Scottish Government

Promoting Race Equality in Scotland
Reviewing Progress on Delivering the Race Relations (Amendment) Act

Monday 8 December 2003
9am - 4:30pm
The Hilton Edinburgh Grosvenor
Grosvenor Street
Edinburgh

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www.scotland.gov.uk
www.cre.gov.uk
www.onescotland.com

Promoting Race Equality in Scotland:

Reviewing Progress on Delivering the Race Relations (Amendment) Act

'Ensuring that Scotland's Public Bodies are meeting their commitments to eliminating racial discrimination, ensuring equal opportunities and promoting good race relations.'

The Scottish Executive and the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) in Scotland are committed to ensuring that Scotland's public bodies follow both the letter and the spirit of race relations legislation. We know that this poses a major challenge for Scotland's public sector. We think that now is a good time to take stock of what has been achieved so far and establish what action is still required.

Purpose of Conference

The purpose of the conference is to:

• take stock of the achievements since November 2002 (one year on from publication of Race Equality Schemes);
• report on the findings of the CRE's analysis of Scottish Race Equality Schemes and Policies, and recommendations for action;
• highlight and explore the practical challenges for promoting race equality and eliminating racism in the future;
• place the implementation of the RR(A)A within a wider GB, European and international context.

Structure of Conference

The conference will comprise speeches, plenary discussions and highly participative seminars. Those speaking will include Margaret Curran MSP, Minister for Communities, Kay Hampton, Scottish Commissioner and Deputy Chair of the CRE, and John Elvidge, Permanent Secretary at the Scottish Executive. The emphasis will be very much on giving you the opportunity to explore issues that are of practical relevance to your organisation.

Seminars

Five seminars will focus on key issues we know public bodies are keen to get right. We will run the seminars twice during the afternoon to allow you to attend two seminars of your choice. Each seminar will be facilitated by people with relevant experience who will provide a focus for discussions.

The seminars will provide you with the opportunity to explore issues that are relevant to you and enable you to identify future activities.

The topics for the seminars will be:

1. Focusing on Outcomes. How to identify deliverable and measurable outcomes for tracking progress in implementing the RR(A)A.

2. Assessing Impact. How can public bodies establish that they are being effective in delivering on race equality?

3. Community Engagement. What are the ways of ensuring that communities are involved effectively in the delivery, of race equality by public bodies?

4. Training for Race Equality. How do public bodies ensure they get the training they really need as opposed to the training they get given?

5. Employment. How can organisations ensure that they are fulfilling their employment responsibilities?

Who Should Attend?

Senior executives and managers from Scottish public bodies that have statutory duties under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, both general and specific. These will include senior executives and managers from:

• Scottish Executive departments, including Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
• Local government departments, e.g. Housing, Education, Social Work, etc.
• Health Boards and Trusts
• Higher and Further Education Institutions
• Scottish Enterprise and Local Enterprise Companies, Highlands and Islands Enterprise
• Organisations' race relations, equality and diversity departments and units
• Human resource departments
• Police forces
• Scottish Prison Service
• Careers Scotland, Job Centre Plus
• Trade Unions.

Senior officers from NGOs and voluntary organisations involved in the promotion of race equality.

Outline Programme

Please return your booking form by post, fax or e-mail to:

Expotel
St James' House
Wellington Road North
Stockport
Cheshire
SK4 2RZ

Tel: 0161 947 4551
Fax: 0161 442 2919

e-mail: dewhite@expotel.com