea to make use of anonymous job applications – so as to end the subliminal discrimination that creeps in with some applications being discarded because of the names on them.

I floated my idea during the Second Reading of the Equality Bill and it caused quite a hoo ha. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development waded in to support the idea – albeit they didn’t think it should be mandatory. Some Human Resource departments were less happy and thought it a stupid idea. Well – it will be interesting to see what they say in response to the evidence that’s now been gathered.

Because – when I spoke to my amendment on anonymous job applications in the Committee Stage of the Equality Bill, I was absolutely thrilled with the Solicitor General’s response:

The Solicitor-General: That is a valid point and perhaps what we ought to do is experiment, which is what we are seeking to do in that the Department for Work and Pensions [DWP] has carried out a CV research exercise. Two carefully matched applications or CVs with names recognised as having different ethnicities have been submitted in response to the same advertised vacancies to see whether employers make different decisions depending on the names in the CVs. That research will be reported in the summer—I am sorry that I do not have an answer now, having tantalisingly mentioned the subject. The initial indications are that there is significant discrimination, so more work needs to be done to find an appropriate solution.

So – initial findings are of significant discrimination. And whilst it is clearly early days and the DWP is going to do more work – it seems clear to me that – first – those who argued there isn’t a problem which needs fixing in particular need to look very closely at what the DWP has been finding, and second – here is a simple proposal which costs business nothing but could actually deliver enormous benefits in removing discrimination in the job market.

Removing such discrimination is not only important in itself – but by providing people with equal opportunities to earn their living, it opens up all sorts of other knock-on benefits in terms of social cohesion and economic efficiency, which we all benefit from.

So once we see what the rest of the research shows – I’m hopeful that we will have a proposal that is easy, not burdensome and brings major benefits – and that of course the Government will in its wisdom decide to adopt it!

I trust that the EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) will also step up to the plate and advocate anonymous job applications – and I will be writing to them as soon as I get a minute to rub together.

Speaker spoke to me

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Well – it was such an exciting day yesterday. It’s hard to explain – but the potential for change was thick in the air.

Just before the announcement of the result – as John Bercow was standing talking to me – I did suggest that it would be symbolic if he refused the pantomime tradition of having to be ‘dragged’ to the Speaker’s Chair. John said that the really important stuff was management of business, fairness etc – but I said I thought symbolism was quite important too, and if the very first thing he had done would have been to depart from tradition – that would have sent a signal.

I bet he would have done it too – if I hadn’t suggested it literally a minute before the announcement – as he seems to me to be serious about change. I look forward to what comes next!

Cometh the hour …. we shall see. Even in my short time in Parliament I have seen people desperate for one role or another – and when they have got it, they have found their dreams turned to dust because they couldn’t deliver. Ming Campbell found leadership was not the same as revered Foreign Affairs spokesperson. Gordon Brown – brooder for a decade – must wonder why and how it could all go so wrong.

So – hello Speaker Bercow. I wish you well – and like all jobs at this level – it’s what you make of it! Good luck.

Why we need more workers in the boardroom

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Cross-posted from Liberal Conspiracy:

Trying to put the pieces of the economy and our financial system back together again, it is clear that one of the underlying problems has been the vulnerability of many institutions to lop-sided incentives.

We’ve seen it as its most obvious with dealers – who can run big risks, retire very rich very young – and not have to worry about the long-term consequences, because they’ve long since left the scene. Another example has been in the boardroom – huge bonuses in the good times, and if it goes wrong? A nice little pay off and pension pot.

So how do we even out the score – especially in those institutions deemed too big or too crucial to be allowed to fail, which immediately sets up all sorts of risks of one-way bets?

Part of it is about control of the bonus culture. Part of it is about better management and identification of risk. Part of it is about getting remuneration committees to get external advice – rather than relying on the cosy arrangements of internal advice, which means it’s far too easy to have a situation of “you talk up my pay, I’ll talk up yours”.

Yet there is one group who really can see at first hand the ups and the downs of risk taking – and that is the ordinary workforce. It’s these people who suffer real financial hardship when risks fail to come off – but can also see in their job security (and – though not as often as perhaps should be the case – in their own pay packets too) the benefits when things do go well.

Having a stronger voice from the workforce in the senior decision making would be a vital safeguard in helping to control the risks firms run – because some of the people who really do suffer when the risks go wrong will be making the decisions, not just those largely on a one-way bet.

As an added bonus – recruiting some directors from the workforce would also add some much needed diversity to the make-up of company boards.

Diversity is about more than just “let’s add one middle-class white woman to a board of middle-class white men”. It’s about having a diverse set of experiences and knowledge and outlooks and instincts. That brings business benefits which some of those boards that collapsed in single-minded, risk-loving groupthink could have hugely benefited from.

That’s win, win, win for everyone.