Chamber and committees

I understand that there might be differing perspectives between PSED duty bearers and equality organisations on the challenges of ensuring that the duty is as effective as possible. It is the responsibility of public authorities to properly comply with the duty, as well as with the relevant codes of practice and the other guidance that is published by the EHRC. I want to see more consistency in the compliance, and the expectation is that the PSED duty bearers should be embedding equality and human rights in their existing work. My responsibility is to ensure that we have strong scaffolding for that approach and to push for the cultural change that is needed to ensure that it is embedded.

I recognise that we all have that shared ambition, and it is important to remember that we are all trying to achieve the same thing and ensure that we get the right balance between the Government being supportive and ensuring that public authorities live up to their responsibilities in order to improve.

I confirm that, as I said in my opening statement, the work of the committee is incredibly valuable. You have taken a range of views, so taking on board your recommendations would be the responsible thing to do.

Thank you, convener, and good morning, colleagues. I welcome the committee’s inquiry and the opportunity today to set out the range of actions that the Government is taking to advance equality and make the operation of the public sector equality duty and the Scotland-specific duties as effective as possible. The importance of such issues is highlighted at a time when efforts to advance equality, diversity and inclusion are under threat in many parts of the world. Now more than ever, Scotland must be a leader in demonstrating our commitment to continuing progress towards equality.

I want to make clear my commitment to using all measures to ensure that public authorities in Scotland properly embed equality and human rights into their delivery, with a clear focus on advancing equality, tackling discrimination and progressing the realisation of rights. That means using all available levers, which will involve both regulatory and non-regulatory change, and providing active and visible leadership. As Audit Scotland noted in evidence to the committee,

“The PSED on its own obviously cannot deliver everything”.—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 4 March 2025; c 29.]

I agree, and it is notable that the Scotland-specific duties are one of the few examples of equality legislation being devolved to the Parliament.

The Government will publish its mainstreaming equality and human rights strategy later this year, and its evidence-based framework sets out six drivers of change that we expect public authorities to use to direct their equality and human rights mainstreaming. Regulatory change is one such driver. The PSED and the Scotland-specific duties are important contributors to the change that the Government wants, but I recognise that there is some frustration among stakeholders about their effectiveness and impact. I recognise, too, that public authorities in Scotland are already doing good work to advance equality, but we have a collective responsibility to make our actions more effective.

I will set out my priorities in the areas where we are making good progress. I recognise the role of visible leadership from Government in order to drive change, so I have prioritised providing personal leadership on the PSED, both with my ministerial colleagues and in a series of meetings with public authorities. Those meetings have included the Scottish councils equality network, the non-departmental public bodies equality forum and more than 100 duty bearers whom I have met to communicate my expectations and ambition in setting equality outcomes. In all those meetings, I am raising the profile of the public sector equality duty, pushing for better equality impact assessments and stressing our collective responsibility to improve our equality framework.

However, we recognise that there remain systemic and structural barriers to equality mainstreaming, and the Government will publish its equality outcomes for 2025 to 2029 next month. They will deliberately focus on more effective impact assessment, better use of equality data and evidence, and application of lived experience as drivers of system change, as all those things are critical to generating lasting impact.

It is clear that there remains more work to do to build the competence of public authorities to effectively apply the public sector equality duty. We have commissioned the development of new inclusive communications tools and training, which will be delivered later in the year for the Scottish Government and other public authorities. That responds directly to calls from public bodies for more practical support and guidance that is informed by lived experience. To support the mainstreaming strategy, a toolkit of practical advice and support is being developed collaboratively with stakeholders. We have also been working closely with the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a range of projects, including learning sessions during our recent development academy week and a series of round-table meetings on outcome setting.

Looking ahead, we will set out by December this year how we plan to continue to improve the operation of the public sector equality duty in Scotland under regulation 12 of the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011, which relate to Scotland-specific duties, and I will consider the findings of your inquiry carefully when preparing that report. I look forward to a productive discussion on how we can make our equality regulations more effective and collectively create the society that we all wish to see.

Thank you for that question. You have raised a very interesting point. You and I know that, whenever debates take place, a variety of organisations circulate briefings to all MSPs. As far as I am aware, that is standard practice.

On the issue regarding the legalities, I want to make full use of my team so that we get the position absolutely right. I will bring in Cat McMeeken on that issue.

I have met BEMIS several times as a strategic partner of the Scottish Government; indeed, prior to my being in this role, the Scottish Government worked with it effectively for many years, and we will continue to do so. We really value its work.

However, I am sorry to hear that it takes that view, and I do not agree with its assessment. I think that the Scottish Government has been very clear about our obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and, of course, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. We are very clear that one size does not fit all; indeed, if we thought that it did, the approach to anti-racism for racially minoritised communities would fail to deliver.

As you have said, the racialised outcomes are not experienced uniformly, and any effective interventions that we make have to be evidence based and take specific experiences into account. In your previous session, one of the EHRC witnesses raised the issue of Gypsy and Traveller communities; we have an action plan to drive positive change and tackle inequality for those communities across Scotland. We have put our money where our mouth is, with over £15 million having been—or committed to be—spent between 2021-22 and the recent 2024-25 budget, and there are loads of local projects on cultural aspects specifically but also on accommodation in six local authority areas.

We are clear that we work to the definition of race in the Equality Act 2010. As a Government, we do not exclude or include specific minorities when we talk about communities that experience racism or are racialised.

I recognise that evidence. That is exactly why—as I shared with the committee—Communication Inclusion People and Disability Equality Scotland are going to lead on this work. I hope that they will provide the work that a lot of local authorities are probably trying to do at their own level. This work will provide consistency, and I hope that it will be an extensive resource bank that can provide good practice and will be there for people to pick up and use. There will be a bit of an economy of scale, but it will also help with providing consistency so that, from one end of Scotland to the other, everybody gets the same service.

I heard previous witnesses say that what we were proposing was nothing new, because public authorities already have a duty to make reasonable adjustments. I listened very carefully to those comments and I thought that they were interesting.

However, there are limits with the reasonable adjustments approach. Equality law sets out that reasonable adjustments are applicable only to disabled people. The existing regulations on accessible communications and publications are important, but we want to help public authorities to address multiple communication barriers, as far as that is possible within devolved powers.

Part of my thinking was that the reasonable adjustments approach is not enough because that approach concerns only one protected characteristic, whereas taking the revised approach encompasses everybody.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app did not connect in time and has not registered my vote, although I was getting assistance. I would have voted no.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app did not connect in time and has not registered my vote, although I was getting assistance. I would have voted no.

I had the honour of visiting women who are demonstrating their excellent work with young women between 16 and 24 who are experiencing violence and are at risk of suicide.

We are taking forward activity to tackle the drivers of the gender pay gap, which are set out in our refreshed “Fair Work action plan: becoming a leading Fair Work nation by 2025”, which was published in 2022.