Scotland’s Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025

1. Purpose

Robust and comprehensive equality evidence is vital for the design and delivery of inclusive policies and services. The people of Scotland have experienced unprecedented challenges since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The pandemic exposed deep-rooted structural inequality in our society and exacerbated the disproportionate impact on individuals and groups who already experience disadvantage. Going forward, there is a clear collective need and a desire for better equality evidence.

This document presents Scotland's new Equality Evidence Strategy, covering the period March 2023 to December 2025. It sets out a range of actions to strengthen Scotland's equality evidence base that will be carried out by the end of 2025, along with a refreshed vision and direction that have been developed based on stakeholder views and feedback.

The strategy aims to enable policymakers to develop sound and inclusive evidence-based policies to improve service delivery and outcomes for Scotland's people. The publication of this strategy marks the completion of the first phase of the Equality Data Improvement Programme (EDIP), which laid the groundwork in strengthening Scotland's equality evidence base following the continued recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The launch of this strategy marks the commencement of the second phase of the EDIP, which will be focused on implementing the actions set out in this strategy, alongside continued efforts to build capacity and share good practice.

Responsibility for successfully implementing the strategy has to be shared across a range of organisations and interests, and across all Scottish Government ministerial portfolios. The Scottish Government will support the collection and use of information by the public sector, academic institutions, the third sector and from within communities themselves. Certain listed authorities have responsibilities under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) and it is incumbent on all organisations to consider their role in funding, designing or undertaking data collection, research and analysis to fill equality evidence gaps. The Scottish Government will continue to learn from and work collaboratively with our partners to improve the equality evidence base for Scotland.