National Advisory Council on Women and Girls (NACWG) 2019 - report and recommendations: SG response

Annex A: The NACWG's 2019 Recommendations

The following table sets out a summary of the NACWG's 2019 recommendations, structured under the NACWG's three themes of Leadership, Accountability and Creating Conditions. A fuller description of each of the recommendations is contained in the NACWG's report^[16].

1. Leadership: Creating a culture of gender equality policy-making in the Scottish Government

• 1.1 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.
• 1.2 The creation of a senior officials and leaders group.
• 1.3 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.

2. Accountability: Scrutiny of gender competent policy-making.

• 2.1 We recommend Scottish Ministers deliver an Annual Statement, followed by a debate, on Gender Policy Coherence to the Scottish Parliament.

3. Creating Conditions: People powered policy-making.

• 3.1 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.
• 3.2 Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission consider producing a set of scrutiny principles to support this methodology/approach for public bodies, similar to their recent "Principles for Community Empowerment", (linked to the Policy-makers National Standards).
• 3.3 We recommend adequate resourcing to enable the collection and analysis of robust intersectional data.