Equality and Human Rights Advisory Budget Group minutes: September 2024

Attendees and apologies

Interim Chair

• Emma Congreve (EC)

Speakers

• Matt Elsby (ME)
• John Somers (SM)

Attendees

• Sara Cowan (SC)
• Jacqui Farmer (JF)
• Stephanie Griffin (SGr)
• David Holmes (DH)
• Tom Lamplugh (TL)
• Angela Nolte (AN)
• Rob Priestley (RP)
• Simon Wakefield (SW)

Guests

• Kavita Chetty (KC)
• Fiona Page (FP)
• Mike Tighe (MT)
• Philippa Watkin (PW)
• Joe Smith (JS)
• Ceri Hunter (CH)

Secretariat

• Niamh Cannon (NC)
• Julia McCombie (JM)

Apologies

• Jennie Barugh
• Alasdair Black
• Nick Bland
• Jillian Matthew

Items and actions

Welcome and Introductions

The interim Chair, Emma Congreve (EC), introduced herself and asked the group to put their introductions in the chat. EC ran through apologies and outlined the agenda with the group.

Impact Assessment Approach 

EC passed over to Matt Elsby (ME) to provide an update.

ME covered the following points on the impact assessment approach:

• Highlighted the use of real-life examples to show the use of impact assessment in the SG.
• Impact assessments must show how a policy is legal and also highlight the impacts on parliament, the public and stakeholders.
• The duties tend to come into effect at the point that legislation is laid- duty on civil service to ensure Ministers understand impacts before taking decision.
• Impact assessments fed into the recent Fiscal Statement, ensuring Ministers had full understanding of the impacts of their spending decisions.
• The approach is proportionate - it’s important to find the right balance of showing transparency and meeting legal duties.

Following ME’s updates, Tom Lamplugh (TL) shared his comments. He highlighted that more consideration was required on how Government manages impact assessments on emergency budgets. It’s important to reflect on legal duties and what good practice and policymaking looks like rather than just the legal duties. With transparency- it would be ideal to publish impact assessments at the time the statement is made to improve transparency around this. TL recognised that getting good responses from portfolios around the decisions can be challenging in a pressured and fast-moving environment.

EC thanked ME for the openness in his updates. EC commented that ME’s points were understandable and it is important to share the reality of what officials are doing behind the scenes and recognise that they are delivering the best they can in challenging circumstances.

The group discussion then touched on communications in this space, for example what is the normal practise for publishing IAs. The group agreed that an overarching strategy that explains what gets published why and when would be helpful.

Stephanie Griffin (SGr) added- it is important to be pragmatic about the amount of information that is available and how it is published. SGr recognised the balancing of requirements on what has to be published and what actually is published.

Sara Cowan (SC) asked- how much from impact assessments were done because there was a duty to do them and how much were being done to inform decisions because cuts were being made? Some form of emergency change- recognition- has been several years in a row now, at what point is this the norm that should be resourced?

The discussion moved to the challenge of determining when it is proportionate to conduct detailed impact assessments for smaller or less significant policy decisions. It was asked: How does the government decide what constitutes a significant policy decision requiring extensive impact analysis, and how are minor decisions justified without thorough assessments?

ME responded: this is where the Equality and Fairer Budget Statement (EFSBS) is important- this publication has been a work in progress and officials are learning each year. The process is still not perfect, but comparable and improving year on year. This year officials have started planning the EFSBS earlier and implementing improvements.

EFSBS Process 

The Chair handed over to Angela Nolte (AN) and Simon Wakefield (SW) to give updates on this item.

SW shared slides with the group. These slides covered the rationale on EFSBS this year and reflecting on what has happened previously. Presentation covered:

• Building on work from last year- aligning budget process with PfG.
• Integrating the work and analysis into the budget process. Rather than a post-hoc rationalisation.
• Commissioning out to portfolios earlier - hope to pull this into the decision-making process.
• SW outlined the planned structure of EFSBS for the forthcoming Budget. It is planned to be more of a focused, punchy document. Focus on areas where we can add value. The main focus is assessing the budget.
• It was confirmed that officials major focus for improvement is on the process rather than just the EFSBS document itself.
• It was also noted that working was underway on getting a Ministerial workshop into diaries at an earlier stage of the process.
• The Group discussed linking analysis to ‘big decisions’ coming out of the PfG. The Government confirmed it would welcome any suggestions on the criteria for determining what the big decisions should be focused on from the PfG.

Action: Members were asked if they could go through document linked by SW outside of this meeting and then come back with anything they would like to understand more on this. Scottish Budget 2024 to 2025: distributional analysis - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Action: welcome any suggestions or comments from members on the EFSBS process. Officials are still at the stage where advice can be taken onboard. The Secretariat will email members after the meeting to ask for any feedback and gather the responses for AN and SW.

EHRBAG Action Plan

The Chair passed over to ME to cover his updates on the action plan. ME highlighted that the main point to touch on was the EFSBS and the improvements made here are moving forward. SW has laid out the process and where we are with the in-year revisions.

Action: AN to double check on when autumn revision will be put through in parliament and if there will be any additional information published at this point.

Fiona Page (FP) added- colleagues in financial management will provide guidance note for colleagues on finance committee, however this won’t be as transparent as what is published on budget page. Something like the Open Budget Survey (OBS) should be published on budget page- even just to sign-post.

The Chair passed over to John Somers (JS) to give his updates on the action plan. These included:

• Met with the Executive Team on the roadmap of how to bring together actions on gender equality. Focusing on: agreed definition of intersectionality and track progress of women’s equality on Scotland.
• On Senior Leadership Group- Angela O’Hagan gave a presentation at most recent meeting which was well received.
• Lots of training going on right now to better support ongoing work. Meeting with Director Generals to discuss work on equalities and Human Rights and targeted work around this.
• JS also highlighted that the Minister for Equalities will be attending EHRBAG next month which will be positive.

AOB

The Secretariat gave an update on the vacancy for the position of EHRBAG Chair. The job advert is now live and can be found on the Scottish Government public appointments board, the closing date for applications is the close of play on Tuesday 24 September.

The Secretariat handed back over to EC who gave updates on the October EHRBAG meeting. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, as well as the Minister for Equalities will be both be in attendance for a portion of this meeting. There will also be updates from Scottish Government colleagues in tax. The Secretariat asked that should EHRBAG members have any questions for the Minister or Cabinet Secretary that they send those to the Secretariat ahead of the meeting.

The October meeting will take place on Thursday 10th.

The Chair thanked members and guest speakers for their input and closed the meeting.