Hate crime strategy

8. Our approach

Lived experience is at the heart of our approach

"Nothing about us without us."^[24]

This strategy has been developed through direct participation of people with lived experience of hate crime. We have undertaken – and will continue to undertake – a range of engagement that seeks to empower communities across Scotland to understand and access their rights. Feedback will provide real time insight and allow us to flex our response as required.

Between September and January 2023, over 250 individuals and organisations attended 22 lived experience engagement sessions, exploring the impact of hate crime and what action we need to take collectively to address it.

Using the aforementioned principles, the Scottish Government will strategically link the delivery of the hate crime strategy to other key policy developments across government.

Partnership and collaboration

We are committed to working in partnership to prevent and tackle hatred and prejudice in Scotland. The Hate Crime Strategic Partnership Group^[25] was established to ensure a multi-agency strategic approach towards the development of this strategy that takes account of the needs of our diverse communities.^[26] Members have specific expertise in tackling hate crime and prejudice and championing equality, inclusion and human rights. They designed and led the lived experience engagement which has informed this strategy. We will continue to work in partnership with Strategic Partnership Group members as we develop a delivery plan to accompany this strategy.

There are a range of organisations beyond the Strategic Partnership Group that have supported the development of this strategy and we will continue to engage widely as we move into delivery.

Reviewing our progress

This strategy sets out a fresh approach to tackling hatred and prejudice in Scotland. Our commitments are bold and include implementing new legislation and associated data provisions as well as overhauling reporting mechanisms, which in time will allow us to more robustly measure progress.

We will review progress towards the aims set out in this strategy in five years' time, to ensure that the strategy is making the difference we hope to see and to identify any additional activity we should be undertaking.

A delivery plan will set out our immediate and medium-longer term activity in support of the commitments in this strategy. The delivery plan will be developed in partnership, will set out clear accountability and timeframes for delivery and how we will measure progress.