Race equality framework for Scotland 2016 to 2030

Developing the Framework in Partnership

The Race Equality Framework for Scotland has been developed by the Scottish Government with support from the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights ( CRER). This partnership approach also involved the Scottish Government's race equality intermediaries; CEMVO Scotland, BEMIS, the Scottish Refugee Council and Interfaith Scotland. Throughout 2014, all of these organisations contributed to our initial scoping work on identifying key issues and initial themes and were engaged in various ways throughout the development of the Framework.

A variety of engagement activities were used to ensure that a wide range of organisations and individuals, from grassroots community organisations to practitioners working in the public sector, had an active role in contributing to the Framework. The methods used to involve people in the development of the Framework are summarised here, with a full description of our involvement process being provided at Appendix 2.

Fairer Scotland conversation

In 2015 the Scottish Government invited all of Scotland to have their say on what a fairer Scotland should look like in 2030, and the steps that should be taken to make this vision a reality. Minority ethnic communities were invited to participate and many did so. What people told us through this work has also influenced the vision, goals and actions in this Framework. The Race Equality Framework has a timeline that deliberately aligns with the timeline for delivering a Fairer Scotland.

Community Ambassadors' Programme

We wanted to take forward the Race Equality Framework for Scotland in an open, transparent, inclusive and participatory way and ensure that the experience, needs and priorities of minority ethnic community members were fed into the policy development process. Each of the visions and goals set out in the Framework were shaped by involving minority ethnic individuals and communities, through our Community Ambassadors' Programme.

To participate in the programme, there was an open invitation to grassroots organisations and others to nominate minority ethnic community representatives (Community Ambassadors). These individuals received training and support to conduct structured community discussions with community members. Community Ambassadors used a workbook to facilitate and record these discussions, to gather solution-focused information about community members' needs and priorities on race equality in Scotland.

The feedback from these workbooks was then transferred into an evidence database which, along with the evidence from our other engagement activities including Strategic Action Forums and an open survey, was used as the initial basis for scoping and developing the Framework's content (see Appendix 2 for more detail on these activities). Each voice and opinion was important to us and equally valued with every contribution being treated in exactly the same way, whether it came from a member of the public or an organisation, an academic or a professional working in the public sector.

Using the initial themes scoped out with our race equality stakeholders, we further developed our evidence base on a broad range of topics from community cohesion and safety, through to education, to employment to housing and cross referenced with the evidence provided at the Strategic Action Forums and through other engagement activities. This enabled us to arrive at the Visions and Goals that make up the Framework.

The voices of women and young people were particularly strong in engagement activities and positively informed the Vision and Goals. We recognise that racism and gender inequality are not mutually exclusive forms of discrimination. Indeed, too often they intersect giving rise to compound or double discrimination. We therefore intend to pay particular attention to gender alongside race so that the framework is effective. Accordingly we have included intersectionality as an overarching guiding principle which will guide the work during the lifetime of framework.

We have not set out the full evidence base within this Framework document but instead, the full range of information used is being published separately. The evidence base used in developing the Framework, including evidence from involvement and desk based research, is available through a range of papers published on the CRER website at www.crer.org.uk. This evidence base can be shared and used widely throughout Scotland to inform policy and practice.