From a 5 year-old child in the proverbial back seat on the way to the rain-swept beaches of lockdown Portobello, this might be seen as an amusing question. For a 55 year-old Black Minority Ethnic [BME] middle-manager in the NHS, wondering why she has not yet won promotion to the ranks of the Executive Team of her Health Board, the question serves as a reminder that several decades of yet more legislation on race equality have not taken us there – the elimination of race discrimination – yet.
This Research Note was prompted by the realisation that many, if not all, public sector bodies are embarked on a journey towards eliminating discrimination in employment without knowing where they start from or knowing in any great detail where they need to get to. The Research Note uses the approach of Scottish Government as an employer to illustrate just how feckless so much of the work being done on employment equality really is. As the Research Note observes :
… government’s performance on employment equality for BME people means NASA’s Perseverance Rover is more likely to discover life-forms on Mars before race equality is unearthed in the corridors and closets of Victoria Quay …..