Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board Minutes: May 2025

Attendees and apologies

Attendees

Kaukab Stewart MSP, Minister for Equalities, Scottish Government (SG)

Councillor Maureen Chalmers, Community Safety and Wellbeing Spokesperson, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)

Rachel Adamson, Third Sector Specialist, Zero Tolerance

Karen Allan, Housing and Homelessness, Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers

Andrea Beavon, Local Authority Leadership, VAW Network 

Kathryn Dawson, Third Sector Specialist, Rape Crisis Scotland (Attending on behalf of Sandy Brindley)

Olivia Brown MSYP, Scottish Youth Parliament

Amanda Coulthard, Local Authority Leadership,  Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers

Lucy Denvir, Public Health, NHS 

Emma Forbes,  Justice, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service

Ann Hayne, Health, NHS (Attending on behalf of Trudi Marshall)

Catriona Kirkpatrick, Third Sector Specialist, Engender

Anna Mitchell, Systems Change, Safe and Together

Sarah Taylor, Justice, Police Scotland

Linda Thompson, Third Sector Specialist, Women’s Support Project

Apologies

Trudi Marshall, Health, NHS 

Kelly McIntosh, Education, ADES

Marsha Scott, Third Sector Specialist, Scottish Women’s Aid

Sandy Brindley, Third Sector Specialist, Rape Crisis Scotland

 

Items and actions

Item 1 – Welcome and Apologies

The Minister welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced new members.

Item 2 – Minutes of March Meeting and Actions Arising

Cllr Chalmers asked members for any final comments on the March meeting minutes and no amendments were noted. Cllr Chalmers asked officials to give an overview of previous meeting actions.

Johanna Davidson-Scott provided an update on all outstanding actions. An additional action was highlighted regarding members following up with the Gender-Based Violence and Learning Difficulties Steering group after their engagement with the JSB during the March meeting.

ACTION 1: SG officials to upload the March minutes to the SG webpages.

Item 3 – Scottish Government/ COSLA Updates

Nel Whiting provided an overview of the final stages of the GREVIO Baseline Evaluation process and final report. The final report includes praise for Scotland, particularly with regards to the Caledonian system and the gendered analysis that underpins the Equally Safe strategy. Within the report there are a total of 90 recommendations, but not all will be applicable for Scotland. A brief UK-wide response to GREVIO’s final report will be published in June, but this will not address every recommendation. There is an action to respond to GREVIO’s recommendations contained within the Equally Safe delivery plan, and work with Scottish partners will begin once the report is published in Summer 2025.

Katie Brown outlined the work underway to develop a VAWG Needs Assessment Tool, building a robust picture of the specific needs of women, children and young people experiencing VAWG in different local authority areas. To ensure that this is a useful resource for multi-agency Violence Against Women Partnerships (VAWPs) and other local and national strategic partners/ partnerships, there will be an in-person workshop in June.

Jeff Gibson provided an update on the 5 Jurisdictions Group meeting held in February. The 5 Jurisdictions paper noted at the last JSB meeting has been delayed and is currently with UK colleagues for finalising. There will also be a potential UK marketing campaign in October which we anticipate will be timed to coincide with the expected publication of the UKG Strategy to tackle VAWG.

Jeff Gibson also updated on the Scottish Government’s work with Police Scotland on challenging men’s demand on prostitution. A national approach to policing prostitution has been adopted coupled with developing local support networks. Technology is being used to identify perpetrators of crime and stop it from happening. SG are currently in the process of issuing a grant to support this, and wider related work for the next 12 months.

Nel Whiting provided an overview of the new Online Safety Taskforce, a cross-government group to provide oversight, challenge and direction to policy teams, aiming to prevent harm and to identify what more can be done to protect children and young people online. This group was set up to address the many online harms that children and young people are increasingly exposed to including VAWG.

Johanna Davidson-Scott highlighted that the JSB Secretariat will be reviewing the group’s current Terms of Reference (ToR) and group membership, to ensure both still fully reflect the aims of the Board. The Secretariat will provide a further update to the JSB during the summer and, depending on the extent of updates, the Board may find an in-person development day beneficial.

ACTION 2: JSB Secretariat to undertake a review of the group’s current Terms of Reference and membership.

Item 4 - Public Protection

Cllr Chalmers invited Sophie Gwyther to provide a presentation on the National Public Protection Leadership Group (NPPLG), which provides national multi-agency leadership of public protection across Scotland.

Sophie Gwyther highlighted that a NPPLG workplan has been developed with two overarching priorities: building a culture of learning and tackling issues which affect local partnerships. There are 6 subsequent priorities to support this work. The group aims to learn what works at a local level, feeding that in nationally and vice versa. Board members welcomed the presentation and expressed an interest in further engagement.

Anna Mitchell requested that the NPPLG documents noted during the presentation and the presentation slides are both shared with the Board. Anna also noted a particular interest in the work of priority 2 from the NPPLG workplan (enhancing culture of learning through scrutiny and inspection).

ACTION 3: SG officials to share the NPPLG documents noted during the update including the briefing, newsletter, Terms of Reference, presentation slides and workplan.

Item 5 – Programme for Government (PfG)

The Minister provided an update on the Programme for Government (PfG), emphasising that it is not a list of everything government is committed to doing but a focused programme of action for the next 12 months. Eradicating VAWG remains a key commitment of the government.

Rachel Adamson and other members raised that, more broadly, it feels as though gender equality is dropping down the list of Government priorities, noting the change of approach to the Misogyny Bill.

Nel Whiting clarified that there was insufficient time for the Misogyny Bill to be finalised and introduced in this Parliamentary session.

Item 6 – 16 Days: Initial thoughts on the 2025 campaign

Cllr Chalmers introduced Samantha Keogh from the Improvement Service to highlight the 2025 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign and discuss initial ideas for this coming year.

As with previous years, the VAWPs will develop a national theme for Scotland. Key areas of initial discussion from the VAWPs for this year’s campaign include how national partners can use their platform to raise further awareness of Equally Safe and the challenge of engaging men in the campaign.

Members shared their own plans and areas of focus for this year’s campaign. This included work in schools (through both Equally Safe at School and Mentors in Violence Prevention) but also non-fatal strangulation, consent, and engagement with men, specifically young men and boys.

Other projects that could be highlighted during 16 Days, include the University of Glasgow’s study examining young people’s experiences of sexual harassment, which will consist of large-scale data, and the ‘Many Good Men’ project.

Item 7 – Supreme Court Ruling

The Minister provided an update on the UK Supreme Court ruling. The Minister reiterated that the ruling is not a victory for one group at the expense of another: it provides legal clarity. The Government’s approach has been guided by the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s published guidance, and this has been explicitly recognised by the Supreme Court in its decision.

Item 8 – Summary of Actions

Cllr Chalmers provided a summary of the meeting actions.

Item 9 – AOB and Close

No items were raised under AOB.

Actions

• Officials to publish March minutes online.
• JSB Secretariat to undertake review of Terms of Reference and membership.
• Following the NPPLG update, SG officials to share the 3 min briefing, newsletter, Terms of Reference, presentation slides and workplan.