Gender policy coherence: annual statement 2025

Foreword Cabinet Secretary For Social Justice

As Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, it has been a privilege to work closely with the NACWG to advance equality for women and girls in Scotland. This annual statement is an opportunity to take stock of the progress made, as well as looking forward to the work to come. I want to highlight two important pieces of future work here.

We are developing an Equality Strategy for Women and Girls – a first for Scotland.

This was one of the Calls to Action from the NACWG in their Phase Two scrutiny and accountability report. They recommended a ‘national gender equality strategy’ that ‘should be intersectional, prioritising women who experience compounding, multiple inequalities, and should complement wider mainstreaming work.’

The strategy will do a number of positive things. It will support greater policy coherence across government, raise the profile of work already underway, reduce duplication and help identify additional policy measures. This in turn will accelerate our pace of progress, meaning effective and meaningful change for women and girls. It will also give us evidence of progress, ensuring greater monitoring and accountability of the Scottish Government and public bodies.

We want the voices of women and girls to shape the strategy in tangible and meaningful ways. This is why the strategy will be co-designed with the NACWG and the Empowering Women Panel, with evidence from women and girls with diverse lived experience from across Scotland and organisations that represent them. This is also part of our wider commitment to use more participatory approaches to shape our policies.

We know we need a combination of short and long term actions to make long-lasting change. The strategy will set out our vision, goals and actions to advance gender equality over the next 5-20 years. It will also include commitments made to the NACWG that have not yet been delivered to ensure lasting legacy for their work.

We’re also strengthening the architecture in place to deliver on NACWG recommendations through our cross-government programmatic approach.

Women make up over half of the Scottish population and experience wide-ranging and intersecting inequality. We need the whole of government working together to make significant, long-lasting change. A robust cross-government programmatic approach will help us to deliver on our commitments to women and girls in Scotland.

The aim of this approach is to accelerate progress in delivering on the NACWG recommendations and to ensure that the right mechanisms are in place to support the Strategy. It will also help us to better measure and communicate our progress in delivering gender equality.

There is already a lot for us to be proud of and a very strong base to build on. But we know that we have more work to do. Women have faced inequality for generations. Long lasting, meaningful change requires us to rethink how our institutions are run, how our policies and budgets are decided, as well as requiring a societal and cultural shift in attitudes.

Sometimes the task can seem overwhelming and the pace of change can feel frustratingly slow. But real equality for women and girls in Scotland is possible. I am sure that the work highlighted in this statement will move us closer to the systemic change we all want to see.

Shirley Anne Sommerville, Cabinet Secretary For Social Justice