Priority 1: Equality and human rights are a central part of our planning, decision-making, delivery, and reporting.
The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) was created following the public inquiry into the murder of Black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the subsequent recommendations published in 1999 by Sir William Macpherson. It requires public bodies be proactive, and to reduce and remove the systemic inequalities related to disability, race, sex and the other protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010.
Research by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and our own experience tells us that discrimination and inequalities persist and we tend to:
- Rely on tacit knowledge of equality issues rather than collecting and using robust evidence including people’s different lived experience.
- Focus on ‘low-hanging fruit’ – the easiest issues to address – rather than targeting the most persistent inequalities.
- Have pockets of good practice but this does not translate into system wide change.
- See impact assessments as a tick box exercise, and we don’t routinely understand their value as a planning and decision-making tool and we don’t always have equality and human rights information available at the right time to properly consider unintended consequences or opportunities.
To help reduce and remove persistent inequalities, both the EHRC and Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) recommend public bodies take an equality and human rights-based approach when carrying out their public functions.
Over the next 5 years
We will improve how we use evidence
- We will collect, analyse, share and use equality and human rights evidence, including information about people with care experience, refugees and asylum seekers.
- We will include our equality and human rights performance in our corporate reports.
- We will have SMART equality outcomes that contribute to achieving our equality and human rights priorities. These will also include actions to address relevant findings and recommendations from the LGBT Health Needs Assessment.
We will follow best practice guidance
- We will update our approach to carrying out and using impact assessments so that they are a tool that help us develop good strategies, policies and programmes for everyone.
- We will strengthen our performance of the Public Sector Equality Duty, Fairer Scotland Duty and children’s rights (as set out in the United Nations Conventions for the Rights of the Child)
- We will meet the needs of care experienced children and young people.
