Equality and Human Rights Budget Advisory Group minutes: February 2025

Attendees and apologies

Interim Chair

• Emma Congreve, Fraser of Allander Institute 

Attendees

• Joanna Anderson, COSLA
• Sara Cowan, Scottish Women’s Budget Group
• David Holmes, DG General Economy, Unit Head of Wellbeing and Economy 
• Jillian Matthew, Audit Scotland 
• Stephanie Griffin, EHRC
• Rob Priestley, Head of Mainstreaming Unit
• Simon Wakefield, Exchequer Analysis 
• Angela Nolte, Head of Exchequer Analysis
• Nick Bland, Deputy Director for Mainstreaming and Inclusion
• Kat White, Deputy Director for Exchequer Strategy and Analysis

Observers

• Mike Tighe, Fiscal Events Team Leader
• Philippa Watkin, Exchequer Analysis

Secretariat

• Niamh Cannon, Capacity and Capability Policy Officer
• Laura Graham. Capacity and Capabilty Manager
• Julia McCombie, Capacity and Capability Team Lead

Apologies

• Ali Hosie, SHRC
• Tom Lamplugh, DG Communities, OCSPA

Items and actions

Welcome and Introductions

The Chair welcomed Kat White to the group who is the new Deputy Director of Fiscal Strategy and Analysis in Scottish Exchequer.

Apologies were noted and the Chair outlined the agenda and purpose of the meeting.

Reflections on 2025/26 Budget

The Chair invited Angela Nolte (AN) to reflect on some improvements to the budget process:

• The Scottish Government aimed to focus on key decisions with clear communication and a streamlined budget document.

• The restructure within Scottish Exchequer meant that the analytical team was more closely integrated with the budget process, working closely with the Public Spending Team.  
• It was noted that a key success was the Ministerial workshop, in which Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers considered the potential impacts of spending decisions on protected characteristics and socioeconomic disadvantage. This was held earlier in the budget process to better inform budget decisions.
• A clear audit trail was created with Ministers anytime decisions were made.
• The budget publication was streamlined with new distributional analysis on some areas of public spending.

Some of the challenges included:

• SG colleagues set out the process and challenges for considering savings decisions as part of the EFSBS, and recognise there is room for further improvement regarding transparency.
• The Equality and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement (EFSBS) was shortened to half the size it was last year, but was still larger than the budget document. It is very resource-intensive to create this, and it is difficult to determine whether it is impactful.

AN then highlighted some options that the Scottish Government is considering for future improvements; including new methodology, budget tagging, continued streamlining of the EFSBS document, and a review of the usefulness of EFSBS annexes.

Scottish Government colleagues provided further reflections:

• The discussion at the Ministerial Workshop was of a good quality. The Minister for Equalities and Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government both contributed insights throughout the discussion.
• Scottish Exchequer took ownership of the EFSBS process.
• The resource required to complete various impact assessments was challenging.
• The quality of returns across portfolios was varied and there is still a need to build competency.  
• Process for the EFSBS was started earlier in the budget cycle.

External members provided their reflections:

• EFSBS document was more streamlined, accessible and useful as a narrative, but this focused on positive examples and failed to highlight negative aspects of policies.
• For an external audience, the EFSBS did not add a lot of value to their understanding of the decisions made.
• Joining up across portfolios for equality aims was lacking and this would be useful for external stakeholders.

• SWBG would like to see EQIAs published with budget – linking to other materials that are already there and should already be made public anyway.
• Members would welcome more intersectional analysis in the EFSBS.

• EHRC noted there is room for improvement when it comes to an overarching strategic impact assessment of the budget, covering the three needs of the PSED and considering cumulative impact.
• External members agreed there is a need for greater transparency, particularly around savings.

• Tagging of level 4 budget lines could be done ahead of time and could be used to flag implications that portfolio areas to address in their returns. This would help with transparency.

AN noted that she is meeting with the Executive Team next week to discuss potential improvements to the equality budgeting process.

Action: AN to outline more detailed next steps on budget improvements to the EHRBAG in due course.

Action: Secretariat to email members to gather views on whether publishing the EFSBS a few days after the draft budget would affect their own budget scrutiny.

Discussion on EHRBAG Remit and Function

To begin this item, each member outlined why they joined the group and whether they are considering changes to their membership.

Action: the Chair will follow up with Chris Birt and Ali Hosie separately for their reflections on this agenda item.

The Chair invited Nick Bland (NB) to provide some context to this discussion, from the perspective of the Scottish Government. NB made the following points:

• He thanked the chair for agreeing to continue in the role as interim Chair.
• Professor Angela O’Hagan stepping down as Chair had naturally impacted the group.
• It had not been possible to recommend to Ministers a candidate that was appointable as chair from the applications that were received; it was notable that no existing members applied.
• The Scottish Government (SG) remains committed to the continuation of the Group. The discussion at the meeting was a welcome opportunity to reflect collectively on how the Group is working in practice and what changes could be made to refresh the purpose and impact of the Group.
• This was an opportunity to consider whether current remit, membership, meeting frequency are still working for members.
• SG will then use this feedback to inform a proposal for a renewed group, to present at the next EHRBAG meeting for agreement.
• Any changes to the group would need to be signed off by Ministers.

External members provided reflections:

• The group is valuable and allows conversations to take place in a protected space, providing members with insights into the budget process.
• External members feel frustrated at a lack of progress in equality and human rights budgeting, and do not feel that the group is making an impact.  
• Another noted challenge was that when policy leads from across the Scottish Government have engaged with the group, they have done so at a surface level. They have not understood what the group wanted them to cover in their engagement and the way in which this group operates.  
• The increased engagement from Senior Civil Servants is welcomed by the group.
• The Scottish Government could utilise EHRBAG members in between meetings for advice and feedback, if capacity allows for those members.
• The implementation of a meeting action tracker would be useful.
• Members would welcome more workshops or deep dive sessions, such the Promise session, that would allow them to explore the details of policies and decisions.  

• Membership could include more external stakeholders with expertise on the Government’s key priorities – such as child poverty and public service reform.  
• The most useful meetings in recent months have been those in which the Scottish Government has provided insights on their work and explored challenges with the group, such as the budget reflections discussion under Agenda Item 1 of this meeting.
• Members would welcome continued Ministerial engagement with the group, but wanted a deeper and more meaningful level of engagement.
• Meeting frequency could be reduced, and meeting length extended, to help with limited capacity of organisations.  

Following this discussion, Nick Bland offered to meet any external members of the group who wish to discuss potential improvements ahead of the March meeting, if this is possible within timescales.

Action: Secretariat to explore setting up meeting with NB and members to discuss potential changes.

AOB

The SWBG requested an update from the Government on next steps following the OECD gender budgeting pilot work.

Action: Secretariat to coordinate an update to members of the OECD gender budgeting pilots – either via correspondence or verbal update at a future meeting.

The Chair noted that the Finance and Public Administration Committee is carrying out a short, focussed inquiry on how the Scottish budget process has worked in practice, during the current parliamentary session (2021-26). It aims to identify any improvements that can be made to the budget process, ahead of the next five-year session of Parliament.

Whilst it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to respond to this call for views, external members of the EHRBAG could submit evidence. The Chair proposed that information from the minutes of this meeting could be submitted.

Action: Secretariat to share these minutes promptly to allow external members to respond to FPAC call for views.