Equality Data Improvement Programme project board - highlight report: July 2024

Project name: Equality Data Improvement Programme (EDIP)
Senior Responsible Officer: Mick Wilson, Head of Communities Analysis Division
Project Mmnager: Beth Cocker/Molly Halligan
Next project meeting: 23 July 2024
Period covering: 24 June 2024 - 8 July 2024
Report date: 15 July 2024
RAG last period: green
RAG this period: green

Summary of overall progress 

Analysts across the Scottish Government and NRS are now progressing the agreed equality data improvement actions, set from now until the end of 2025. Action leads provided an update on progress in July 2024.

Of the 45 actions in the strategy:

• 14 are complete, in the previous April progress update 12 were complete
• 23 are on course, in the previous April progress update 23 were on course
• six are delayed, in the previous April progress update seven were delayed
• two are not yet started, in the previous April progress update three were not yet started

Project achievements for this period

• action 16 (complete): Household food security questions were newly added to the Family Resources Survey in 2019/20. They ask about whether people were worried about running out of food, had to reduce meal sizes or skip meals. Equalities breakdowns were first published in the Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland publication in March 2023 (tables 41 to 47). Three year averages are used due to small sample sizes. Time series information will become available once there are enough years of data.
• action 43 (on course): NRS has published several census topic releases in May and June: Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion, UK Armed Forces veterans and Sexual Orientation and trans status or history. Further topic data will be released in the following months
• action 36 (complete): This team will continue Disability and Transport stats publications. Latest iteration of this report was published in October 2023. The next iteration will be published in late Summer 2024.

Delayed milestones/tasks

Actions 1 and 2: Development of disability data is being explored in the context of child protection Joint Investigative Interview data, in work being led by CELCIS. Learning from this will be considered and applied in future updates to Child Protection and Looked After Children datasets.

Actions 28 and 30: Previously marked as ‘not yet started’, these actions relate to Health and Social Care improving response rates which includes developing an easier system to input data year round, as well as plans to explore how links can be made to NPCCD for smoother data collection. The new approach aims to be in place for in-hours in 2024 and out-of-hours by 2025 onwards. A working group for the 2024 survey discussed the collection of more equality data, but suggested the surveys were not the best approach as individuals do not have access to their own data. Other approaches to obtain this data are now being considered.

Action 32: The RAP (Reusable Analytical Pipeline) project is underway for the analysis of MHIC data received. The team have identified some errors in previous iterations of the MHIC coding. Whilst they don’t expect the impact of these errors to be large, they are prioritising work to fix this and will report any changes or impacts to users in the next publication of the results, around June or July 2024. It is therefore likely that assessing options for protected characteristics data to be expanded will be delayed until the 2025/26 data collection, commencing in spring 2025.

Action 45: Exploration of potential for more granular data on hold due to staffing redeployment.

Actions not yet started 

Action 20: A review of the Social Attitudes survey is currently being carried out of the core module, mode change (from face to face to online), in the commissioning route. This review will also include a wider review of public attitudes in SG. This review is to take place over the next 12 months until apring/summer 2025. It may not be possible to complete this work within the given timeframe. The Equality Analysis team have recently taken ownership of the National Performance Framework Discrimination indicator and will explore options related to fulfilling this EDIP action.

Action 31: This action relates to Health and Social Care specifically ensuring that equalities data are part of annual data collection, analysis and publication going forward. This requires reviewing existing datasets, consult with stakeholders on how to gather feedback from data owners in NHS boards, revise datasets and data collection methods, implement IT system change, and improving guidance. The team have updated that this work will commence in October 2024 but has not yet started.

Plans for next period

• action 3: The Growing Up in Scotland team is now underway with the sweep 12 questionnaire development and still plan to collect equalities data. There is now a plan to ask about religion. The team are also beginning the process of commissioning the Sweep 11 analysis, which will include analysis of SIMD, disability and sex (which are the only groups with a sufficient base size)
• the Justice Analytical team will be publishing a literature review on racially minoritised women’s experiences of domestic abuse and barriers to support later 2024
• action 13: Social Security Scotland are planning an Equalities Publication covering up to March 2024, which will be published on 27 August. The equalities team will be considering additional analysis to be included in their annual publication later this year and additional intersectional analysis in 2025
• action 22: The Equality Analysis team are finalising an evidence review for the Non-Binary Action Plan.
• action 43: NRS has published several census topic releases in May and June: Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion, UK Armed Forces veterans and Sexual Orientation and trans status or history. Further topic data will be released in the following months

Key risks

Risk no. 1: Some actions within the Equality Evidence Strategy are not taken forward by analysts, for example some action leads have indicated that their completion date will go beyond 2025 due to lack of available data.

Severity (1-5): 4 
Probability (1-5): 2
Actions: Equality analysis team have gained buy-in from a network of analysts to help drive the work forward. The EDIP programme also has senior buy in from ALG, along with the Chief Statistician and Chief Social Researcher. 
An Interim Review of the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-25 will be published towards the end of 2024. Consideration of additional Actions or refresh of the current Actions may be possible at this stage.
Impact of Actions on Risks: Regular review of actions ensuring progress and relevance.

Risk no. 2: Staff changes within project board and network leads responsible for actions

Severity (1-5): 1
Probability (1-5): 
Actions: Staff changes primarily took place at the end of 2023 and beginning of 2024. New were asked to be involved or complete the update for the previous meeting with support from their predecessor. 
During the February EDIP meeting, the chair invited introductions from all new members of the Project Board. These members were sent the new ToRs and previous minutes from the last meeting for context.
Impact of Actions on Risks: Project Board are more informed of EDIPs progress to date. Analytical network leads are able to take actions forward and maintain progress updates.

Project RAG status key

Red: some risks/issues require immediate attention from the Programme Manager/Challenge Owner/Lead
Amber: some risks/issues are self contained within tolerances
Green: project is proceeding on schedule