Equality Data Improvement Programme (EDIP) Project Board minutes: June 2026

Attendees and apologies

Scottish Government:

• Audrey MacDougall, Chief Social Researcher
• Alastair McAlpine, Chief Statistician (co-chair)
• MH Halligan, Senior Social Researcher – Equality Analysis Team, Communities Analysis Division
• Beth Cocker, Principal Researcher – Equality Analysis Team, Communities Analysis Division
• Jonathan Wright, Senior Principal Researcher - Equality and Social Justice Analysis, Scottish Government
• Amy Tucker, Social Researcher - Equality and Social Justice Analysis, Scottish Government
• Ashley Ross, Policy Officer - Centre of Expertise for Equality & Human Rights (SG)
• Kathryn Ray, Principal social researcher – Place-based Social Justice (supporting the Equality Analysis Team)
• Kathleen Allen, National Records of Scotland

External:

• Louise Giblin, Non-Departmental Public Bodies Equality Forum (NDPB)
• Hannah Telling, Equality and Human Rights (EHRC)
• Alison Hosie, Scottish Human Rights Commission
• Sian Robson, Research Data Scotland
• Rishma Maini, Public Health Scotland

Apologies:

• Nick Cassidy, Improvement Service
• Catherine Whitaker, COSLA
• Simon Cameron, COSLA
• Rob Priestly, Directorate for Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights, Scottish Government

• Ellie Gordon, Senior Assistant Statistician - Equality Analysis Team, Communities Analysis Division

Items and actions

AMacD welcomed attendees to the meeting and brief introductions were made to the new attendees from Scottish Government, Research Data Scotland and the National Records of Scotland.

AMacD opened the meeting by noting that the evaluation of the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025 had been published that morning and invited members to use it as context for the board’s discussion on the next strategy.

AMacD summarised the agenda for the meeting: an update on the development of the next Equality Evidence Strategy; and to share updates from external Project Board members.

AMacD invited MH to provide an update on the work towards the next Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025.

MH presented the following update

• An update to the original timeline for the Strategy. The data audit collection took longer than expected during the busy election-period but the programme still remains on track for March 2027.
• MH outlined the purpose of the data audit: providing an update of equality characteristics collected and published across datasets held by Scottish Government and its agencies since the previous audit in 2021 using a Red-Amber-Green rating; and highlighting gaps and priorities for the next Strategy. The team updated some of the questions, added in new questions on impact of the dataset and use of the dataset in reporting human rights obligations, as well as a section to collect any new datasets that didn’t exist in 2021.
• The audit covers over 200 datasets across 17 spreadsheets, with analysts responding to more than 40 questions. Given the scale, the current analysis has focused on high-level findings that can inform engagement discussions, rather than immediate dataset-by-dataset action planning.
• MH provided some initial insights from the data audit return on changes since 2021, areas where gaps still exist and listed barriers reported by dataset owners, however the team are still waiting for two returns to be fully finalised before sharing more concrete results.
• MH said the audit has also been considered alongside wider evidence, including the interim review, the newly published evaluation report, Equality Evidence Finder interviews carried out the previous year, and collaboration sessions held last year. Taken together, these sources pointed not only to the need to improve data and use existing data better, but also to a wider need to build awareness, capability, and confidence in the use of equality evidence. This was leading the team towards framing future actions as either direct actions, such as changing a dataset or improving use of existing evidence for a specific purpose, or enabling actions, designed to strengthen the skills and confidence of those using equality evidence.
• MH then moved to the proposed engagement plan for development of the next Equality Evidence Strategy. She restated that the objective was to build the strategy with a wide range of internal and external expertise, while also avoiding unnecessary duplication where consultation or engagement had already taken place. The intended outcome remained a strategy that better supports inclusive policymaking and evidence-based actions to address inequalities.
• Rather than running one internal and one external session, MH said the team had concluded that a more differentiated approach was needed because different groups would want different degrees of influence over priority-setting and delivery of actions. Analysts were expected to have the strongest interest in shaping technically deliverable actions and activities. Policy colleagues were more likely to focus on priority areas and desired outcomes, with less emphasis on technical design. Public-sector and local-authority participants were expected to contribute both to priority-setting and to practical learning that could be taken back into their own organisations. Equality advocacy groups and academics were seen as especially important for surfacing priorities and knowledge, even though delivery of actions would mainly sit internally.
• The proposed plan for engagement sessions was described as follows. First, analysts would receive their data audit returns back together with the team’s analysis and follow-up questions, and would be encouraged to use that material in discussion with their own policy colleagues or others who may use or have influence over the dataset. MH said the purpose was to support a more grounded conversation about what was realistically achievable with existing data and where meaningful impact might lie. She also suggested this could help address a weakness identified in the previous strategy by tying actions more closely to policy needs. The next step would be an internal engagement session bringing analysts and policy colleagues together, with the expectation that the earlier discussion would leave them better aligned on their equality evidence priorities before they came into the wider strategy session. A separate but similar session would then be run for external stakeholders. That discussion would focus on whether the overall direction of the strategy remained relevant, what the key priorities should be and how they are organised, and how ongoing developments should be communicated.
• The revised timetable was set out. July would be used for the analyst and policymaker conversations. Internal engagement sessions would follow in August. External engagement sessions would run through September, with activity expected to conclude around 18 September. That timing was intended to support an update at the next Board meeting on 22 September.

AMacD invited participants to comment on the findings of the data audit, whether the approach to engagement was right and whether any additional steps were needed.

Attendee welcomed the data audit work and asked whether the exercise could be broadened beyond quantitative data, arguing that mixed methods and repeat qualitative evidence may be essential for groups that will always be difficult to capture through quantitative approaches alone. Attendee highlighted that we will always have issues with small groups but that there may be an opportunity to tackle this through mixed methods and qualitative research.

MH responded that analysts had not been told to exclude qualitative evidence, provided it was regularly produced and used in policy or briefing. Some qualitative evidence had therefore been captured in the data audit, including annual or biannual work, but the team had not found a robust method in time to extend the audit properly while still preserving comparability between 2021 and 2026. She suggested that strengthening the treatment of qualitative evidence could become an early action in the next strategy.

Attendee welcomed the new question on human rights obligations and said it would be useful to understand the level of practical understanding behind responses to that question, given the historical gap between awareness of human rights obligations and their application in practice.

MH agreed that the responses would be interesting, but said the team had not yet analysed that column in detail because of the focus for the initial analysis. BC added that the question had been kept deliberately broad because more precision might have produced inconsistent answers, and she noted that the Equality Analysis team are already well connected with the human rights policy workstream so will be linking into the activities they are doing.

Attendee also linked the audit to the National Performance Framework work, noting that some indicators may not currently match the questions they are meant to answer and whether there are discussions about data availability from this data audit that may be useful for the NPF team setting indicators.

BC said she had met the NPF team the previous day and reported a stronger emphasis on equality and inclusion breakdowns in the future indicator set than had been visible in the earlier stages of NPF reform. AMacD added that there is a lot of work around the NPF at the moment and that there is an intention to provide breakdowns similar to what was presented before.

Attendee then pressed the broader point that the next phase should ask whether some existing datasets are no longer fit for purpose and whether resource could be redirected towards evidence that better answers policy questions.

BC agreed that this would need to be considered in the next stage of internal and external engagement, where we hear priorities that may encourage a move towards or away from certain datasets, rather than from the audit alone.

Attendee said the amber-rated datasets were especially interesting because a red rating was not always inherently problematic if a characteristic was not relevant to a particular collection. She suggested more attention should go to cases where data are collected but not robust enough to support publication (flagged as ‘amber’ in the data audit).

BC agreed that those cases warranted closer examination, while also maintaining that the overall aim still had to be stronger collection and publication of equality evidence with demonstrable policy impact.

Attendee also asked whether Equality Impact Assessments were being examined as a source of insight into what evidence policymakers identify as relevant alongside the results of the data audit.

BC and MH said that this had not formed part of the audit process, although related EQIA review work was happening elsewhere and there may be an opportunity to link these workstreams together.

AMacD noted that a project was just beginning on how evidence is used in EQIAs, based on a sample from 2025, and said that work should offer useful insight into the kinds of evidence used, including qualitative, quantitative, participatory, and evidence from other sectors, and how that material is then used and applied to policy interventions. She suggested the Equality Analysis team should connect with this team who are working on this.

Attendee shared Public Health Scotland resources designed for patients and practitioners to improve the collection and understanding of equalities data which may be useful to share more widely.

AMacD invited attendees to provide updates on their work related to equality data improvement.

• HT provided an update on two forthcoming consultation exercises from EHRC. The first being an update to the EHRC measurement framework first developed in 2017. The consultation will focus on the underlying measurements and indicator sets of the main domains due to the data landscape shifting since 2017. HT said that a public consultation for this work would likely begin in September and would benefit from broad input given the breadth of policy areas and regions across the UK involved. There will be another consultation following that on EHRC statutory reporting and will include some stakeholder engagement on that too. AMacD welcomed these consultations and suggested that because the Equality Analysis team are planning on undertaking consultation at the same time, there would be value in presenting these strands as part of a wider shared effort to make improvements in this area.
• KA then noted that a question-testing contract for Census 2031 was beginning and would involve development and testing of new and revised questions, supported by stakeholder engagement over a three-year long contract running until 2029. KA observed that this work could involve many of the same stakeholders that other organisations planned to approach in the coming months. AMacD agreed that there was a clear need for better coordination so that stakeholders are not repeatedly asked about similar issues without understanding how the different exercises relate to one another.

AMacD it would be useful for colleagues to share plans and timetables so that engagement could be explained as a coherent programme of work rather than a series of siloed requests. She also invited anyone who remembered additional updates after the meeting to circulate them by email so that the discussion could continue outside the session.

No other business was raised.

The next meeting will be held 22nd September 2026 to discuss updates and the development of the next strategy.

AMacD thanked all for attending and for their input in the meeting.

• Equality Analysis Team to reach out to EQIA project team to understand where connections could be made between this and the data audit work.
• Equality Analysis team and relevant EDIP Board members to consider how to promote respective strands of engagement and consultation work together.
• Once available, Equality Analysis team to circulate details of the EHRC consultation work for wider sharing with the group.
• Equality Analysis Team to consider routes for wider sharing of the Public Health Scotland resource shared during the meeting.