Climate change - Scottish National Adaptation Plan 2024-2029: joint equalities impact assessment and Fairer Scotland Duty assessment

Assessment of Socio-economic Disadvantage

What are the main impacts of the proposal?

• The Plan acknowledges the vulnerability of people living with social and economic disadvantage in experiencing poorer quality environments, having less adaptive capacity and increased sensitivity to the impacts of climate change. The policies contained within the Plan aim to tackle those with the highest level of vulnerability however where policies are applied equally across sections of the population, there is potential for socio-economic disadvantaged groups who require different levels of support or accommodations to have difficulty in accessing an equal level of adaptation as their peers.
• The Plan makes provisions to give free advice and support on preparing for, responding to and recovering from extreme weather events which will help people with socio-economic disadvantage to navigate the impacts of climate change.
• The Plan promotes the provision of affordable flood insurance for flood-prone households (for example through Flood Re) which will help reduce the flood disadvantage experienced by people with socio-economic disadvantage. Strategic management is required to ensure the uptake of insurance in light of the cost-of-living crisis having greater impact on those already struggling with socio-economic disadvantage.
• The Plan makes provision for climate change adaptation for the transport system helping to maintain the reliability and resilience of public transport. This in turn will positively benefit socio-economically disadvantaged groups who do not have access to private transport especially where access to employment, education and training is maintained as well as ensuring the ability to travel to see family and friends, ability to travel to medical appointments, and access to shops and public services.
• The Plan makes provision for exploring the vulnerability of private water supplies through the Water, Wastewater and Drainage policy public consultation – further consideration of socio-economic disadvantage in relation to private water supplies may be required after analysis of consultation responses.
• The Plan makes provisions for increased nature-based solutions including greenspace access which will likely have positive health benefits for people with socio-economic disadvantage. Strategic management will be required to ensure greenspace access remains equal to all regardless of socio-economic status.
• The Plan makes provision to increase the resilience of supply chains which in turn decreases the likelihood of affordable food and essential supply shortages. This will reduce the impact faced by people with socio-economic disadvantage in the event of supply chain disruption who may not be able to afford more expensive alternatives.

How could the proposal be improved so it reduces or further reduces inequalities of outcome?

• The Plan or related measures could look to suggest climate adaptation policy recommendations for the social or private rental housing sectors.
• The Plan or related measures could look to suggest strategic climate adaptation policy recommendations for women in farming in Scotland.
• The Plan or related measures could look to suggest more ambitious ways of encouraging responsible private investment funding or insurance options to ensure public funding is dedicated to those who do not have alternative funding recourse.

Cross-cutting impacts

The Scottish Government acknowledge that an individual or group of individuals may have two or more characteristics overlapping leading the policy to impact these people in a unique way not assessed above. Thus, an intersectional approach is required. The implementation of this plan could disproportionately impact specific demographics such as older people of ethnic minority backgrounds, pregnant people on lower-income or women with disabilities. In particular, the Plan acknowledges the multiplying impact of socio-economic factors and personal characteristics with regard to the potential of climate change impacts to increase health inequalities. Similarly recognising the number of different combinations of protected characteristics requiring further exploration in this regard, the Scottish Government recognises that specific assessment of individual cross-cutting impacts with regards to the Plan is unlikely to produce clear feasible recommendations for policy mitigations to reduce inequalities beyond those suggested for individual factors.