UK Supreme Court Judgment (For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers): working group minutes: 31 July 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Unit Head, DG Education and Justice
• Deputy Director, DG Corporate
• Unit Head, DG Education and Justice
• Deputy Director, DG Corporate
• Deputy Director, Education and Justice
• Director, Education and Justice
• Deputy Director, Health and Social Care
• Director General, DG Communities
• Deputy Director, DG Communities
• Deputy Director, DG Net Zero
• Unit Head, DG Communities
• Unit Head, DG Education and Justice
• Deputy Director, DG Education and Justice
• Director, DG corporate
• Unit Head, DG Communities
• Unit Head, DG Corporate
• Unit Head, DG Corporate
• Unit Head, DG Education and Justice

Items and actions

Welcome

DG Communities welcomed members to the seventh meeting of the Working Group and ran through the agenda. 
Members agreed minutes from previous meeting and DG Communities reminded members that meeting minutes would be proactively published on the webpage once cleared. 
DG communities informed members that the webpage is now live.  
DG Communities highlighted the importance of assurance process.

Governance 

Deputy Director (DD) for Equalities provided an update on the governance of the Group. 
Group discussed the current assurance and governance processes and provided feedback on this.

Legal issues

An update was provided on current legal activity and a read out given of the meeting between DG Corporate and Sex Matters. 

Education spotlight

Director for Learning provided an overview of work currently underway in the Directorate. This included updates on: 

• Residential and Secure Care
• Care inspectorate
• Social Work
• Lifelong learning and skills
• Schools

Corporate update

Director for People Directorate provided an update on the work currently underway in DG Corporate.

DG updates 

Updates were provided across:

• Health
• Justice
• Education Corporate
• Net Zero
• Economy
• Local Government
• Communities
• Statistics

Communications

Communications gave an overview of current media activity and horizon scanning. 

Actions 

• Office of Chief Statistician will provide fuller update at next meeting the impacts of ruling on Sex and Gender Data Questions
• DD Equalities will contact colleagues with sponsorship responsibility to identify key issues/lines before next meeting
• DG Communities seeking assurance on coordination around Communications, Parliamentary Questions, Freedom of Information Requests and Briefings