Equality and Human Rights Budget Advisory Group minutes: March 2025

Attendees and apologies

Interim Chair

Emma Congreve, Fraser of Allander Institute

SG Attendees

Jennie Barugh, Director of Exchequer Strategy

John Somers, Director for Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights

Alasdair Black, Deputy Director for Budget and Fiscal Coordination

Kat White, Deputy Director for Exchequer Strategy & Analysis

EHRBAG Attendees

Sara Cowan, Scottish Women’s Budget Group

Joanna Anderson, COSLA

Jillian Matthew, Audit Scotland 

Ali Hosie, SHRC

Nick Bland, Deputy Director for Mainstreaming and Inclusion

David Holmes, DG General Economy, Unit Head of Wellbeing and Economy 

Tom Lamplugh, DG Communities, OCSPA 

Angela Nolte, Head of Exchequer Analysis

Rob Priestley, Head of Mainstreaming Unit (deputising for Nick Bland)

Simon Wakefield, Exchequer Analysis 

Philippa Watkin, Exchequer Analysis

EHRBAG Secretariat

Niamh Cannon, Capacity and Capability Policy Officer

Julia McCombie, Capacity and Capability Team Lead

Apologies

Lucy O’Carroll, Director for Tax

Stephanie Griffin, EHRC

Items and actions

 Welcome and Meeting overview

The Chair welcomed the Group to today’s meeting. Apologies were noted and the Chair outlined the agenda and purpose of the meeting.

Previous meeting actions

The Chair handed over to the Secretariat to give updates on actions from the previous EHRBAG meeting that took place on 20 February 2025. The Secretariat gave an overview of the actions from the February meeting, there were no questions or queries from the Group following this update.

EHRBAG Action plan reporting

The Chair handed over to the Director for Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights, John Somers (JS), to give updates on the action plan progress report. The action plan progress report was circulated with EHRBAG members prior to the meeting. In opening, JS:

• acknowledged the frustrations expressed by members, given improvements could be perceived as being slow and taken in an incremental approach
• however, improvements were taking place such as the new recent Development Academy week that had gathered more than 1000 sign-ups; the leadership of Equalities Minister both within and outwith government and the commitment to develop a co-designed of a Gender Strategy over the next 12 month
• thanked members for their ongoing time and commitment

In relation to action plan specifically, JS:

• noted successes such as the work on Impact Assessments; ongoing Ministerial bi-laterals to advance work on equality and human rights across portfolios; and the publication of the new Equality Outcomes expected in April
• noted that the consultation exercise for the Mainstreaming Strategy concluded on 5 February with over 120 responses and that analysis was underway; and
• outlined that a knowledge sharing event held would be held in the summer and that members’ input into this would be welcome

JS then passed on to Director of Exchequer Strategy, Jennie Barugh (JB), to give her updates. In opening, JB:

• reflected that on her first year in post it had been Exchequer’s ambition to integrate impact assessments into the budget process and that there had been good progress in this regard. Whilst these improvements had been less visible from outside Government, progress internally was being made. For example, since the last budget there had been (i) new analysis in EFSBS and approach to assessing equalities impact across 10 key decisions; (ii) the second Ministerial workshop had been genuinely more impactful; and (iii) delivering the OECD gender budgeting pilots and publishing its findings
• it was noted that the most recent budget had been challenging for the new team in Scottish Exchequer given the introduction of new legal duties and impact assessments, such as the consumer duty and child rights and wellbeing impact assessment, as well as expanding islands considerations. Therefore, the team had to develop new processes as well as make continuing improvement to existing ones
• looking ahead, JB acknowledged that there was more progress to be made on using more of the analysis to impact on decisions. A key aim moving forward would likely be to produce less material and focus more on the budget process
• JB Noted that Scottish Exchequer valued the Group’s expertise

Action: Secretariat to engage EHRBAG members in due course on developing the knowledge event in Summer.

The Chair opened the discussion to the Group. In discussion:

• the positive improvements were acknowledged but it was noted that the Group would continue to draw out where improvements could be made
• it was highlighted that a commitment to more regular updates on how the EHRBAG Action Plan is impacting budget processes and decisions would be welcomed
• the internal discussions on human rights in relation to the tax strategy was welcomed, as well as the update on the work on impact assessments
• the Group suggested that more consideration should be given to how the success and impact of the OECD gender pilots would be measured
• it was noted that the National Performance Framework is an important performance mechanism, and it would be beneficial for it to connect directly with budget processes. It was highlighted that the Group may be interested in contributing to the ongoing review of the National Performance Framework; and
• lastly, SHRC flagged an upcoming session being delivered by The office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on capacity building which would be taking place in the first of the week of July. It was noted that it would be open to other organisations, Parliament and Government to attend and that the session would be considering the different aspects of economic, cultural and social rights.

Action: Rob Priestley (RP) to send mainstreaming toolkit update to members. Policy framework links directly into performance management and performance improvement.

Action: Secretariat to speak to NPF team and explore if the review work can be linked with the work of the EHRBAG.

Action: Scottish Government colleagues and the Secretariat to think about how impact can be measured in the action tracker and bring this back for discussion to the Group. Members to provide views in advance.

 Proposed changes to EHRBAG

Chair handed over to Deputy Director for Mainstreaming and Inclusion, Nick Bland (NB). NB shared some reflections on this item before the presentation commenced:

• reflected that there had been no success recruiting for the Chair of EHRBAG and it was noted that no existing members applied for the position
• this in part led to thinking about how the EHRBAG fits in with Scottish Exchequer’s wider need for expert knowledge on aiding with the budget process. The EHRBAG group will transition from the Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights directorate to the Scottish Exchequer directorate

NB handed over to Angela Nolte (AN) on behalf of Scottish Exchequer to present slides on potential options for the future of EHRBAG.

In discussion, it was:

• acknowledged that given the potential options and slides had not been shared with the Group in advance of the meeting due to time constraints, that reflections and thoughts of the Group would be limited until they had had sufficient time to digest the information. With that in mind, it was agreed that follow-up 1-1s would be offered to the Group with relevant SG SCS, as well as feedback in correspondence
• it was noted that accountability should be clarified with the refresh of the Group, to ensure that membership of the Group was good value for time
• it was noted that the final agreed proposal for the Group could be a hybrid of the three options presented
• agreed that it was a positive move for the Secretariat to transition into the Scottish Exchequer, but there remains to be seen that EHRBAG advice is meaningfully being actioned;
• agreed that it could be beneficial to explore more expertise and research analysis in between meetings, though this kind of technical expertise would involve other colleagues from organisations rather than from current EHRBAG members themselves so would that need to be factored in
• highlighted that membership of the Group could potentially move or be expanded to include those who have experience primarily in public finance, rather than prioritising equality and human rights experience;
• noted that transparency of challenges moving forward is important to highlight progress that is being made
• agreed that exploring international comparators, particularly the Welsh model, would be helpful and that an option could be to extend an invitation to the Welsh Group to visit EHRBAG to discuss
• a request was extended to internal and external members of the Group to share their positive and negative experiences of the Group, to ensure that the Group can maximise its effectiveness for progressing improvements and action within Government; and
• for next steps, it was noted that the intention would be to convene a meeting in May to hopefully formally agree the refreshed remit of the Group. Following this, progress on Chair recruitment would re-commence and it was noted that the hope would be that current external members may feel they could put themselves forward to Chair the Group

Action: Secretariat will follow up via email for further thoughts from EHRBAG members and offer 1:1 feedback.

SG budget improvement

The Chair invited Simon Wakefield (SW) to give a verbal update on budget improvements:

It was noted that:

• Scottish Exchequer had started work on a pilot on budget tagging and that they were in the process of identifying a cross-cutting policy area to work on this with
• further improvements to the EFSBS moving forward were being explored, such as further streamlining of the document whilst keeping it as effective as possible and legally compliant; and
• SW would be happy to have any further discussion on these points with members of the Group.

Any Other Business

The Chair raised the recent announcement from the UK Government on the reforms to its Welfare policy and invited the Deputy Director for Budget and Fiscal Coordination, Alasdair Black (AB), to speak to this on behalf of the Scottish Government:

• it was noted that that the SG had no prior information about this announcement from the UK Government and that work was underway to understand its implications for Scotland, key to this understanding would come from the Office of Budget Responsibility forecast and the Spring Statement the following week
• AB undertook to keep the Group updated on progress; and
• the Chair reiterated that a key interest of the Group would be to understand the decision-making process the SG will adopt when options are being considered for the Scottish position