Public Sector Equality Duty - Regulation 12 report: better performance proposals 2025-2029

Part 1: Introduction

1.1 Purpose of this report

This report sets out the Scottish Government’s proposals for Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) improvement activity for the four-year period from December 2025 to December 2029.

This is done in accordance with regulation 12(1) of the Scottish Specific Duties, which are explained at section 1.7.

These proposals seek to help listed authorities in Scotland improve their performance in relation to the general equality duty as set out in the Equality Act 2010. The general duty is the duty to pay due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality and foster good relations (as described in more detail at section 1.7 below). The general duty is supported by a number of specific duties, prescribed by regulations.

1.2 Accessibility

We have tried to make this report accessible to everyone, because equality and rights are issues that affect us all.

There is a glossary of key terms from this report in the Annex. This explains some of the terms and language in the report that might not be as familiar to people who don’t work, volunteer or get involved in equality or inclusion matters.

We are also publishing an easy read version of the report and a British Sign Language version. If you need any more information about the contents of this report please contact MPE@gov.scot

There is also an Executive Summary below.

1.3 Executive Summary

The Scottish Government is committed to a fairer society in which no-one experiences discrimination and people are able to realise their rights, and live safely in inclusive communities.

The National Performance Framework (NPF)^[1] (which is currently under review) is Scotland’s wellbeing framework. It sets the vision for the kind of Scotland we all want to live in. One of the aims of the NPF is that people respect, protect and fulfil human rights and live free from discrimination (Human Rights).

One of the tools we have to advance a fairer society, advance equality and tackle discrimination is the Public Sector Equality duty (PSED), which is part of the Equality Act 2010.

Scottish Ministers have the power to make regulations to support better performance of the PSED. We review these regulations periodically.

This report sets out proposals for action to enable listed authorities to better perform the PSED in Scotland from December 2025 to December 2029.

It focuses on 5 key proposals for substantial improvement activity over the four-year period. We have provided a summary of the proposals and a selection of related actions below.

1. Pay Gap Action Plans:

• The Scottish Government will conduct a scoping exercise to determine how we can best use our regulatory powers to introduce a duty on listed authorities to develop and publish Pay Gap Action Plans.
• We will consider if Pay Gap Action Plans could be structured documents in which listed authorities set out clear, measurable steps that they could take to address pay gaps they have identified. The intention is to encourage listed authorities to move from data gathering and reporting to describing the clear, measurable actions that they identify as being pivotal to better performing the PSED.

2. Stakeholder involvement and engagement:

• We will build a robust, structured and regular forum for stakeholder engagement on PSED improvement by enhancing the work of our existing Stakeholder Reference Group.
• Together with the group we will design and deliver a project to review and improve the availability of information and materials which have been developed across the public sector specifically in response to the Scottish Specific Duties.

3. Fostering good relations:

• We will take focused action to improve the wider public sector’s understanding of, and engagement with, the fostering good relations element of the general equality duty. We will also take focused action to improve the evidence base relating to activity intended to foster good relations.
• We will convene a knowledge exchange event for devolved governments to establish how different administrations are supporting this element of the PSED Framework and what can be learned from each other.

4. Leadership and building capacity:

• The Scottish Government will set a positive example through visibly demonstrating and sharing our own approach to the carrying out of our duties under PSED.
• We will create better opportunities for listed authorities to share learning and to help improve public sector practice.

5. Leadership and accountability:

• We will take targeted action to strengthen the mechanisms for accountability of Scottish Government senior leaders, in their support of Scottish Ministers who are the duty-bearers in relation to PSED and the Scottish Specific Duties.
• We will increase the emphasis on senior accountability in relation to PSED, which will complement bottom-up capability and capacity improvement activities.

This report also provides detail of the existing PSED improvement commitments which the Scottish Government is taking forward. These commitments include:

• extending pay gap reporting to include disability and race
• developing and promoting an inclusive communications toolkit
• continuing to explore options for regulatory reform that will improve the performance of PSED.

Together this represents a programme of work which addresses the issues which have consistently been raised by stakeholders and in evidence, which include leadership, capacity and accountability.

1.4 Legal basis for the report

The legal basis for this report is Regulation 12 of the Scottish Specific Duties^[2], which is the only regulation in the Scottish Specific Duties containing duties solely for Scottish Ministers. Regulation 12 says the following:

Duty of the Scottish Ministers to publish proposals to enable better performance

12 (1) – The Scottish Ministers must publish proposals for activity to enable a listed authority to better perform the equality duty–

(a) not later than 31st December 2013; and

(b) subsequently, at intervals of not more than 4 years, beginning with the date on which it last published proposals under this paragraph.

12 (2) – The Scottish Ministers must publish a report on progress in relation to the activity–

(a) not later than 31st December 2015; and

(b) subsequently, at intervals of not more than 4 years, beginning with the date on which it last published a report under this paragraph.

This report sets out the improvement proposals required under Regulation 12(1)(b).

1.5 Context and interdependencies

Related materials

The Scottish Government’s PSED improvement action sits within a wider mainstreaming policy landscape. This is important, because PSED is just one of the tools the government can use to advance equality.

This wider programme of work aims to create a coherent and interconnecting policy framework which seeks to embed equality and human rights in everything we do and supports public bodies to do the same.

This report is published alongside a suite of associated materials, namely a Mainstreaming Strategy, an action plan and a toolkit.

The Mainstreaming Strategy outlines how we will continue to embed equality and human rights into everything we do in government and to encourage the same actions across the wider public sector. We are committed to making these principles a core part of how decisions are made, services are delivered and resources allocated.

The Mainstreaming Strategy articulates a framework for action against the following six key drivers:

1. Strengthening leadership

2. Developing accountability and transparency

3. Ensuring effective regulatory and policy environment

4. Utilising evidence and experience

5. Enhancing capability and culture

5. Improving capacity

These drivers are levers for change and reflect the areas where we should aim to focus our collective efforts to build a fairer Scotland.

The Mainstreaming Action Plan sets out practical steps that the Scottish Government is taking to embed equality and human rights throughout all that we do.

The Equality and Human Rights Mainstreaming Toolkit provides practical tools to support and encourage long-term cultural and structural change. It is designed to be accessible to leaders and officials at every level across government, public bodies, and communities to encourage the embedding of equality and human rights into everyday work. The toolkit is a living resource, which will continue to be reviewed, updated and expanded during the years ahead, in line with user feedback and requests.

Legislative competence

In developing proposals to improve the operation of PSED, we must also take account of the legislative competence that the Scottish Government has in this context, i.e. its ability to make new equality-related regulations. The Scottish Government can only impose new or amended Scottish Specific Duties for the purpose of enabling listed authorities to better perform their general equality duty. This report contains a mix of proposals focused on the regulations themselves but also on optimisation of the environment in which those are implemented.

Scottish Parliament elections

One further contextual element that must be taken into account is the timing of the next Scottish Parliament election, which must happen by the 7th of May 2026. The proposals set out in this report represent the improvement plans for the Scottish Government to enable listed authorities to better perform the PSED. However, there is a possibility that priorities may change following the election.

1.6 Equality Outcomes

Links to PSED Improvement

This report sets out PSED related improvement proposals.

It should be noted that another driver for improvement action is the suite of Equality Outcomes published by the Scottish Government in spring 2025, for the period 2025-2029. These focus on:

• equality evidence
• lived experience and participation
• equality and other relevant impact assessments

We know that better use of evidence, of lived experience, and of impact assessments, are key areas for many stakeholders with an interest in PSED.

This Outcomes work is expected to be mutually reinforcing with the PSED improvement proposals set out in this report, and to have a positive impact on the effectiveness of PSED. We expect this work to achieve this by improving the Scottish Government’s own performance and providing further experience to share with the wider public sector.

Monitoring and evaluating progress

In the Scottish Government’s Equality Outcomes 2025-2029 Report, we stated the following:

“We will publish further information on our approach to monitoring and evaluating progress in achieving the outcomes. We plan to do this as part of the requirement to publish PSED improvement proposals by December 2025, as required by Regulation 12 of the Specific Duties”.

Since the publication of the Outcomes in April 2025, we have collaborated with policy leads across Government to identify each short-term action. Work is now underway to progress them with regular internal reporting. The Equality Outcomes have also been embedded into the new Mainstreaming Action Plan. This ensures that our strategic approach to mainstreaming is directly aligned with our statutory equality commitments and supports delivery of the 2025-2029 Outcomes.

A robust governance framework will be developed and published to support the monitoring of the Mainstreaming Action Plan to drive progress against the actions it contains. We intend to publish the governance framework by summer 2026. The framework will set out clear structures for oversight, accountability and delivery. We also plan to explore the potential to align the Mainstreaming Action Plan reporting with statutory reporting duties to support accessibility.

1.7 Background: What is the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)?

The general duty

The Public Sector Equality Duty (henceforth referred to as the PSED or the general duty) is a duty on public bodies, and those carrying out public functions. It was created by section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Act)^[3], and came into force in April 2011. The PSED replaced the race, disability and gender equality duties which had been created to shift the onus from individuals to organisations. It placed obligations, for the first time, on public authorities to positively promote equality, not merely to avoid discrimination. The PSED was developed in order to harmonise the equality duties and to extend them across all the protected characteristics under the Act.

The PSED obliges public authorities, and those carrying out certain public functions, to have due regard, when exercising their functions, to the need to:

a) eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Act

b) advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it

c) foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it

These three needs or goals of the PSED, also known as the general duty, are set out in section 149(1) of the Act. The Act created powers for devolved governments to develop specific duties, to support the performance of the general duty.

The Scottish Specific Duties

Although the Act is largely reserved to the UK Parliament, Scottish Ministers have the power (under section 153(3) of the Act) to supplement the general duty by placing specific duties on certain Scottish public authorities (‘listed authorities’).

The delivery of the PSED in Scotland is thus advanced by a suite of Scottish Specific Duties (SSDs). These were created by regulations made by Scottish Ministers (the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012, as amended).^[4]

The SSDs help authorities to better perform their duty to have ‘due regard’ to the three needs of the PSED.

The SSDs were intended, when they were designed, to have three principal benefits:

• to help public authorities to better understand how they should respond to the general duty at section 149(1) of the Act
• to help public authorities take account of evidence gained through the setting of equality outcomes and the evaluation of progress made on these
• to allow the wider community to monitor (and where appropriate challenge) the performance of public authorities in relation to the PSED^[5]

There are currently ten specific duties set out in the SSDs. These are:

• Regulation 3 – Duty to report progress on mainstreaming the equality duty
• Regulation 4 – Duty to publish equality outcomes and report progress
• Regulation 5 – Duty to assess and review policies and practices
• Regulation 6 – Duty to gather and use employee information
• Regulation 7 – Duty to publish gender pay gap information
• Regulation 8 – Duty to publish statements on equal pay, etc.
• Regulation 9 – Duty to consider award criteria and conditions in relation to public procurement
• Regulation 10 – Duty to publish in a manner that is accessible, etc.
• Regulation 11 – Duty to consider other matters
• Regulation 12 – Duty of the Scottish Ministers to publish proposals to enable better performance

The SSDs came into force on 27 May 2012 and have been subsequently amended. Many of the specific duties require information to be reported upon and published on a reporting cycle of either two or four years. As some listed authorities have become subject to the specific duties at different times, the cycles on which they report are different.