Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am glad to hear about the project in your constituency. It is always good when such a campaign is successful, but you have to ask why a campaign was needed in the first place, because good decisions should be made at the earliest stage.

We do a number of things in relation to the point that you raise. Obviously, the equality and human rights budget that accompanies budgets is an important tool that can be used to understand, to mainstream and to influence things. The fairer Scotland duty and the public sector equality duty are other elements that focus in on the issue. We are reviewing those duties alongside our work on mainstreaming and on the new human rights legislation in order to ensure that they all work well with one another.

As part of the public sector equality review, we have had a lot of responses from stakeholders asking us to go further and deeper. In the summer, many organisations in the race equality area contacted us to ask us to do more, so we decided to spend a bit more time with stakeholders in order to enable them to influence and focus that process in a way that would meet their needs. That includes working with our colleagues in COSLA on its work. The new boards are just getting off the ground. I have met Councillor Chalmers, who is the new chair of the community wellbeing board. Much of the work sits in the wellbeing portfolio. I have met her to discuss a few issues—it was a general session to get to know her and to ask what the focus of the committee will be over the next few years. We also looked at the work on which we can collaborate. That includes work relating to public sector equality duties, the fairer Scotland duty and local authorities’ general core duties.

I am meeting Councillor Chalmers in the next few weeks to discuss our work on women, domestic abuse, gender discrimination and inequality. I am also meeting her to discuss a specific point to do with our new human rights bill. We are working with local authorities and other folk in the public sector to look at how we can improve processes, and the PSED review is now under way.

The equality data improvement programme demands plans. If we are to strengthen public sector equality duties, the data that is collected, disaggregated and used will be incredibly important. That ties into that work, too. How we use all that to influence things is incredibly important.

In the new Scottish human rights legislation, we will incorporate four United Nations treaties. As there are no UN treaties on older people or LGBTI people, we are looking at how we incorporate in the legislation sections on equality for those people so that those have the same effect in law as the UN treaties.

Part of the issue is to do with people not having their human rights and inequality issues realised by public authorities. Legislation is a tough tool to use. I would rather public authorities uphold the fairer Scotland duty and their public sector equality duties in a way that people do not feel that their rights are being disrespected and that they have to seek judicial remedies. The legislation will give us another tool in the box to effect societal, organisational and institutional change. We know that that needs to happen—we have been working towards that for many years. We are seeing progress now, but there is more to do, and I am always open to hearing ideas about how we do that.

I will give one example of where we spend money and how that makes a difference. JustRight Scotland is one of the organisations that we fund, and it is included in our six-monthly report. It has launched a free and confidential second-tier discrimination advice helpline, which is directly aimed at advisers and other front-line workers who support members of the public. The line helps to ensure that the people who offer such services are trained in a way that responds to an individual’s needs, should someone pick up the phone and say that something is not working for them and that they need support. The line gives people the support and the opportunity to tackle and challenge that.

That is just one example of the organisations that we fund to do front-line work. Those organisations are much better placed to understand the needs, wishes and challenges that people in Scotland have, especially when their rights are not being realised.

I have mentioned my for-info folder. There are lots of documents for my interest in that folder in which those conversations are taking place and in which actions on those issues are referred to.

When I sit down and talk to finance officials or other ministers, they use the language of the PANEL principles approach. It is really reassuring to hear that, but we then need to ensure that that is reflected in the work that they do.

A joint ministerial group on the public sector meets every few weeks. There will not have been a time when I have not spoken up on behalf of the organisations, groups, stakeholders and individuals who have spoken to me over the weeks previous to those meetings. I am always injecting such issues into those meetings.

I referred to the work that Jo Ozga did on the effect on women. There is the same impact on unpaid carers and family carers. I am able to feed back some of what people are experiencing, and what I am hearing is about the adult disability payment and the child disability payment and how different the application processes are. I just heard from a family who had fought for personal independence payment for years and got adult disability payment without having to go through all the assessments that they had had to go through for PIP.

I inject such examples into the discussion, because that puts a real human face on a policy, and when I feed that back to the Deputy First Minister and other colleagues, that clearly demonstrates the impact that the right decisions can have on people’s lives. I will continue to do that, and I am always open to hearing about ways that we can do that better. I will use all the avenues that I have to raise such issues as many times as I can.

There are a number of legislative and non-legislative ways in which we do that. Obviously, there is the fairer Scotland duty, we have our processes, and there is equality impact assessment development. The work that I have been doing over the past few years has included looking at EQIAs to find the gold standards and ensure that they are used all the way through Government. That is a big part of the mainstreaming team’s work. We have offered a number of opportunities to other colleagues across Government to take part in training and experience the way to do EQIAs that details the outcomes that we want to see. That is the important part. It is not just about completing the document; it is about what that does and how we can measure progress against it.

The most effective place for EQIAs is throughout the cycle of the development. They should not be done at the end of the process or just at the beginning of it. The document has to be a living document, so it always has to go through all the processes. That is done so that it informs our decision making as we go a step at a time, whether we are talking about annual budget allocations, the help that we give to people or outcomes.

I mentioned the Saoirse project. There are a number of other projects. I have a list of them at the back of a folder, and I will give members information on some of them shortly.

We measure against our national performance framework. What have we committed to making progress on in that? How does that map across to what we are doing with an EQIA and what that EQIA does to inform policy making and create better outcomes? We go all the way through that.

We have committed to doing work around the emergency budget, and we have done work around the resource spending review. These are pretty exceptional times in which to do that. The fairer Scotland budget statement comes along with that.

Among all of that is Angela O’Hagan and her team. I have extended the remit of the group and extended Angela’s contract with us to chair it. The group has been renamed; it used to be called the equality budget advisory group—EBAG—but it is now called the equality and human rights budget advisory group, although EHRBAG does not really sound right, so we are not calling it that.

We have extended the group’s influence, and we have reviewed many ways of improving the processes. We have done some draft work, which we have given to Angela and asked whether we are on the right track. It is good to have a critical friend in an organisation that sits there and scrutinises and analyses our work but also gives us recommendations on how to do it. The group is very motivated and has given us a bigger piece of work to do, and we have drafted a response to that. I will give the committee updates when Angela comes back to us. We have regular catch-ups and I am meeting her again soon.

The issue is about having judicial processes—things that we have to do under the fairer Scotland duty—and other processes around what we must do to ensure that decisions are made effectively and create outcomes. We work with stakeholders and external organisations, which provide that critical eye and give us guidance, support and recommendations on how we move the work forward.

That is the process, and then we see projects such as the Saoirse project, where we are taking an intersectional approach to the challenges that are faced by women who are victims of domestic violence—who might also have substance abuse or addiction issues—to get them the right support in a one-stop shop. When it comes down to it, what makes the difference is seeing the outcomes for those women.

I heard those comments from People First last week, and I was pleased to see that we are making real progress in that area. We recognise that accessibility is an important part of ensuring that key stakeholders have their say and see themselves in the work that we do.

Members will know that we have accessible communications legislation in place. As we move forward with our human rights bill, there will be a right in it for people to have access to documents in formats that they want. However, we currently do quite a lot of that in publishing many of our high-level documents.

I suspect that People First and others are looking for the more detailed on-going work on that. We are currently exploring all the options on how to do that in not just EasyRead but other accessible formats. We have committed to producing documents in plain text format, and we are now doing so. We have had direct feedback from stakeholders on how important that has been and why it has made documents much more accessible.

I do not take any decisions at all in my portfolio work without ensuring that I have worked very closely with stakeholders. That means publishing what we produce in a format that is their preferred method of communication. We do a lot of that already.

As far as the deeper budget documents and the ask from People First are concerned, we are currently exploring how we can do more of that. I can give members that commitment and update them when the review is completed.

Yes, I would. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for inviting me to your pre-budget scrutiny session, during what I think we will all agree is one of the most difficult budget rounds since devolution—certainly in my 15 years of being in this place.

I am sure that the committee shares my frustration that, at this very late stage in terms of preparing our own budget, we are still playing a waiting game with Westminster. It is unnecessarily challenging to undertake business in this way, when the goalposts keep changing. Even the dates for announcements are changing rapidly, and it is sometimes hard to keep up.

The reckless behaviour of successive Prime Ministers has left us in a situation of crippling inflation, which has reduced the Scottish Government budget by around £1.7 billion from when it was published just last December. The forthcoming budget is taking place in a context of impending recession, with record levels of inflation affecting the Scottish budget funding base, decreasing the spending power of the available funds, while the demand for spending increases—you will have seen many of those demands in the course of your budget scrutiny. That necessitates difficult decisions, so that we do not increase the pain that is felt by those who are most marginalised in our society—including all the folks under my portfolio, for whom I hope we have better outcomes.

I am under no illusion, however, as to the size of the task that lies ahead of us. The cost crisis is of a scale that we have not seen before. I want to make it clear that the Government understands that all budgetary decisions have an impact on equality and human rights, which is why we need to bake it into our processes.

Taking an equality and human rights approach means looking holistically at our available resources and at how we can further the realisation of human rights with what we have available. That is why we continue to focus on support for the most vulnerable. Direct examples include our equality and human rights fund and our delivering equally safe fund. Among a range of projects that are getting more than £4 million to the front line, the equality and human rights fund supported 38,000 people through one-to-one casework and helplines in its first six months alone. We have published both the reports on that, if the committee is interested in reading about it in more detail. That support is increasingly dominated by responding to the cost crisis, such as by helping with benefits, housing and applying for home energy and food bank vouchers.

The delivering equally safe fund, which targets support at eradicating, and supporting survivors of, violence against women and girls, has provided £9.5 million to 121 projects over the course of its first six months. A report on that has been published, too. Those projects give one-to-one emotional and practical support, as well as refuge, legal and financial advice and other services. Many of the organisations also run training and outreach programmes aiming to prevent violence against women and girls, and prevention is one of our key pillars in the equally safe strategy.

I was very moved and inspired by the conversations that I had with women supported by Saoirse project in Blantyre, which I visited recently—although those who are from the area will not forgive me for mispronouncing the town’s name just now. I hope that members have seen the project; if not, I suggest that they go and have a look. It is directly supported by the delivering equally safe fund and brings together specialist domestic abuse and substance use services to target the multiple, complex issues that service users face, helping them to rebuild their lives. The women I spoke to were able to tell their story once, at one door, and all the services then clicked into place. That is what Saoirse gave those women, with access and support tailored to the individual needs of those needing interventions. The women were empowered to shape the decisions about what their support looked like, which was incredibly important.

The project represents a human rights-based approach to recovery, with survivors right at its heart. It is a great example of that and, again, if committee members have not seen what it does, please have a look at it. It is just one of the projects across Scotland that offer lifelines to survivors of violence and abuse and that seek to tackle the root causes of the issue. I can truly say that it was awe inspiring. The women I met that day will be at the front of my mind every time that I make decisions on how we spend the money that we have, so I am incredibly committed to continuing to support such projects and our other third sector partners through these increasingly difficult times.

As well as working with external partners, we continue to work across Government to ensure that equality and human rights are considered in the evidence-based policy making that takes place in all our portfolios. That is why Rob Priestley is here. Mainstreaming is a key part of all that. The Government is demonstrating that it is serious about supporting those who have been, and continue to be, hit hardest by a succession of crises in Brexit, the pandemic and, now, the cost of living.

The committee has asked me about the Government’s equality data improvement programme in the past and I can give an update on it today. The programme is building a stronger and more robust equality evidence base. That work is vital to ensuring that we have all the information available to make decisions that will support the needs of the people most impacted by the cost crisis in Scotland. We take an intersectional approach and ensure that we can focus our resources appropriately on the areas where the deepest deprivation or discrimination is.

We are driving forward work on the human rights bill, which will incorporate a number of international treaties into Scots law. Giving justiciability to people’s rights is an incredibly important part of the work that I am doing in Government right now. I have met stakeholders across Scotland to hear their views on that. They have been very motivated by that piece of work and all the work that we are doing. The draft budget for this year includes funding to ensure that the bill’s consultation is accessible and inclusive—I know that that is of great interest to the committee—so that diverse voices and communities can participate in the legislative process.

We are working with the Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities, which has done a fantastic presentation on the incorporation of rights. If you have not had a chance to see that, have a look at it and the outcomes from the decisions that we take.

I repeat my commitment to taking an equality and human rights-based approach to the budget. If we do not take seriously the prerequisite for detailed needs analysis and do not listen to the views of the most vulnerable in our society, we will not address the crisis affecting our most vulnerable citizens. I am committed to continuing to do that and look forward to hearing from the committee.

I am sure that you would.

In my earlier comments, I said that I do not make any decisions without having the people for whom I want to effect change at the forefront of my mind. That is why we use panels of people with lived experience and have stakeholder events. There are many other organisations that put on a fantastic array of events, and we attempt to work with them all. We take feedback, which is the important factor here.

Our two reports on the delivering equally safe fund and the equality and human rights fund are peppered throughout with feedback both from people who have benefited and others who found challenges, as well as those who provided resolutions, because they had ideas about how to fix some of the challenges. Therefore, we can see who has been impacted, who is accessing the services, what they think of the services and how we take that forward.

We also get that information from the fund managers who work with us. The monitoring and auditing processes have been developed over the past wee while, from perhaps a straight monitoring of financial aspects that involved looking at the money that had been spent and the outcomes, to a deeper and softer approach. There is benchmarking, such that outcomes are now caught that would not have been caught by taking that more formal approach.

Having conversations and injecting those thoughts, feelings and experiences into all that work has allowed us to see what we have done. We have done the six-month reviews because we wanted to look at the difference that the funding has made, which we can see very clearly.

A few months ago, at the beginning of the cost of living crisis, Jo Ozga from Scottish Women’s Aid sent us an email with a two-page document on how bad the crisis is for women. We were able to use that piece of work in our work with colleagues in Government and across the teams of officials in my team and in finance and the exchequer, to respond to that in a way that gave that sector some stability. It is only for six months, but there is some stability now, and I felt that that was important. That is a perfect example of how the experiences of stakeholders can be injected straight into the decisions that we need to make, which means that those decisions give the outcome that people want to see.

I am just double checking something.

We are doing a huge piece of work in the Government right now on data collection and the disaggregation and quality of the data that we collect. Since my first outing to a committee in the Parliament, which was 15 years ago, we have been looking at how we collect, use, disaggregate and share data in order for us to obtain better outcomes. A big piece of work is on-going right now in the equality data improvement project. Over the summer, the chief statistician consulted on equality data improvement plans, which cut right across the whole Government. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has its own approach, so it might be worth the committee taking evidence from COSLA. It has a new committee chair, with whom I am working very closely. I will be meeting her in the next few days to discuss some of this work, in among all the other things in which there is crossover in our jobs.

The public sector equality duty is in place right now, but you have made the point that, despite the statutory footing, data is not being collected. Public sector bodies might argue that data is being collected, but perhaps we do not see in it what we need, which is where we need to improve what we are doing.

The next equality evidence strategy, which will cover 2023 to 2025, will be published in spring 2023. At that point, I will come back to the committee and will let you know what that looks like. That will mark the conclusion of the first stage of the equality data improvement project—EDIP. In autumn 2021, an internal network of lead analysts covered all ministerial portfolios. You picked up on the point about data gaps in social care and across other parts of Government. It is not for me to respond on behalf of those Government ministers, but that mainstreaming work is being done right across the whole Government. An audit was done of equality data that had been collected and published in key data sets and of how that was then used to produce official and national statistics and update the national performance framework—because it is all linked to those indicators—and to inform significant ministerial decision making.

Another piece of work is on-going. We are reviewing the public sector equality duty and undertaking the equality data improvement project and the mainstreaming work: those all work together to make all the changes that we need to see.

In my info folder, which is usually about things that are happening across Government, I can see that there is much more of a gender, human rights and equality budgeting focus. That is beginning to emerge through other parts of Government. I am happy to take the issue of social care back to the minister who is responsible for that and get you some answers.

As I said, we carried out a public consultation in the summer. People who think that data collection and how we use and disaggregate data are pretty dry subjects should have been at the event at the DataKirk that I was at yesterday, where the chief statistician gave a presentation on data. I could see people thinking, “Oh my goodness, this is going to be dry,” but it was not uninteresting at all; it was incredibly interesting. He talked about how the data is collected for the Scottish index of multiple deprivation and how we then use that data.

We are working on how we collect data with regards to hate crime. I am leading on the equality evidence strategy, which ties into all parts of Government. Alongside the consultation on the strategy, we have carried out a series of stakeholder engagement events, in order to go back to the people who are asking for changes. There is an incredible interest in Government data, and in how we commission and use it. The aim was to help us to understand the practical steps, and what data people need so that they make the right decisions. It is not just about Government making decisions; it is about organisations that deliver services looking at the data and perhaps seeing an intersection that they had not picked up, and so deciding to focus resources on that. Alternatively, they might see that they have made some progress and decide to highlight that as an example. There is all of that as well.

Part of addressing the barriers to collecting data is about systems and how we develop them. They are developing rapidly all the time, and we use all the advances in technology. For example, we are looking at using drop-down menus and other simple ways of collecting as much data as possible. One criticism that I heard from people who were at the DataKirk event yesterday—it was a black talent summit event—was that people from mainly African heritage communities are just denoted as African, yet there are so many more ways in which they could be identified in the data set.

During the pandemic, the expert reference group on Covid-19 and ethnicity picked up that issue. We were able to analyse that with National Records of Scotland to look at what we needed and how to use that in making decisions that could be life-changing for people on issues such as access to vaccines and providing information that allowed people to access vaccines and the support that they needed during that time. That is another example of how we can use good data to make a difference immediately.

We are of the belief that the data needs to be improved all the time. It is another living document that we need to keep working on and improving all the time, and we are doing that.

I will answer the final point first, because it is the easiest one. We are currently considering how we do that. We produce a number of documents in different formats, including XXL, Moon and EasyRead, and usually the team at the Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities helps us with that. We are looking at ways to do that in an EasyRead version. I will come back to you on that, because we heard that point raised last week and we initially thought, “We produce the documents in those formats,” but when we realised that people were looking for the deeper documents that help them to understand what the budget means, we thought that we would go away and consider it. We are doing that now, so we can come back to you on that point.

On the minimum core outcomes that we want, we realise that, for everyone in society who experiences disadvantage and inequality and who lacks power, which is usually the case when people have to challenge, the human rights route is a difficult way to go.

If we think of folk from the Gypsy Traveller community, people impacted by disability, people from minority ethnic communities and those from LGBTI communities, it is clear that there are areas of policy development in which they lack influence and power. I gave an example from Jo Ozga’s paper about how that can influence what we do.

A few weeks ago, I met the members of the learning disabilities sector lived experience panel for the human rights bill. They did a superb presentation on what the treaties mean for them and what it means to see that realised. I understand that that will happen a wee bit in the future but we also need to consider what we can do now to ensure that people are engaged.

The social renewal advisory board had all those organisations around the table, as will the advisory board to the human rights bill. We involve lived experience panels in all the social security work that we do. Hearing those voices and making the time to hear them is important.

I said to that group, “You tell me what you need me to do and I will be there”. They told me that they wanted me to listen to a presentation and then they wanted to quiz me on those points. I do a lot of that. I do not make any decisions in my portfolio without having those folks at the front of my mind.

My background is in learning disabilities and I used to run a project called promoting independence—it was absolutely nothing to do with politics but was all about the independence of adults with learning disabilities. I have that professional understanding, but I also understand how impenetrable Government and public authorities can be, especially if someone has a learning disability and their ways of communicating are not mainstream. It is not for those folks to fit in with us but for us to change our approach. That is why I take an intersectional approach.

I worry about some of the groups that are impacted the worst in all this, such as Gypsy Travellers, folk who have had a universal credit cut, and folk who care for someone in their household, have a disability or are part of the learning disabled community in Scotland. They are at the front of my mind when I make decisions, and they are in the room so that I can hear what they need and use that information to make those decisions. That is the way that I do it, but I know that other ministers do it that way, too.

There are always ideas about how we can do it better, and I am always open to those and to how we can help people to see themselves in the policy that is being developed and see their influence on that policy. That is particularly the case for the budget. We tend to find that those families and individuals are the ones who are most reliant on services. If those services are not there, do not work or are not flexible enough, people cannot realise their independence and their rights. If you have any ideas about that, Pam—I sure that you do, because you always have ideas that are really helpful—I am keen to hear them.

There are lots of events along the way to underpin and reinforce all that with legislation. In the meantime, we need to consider how we ensure that those folks are in the room. I do that to the best of my ability but there are always ways to do it better and I am happy to take those on board.

One of the things that we established very quickly at the beginning of the pandemic was the disproportionate impact of Covid on our diverse communities in Scotland. That has been a global issue, but we recognised it very quickly and set up the expert reference group on Covid-19 and ethnicity, which did a huge amount of work in many areas where inequality was always present, but where Covid had exposed it in all its raw detail. That showed us areas that we needed to focus in on.

The expert reference group produced two sets of recommendations, some of which related to policy areas and some of which related to practical areas. We have accepted all those recommendations and are implementing them.

First, we considered the practical things that we needed to do quite quickly. We put some of that into place, including having culturally appropriate media and advertising on the vaccine. We also ensured that all the information about Covid and where to get support was culturally appropriate. We funded the ethnic minority resilience network—that group grows every day; if you have not had a chance to meet it yet, please look at doing that. We provided funding for culturally appropriate food, interactions and support. There was other stuff that was historical, such as our relationship with slavery and how we challenge and change that. Work is being done with our culture colleagues on some of that. We have also been looking hard at the endemic, ingrained discrimination that people face.

All of that came from the expert reference group on Covid-19 and ethnicity, which gave us a lot to think about and exposed some of the areas where we needed to focus. That is where the immediate priorities plan came from.

We published the immediate priorities plan quite recently—in September 2021—and I hope that members have had a chance to look at it. The plan addresses a range of things, including the impact of Covid and the race equality framework 2016 to 2030, and covers many Government portfolios including health, employment, education, housing and poverty. It is a comprehensive and strategic review that will inform our planned programme of systematic change.

The immediate priorities plan group is being established. It will be chaired independently from Government by two people who come from a lived-experience background and have a high profile in many relevant areas. Again, that fits with the idea of “nothing about us without us”. We need our stakeholders and people with lived experience of the issues to inform the process so that we get it right and make change.

The group will be an interim governance group and will develop an antiracist accountability and oversight function. It will deliver on all our commitments and will be independent. It will explore models for permanent, external oversight. Although we have the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Scottish Human Rights Commission as regulators in relation to discrimination, we felt that it was important—this was one of the recommendations of the expert reference group on Covid-19 and ethnicity—to have an external oversight governance body that takes account of progress that has been made and holds the Government and public authorities to account. The interim group will look to develop that model and come up with recommendations on how to move that forward.

That is a direct response to the challenges made by people who say “It’s a bit slow” and “We’ve no seen much progress here”. There is lots of progress across many areas, but if our stakeholders are telling us that they cannot see it we need to take responsibility for that. We felt that the immediate priorities plan was a way to do that, together with having an independent chair and an oversight body.

I know that Richard Lochhead is working on those issues and that he has picked up particular areas. That comes under his portfolio and I will go back to him and ask him to give you an update on where all of that is sitting right now. The ethnicity pay gap is part of that, too. I will get you an update on that.

Again, that sits within another minister’s portfolio. My role includes a duty to ensure that, in mainstreaming this work across the whole of Government, ministers drive it forward in their individual portfolios. I am in awe of the work that Fiona Drouet does, and I know that ministers met her quite recently. Again, we can get you an update from the relevant minister on that area.

That sector is important, but it is not just about ensuring that each sector has a focus on that work. It is about continuation, and ensuring that when boys and girls grow up and go through the system, respect, dignity and safety are built into all that. We also need to think about cultural change and how we can drive that. Colleges and universities are not just places where students go to learn and gain experience; they are also where tens of thousands of people work, including in academia and research. We are looking at how we bring all that into the work that we do.

An important aspect is research and development. When we look at what we need to do and how we fill the gaps and ensure that we make things better, we sometimes need to take a step back and look at what the rest of the world is saying about the work that we do here in Scotland. We should take some pride in that, while also realising that we are a bit of a beacon and asking how we can use that role to drive change.

Rather than things being fragmented, we need to look at how they can join up. We need to think about the journey of a person through their life and how that life is respected, so that people can be who they are. That will help us to create the society that we all want to see.