Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board minutes: September 2025

Attendees and apologies

Attendees

Kaukab Stewart MSP, Minister for Equalities, Scottish Government

Mariam Ahmed ,Third Sector Specialist, AMIN

Sandy Brindley, Third Sector Specialist, Rape Crisis Scotland

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

Lucy Denvir, Public Health, NHS Fife

Fiona Holligan, Justice, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (Attending on behalf of Emma Forbes)

Sophie Gwyther, Local Authority Leadership, VAW Network (Attending on behalf of Andrea beavon)

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

Catriona Kirkpatrick, Third Sector Specialist, Engender

Karyn Mccluskey, Justice, Community Justice Scotland

Beth Reader, Education, Association of Directors of Education Scotland (Attending on behalf of Kelly McIntosh)

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

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

Laura Tomson, Third Sector Specialist, Zero Tolerance

Apologies

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

Andrea Beavon, Local Authority Leadership, VAW Network 

Olivia Brown MSYP, Scottish Youth Parliament

Emma Forbes,  Justice, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service

Trudi Marshall, Health, NHS 

Kelly McIntosh, Education, ADES

Anna Mitchell, Systems Change, Safe and Together

Sarah Taylor, Justice, Police Scotland

 

Items and actions

Item 1 – Welcome and Apologies

The Minister welcomed everyone to the meeting, and noted that apologies had been received from Cllr Chalmers.

Item 2 – Minutes of March Meeting and Actions Arising

The Minister invited final comments on the minutes from the May meeting. One minor correction was noted to an official’s name. Rhona Gowans then delivered a summary of outstanding actions from previous meetings and provided an update on their status.

ACTION 1: Following a small update, SG officials to upload the May minutes to the SG webpages.

Item 3 – Scottish Government/ COSLA Updates

Johanna Davidson-Scott provided an overview of the Scottish Government response to the harmful weaponisation of violence against women and girls (VAWG) messaging directed at refugee and minority ethnic communities. Officials from asylum and refugee integration, race equality, and VAWG policy areas have met internally to discuss this issue, and during an engagement with the Violence against Women and Girls Partnership (VAWP) network, COSLA agreed to work with the network to develop relevant supportive resources that will raise awareness of ongoing work to tackle VAWG.

The Minister noted the role the JSB can play in challenging the current harmful rhetoric and underlined that this type of misinformation has no place in Scotland. She reaffirmed that VAWG is a fundamental violation of human rights, not confined to any one community, and can be tackled collectively through Equally Safe.

Members emphasised the need for collaboration across the VAWG sector, drawing upon clear messaging to prevent further division. There were discussions on what the JSB could do to challenge the harmful weaponisation of VAWG narrative, and concerns about the safety of women and girls in light of this current rhetoric.

Johanna Davidson-Scott also provided an update on the Istanbul Convention baseline evaluation, highlighting the publication of GREVIO’s final report. She outlined ongoing engagement across government and with stakeholders to assess the reports implications for Scotland.

Jeff Gibbons provided an update on key areas of justice-related work, including that the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill was now at Stage 3, and that the Criminal Justice Reform Bill is progressing towards Stage 3, with stakeholder engagement continuing across both. Sandy Brindley emphasised the importance of formally recognising the contributions of victims and survivors in shaping this work.

A further update was provided on the development of a national Police and NHS support pathway for spiking victims, including an NHS system update to introduce a digital marker for improved data collection.

There was also on-going work with the Domestic Homicide and Suicide Review Taskforce, which last met on 26 August, to inform the development of Scotland’s first national review model.

There is continued engagement with the Five Jurisdictions Group to support cross-border collaboration on VAWG policy.

The Scottish Government continues to work with Police Scotland on Operation Begonia, and following the launch of the second phase of the Sextortion campaign, Jeff reported that new data has been collected, providing a clearer picture of the evolving nature of this issue. He also noted that a new national oversight group on Sextortion was being established and would meet for the first time in October.

Katy Betchley shared progress on the development of a VAWG Needs Assessment Tool, which will help support local multi-agency partnerships to understand the VAWG services in place locally. A testing phase is planned for October, with several partnerships expected to take part. The testing will help inform the Tool's further development.

Katy Betchley advised an announcement on Delivering Equally Safe (DES) funding beyond March 2026 will be made through the Scottish budget process. The timing of which is challenging due to the delayed UK budget. With a new contract in place to deliver equalities funding, including DES, officials are working on the basis that there will continue to be a fund in place. Concerns were raised around funding timelines, continuity, and potential impacts on staffing and service delivery.

Johanna Davidson-Scott updated on work to embed children and young people’s voices within the Equally Safe governance structure. A workshop was held with stakeholders in August to explore a possible model of meaningful youth engagement. While a final model has not yet been agreed, work is continuing to address identified gaps, and further updates will be shared in time.

ACTION 2: The Minister and Councillor Chalmers to be kept updated by their respective officials on the weaponisation of VAWG rhetoric and any developments in this area.

ACTION 3: Scottish Women’s Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland, Engender and others to take forward consideration and planning for an event to counter the harmful weaponisation of VAWG messaging directed at refugee and minority ethnic communities.

ACTION 4: Justice officials to share information with Ann Hayne about the inclusion of a spiking marker in the NHS digital systems.

ACTION 5: Justice officials to share with Linda Thompson an overview of data collected on women routed to support in relation to Operation Begonia.

ACTION 6: Officials to ensure VAWG funding is included as an agenda item at a future JSB meeting.

Item 4 – Honour Based Abuse

Julia Ng provided an overview of the Scottish Government’s work to develop a draft policy definition of honour-based abuse (HBA), noting that minority ethnic women and girls can face additional barriers to accessing support and may experience distinct forms of abuse, including honour-based and extended family abuse.

Julia Ng outlined the steps taken to develop a definition, including engagement with specialist organisations, mainstream services, and women from affected communities. The definition will provide a consistent understanding of HBA, recognising the involvement of multiple perpetrators, the role of patriarchal and cultural norms, and that the abuse is not limited to any specific racial or religious group.

Feedback on the draft has been positive, and will support future awareness-raising, training, and coordinated responses across services. The next steps will focus on extended family abuse and embedding the definition into policy and practice, with ongoing consideration of survivor perspectives.

Due to time constraints, the agenda item on the intersectionality of poverty did not go ahead. Members agreed to forgo the discussion, with the understanding that it may be revisited if the board considers it beneficial.

ACTION 7: Officials to ensure that work to address honour-based abuse is included as an agenda item at the next meeting of the JSB.

ACTION 8: Marsha Scott and Julia Ng to have a follow up discussion on the honour-based abuse policy definition.

Item 5 – Gender Equality Strategy

Jude Grayford, provided an update on Scotland’s first Gender Equality Strategy, co-designed with the First Minister’s Advisory Council and Empowering Women’s Panel. Phase one has established a vision and strategic goals around safety, leadership, education, and economic participation, informed by engagement with over 60 organisations.

Phase two will focus on the actions, indicators, and accountability mechanisms needed to deliver the strategy’s goals. A working group of senior public sector leaders, key stakeholders, and the Empowering Women’s Panel will co-design these elements, ensuring meaningful input from women with lived experience while also addressing the technical requirements of implementation.

The importance of involving local authorities and COSLA in implementation, recognising that many gender equality issues are delivered locally, was discussed. The strategy will also complement and build on existing initiatives and strengthen cross-sector collaboration across portfolios such as health, transport, and fair work. Members also suggested that, similar to Equally Safe, the Gender Equality strategy could have a Strategic Board to oversee its implementation.

ACTION 9: Officials to share the Gender Equality Strategy presentation slides with JSB.

Item 6 – Summary of Actions

Johanna Davidson-Scott provided a summary of the meeting actions.

Item 7 – AOB and Close

No items were raised under AOB.