Before answering that, I would like to reflect on the previous point. In terms of promoting identity, ethnicity will never be a barrier, but if we want to sustain things, there will be a barrier to enabling groups, especially younger generations, to progress their identity.
It is important to use ethnicity data in employment and other settings, but there is a worry for us that relates to any gap in terms of ethnicity in public bodies or services that we identify. If we always call for exclusivity for minorities, that is risky, and it is not acceptable for us as minorities. The idea should be to use information about the gaps to promote what we call an inclusive setting for everybody, rather than call for exclusivity based on ethnicity, which is very dangerous.
The worry for us is that when we identify gaps in relation to ethnicity and employment, they always seem to be viewed in terms of discrimination and racism. That is not acceptable to us. We should move beyond interpreting everything in terms of discrimination and racism and ask ourselves—as the third sector, as minorities and as policymakers—what the issues are. We know that there is a gap. The research tells us that there is a gap. We need to ask about the reason behind the gap, what has been done about it and what we are going to do about it.
Some presentations say that things have not changed for the past 40 years. That is because we are not taking a proactive role; we are not exploring and investigating the reason for the gap, beyond saying that there is discrimination and racism. The discussion has to move on. Nobody is denying that there is discrimination and racism, but they are not at a scale that should make us focus all our efforts in that context. It is more about creating equal opportunities and partnership, and it is about advice and support.
I will give an example. A stakeholder public body approached us for advice on how to consult certain groups to form its policies. It was amazed that we were prepared to advise it free of charge. It said that another group asked it for £5,000 just to facilitate a workshop. That is not acceptable from an organisation that is funded by public money to serve the whole of the Scottish scene, not just ethnic minorities. That is why we say about BEMIS that although we are an umbrella organisation for the sector, we need to fit within the Scottish scene, and not as ethnic minorities.
I asked one of our great ministers why we are funded. He said, “To serve ethnic minorities.” To do what? Just to eat and sleep and go on staying in clusters, or to be active citizens as part of Scotland? We should all aspire to be active citizens. I do not doubt that everybody does, but the mechanisms differ.
Please do not identify every gap in the employment data as discrimination or racism. We should be having more discussions about how we tackle that gap in different settings.