Yes.

Absolutely—thank you.

That is a good question. I have said on the record to the committee previously that I take seriously my responsibilities as Minister for Equalities to promote mainstreaming and provide support and challenge to my colleagues at Cabinet and ministerial level. I think that I have maybe just one or two colleagues who, due to diary commitments, I have not yet met, but that shows the extent of the progress that I have made since I first appeared in front of the committee to say that that is what I was promoting.

That has allowed me to get an overarching view of the connections across portfolios and to highlight those connections to my colleagues. Colleagues are very much aware of the cross-cutting themes. When I am trying to promote equality impact assessments and to raise their quality and embed them, that has helped a great deal. It has enabled me to not only look at overarching policy but to inform my colleagues so that, when they make decisions, they are considering those issues early on and bearing in mind all the cross-cutting themes such as housing. I have had good conversations with the cabinet secretaries responsible for rural areas such as the Highlands and Islands to highlight the mainstreaming agenda.

I hope that that gives the committee reassurance that that work has progressed very well. We should remember that this our first time doing this, so we are doing things differently.

Our response to the SHRC was issued in May. We appreciate the work that the SHRC does and welcome its spotlight approach in raising the issues. The report clearly demonstrates the importance of all levels of government sustaining progress to advance people’s experience of human rights in rural and island communities. Our response, which we issued in May, outlined the breadth of work that was already under way across the areas that were raised in the report. Our response also set out the actions that we are taking, or are planning to take, on each of the report’s eight recommendations.

As I said in my opening remarks, I fully accept that there is more work to be done, but we are committed to working collaboratively across the public sector to ensure that we achieve our aim of making sure that everybody, regardless of where they live, has their human rights respected and fulfilled.

I know that the SHRC called for all relevant duty bearers to pay heed to its report, and we echo and fully support that call. People should be cognisant of it in designing and delivering public services for our rural communities. We will continue to work constructively with the SHRC, and other stakeholders, on the issues that were raised in the report and, more importantly, to implement the changes that are necessary to ensure further progress.

It was both. Part of my responsibility is to remind, support and challenge regarding the Equality Act 2010 and our public sector equality duty. We were able to discuss some issues that had been raised with me.

As I said, I fully recognise the distinct challenges that those living in rural areas sometimes face. I particularly recognise that intersectionality can often add a layer of inaccessibility. There is a disproportionate impact in the examples that you have given, and across other protected characteristics. It would be the same for ethnic minorities and disabled people, for instance. I am mindful of that, and the cabinet secretary is very mindful of it, too.

Meaningful engagement with rural stakeholders and communities at an early stage of policy development is absolutely vital. We continue to encourage engagement with rural and island communities across relevant portfolio and policy areas to understand their specific experiences of the issues in their localities—which of course can vary—in order to be able to develop a more flexible and localised approach to delivery. That includes engagement through the Scottish Rural Network and direct consultation with island communities on the new national islands plan.

The islands community impact assessment and the rural assessment toolkit, which was launched in April, encourage that in a systematic way, supporting access to specific islands and rural data and offering channels for engagement where they do not already exist.

If you would like more information on that, I am happy to bring in Anna Densham. Before I hand over, though, I will just agree with your point about the vital role that third sector organisations play. I could not have said it better myself. Third sector organisations are essential. They know their communities. I am aware that around 34 per cent of voluntary organisations are based in rural and remote locations, despite only about 21 per cent of the Scottish population living in those areas. That demonstrates how important they are in those communities, and we absolutely value the essential role that they play. We acknowledge that the sector needs support, stability and the opportunity for longer-term planning. Anna Densham can give you more detail.

Thank you for that. I agree and I am very sympathetic, as we all are in Government. It must be most frustrating. It is equally frustrating for us, because our budget is set on a cycle that comes from the Westminster United Kingdom Government. When that budget settlement is done yearly, it is difficult and challenging for the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government to set multiyear funding. We can make decisions on fair pay, for instance, but then there are decisions at the UK level such as the national insurance contributions increase, which can have an enormous impact. It is incredibly frustrating that the benefits of our decisions cannot always be seen because of decisions that are made elsewhere.

The latest estimates indicate that, across Government, we have invested over £1 billion in the third sector in 2023. Anna Densham talked about the fairer funding pilot, which covers multiyear funding worth £130 million over 2025 to 2027. It is part of our commitment to prioritise and focus on the delivery of front-line services and on tackling child poverty. When you are doing a pilot, you are including more and more organisations that you can support. This is not an exhaustive list but some organisations that are included in the pilot are Scottish Mountain Rescue—it is really important that it is part of the pilot—the Scottish Book Trust, which delivers the Bookbug programme, and the communities mental health and wellbeing fund, which is delivered across Scotland through third sector interfaces.

I acknowledge that it is frustrating, but the pilot is an important first step to mainstreaming multiyear funding agreements across the third sector to balance our ambitions against challenging financial decisions and the landscape that we are working in.

You mentioned women’s aid organisations, Ms Chapman, and I can touch on that. The equally safe strategy specifically recognises that women in small rural and island communities can face particular challenges in relation to all forms of violence against women and girls; abuse can sometimes be even more hidden than in urban areas. To help address those issues, we fund vital support services across all parts of Scotland, including in the rural and island communities, through our investment of £21.6 million a year in the delivering equally safe fund. At least £5.4 million of the delivering equally safe fund is allocated to rural and island communities. That figure excludes rural areas within predominantly urban local authorities, so the actual amount will be higher than that. I hope that that gives some reassurance.

From memory, we discussed waiting lists, access to maternity services and local hospital provision—those are some of the issues that have been raised with me when out and about. As minister, I take my responsibilities across the board seriously and we are encouraged to visit Highlands and Islands communities to hear about issues first hand. One issue that was raised with me was about access to treatment, the distances that often have to be covered and the challenges that people face. That is an example of the issues that I was able to raise with the cabinet secretary.

I am deeply concerned about the harmful rhetoric that we see across the United Kingdom, which has no place in our society. It is vital that we remain united in the face of division and uncertainty so that that narrative has absolutely no place and gathers no traction.

When our communities tell us that they feel unsafe and that they are under pressure, it is our collective responsibility to listen and respond. I outlined earlier the work that we are doing through our new Scots refugee integration strategy, which has been held up far and wide as a very good example.

We are investing in strengthening our communities, but I call on members—and everyone else—to ensure that we all stand firm against falling for misinformation, check our facts, are mindful of our language and use our platform to ensure that we unite our communities.

We are committed to supporting the integration of refugees and people seeking asylum into our communities through our new Scots strategy, which was developed in partnership with the Scottish Refugee Council and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. We are funding the refugee support service to provide advice, information and resources to new Scots to help them to build networks and social connections.

In addition, the £300,000 of funding that I announced earlier will be used by organisations working across Scotland to strengthen community cohesion and ensure that our communities stand together to reject division and build solidarity by forging coalitions across a wide range of communities in Scotland.