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Thank you for that. I take on board and totally agree with your comments about silo working. That is something that I hear very commonly. However, as I have said previously, when I ask people to come out of their silos, they always say that somebody else should do it, not them. That is just a general human nature thing, is it not?

There is a bigger structural issue here, because humans are complex—we know that—and they do not see themselves as being in a silo. However, even our parliamentary structures, our committees and our systems are based on individual portfolio areas. It is a challenge for all of us, and I am certainly approaching it in the most robust way that I can.

I gave you an example of how we already do that by making sure that ministers with different portfolios undertake visits in communities and see projects that are not necessarily directly within their portfolios.

For instance, housing is not my policy area, although I take an equalities interest in it. I do not make any financial decisions over it, and I am lucky that it sits in the social justice portfolio. Nevertheless, I go out and see the challenges in real life.

The example that gave me a profound understanding was about the cost of building additional housing and the challenges around that. The questions are: why are we not building more houses and why are we not building them more quickly? I have been on the ground, seeing the landscape and the difficulties of drilling into what is pretty hard rock, as well as the transport of goods and services, and being mindful of not only the skills that are required but the impact of decisions that inflate the costs of goods and services.

Through seeing that, I am in a better position to challenge the Minister for Housing. Obviously, he will be an expert, but I put an extra lens on from an equalities point of view. For example, what happens if you are disabled? If you are building a new housing estate, where is the nearest hospital, where are the main transport routes and what is the availability?

That is happening, and I hope that it gives you a good example. I am trying to show visible leadership and encourage all ministers to do that cross-portfolio walking as well as talking.

We are not currently considering adding rurality as a specific dimension to the EFSB. The document focuses on the public sector equality duty and our fairer Scotland duty, and it supports budget scrutiny and provides evidence of our meeting those duties. Portfolios are best placed to consider the rural impacts of their policies and, where appropriate, consider those as part of their decision processes. Island impacts are considered separately as part of the budget process. Rural considerations are mainstreamed in the Scottish Government, which means that good policy should already be thinking about the impacts that policies have across all areas, including rural ones.

We know that EQIAs are an essential tool in policy development that helps us to better understand and address the needs of the people we serve. The best way to understand the impact of budget measures, including on marginalised groups, is through thorough, high-quality and robust evaluation. I am absolutely resolute in my stance that good-quality EQIAs should underpin everything that we do, and I push back on the idea that they do not have an impact.

The Scottish Government has continued to improve in this area, and it provides training materials, online guidance, best practice examples and impact assessment surgeries to support the completion of good-quality equality impact assessments.

We have brought forward a budget that is set within the mainstream of Scottish public opinion, and that would not have been possible without engagement and participation. We have worked in good faith with Opposition parties to deliver a budget that can command the support of a majority of this Parliament, and I am hoping that it will be voted through this afternoon. I believe that we have listened to and assessed the extensive proposals that were received as part of the budget’s development; we have heard a range of views from a range of stakeholders from diverse communities across Scotland, and we have heard the priorities of the third, public and business sectors. We can deliver progress for Scotland only with the support of our partners and Parliament, and we will continue to take that approach.

On your first question about my raising various issues with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, I believe that that meeting might have happened. Regardless of that, though, I am happy to raise the two areas that you have highlighted—that is, NHS Grampian funding, and ADHD assessments and the shortage of medication.

As for your second point, I published, in the interests of transparency, the amount of money that we spend across my portfolio. We put that up; we did not wait to be asked for it in any shape or form—it was published proactively. As for the budget lines, which you have quite rightly pointed out, we procure from organisations specific services that are required to address mental health issues, provide refuges for domestic violence and so on. There is a wide range of projects dealing with socialisation and loneliness, for instance, and those are all listed with their budget lines next to them.

What happens then is that there is a clear contract—for want of a better word—that sets out the terms of engagement, the services and the quality that we expect to be delivered. We fund helplines that support people at high risk of suicide, for instance; indeed, we fund a wide range of organisations to deliver specific services.

We then have fund managers that provide the governance for the process. They are in regular contact with all the organisations, making sure that the Scottish Government is getting the service that it is paying for. The fund managers do all the quality assurance, and they are independent of the process to ensure that Scottish Government money is actually being spent on the services that we have procured.

Many organisations will, of course, provide other services. We procure particular services provided by third sector organisations, although the organisations may themselves be providing other stuff. We are responsible for our bit.

Are you referring to intersectionality regarding mainstreaming?

The use of the human rights budgeting principles remains part of the budget process. In our attempt to streamline the document and make it more accessible, we had to focus our efforts on those parts of the publication that we thought would add most value for the readers. We have set out our approach to human rights budgeting in detail over the past two years. Since there has been little change in the principles behind the Government’s approach to human rights budgeting, we focused on analysis of the key budget decisions in this year’s document.

The six key questions that were developed with EHRBAG were used as part of the case study approach, which included two questions that specifically asked how human rights impacts had been considered. Additionally, the portfolio summary chapters tied portfolio budget activity to both human rights articles and national outcomes.

There is an increased use of intersectional evidence and analysis to inform policy making across the Scottish Government, and that is helping us to understand structural inequalities and to inform inclusive policy making. Analysts and policy professionals—I will bring in Nick Bland shortly—are building their understanding of how to apply intersectional approaches. Practical considerations are set out in “Minority ethnic women’s experiences in Scotland 2024: intersectional evidence review”. That was published in December, and the committee will be aware of it.

When undertaking intersectional research, analysts are encouraged to use qualitative and quantitative sources of data and evidence to ensure a deeper understanding of intersectional issues. We then need to triangulate those to ensure that we get the best evidence possible and the clearest picture. Nick, can I bring you in here?

There was a lot in that question. I will do my best to cover everything, but please prompt me to come back in on anything that I miss.

Regarding the gender budgeting pilot and the overarching goals, I welcome the recommendations from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on improving gender budgeting. The Scottish Government recognises the recommendation that we should develop those goals. We are actively considering Scottish gender goals and, in particular, how that recommendation intersects with recommendations from the First Minister’s national advisory group on women and girls. With that group, we are working to identify options to develop gender goals with women and girls with diverse lived experience, including BAME women.

We are also exploring how to progress the OECD’s second recommendation, on the changes that are required to the budget process, while being mindful that adaptations will be necessary to suit Scotland’s specific circumstances. The OECD recognises that no country in the world has managed to achieve what is recommended, so we are all on that journey. A lot of work is required and it is a long-term commitment that has to be specific to, in this case, Scotland.

On your point about cross-portfolio working and the intersectionality that will lead to good practice when it comes to completing good-quality equality impact assessments, that has been part of my discussions with the nine ministers I have met so far. By speaking to all my colleagues, I am able to spot the overarching connectedness across their portfolios. An example of that is in housing. I have a meeting with the housing minister coming up, but I can already spot and will bring to his attention the disproportionate impact that housing policy and budget decisions can have on ethnic minorities. I use that particular protected characteristic group as an example because you mentioned it.

Housing is one portfolio but, to give another example, I can also spot within the local government portfolio the need for access to services in communities. That also links to transport. We know that members of that protected characteristic group are more likely to use public transport and are less likely to have access to private transport. In my conversations with the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, I am able to link those policy areas together.

My role is not to make ministers’ decisions for them but to highlight those intersectionalities, to get them talking to one other and, more important, to get them to do that prior to making any decisions. That is the change of approach. I assure the committee that I am robustly challenging my colleagues to consider those things, to come out of our silos and to move towards that outcome rather than outcomes that are based on portfolios. I am aware that the effect of that approach will take a long time to be seen, because we are talking about people behaving differently and a cultural change is required for that. Ministers have been very receptive and very grateful for the oversight that I am able to provide.

It is early days and I am realistic that the impact that the work will have had on this year’s budget will have been minimal due to my coming into the role when I did. However, I am expecting a difference and I will be holding ministers to account, just as they hold me to account, you hold us to account and, more important, the general public hold us all to account. At the end of the day, that is what we want.

I want to see that work cut through, so that the family that Ms Gosal mentioned feels that tangible difference and can see that connection between their lives and the decisions that ministers make.