The Evaluation of the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025

9. Conclusion

Evidence gathered for this evaluation demonstrates that the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025 was able to successfully coordinate and prioritise, and increase the visibility of work to improve the equality evidence base across Scottish Government. However, it is also recognised that data improvement is an ongoing process as data needs evolve, new technologies emerge and structural changes take place, emphasising the need for a future Strategy.

The Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025 provided a framework within which analysts could progress their activities and for this progress to be monitored. Tangible improvements included: increasing the importance of equality data and prioritising the work where otherwise this would not have happened; standardisation of data; use in policy work; accessible data for users and strengthened stakeholder relationships; increasing policy colleagues’ understanding and use of equality data; highlighting the need to improve equality data; increasing visibility of the work and encouraging further dissemination activities to ensure outputs were being used, and encouraging subsequent work following the completion of the action. However, this Strategy was focused on analytical activities delivered by analysts for specific datasets, which means that longer-term impacts, especially in policy-making, will take time to see clearly.

The evaluation also highlights an existing wider commitment to improving equality evidence beyond the Strategy itself. Many action holders reported that they would have completed activities related to data improvement without the Strategy, but that the Strategy was still useful by providing structure, accountability and prioritisation through allowing action holders to evidence the need to continue their work. Many of the action leads will continue working towards their action aim or continue publishing routine data as a result of their work, highlighting a continued collective responsibility for equality data improvement across Government.

Learnings identified from the evidence gathered for this evaluation report also highlighted areas where the next Strategy could be improved, particularly in relation to being more agile and responsive to changing needs or barriers. The EDIP Board and other governance structures were valuable in supporting progress and opportunities have been identified to strengthen this approach for the next Equality Evidence Strategy.

Overall, the Strategy has built on the foundation of the first Equality Evidence Strategy (2017-2021) by supporting analysts to improve the equality evidence base in a range of data sources across various policy areas. The next Equality Evidence Strategy will continue to build on and prioritise improvements to equality and intersectional evidence across Scottish Government. This Strategy will be developed collaboratively with the EDIP board, analysts, policymakers and external organisations interested in improving equality evidence. This new Strategy will support the ongoing commitment to utilising evidence and experience outlined in Scottish Government’s Equality and Human Rights Mainstreaming Strategy 2025-2030.