Equality outcomes and mainstreaming report 2023

Part 3: Equality Outcomes

The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public authorities including the Scottish Government to publish equality outcomes which it will work to achieve. In 2021, the Scottish Government set a suite of equality outcomes to cover the period up to 2025.

Below you can find a summary of key achievements and next steps in progressing these outcomes ahead of the next reporting period. A full breakdown can be found in the supporting documents.

These outcomes sit alongside the commitment to integrate equality into our day-to-day business and the raft of policies and strategies across Government which are delivering improvements for communities. They increasingly align with our ambitions to ensure that equality, inclusion and human rights are mainstreamed and embedded across all aspects of Government business.

Policy Outcomes

Equality Outcome 1:

By 2025, more robust and comprehensive data will be gathered on the characteristics of people in Scotland, identifying and filling evidence gaps. Equality data will be used much more frequently to develop and adjust service delivery, contributing to the mainstreaming of equality and human rights.

Key achievements

A series of actions have been taken forward through our Equality Data Improvement Programme (EDIP), including publishing updated guidance notes on recommended questions to ask when collecting equality information and a series of case studies showcasing good practice in equality data collection in the public sector.

Many of these actions have helped lay the foundations for the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023 to 2025.

Next Steps

The actions within the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-25 will be taken forward by analysts across the Scottish Government and National Records Scotland. These actions include working with data suppliers to improve breadth and quality of data held on systems and producing more detailed analysis of data already collected.

Equality Outcome 2:

By 2025, inclusive communication will be embedded in the approaches of public bodies, with an increased proportion of people in Scotland reporting that their communications needs are being met when accessing public services.

Key achievements

As part of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) review, we have consulted on our proposal to create a new regulation that seeks to ensure inclusive communication is embedded proportionately across the work on listed authorities when communicating with the public.

Next steps

Officials will engage closely with public bodies, equality advocacy groups and people with lived experience, or those who represent them, to further develop this proposal based on consultation feedback. It is our intention that any new duties would come into force in 2025 in line with the current reporting cycle.

Equality Outcome 3:

By 2025, we will have taken significant steps to improve the health of those groups with a protected characteristic in Scotland who experience consistently poorer outcomes. We will particularly focus on sex, race, age and disability and the disproportionate impact of COVID on certain groups.

Key achievements

In August 2021 we published our Women's Health Plan. In January this year we appointed a Women's Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, and published our report on progress to achieving this plan.

We have also established the Racialised Health Inequalities in Health and Social Care in Scotland Steering Group, and have put in place 'Anti-Racist Leadership Development' sessions for members.

Next steps

We will continue to work with COSLA to implement Scotland's new suicide prevention strategy Creating Hope Together.

We have considered the recommendations made by the Independent Review of Adult Social Care and are working to realise these recommendation and human rights through the creation of a National Care Service (NCS).

Equality Outcome 4:

By 2025, disparities in labour market outcomes for women, disabled people and ethnic minorities will have improved. Employer practice will have improved and workforces will be more diverse and inclusive through effective approaches embedded to tackle workplace inequality.

Key achievements

The Workplace Equality Fund (WEF) provides financial support for employers to address longstanding barriers in the labour market. We have funded over £750,000 to 13 projects this year. Of the 13 projects, 4 focus specifically on disability, 4 on race; while other projects focus on and address issues and challenges related gender, menopause, autism and neurodiversity, refugees, and age.

We published our refreshed Fair Work Action Plan in December 2022 which forms part of a new single, intersectional and aligned 'Fair Work Action Plan: Becoming a Fair Work Nation' by 2025.

Next steps

We will undertake an equal pay audit examining pay gaps by disability, gender, race and age by March 2024. We will act on findings to review and refresh our recruitment and retention policies to address workplace inequalities by end of 2025.

By end of 2023 we will update the Fair Work First criteria to better reflect priority action required to address labour market inequalities faced by disabled people, women, and people from racialised minorities, ensuring people can enter, remain in and progress in work.

Equality Outcome 5:

By 2025, we will have made progress towards reducing inequalities and advancing equality of opportunity and outcome – most notably across the protected characteristics of age, disability and sex – through the implementation of the National Transport Strategy; and transport services will become fairer to access, easier to use and more affordable.

The NTS2 recognises that by ensuring access to suitable transport facilities it will lead to the fulfilment of other human rights, in line with the National Performance Framework and Scotland's international human rights obligations.

Key achievements

We successfully ran a Transport Scotland People's Panel on a pilot basis, from October 2021 to January 2022, to inform the NTS Delivery Plan, which included representation from a wide cross-section of people.

At the start of 2022, we delivered our commitment to deliver free bus travel to under-22s, and we continue to fund free bus travel for eligible disabled people as well as those aged over 60, reducing the costs of public transport for these groups. By end of March 2023, there were over 609,000 cardholders in the Young Persons' Free Bus Travel Scheme, equating to 65.5% of the estimated 930,000 eligible population. Those already accessing the scheme continue to make good use of free bus travel, with over 56 million journeys made since the launch of the scheme.

Next steps

We are taking forward a National Conversation on the future of passenger rail services in Scotland, with the intention of hearing from those of all backgrounds.

We are undertaking our Fair Fares Review to ensure a sustainable and integrated approach to public transport fares as we recover from the pandemic. The Fair Fares Review will look at the range of discounts and concessionary schemes which are available on all modes including bus, rail and ferry. The Fair Fares Review will also take into account the cost and availability of services, and will consider options taking cognisance of the relative changes to the overall cost of travel.

Equality Outcome 6:

During the current equality outcome cycle (2021-25), people with lived experience of inequality and exclusion will be more involved in informing and co-designing policy and practice that affects them, and their voices will be better reflected in public policy across Scotland.

Key achievements

A number of strands of work are in progress which aim to deliver a strategic approach to lived experience and participatory work across the Scottish Government. The Institutionalising Participatory and Deliberative Democracy (IPDD) working group was set up to provide recommendations on how to embed participatory approaches across the work of government, including but not limited to Citizens' Assemblies. We published our response to their report in March.

In February this year we launched our Participation Framework, which provides a guide to good practice in participation work across Scottish Government. It provides information about participatory methods, and when to use them, the development of an effective participation strategy, and signposts to further resources.

Next steps

Activities proposed for this year of the Open Government Action Plan include collaborative work to develop of a process for procuring participatory work and which would support its co-ordination. We are also considering options for monitoring and evaluating participatory work taking place in the Scottish Government, in line with a refreshed approach to evaluation training for social researchers, and will use this to drive improvement.

Through our Equality and Human Rights Mainstreaming Strategy, we will develop proposals to better engage with the lived experience of communities and the expertise of organisations that serve them based on learning from previous and current Scottish Government lived experience models, as well as models utilised successfully in the UK and internationally.

Employer Outcomes

Our two employer equality outcomes are underpinned by three diversity and inclusion employer Action Plans. These will help us make greater change at greater pace in areas we need to make most progress. The Recruitment and Retention Action Plan for Disabled People (DRRAP) (2019 – but paused for 12 months during the pandemic), the Race Recruitment and Retention Action Plan (RRRAP) (2021) and the Socio-Economic Diversity Action Plan (2022).

These plans are driving action within Scottish Government across corporate functions, and with teams and individuals. The aim is to increase the representation of under-represented groups across all grades, to foster good relations among our employees, and to support an inclusive workplace environment where people are able to make their best contribution to delivering the programme for government. Most importantly, at the heart of the plans, are the voices and views gathered through wide engagement with staff.

Equality Outcome 7:

By 2025, our workforce will have increased in diversity to reflect the general Scottish population.

Key achievements

The Scottish Government workforce has become increasingly diverse. Since November 2020, the proportion of the Scottish Government workforce from each of the following groups has increased.

• Female – from 55.0% to 57.3%
• Aged between 16 and 29 – from 16.5% to 18.2%
• Lesbian, gay, bisexual or any other non-heterosexual sexual orientation (LGB+) – from 6.4% to 8.8%
• Disabled – from 13.6% to 14.7%
• Ethnic minority – from 3.0% to 4.1%
• From a non-Christian religious background – from 2.9% to 3.7%.

Equality Outcome 8:

By 2025, workforce culture will be more inclusive with employees from all backgrounds and characteristics and experiences reporting they feel increasingly valued.

Key achievements

The overall engagement score and inclusion and fair treatment score for core Scottish Government staff reached historic highs in 2021. The proportion of core Scottish Government staff experiencing discrimination or bullying and harassment reached historic lows in 2021. The data shows these experiences vary across groups, with some groups having significantly poorer experiences than others.

Next steps

Further detail about the work we have done to increase the diversity of our workforce and foster an inclusive workplace is set out in our published action plans and the rest of the mainstreaming report.