Strategic Integrated Impact Assessment for the 2026-27 Scottish Budget: process evaluation of pilot activity

Executive Summary

This is a process evaluation of the implementation of the Strategic Integrated Impact Assessment (SIIA), one of the documents accompanying the Scottish Budget 2026-27, Scottish Spending Review 2026 and the Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline 2026. The SIIA replaced the Equality and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement (EFSBS) published in previous years.

The SIIA involved new approaches to assess and better understand the equality, fairness and other impacts of the Scottish Government’s key tax and spending decisions at strategic fiscal events. The SIIA combined multiple statutory duties into a single process and publication, with the aim of providing a clearer view of the strategic and cumulative impacts of decisions. It also presented new and emerging findings from enhanced distributional analysis and pilot activity on budget tagging and intersectional analysis.

This process evaluation assesses how well the different aspects of this approach to impact assessments worked, and will provide a basis for helping decide what to do next.

The process evaluation gathered evidence through individual interviews, small focus groups, a survey, engagement with stakeholders, and a review of relevant written material.

Key findings from the process review are as follows:

Strategic Integrated Impact Assessment

• There was a broad consensus amongst officials and external stakeholders that integrating the legal duties in a single overarching analysis is both feasible and valuable, enabling a more joined-up view and reduced duplication.
• However, the evaluation also highlighted that this requires careful balance to avoid over-emphasising duties where evidence is stronger.
• Readers generally considered the SIIA document had improved accessibility through a clearer structure. There is potential to explore other means of communications to increase engagement.
• Some stakeholders indicated that it would be valuable to see a clearer link between the evidence on impacts and the decisions made in the budget process. Similarly, stakeholders would welcome a more explicit exposition of the trade-offs being made in budget decisions.
• The intersectional gender impact assessment pilot was broadly welcomed, but some external stakeholders considered the analysis to be pitched at a high level.

Budget tagging

• Budget tagging is feasible to conduct. It requires significant upfront investment to build up but is likely to require lower levels of effort to maintain in future years.
• It was generally considered to be a significant improvement to the existing impact assessment process as it can enable the Scottish Government to take a more strategic approach to budget setting; highlight ‘red flags’ during the live budget process; and enhance transparency for external stakeholders.
• However, it is too early to conduct a full impact evaluation.
• The evaluation also identified areas for future improvement which included: improving the consistency and robustness of the scores through external challenge; better guidance and improved evidence; and/or scaling up budget tagging by increasing the number of budget lines tagged.
• Further work would also be required to improve communication on the purpose of the database and the meaning of the tags.

Process insights

• Whilst there was no strong objection to publishing the SIIA a few days after the budget, there was some mixed feedback, as the timing of publication affected the timing of briefings for committee meetings that had been programmed to closely follow the budget publication. Benefits of a staggered publication identified by officials were the scope for higher quality analysis and closer integration of the assessments with budget decisions, which in turn enabled a more complete document. Additionally, some external stakeholders viewed the short interval between publications as helpful.
• Overall, the process was found to be ‘manageable but time-consuming’ although it was acknowledged that efficiency gains could be achieved in the future due to greater familiarity with the process.
• Many of the officials involved in the SIIA process deal with competing demands during the budget process and highlighted the need for a proportionate approach.
• The integration of duties, the central support provided and the use of concrete examples as guidance were highlighted as positive elements of the process.
• Areas where improvements were suggested included: clearer assignment of roles and responsibilities at the start; early clarity on the purpose of the analysis; and how it would be used in the process and clearer guidance.

Overall, the evaluation found a positive response to both the SIIA and budget tagging, whilst also highlighting areas for improvement. Future work will build on the current approach, maintaining an integrated analysis of duties and continuing to refine budget tagging, including through improvements to guidance, evidence and consistency over time. There will also be a focus on improving how the process works in practice, with plans continuing to evolve as part of the 2027-28 budget process.