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

Annex: Further detail on evaluation questions

This was the first year of introducing new approaches to impact assessing the budget, and other fiscal events. As this is a work in progress, this should be considered an interim evaluation. Overall we were interested in three broad areas: the process used to collect the information; the value, or potential value, of the analysis to the live budget process; and the quality of the published documents. Our key evaluation questions can be grouped under the following headings:

Assessing the approach of integrating five legal duties in one assessment

As indicated above the SIIA assessed five sets of legal duties. We wanted to find out:

• How feasible it was for staff in Scottish Government to consider all these impacts together, or if it would have been more effective to consider them separately.
• The views of external readers on the integrated approach.

Testing a proof of concept: budget tagging

The SIIA piloted a number of new approaches, including budget tagging. We wanted to find out:

• Is it feasible for the Scottish Government to robustly and systematically tag budget lines? This includes understanding how best to collect consistent, meaningful, evidence-based data, and the resources, skills and knowledge required to do so.
• Following on from the above, is budget tagging scalable – is it feasible to scale it up to cover more budget lines, or outcomes?
• Can budget tagging add value to the budget process within government? This includes understanding whether and how analysis of budget tagging might be deployed to make a useful contribution to the complex, multi-faceted and often fast moving budget process.
• Can budget tagging also improve the transparency of the budget process for those outside government?

Learning from the pilot on Intersectional gender impacts

Following discussions with the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls (NACWG), a pilot exercise considered the impacts of the budget on minority ethnic women. We wanted to find out:

• How staff in SG found the process of gathering the information for this.
• The degree to which the analysis was useful, or had the potential to be useful.

Understanding how analysis either supported this year’s budget process, or had the potential to support it in future years

The new approaches taken this year were explicitly designed to test ways of providing analysis which might add value to a fast moving budget process. We wanted to find out:

• Which analytical outputs were considered most useful in informing this year’s budget process, and why?
• What sort of analytical output has the most potential to inform the budget process in future years, including the format, timing, purpose and who would it be for?

To assess the overall readability and accessibility of the piloted approaches

Previous versions of budget impact assessments have been lengthy. It was hoped that a more focused and analytical approach would also help the document become more accessible.

• To what extent did readers consider the SIIA (and easy read) to be more accessible?

Understanding the pros and cons of staggering the timing of the publication

In previous years, the Equality and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement (EFSBS) was published on the same day as the budget. In this case the SIIA was published six days after the budget. We wanted to find out:

• The implications this had for SG staff in collating the information and producing a quality assured document, with reduced risk of production errors.
• The views of external readers on this publication date.

How did the overall process work, what resources were involved, and what are the opportunities

Impact assessing the budget and other fiscal events requires substantive resource. We wanted to find out:

• The resource impacts of different approaches, and the opportunities for efficiencies in future years.

How to access the background or source data

The following statement(s) indicate the availability of the data which underlie the results of this publication:

Data are held by Scottish Government and may be made available on request, subject to consideration of legal and ethical factors. Please contact Social_Research@gov.scot for further information.