National Advisory Council on Women and Girls report: Scottish Government response

Annex B - Update on Delivery of the NACWG’s 2018 and 2019 Recommendations

The NACWG published its first report on the topic of Attitudes and Culture Change on 25 January 2019^[18]. It sets out 11 recommendations for action, in areas including the criminal justice system, education, childcare, and women’s political representation. The Scottish Government published its response on 26 June 2019^[19].

The NACWG’s second report on the topic of Policy Coherence was published on 22 January 2020^[20]. It sets out six recommendations for the Scottish Government aimed at transforming the mainstreaming of gender equality throughout government policy-making, addressing critical areas such as leadership, resourcing and accountability. The Scottish Government published its response on 20 December 2020^[21].

The following table provides an update on the Scottish Government’s progress to implement each of the NACWG’s previous recommendations.

Recommendation

1.) [2018] Create a ‘What Works?’ Institute to develop and test robust, evidence-led inclusive and representative approaches to changing public attitudes in Scotland to girls and women’s equality and rights.

Progress

The Scottish Government provided funding to Zero Tolerance to carry out research, including a literature review, to develop potential models for the What Works Gender Institute. Zero Tolerance published a report^[22] in January 2021 with the findings of this work, including three potential models for a What Works Gender Institute.

The Scottish Government is currently considering the findings of the report and in particular a recommendation that a foundation model for the Institute be adopted for at least one year. This foundation model would allow findings from the report to be tested in practice and support further examination of the potential models for the Institute.

Recommendation

2.) [2018] Legislate for local and national candidate quotas for all parties by the 2021 election.

Progress

Legislating for local and national candidate quotas is outwith the current legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. Because of this, the Scottish Government is taking a range of other measures to improve women’s representation in politics. These measures include:

A new equality data collection for the 2022 Scottish Local Government Elections to improve the quality and completeness of data on the protected characteristics of candidates and elected members.

Publication of a review of international experience and practice on the operation of candidate quotas by the end of 2021.

Funding for a range of projects to improve women’s representation in politics and address barriers. Those projects currently being supported by the Scottish Government are: COSLA’s Cross Party Barriers to Elected Office Special Interest Group, the Equal Representation Coalition’s Equal Representation Project (facilitated by Engender), YWCA Scotland – the Young Women’s Movement’s Young Women Lead Project, and Elect-Her.

We will also pursue further dialogue with the UK Government regarding the devolution of additional powers to the Scottish Parliament to improve the representation of women and other under-represented groups in politics.

Recommendation

3.) [2018] Carry out a thematic gender review of the new National Performance Framework as a catalyst for system analysis and change.

Progress

Periodic reviews of the National Performance Framework (NPF) are required by the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 to ensure the NPF continues to drive increased wellbeing. We will carry out a gender review of the NPF as part of the next review of the NPF in 2022. This will include an equality review of the National Outcomes data, to identify gaps in equality reporting (including gender) to enable more reporting on the different outcomes experienced in populations with protected characteristics.

Recommendation

4.) [2018] Create a “Gender Beacon Collaborative” – made up of Scottish Government, a Local Authority, a public body, a third sector agency and a business to take a holistic and systemic approach to gender equality and work to having it embedded in all of its activities from employment to strategy to delivery.

Progress

The Scottish Government is providing funding to Close the Gap to support selected local authorities, public bodies, third sector organisations and the Scottish Government (the “Gender Beacon Collaborative”) to achieve the Equally Safe at Work Bronze Accreditation. This is an innovative employer accreditation scheme which aims to advance gender equality in the workplace and prevent violence against women and girls by requiring organisations to fulfil approximately 30 criteria across themes such as leadership, data and workplace culture.

Organisations taking part in the Collaborative will have an opportunity to learn from each other as they move collectively towards accreditation, and Close the Gap will develop an evaluation framework to capture learning and best practice.

In relation to the private sector, Close the Gap is supporting selected businesses to identify and address the root causes of their gender pay gaps, complementing the Scottish Business Pledge.

Recommendation

5.) [2018] Improve access to justice for women and girls experiencing men’s violence and the culture of violence against women and girls embedded in the fabric of Scottish society by:

a.) Creating a world-leading process for complainers of sexual violence, including trauma-informed forensic medical examination, independent sexual violence advocacy, review of the law on corroboration, and privacy for complainers with regards to the disclosure of their medical records; and

b.) Criminalise serious misogynistic harassment, filling gaps in existing laws.

c.) Work with Scottish Women’s Aid, Scottish Women’s Rights Centre, Shakti Women’s Aid and the Law Society to create a consistent and inclusive model to ensure that women experiencing domestic abuse have sufficient access to expert legal advice and legal aid.

Progress

The Scottish Government is determined to improve the justice system to respond better to the needs of survivors of rape and sexual assault in Scotland and we are working with all partners to ensure this happens across the board.

a.) A world-leading process for complainers of sexual violence

We have taken and are taking forward a range of measures to improve the process for complainers of sexual violence.

Trauma-informed forensic medical examination

In relation to trauma-informed forensic medical examination, we introduced the Forensic Medical Services (Victims of Sexual Offences) (Scotland) Act 2021 which, once commenced, will provide a statutory basis for health boards to provide person-centred, trauma-informed forensic medical services for victims of sexual crime and will establish a legal framework for consistent access to “self-referral” for people aged 16 and over, subject to professional judgement, without them having to first make a report to the police.

To support the Act, a number of measures have been taken forward through the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland’s Rape and Sexual Assault Taskforce (the “CMO Taskforce”). These measures include:

The development of a national clinical pathway for adults, children and young people who present in healthcare settings following rape, sexual assault or child sexual abuse and supporting leaflets for individuals who present for an examination.

The provision of funding to health boards to support the creation of dedicated facilities for forensic medical examinations in each territorial health board where these did not exist previously or to improve existing facilities, and to develop regional centres of expertise.

Steps to ensure that people know how to self-refer for a forensic medical examination, including the creation of a national telephony service, dedicated web pages on NHS Inform and a national awareness-raising campaign.

Independent sexual violence advocacy and privacy for complainers

On 23 November 2020, the Victims’ Taskforce^[23] held a round table discussion on the safeguarding of victim’s privacy rights and the perceived barriers to reporting sexual violence. Following the discussion, Rape Crisis Scotland prepared a report and recommendations, which included consideration of Independent Legal Representation to enhance the privacy rights of complainers.

In addition, the outcome of a review led by Lady Dorrian to improve how sexual offences cases are conducted through the courts, was published^[24] in March 2021. Recommendations include: embedding trauma-informed practice in the management of sexual offence cases; a right to Independent Legal Representation to allow complainers to oppose section 275 applications, which are applications to lead otherwise inadmissible evidence; statutory provision to provide anonymity to those complaining of rape or other sexual offences; providing specialism in the form of the creation of a specialist sexual offences court; enhancing the quality of jury involvement; and exploring the effectiveness of judge-only trials via a time-limited pilot.

The Scottish Government will give careful consideration to these recommendations and those from Rape Crisis Scotland, including regarding the introduction of independent legal representation for complainers to oppose applications to lead sexual history evidence.

In addition, the Scottish Government is supporting Rape Crisis Scotland’s National Advocacy Project with over £1.3 million provided in 2021-22. The project ensures there is a key support worker in every Rape Crisis Centre in Scotland to help victims engage with the criminal justice process.

The Scottish Government is also supporting a two-year pilot project, launched in November 2019, to visually record a rape complainer’s initial statement. The pilot is being run by Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, with support from Rape Crisis Scotland, in three areas of Scotland. We will carry out an evaluation of the pilot in November 2021 to inform a decision about rolling out the visual recording of rape complainer’s initial statements across Scotland.

Disclosure of medical records

Scotland’s legal system ensures that any complainer in a criminal case whose sensitive records are being sought has a legal right to be heard as the court considers whether to permit access. In addition, the Scottish Government took steps in 2017 to introduce new rights that ensure complainers whose sensitive records are being sought have access to legal aid to oppose such a request where access is required for the complainer to effectively participate in the hearing. There is no means testing of the request for legal aid in this situation.

Corroboration

The Scottish Government’s recent Programme For Government committed to considering reform of the corroboration rule, engaging with justice partners, opposition parties and people with direct experience of the criminal justice system to develop a shared understanding of the evolving legal position, and the implications and potential unintended consequences of corroboration reform, including in relation to sexual crimes.

The Scottish Government has previously expressed concerns around corroboration and its impact on access to justice. As there was no parliamentary or legal consensus when Ministers previously proposed removing the corroboration requirement in criminal proceedings, we asked Lord Bonomy to conduct a review into what additional safeguards may be required if corroboration was removed. That review recommended research into jury reasoning and decision-making, to ensure any changes are made on a fully informed basis.

The Scottish Government commissioned independent jury research, which was published in October 2019. In late 2019 and throughout 2020, a broad range of stakeholder events took place to seek views on all of the research findings and any implications for other criminal justice reforms, including potentially in relation to corroboration. The summary of discussions was published in December 2020.

Although the possibility of abolishing or reforming the corroboration rule was opposed by the majority of participants in the engagement events, the previous Cabinet Secretary for Justice held constructive discussions with Opposition Spokespeople in December 2020 to hear their views on reforming corroboration and all agreed that the issue needs further exploration.

b.) Criminalise serious misogynistic conduct, filling gaps in existing laws

In November 2020, the Scottish Government stated that it would establish an independent Working Group on Misogyny and Criminal Justice in Scotland^[25], chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, to consider whether there are gaps in the law or if there is a failure to implement existing legislation in a way that protects women and girls. The chair appointed members with expertise in Scots law, human rights, women’s equality and perpetrator behaviours relating to gender-based violence. The working group held its inaugural meeting in February and has met monthly since, receiving oral and written evidence from a large number of experts and stakeholders and is on course to produce a report on its findings and recommendations in February 2022.

c.) Access to expert legal advice and legal aid

Legal Aid Reform

The Scottish Government committed in its 2021-22 Programme for Government to launch a public consultation on legal services regulation. That consultation was published in October 2021 and seeks views on reform which would promote a flourishing legal sector and ensure that legal services protect the public and consumer interest. We are engaging with a wide range of stakeholders including the legal sector and victim support organisations to seek their views and priorities for reform.

Funding to the SWRC

The Scottish Government provides funding to the SWRC through the Scottish Legal Aid Board (up to £230,000 per year) and through the Scottish Government Violence Against Women and Girls and Barnahus Justice Budget (up to £351,000 in 2020/21). This funding enables the SWRC to provide free support and legal advice to women experiencing gender-based violence, as well as services including a national helpline, legal surgeries, advocacy services, online legal guides, and the Sexual Harassment Legal Service.

In March 2021, the Scottish Government awarded additional funding of just over £57,000 to the SWRC to deliver legal advice surgeries and upskill the SWRC legal team to deliver tailored information for women involved in selling or exchanging sex.

In addition, the Scottish Government and the SWRC worked together to develop a training animation for solicitors to provide insight into the kinds of issues they might face when working on civil domestic abuse cases. The animation was launched in June 2020^[26] and supports the operation of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 by helping solicitors to understand the impact of trauma on victims who have been subject to domestic abuse, including coercive and controlling behaviour.

Recommendation

6.) [2018] Create a resourced media body in Scotland, which will publicly review media which is sexist, misogynistic or bigoted; will provide guidance on what gender equal media can looks like and will strengthen the intersectional voices of women in media.

Progress

Funding has been awarded to Engender to support a Development Manager post in Gender Equal Media Scotland (GEMS) to lead a project focused on:

• Establishing relationships with key media and equalities organisations and convening roundtable meetings with those involved in Scotland’s media and cultural institutions.
• Mapping existing initiatives, resources, campaigns and research around intersectional gender inequality and sexism in media, within Scotland and internationally and assessing existing resources and their effectiveness in creating change.
• Developing a long-term vision for a Women’s Media Body for Scotland, in collaboration with industry experts, academics, campaigners, and the public sector.

Recommendation

7.) [2018] Incorporate the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) into Scots Law.

Progress

The Scottish Government has committed to introduce a new Human Rights Bill in this parliamentary session which will incorporate CEDAW and other UN human rights treaties into Scots Law, as far as possible within devolved competence. Incorporating CEDAW will strengthen legal protections for women by making these human rights enforceable in Scots Law, and will send a powerful and important message to the international community about Scotland’s commitment to ending gender inequality.

Recommendation

8.) [2018] Establish a Commission on Gender Equality in Education and Learning, covering Early Years, Primary and Secondary Education and Learning, tasked with providing bold and far-reaching recommendations on how gender equality can be embedded in all aspects of learning.

Progress

The Scottish Government has established a Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning which met for the first time in early 2020. To support the Taskforce’s work, the Scottish Government is in the process of procuring a research organisation to develop a theory of change model in consultation with young women and girls. The theory of change model will set out the short-, medium- and long-term outcomes to achieve gender equality in education and learning and the interventions and actions required to achieve those outcomes.

Recommendation

9.) [2018] Provide 50 hours per week of funded, good quality and flexible education and childcare for all children between six months and five years old.

Progress

As of August 2021, the Scottish Government has delivered its commitment to expand entitlement to funded early learning and childcare, from 600 hours a year to 1140, for all three- and four-year-olds, as well as care-experienced two-year-olds and those from lower-income families. The new entitlement will save families in Scotland an estimated £4,900 per eligible child per year and benefit around 130,000 children a year.

We have now set out our ambition to provide funded early years education to all one- and two-year-olds, starting in the course of this Parliament with children from low-income households, to give their parents more opportunity to work, train or study. This year we will begin engagement with families, the early learning sector and academic experts to design how the new entitlement could work in practice.

Recommendation

10.) [2018] Create two “Daddy months” of use-it-or-lose-it paid paternity leave in Scotland, using existing and additional powers transferred by UK Government.

Progress

In January 2020, the Scottish Government responded to the UK Government consultation ‘Good Work Plan: Proposals to Support Families’, urging the UK Government to increase the minimum statutory provision of parental leave from 52 to 64 weeks, with the additional 12 weeks to be available to fathers/partners on a paid, non-transferable “use it or lose it” basis.

The UK Government’s ‘Good Work Plan: Proposals to Support Families’ consultation is intended to inform the development of a forthcoming Employment Bill. The consultation included the UK Government’s overall approach to parental leave and pay, seeking views on how this should be prioritised and how different levels of support should be balanced to meet the needs of both parents and employers.

We are continuing to press the UK Government to influence the development of the Employment Bill which will include provisions on partner leave. The timeline for laying the Bill in parliament is now planned for this coming session 2021-22.

Recommendation

11.) [2018] Embed gender-sensitive approaches in all work relating to programmes developed through the new Scottish Government “Scottish Approach to Service Design” model.

The Office of the Chief Designer has undertaken a review of best practice in gender-sensitive design. An advisory group comprising colleagues from within Scottish Government (Social Security, Gender Equality Policy, and People Directorate), the third sector (Engender, Young Scot), the educational sector and NHS was set up to review progress, and act as “critical friends”.

The research to identify barriers that prevent women and girls from engaging in user-centred design work is complete, following a review of best practice and advice about gender-inclusive design methods being utilised in other contexts. A report has been produced, with feedback from the advisory group, which has now been shared with practitioners working in the field of public service design.

There is now ongoing programme of work to embed outcomes/guidance in the Scottish Approach to Service Design (SAtSD) guidance, and to share examples of good practice with the design community across the public sector. This includes a broad range of public sector bodies, including those in Local Government, the NHS and third sector.

The aim of the updated SAtSD guidance is to provide a set of tools and methods for design practitioners to drive consistency and standardise how we approach design. This includes information and methods to help organisations designing public services understand and mitigate the unintended consequences of gender-specific bias.

Additionally, gender-sensitive design considerations have been incorporated into the minimum evidence framework for the refreshed Digital Scotland Service Standard, a set of criteria that central government organisations must meet when delivering digital services.

The Scottish Approach to Service Design and the Service Standard is being embedded into the support provided to The Promise Scotland, a large scale transformation of the care sector, and priority Health and Social Care programmes, such as the National Care Service. These both offer an opportunity to look at the policy landscape as well as service delivery.

Recommendation

1.) [2019] The creation of a standalone Equalities Directorate along with the establishment of “Centres of Expertise” created in all Scottish Government Directorates, on intersectional gender competence

Progress

We have created a new Directorate of Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights. We will work to establish centres of expertise across Government to develop expertise in equality and human rights relevant to their areas of responsibility. We have already committed to the development of a centre of expertise on equality and human rights in the Economy family of Directorates, as part of our response to the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery’s report “Towards a Robust, Resilient Wellbeing Economy for Scotland”. Work is underway to scope and design the initial stages of this work. This will help to ensure we identify and capitalise on opportunities to advance equality and human rights, and build capacity, skills and understanding within policy teams.

Recommendation

2.) [2019] The creation of a senior officials and leaders group

Progress

A key objective of the Scottish Government’s equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy is to strengthen leadership and accountability. To progress this, we will establish a new group, giving consideration to its relationship with existing senior structures, such as the Scottish Government Executive Team and Directors’ Network, and the Scottish Leaders’ Forum. This group will seek to scrutinise and bring challenge to the Scottish Government’s strategic approach to embedding equality and human rights. This group will sit as part of a wider governance structure, which will have specific groups overseeing and scrutinising key strands of our mainstreaming agenda, including the review of the operation of the PSED in Scotland, the Scottish Government’s equality outcomes, and impact assessment development and improvement.

Recommendation

3.) [2019] The creation of “Policy-Makers National Standards” to support quality standards and accountability on intersectional gender competence in policymaking, with a requirement that all policy and analytical staff will adhere to it.

Progress

We have commenced development of a mainstreaming strategy to embed equality, inclusion and human rights across the Scottish Government and wider society. The mainstreaming strategy will improve how we centre equality, inclusion and human rights in all government policies, decisions and spending, and support the wider public sector and others to do likewise. As part of this work, we are developing a strategic approach to improving the skills and expertise in Government and the wider public sector to embed equality, inclusion and human rights. This will build on new compulsory diversity and inclusion training which has been implemented for all Scottish Government staff. Critical to this work is a comprehensive needs analysis work which will inform the development of standards for policy-makers and other professions. This work is underway and will conclude in early 2022. We are reviewing how we carry out impact assessment and are building expertise at different levels within Scottish Government. We have undertaken an external literature review of Impact Assessment in Governments and will build of the findings of the “Review of the Operation of the Public Sector Equality Duty in Scotland” which incorporated learning from Covid-19 period around impact assessment.

Recommendation

4.) [2019] We recommend Scottish Ministers deliver an Annual Statement, followed by a debate, on Gender Policy Coherence to the Scottish Parliament.

Progress

We will develop options for delivering an annual statement and debate to the Scottish Parliament, including how we might align this with the existing legal duty on Scottish Ministers to publish a report on progress to better perform the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Scottish Specific Duties. We have sought further views on this through our consultation on the review of the operation of the PSED, which was published in December 2021.

Recommendation

5.) [2019] The Scottish Government, Local Government and Public Bodies should build on existing work already underway (Scottish Approach to Service Design) to create a genuine effort in co-production of policy-making with evidence of lived experience at its heart.

Progress

Within the Government’s Programme for Scotland 2020-21 we have committed to take steps to ensure that the voices of people with lived experience shape our approach and policies in relation to equality and human rights. We propose to develop an approach that is based on learning from previous and current Scottish Government lived experience models, as well as models utilised successfully in the UK and internationally. We will work closely with key stakeholders in this area and it will form a key component of our mainstreaming strategy. We are organising a thematic deep dive with stakeholders in autumn 2021 to seek their views on how we develop our approach.

Recommendation

6.) [2019] We recommend adequate resourcing to enable the collection and analysis of robust intersectional data.

Progress

We are developing an equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy, which is underpinned by a comprehensive approach to improving data collation and analysis. This strategy will consider capacity and capability to collect, analyse and use robust equality data. This will be informed by the Scottish Government Equality Data Improvement Programme (EDIP) which launched in April 2021. The first phase of the EDIP will be undertaken over 18 months, and will undertake priority action to strengthen Scotland’s equality evidence base, contributing to the mainstreaming of equalities across the public sector. It will comprise two broad elements – “Learning and Good Practice” and “Data Development”.