The Evaluation of the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025

3. Achievement towards the Principles

The overall Strategy Vision is informed by three guiding principles. Examining the 45 actions and 4 action categories more broadly, this section will demonstrate achievement of the Strategy’s three guiding principles by highlighting examples of Strategy actions.

Further information about the actions mentioned here can be found in Annex A, where actions final updates have been detailed alongside their final action status. Further reflections on action activities can be found in Chapter Four.

3.1 Principle 1: More data and evidence

More robust and comprehensive data and evidence will be gathered on the intersecting characteristics of people in Scotland across a range of outcomes.

• Growing up in Scotland (GUS) now routinely publishes equalities data, including in the latest report on Life at 17. The study now collects data on marital status (Action 3).
• Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destination Statistics now publish data on disabled children and young people (Action 4).
• Social Security Scotland published their annual client diversity and equalities analysis (March-August 2025), which includes intersectional data. The Client Satisfaction Survey report 2024/2025 also included intersectional data for the first time, with the expectation that this will be included in future publications (Action 13).
• Health and Social Care Experiences Survey published a ‘Variations in Experience’ report which provides analysis of the relationship between self-reported experiences of patients and a range of patient, GP practice and regional level characteristics (Action 27).
• The Mental Health and Learning Disability Inpatient Beds survey now collects data on seven of the nine protected characteristics, which will be published where data allows. The latest version was published in February 2026, following the conclusion of the Strategy (Action 32).
• Transport Scotland tested the possibility of including ethnicity information in their Reported Road Casualties publication (Action 35).
• The No one Left Behind data now routinely publishes analysis for sex, age, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation and trans status. The publication also explores other variables which may influence experiences of employment and some of this information is available intersectionally, with plans to produce more intersectional data over time (Action 39).

3.2 Principle 2: Accessible data

Equality evidence will be made more easily accessible so users will be able to access what they need, when they need it.

• Work has progressed towards improving the accessibility, useability, automation, and intersectional data available on the Equality Evidence Finder (EEF). Examples of changes include: updating the EEF in line with current accessibility guidance, conducting a user survey and interviews to better understand user experience, improving automation by reading data directly into the app from other sources, and developing a prototype for displaying intersectional data on the platform. The team are currently working on a long-term development plan to inform the future direction of the EEF and ensure that it continues to be fit-for-purpose (Action 23).
• Analysts across the Strategy have produced a number of detailed quantitative and qualitative reports examining the lived experience of people across Scotland, ensuring that existing data and evidence is collated and displayed for users. Examples include
• an evidence review and publication drawing on Scotland’s Census 2022 data exploring the experiences of non-binary people across Scotland (Action 22)
• an intersectional evidence review exploring minority ethnic women’s experiences in Scotland (Action 21)
• publications drawing on Scotland’s Census 2022 data for Gypsy/Travellers and Roma populations (Action 21)
• an updated publication reporting the number of hate crimes recorded by police, including characteristics of recorded hate crime (Action 10)
• and an evidence review exploring what was known about the experience of different ethnic groups within Scotland’s justice system (Action 6).
• Routine reporting continued to produce equality breakdowns. This included the annual Disability and Transport report (Action 36); equalities data from 2021 for Volunteering and Trust in Institutions was included in the Scottish Household Survey 2021 - telephone survey: key findings report, published in 2023, and is now being routinely published via individual reports (Action 37).
• The second iteration of Scotland's Gender Equality Index was published in 2023. The index supports users to monitor progress and understand barriers towards gender equality in Scotland. It covers a range of domains including time, work, power, money, knowledge, health, women-specific healthcare and violence against women (Action 19).
• Scotland’s Census 2022 data has now been published, allowing users access to a range of equality variables at national and local authority levels through the flexible table builder (Action 43).

3.3 Principle 3: Sharing good practice

Good practice will be shared and promoted to support increased confidence and competence in the production and use of robust equality evidence.

• Published guidance regarding collecting and publishing equality data is regularly promoted to assist in data collection of equality evidence.
• The Cross Justice Working Group on Race Data and Evidence encouraged justice organisations to adopt the 2022 Scottish Census ethnicity classifications as standard data collection, which supports a harmonised approach (Action 5 and 11).
• Throughout the Strategy, the Equality Analysis team ran presentations to highlight the importance of equality evidence and showcase some examples from policy areas across Scottish Government. Examples include delivery of presentations in Scottish Government’s Evidence in Policy Fortnight and the Equality Inclusion Human Rights Academy Development week. In addition, the team, along with support from the EDIP Board, ran the Equality Evidence Strategy Collaboration Sessions in June 2025. These were attended by a range of external organisations, including academics, third sector organisations, and representatives from public services and authorities. These sessions showcased good practice from the current Strategy on using and improving equality evidence and encouraged discussion on potential areas for future improvement. Further engagement will be planned in 2026 to ensure the next Strategy is well-informed.
• Following the recommendation made in the Interim Review for the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025, a Community of Practice for Equality Variables was established. This group continues to run every 6 weeks, allowing analysts across Scottish Government to discuss and learn from different projects that use and produce equality and intersectional variable data.
• More generally, action holders reflections suggest that good practice has been shared across many of the action outputs via publication sharing and collaboration with stakeholders on improving the equality evidence base (see Chapter Four for more detail).

There were mixed views from the EDIP Board on what they felt was the most impactful part of the Strategy. Two respondents felt the biggest impact was in Principle 1 – identifying gaps and strengthening shared understanding across Scottish Government to create more robust and comprehensible data and evidence. One respondent mentioned that the biggest impact was seen in the technical improvements to available data. Two respondents felt that the biggest impact was seen in Principle 2 – making equality evidence more accessible so users will be able to access it what they need, when they need it. In particular, the Collaboration sessions with external stakeholders held in June 2025 was cited as an opportunity to listen to needs of data users.

While most EDIP Board respondents reported that there were no unintended impacts of the Strategy, two did mention that improved accessibility of data has supported public bodies to better meet their obligations under PSED and encourage internal discussion within organisations to emphasise the need for better equality and intersectional data.