AROS – the First 18 Months

Recognising the iterative nature of implementation, it was agreed that the work in the first 18 months of AROS would include the following

Building the capacity of communities

• To give communities the skills and power to hold public institutions to account for anti-racism, we will co-produce and run a capacity-building12 programme. We will do this with community groups and individuals with the right knowledge and expertise.
• Possible subjects might be how policy is made, how political power works in Scotland, “race” and racism, and accountability.

As part of this, we will also,

• Build on what community members told us in the community survey about the skills they want to develop.
• Learn from national and international best practice in capacity-building—for example, models in the cultural sector, Wales’s anti-racism action plan and community reports by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
• Consider other creative ways of building capacity, such as inviting AROS staff to take up placements in the Scottish Government.

Building the capacity of public institutions

• — We will co-produce and run a programme of capacity-building for decision- makers and policy-makers in public institutions.
• — This will focus on anti-racism in policy-making, co-production and lived experience.
• — We will also consider other creative methods of building capacity. These could include offering placements in the AROS to public institution staff.

Hosting a free and interactive digital library on Lived experience of communities

• AROS will make it clear to communities that sharing their experiences is worthwhile. We will do this by giving them safe spaces and the skills to share those experiences and creating a digital library where their knowledge and experience can be stored and shared more widely.
• AROS will, in turn, share what we learn from communities and community researchers with our Public Institutions group. In that way, we will bring communities’ experiences and concerns into the national spotlight.
• AROS will value communities’ lived experience as much as we do research and data on policy.

Hosting a free and interactive digital library on Policy, research and strategy

• The digital library will also hold all the information, research and data we have on past and present anti-racism strategies, policies and commitments.
• We will start by putting Scottish Government documents into the digital library.
• As soon as we can, we will add documents from Scotland’s other public institutions to it.
• Everyone—communities, other members of the public and organisations—will be able to see and use this information.

Holding others, and ourselves, to account

• AROS will continue the work of the Anti-Racism Interim Governance Group to develop the best way of holding the Scottish Government to account on its Immediate Priorities Plan (on “race equality).
• This will expand over time to take in other anti-racism work, by the Scottish Government and other public institutions.
• Together with community partners in our Accountability Groups, AROS will co-produce an annual accountability exercise. This will assess what progress public institutions are making on anti-racism.
• AROS will improve the quality of “race” and ethnicity data so that we can assess the impact public institutions are having more accurately.
• Communities will also hold the AROS to account. This will involve reflecting on whether our work is helpful and effective. It will also include looking at what anti-racism work is being done elsewhere that we can learn from.
• All this will centre on putting power in the hands of communities.

Changing how we think and talk about “race”

• In all our work, we will seek to change the way people think and talk about racism and adversely racialised communities. That includes challenging people’s ideas about who should have the power to set policy and make decisions that affect adversely racialised people’s lives. We will do this by,
• Joining up with the work that local, national and international community partners, young people, creatives and academics of colour are doing on this.
• Linking in with other digital platforms and creative outlets, and using all types of media and social media to spread the word—again, locally, nationally and internationally.

Setting out a programme of research

• To improve our understanding of racism and anti-racism we will fund, or apply for funding for, more MScs and PhDs:
• Subjects we are keen to explore in this way include community participation in policy-making; communication, language and how we talk about “race”; data and ethics.
• We would particularly encourage members of adversely racialised communities to take up these degree places.
• We will research ways of collecting, analysing and reporting on “race” and ethnicity data that do not reinforce the false ideas of “race science” and other systems of racism.
• We will then look at how we build the capacity of researchers and communities to use these safe and ethical16 ways of doing research.

Being an advocate by speaking up for communities

• AROS will call for the power to make decisions, review policy and hold public institutions to account to be shared with communities.
• AROS will co-design ways for public institutions to share that power with communities; and we will expect public institutions to use them.
• AROS will champion anti-racism learning in Scotland’s public institutions.
• AROS will recommend that the AROS serve as the secretariat for the Scottish Government’s working group looking its Immediate Priorities Plan (IPP) and Race Equality Framework (REF).