Scottish Government high level action plan in response to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

9: Equality between men and women

Thematic Tags

Equality; Gender; Violence against women and girls; Access to justice; Legal Aid; Media; Gender Budgeting

Concluding Observation 31a:

The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments […] Intensify efforts to combat negative gender stereotypes and promote attitudinal change, including by addressing stereotypical imaging and the objectification of women in the media.

Context

We are committed to advancing gender equality in media and culture. The National Advisory Council on Women and Girls (NACWG) recommended that we create a resourced media body to publicly review media which is sexist, misogynistic or bigoted, as well as to provide guidance on gender equal media and strengthen the intersectional voices of women in media. The Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland (EMCC) launched in 2023.

We commissioned Zero Tolerance to develop guidelines for journalists and content creators on how to accurately and sensitively report on violence against women and girls (VAWG) (broadcast edition and national edition). The guidance includes tips for reporting on different forms of violence, including rape and sexual assault, domestic abuse and domestic homicide, harmful traditional practices, commercial sexual exploitation, online abuse, and child sexual abuse.

While broadcasting is reserved to the UK Government, we continue to advocate for improving diversity, equality and data collection in broadcasting in our communications with the UK Government, broadcasters and the UK communications regulator, the Office of Communications.

Key Actions

As per our Equally Safe Delivery Plan, we will host a ministerial summit to challenge the nature of existing media coverage of VAWG. Work to explore the scope of the summit will take place in spring 2026, in preparation for it taking place in summer 2026.

We continue to fund the EMCC and have provided £111,000 per year since 2022. It conducts research to understand gender representation and diversity in Scottish media and culture. It also monitors progress towards gender equality, such as monitoring representation in leadership positions, diverse portrayals of women in media content, and the presence of harmful gender stereotypes.

The Culture Fair Work Taskforce will develop recommendations for actions to further implement the Fair Work First policy in the culture sector, including consideration of a sectoral culture fair work agreement by the end of 2025. A fair work agreement for Scotland’s creative and culture sectors is likely to have a disproportionately positive impact for women, including those groups facing intersecting inequality such as disabled women and women from ethnic minorities.

We continue to work in partnership to increase diversity in the cultural sector, sharing new approaches and codes of practice that ensure skills development and board membership have diversity at their core. This includes helping recruitment diversity by introducing equal remuneration for board members of national culture and heritage public bodies.

Concluding Observation 31b

The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments […] Ensure women’s access to justice and strengthen responses to gender-based violence through comprehensive legislation, public policies and investigation protocols, alongside robust protection, remedies and support for victims.

Context

We are committed to making sure women can access justice and get the support they need if they experience gender based violence. We updated our Equally Safe Strategy in December 2023. This strategy sets out a vision to prevent violence from occurring in the first place, to build the capability and capacity of support services, and strengthen the justice response to victims and perpetrators. Our Equally Safe Delivery Plan consists of 14 deliverables and associated actions. These include making sure our work reflects the needs of minority women, raising public awareness about the impact of VAWG, and helping health services identify and support victims and survivors.

In February 2025, we published a Legal Aid Reform Discussion Paper setting out three key strands of work to improve the legal aid system. This includes delivering improvements to the operation of the judicare system, simplifying it for users and providers, improving the payment system through greater use of block fees, and introducing a simplified online application process. These reforms aim to improve access to justice, including for those affected by gender based violence.

Key Actions

We will publish a revised timeline for the implementation of part 2 of the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 by the end of 2025. This will give authorities the right to terminate Scottish secure tenancies in cases involving abusive behaviour.

We are investing £21.6 million in 2025-26 in specialist services and projects through the Delivering Equally Safe (DES) Fund. This is an increase of £2.4 million on previous funding. The DES fund supports the work of the Equally Safe Strategy.

We are providing £48 million in funding to victims’ organisations for the period 2022-25 under our Victim Centred Approach Fund. The fund benefits 20 diverse organisations spread across the country.

We continue to fund the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre £230,000 per year to provide free legal information, advice, representation and advocacy support and ensure access to justice for women who have experienced domestic abuse, sexual violence, and other forms of gender based harm.

We have provided funding of up to £432,000 to a pilot project in Edinburgh, the Legal Services Project, which is run by Scottish Women’s Aid in partnership with Edinburgh Women’s Aid and Baker Gostelow Family Law Ltd for specialist trauma informed legal support in cases of domestic abuse.

We are providing £1.5 million for a national fund to leave. Survivors of domestic abuse are often unable to leave abusive partners due to financial implications and economic coercive control, often leading to unsafe housing situations. The fund will allow women to purchase essentials and offer breathing space while they navigate the social security system. It could support up to 1,800 women and their children across the whole of Scotland, improving their housing outcome and assisting with the transition to a more stable and independent future.

Concluding Observation 31c:

The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments […] Enhance gender-responsive budgeting to guarantee women’s equal access to employment, social security, healthcare, education and decision-making roles in both the public and private sectors, with targeted measures for women with disabilities and ethnic and sexual minorities.

Context

We are committed to ensuring women have equal access to work, healthcare, education, social security, and leadership roles. Our work on gender budgeting is helping us to improve how we assess our spending, how revenue raising impacts men and women differently, and if we can better use our budget process to reduce gender inequality.

We funded work with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to explore how gender budgeting can be used in Scotland. An evaluation on this pilot was published alongside the 2025-26 budget.

Every part of government is required to assess the impacts of their budget decisions in relation to the ‘relevant protected characteristics’ defined in the Equality Act 2010. This assessment includes assessing the impacts of budget decisions on women and men in connection with the ‘relevant protected characteristic’ of sex, as well as assessing the cumulative impact of budget decisions.

Key Actions

We are co-designing Scotland’s first equality strategy for women and girls with gender equality stakeholders and diverse women and girls. We aim to publish the strategy in the first half of 2026. Developing gender goals is one of the enablers identified by the OECD pilot for successful implementation of gender budgeting. Any accompanying measurement frameworks to assess the efficacy of the strategy will also be designed through an intersectional gendered lens.

We are piloting further activity on ‘gender budget tagging’ for the 2026-27 budget. Until gender goals are available, this will look at a cross-cutting policy area which focuses on improving outcomes for women. We are also piloting the tagging of a sample of budget lines for ‘relevant protected characteristics’ defined in the Equality Act 2010, including sex. We will actively learn from this experience, publish an evaluation of the approaches we are piloting in early 2026 and discuss next steps with the EHRBAG and other stakeholders.