 Welcome everyone to the 33rd meeting of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee for 2018 and our last of the year. Can we please ensure that all electronic devices are on silent mode? We have apologies from Gail Ross and I welcome Linda Fabiani in her place. Our first item today is a decision on whether to take item 3 in private. Item 3 is a discussion on the evidence that we will receive today on the 2019-20 budget from the Minister for Older People and Equalities, so we all agree to take this item in private. Our second item of business is an oral evidence session on the 2019-20 budget with the Minister for Older People and Equalities. We would like to welcome Christina McElvie, Minister for Older People and Equalities, Sean Stronach, Equalities Unit Scottish Government, Liz Hawkins, Senior Principal Research Officer, Scottish Government. You are all very welcome and can I invite the minister to make opening remarks of around five minutes. Thank you so much for allowing me to appear in front of your committee today, the second time in some weeks. This morning, we are focusing on the 2019-20 draft budget. Just before I go into the substance of my opening remarks, I pay tribute to the committee and the work that they undertook to realise the human rights takeover day, which I thought was a magnificent event. It demonstrated this place at its best, right across whether it was Government or the officials or indeed committee members and all the speakers. I have to say the highlight for me were all of the young people who had some stuff to say, and I think maybe working together in joint endeavours we might realise some of those young people's dreams and hopes, and I'm really looking forward to undertaking that work in my role. I'm really looking forward to addressing the committee's questions this morning on my portfolio budget and the progress that we have made on the equality budget statement. As you know, there is a whole range of activity across the Government that supports the mainstreaming of equality, and I know that the committee has been instrumental in helping to realise that. My ministerial colleagues have also all shown how they are taking equalities and tackling inequalities across health, justice, employment, educational attainment and accessibility. Even at a time when the UK has imposed a austerity has meant a real terms cut to the Scottish Government's budget. The draft budget delivered over £700 million of additional resources investment to health and care services with a substantial uplift for mental health. There are expanded budgets for early learning and childcare and for colleges in higher education, while the attainment funding included £120 million for the pupil equity funding. Those are all crucial areas in reducing inequality. I hope that you would agree. This year we are demonstrating our commitment to improving openness and transparency by clearly setting out the total operating costs for the Scottish Government in the 1928 budget within each portfolio. Within the equality budget this year means a headline rise to £24.6 million, which includes the total operating costs element. The budget will help us to deliver on our commitment to set out the race equality action plan, the disability action plan and the equally safe strategy, among others, showing our commitment to respecting, protecting and implementing human rights for everyone in Scotland. Tackling violence against women and girls is a particularly cross-cutting area, where we will, whereas as well as significant resources from my own portfolio, my justice colleagues continue to invest significant resources too, including this year funding the expansion of the innovative Caledonian programme to tackle domestic abuse. We will also deliver a full response to the reports from the First Minister's advisory council on women and girls and the human rights leadership group. This Government also recognises a contribution made by older people, and this budget will support a renewed focus through our older people's framework. It will also deliver the implementation of our social isolation and loneliness strategy, which I just launched the other day. As in previous years, equality analysis and assessment has been undertaken alongside the budget and was published last week in the equality budget statement. This is an important document. I am sure that you will agree on one which we are striving to continually improve. As in previous years, we have been supported in the equality budget process by the equality budget advisory group. I would like to put on record our thanks to its members for their expertise, insight and challenge that they bring as we continue to look for the best ways to ensure proper consideration of equality in our budgetary processes. In recognition of the need for further improvement around equality in human rights budgeting, you will be aware that, in September this year, we invited Dr Angela O'Hagan to become the first independent chair of the equality advisory group. Angela has set out a work programme for 2019, and we thank her for her continued enthusiasm and commitment to improving the budget process. I believe that the committee had a conversation with Angela recently, too. I and my officials look forward to working with Angela O'Hagan and the rest of EBAG to decide what future analysis and approaches are feasible and useful, given the available data, methodologies and resources. I thank her again for allowing me to speak at your committee today, and I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, minister. I will move straight on to questions from Mary Fee. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister, and good morning to your officials. I wonder if I could perhaps start by asking who has overall responsibility for equalities in human rights, because it is something that concerns me, because equalities in human rights cuts across every single portfolio. The committee has had a letter from Shirley-Anne Somerville confirming that she has overall responsibility for equalities. I wonder if you could perhaps give us a flavour of what that responsibility looks like and where your responsibility sits in relation to the other cabinet secretaries and ministers. I am happy to do that. You will know that the portfolio has changed at the reshuffle time, so Shirley-Anne Somerville is the cabinet secretary for social security and older people. Within that sits equalities and human rights. She is a boss when it comes to that. For responsibility for committee and taking forward some of the programme work, when it comes to equalities in human rights and older people, that is me. We obviously work in a partnership process in order to do that, so Shirley-Anne Somerville as a cabinet secretary will answer to the social security committee because that is a substantive part of her role when it comes to the work of equalities, human rights and older people. I would be answering to the committee unless you have specific asks on the cabinet secretary. It is a pretty flexible arrangement, but we have very clear lines of responsibility. Equalities, human rights and older people is me with the oversight from the cabinet secretary. Obviously there is a crossover with the qualities in human rights and local government, and that sits within Eileen Campbell's responsibility. I suppose my concern comes from a starting point of if there is a bit here and a bit there and a bit somewhere else, at some point there may be a position where no one takes responsibility, and we cannot allow any of this to slip off the agenda. How do we make sure that we always keep a real focus on it? I agree with you and understand where the concern is coming from. The post that I am now in has got a responsibility to do all that cross-cutting work. When it comes to the equalities and human rights, I am it. I am the person responsible. I absolutely agree with you about the silo sitting where things may be set in specific portfolios. That is why the majority of my work is done in joint ministerial committees or joint ministerial steering groups, or two ministers working together on many aspects. For instance, on the issue that you are very interested in in gypsy travellers, when it comes to gypsy travellers housing issues, Kevin Stewart and I are working closely together on that. Every action that is taken that affects gypsy travellers is a joint endeavour. The same with health, with Joe Fitzpatrick, the same with children and young people, with Marie Todd. So there is a very clear understanding there that people do have responsibility for taking forward the policy, but I also have a responsibility to making sure that equalities and human rights are reflected through all of that work, and that is why that partnership work is on-going. I am developing that as we go along. It was the role that the First Minister asked me to undertake. I am developing it as we go along, and it is developing into something really functional now, and we are now seeing some real progress being made. Because we are able to do that, we take forward the policy work, but through a human rights and equalities prism, which is something that this committee was really asking to be done for a long time. I know that I led some of those calls. That is very helpful. Thank you, convener. Thank you, convener. Good morning minister and good morning to your colleagues as well. Further up to Mary Feesline of questioning, it is gratifying to hear that you recognise that you are the human rights leader in the Scottish Government, because without it being—if it becomes everybody's responsibility, it often becomes nobody's responsibility, so it is good to hear that there is leadership there. I think that everybody on this committee recognises your credentials in that regard. However, you cannot be everywhere at all times, and obviously a good degree of the work of government is performed by the civil service. Can you give us a flavour of how you can see the sort of upskilling of the civil service to be human rights literate in their work, so that, while they are preparing policy for you to sign off on or for your colleagues to sign off on, they have a basic understanding of where we need to get to as a country? No, absolutely. The exact same process that I explained to Mary Feesline about how ministers are working together is that the same process is happening now with officials. There is a very, very clear understanding that we have to do much more of that cross-cutting work, and it all has to join up and has to make a difference. You will know that a development of a policy in an area could get to a certain stage, but if you do not have some of that influence around equalities and human rights to push it over that line, that is very different. The officials have spent—we spent—the summer meeting with all of the stakeholders, all of the officials. We have very, very clear regular meetings with the whole of the equality unit in the room to talk about the joint work that we need to do. For instance, last week we had a heads of service meeting. Hilary III, who leads on Gypsy Travellers, was talking about all the work that we were doing in Gypsy Travellers. Harry, who is leading on disability and race, was talking about the work that he is doing. Actually, the work that he was about to undertake is work that we have maybe already done. It was very easy for me in that situation to say, why do not you and Hilary and Harry work together in order to make sure that we use all of the learning that we have had from the Gypsy Traveller work that we have done to inform the work that Harry is now doing around about race and disability and some of the issues there. Because it is the same issues, it is discrimination, it is barriers, it is policy that we can modify and change in order to make things better. Rather than starting at the beginning for Harry, he was able to come in at a stage where we had already learned some of the lessons and take some of that work forward. That is a very clear understanding of where we are, but you are absolutely right. Across the top end of government where we are analysing data, a lot of that is now cross cutting as well. The keyword that I have been taking forward in all the work that we do is intersectionality. We are not just one protected characteristic, we are a myriad of protected characteristics, and those characteristics all have responsibility in just about every single portfolio in government. That is about joining all of that up. Can you foresee in the future that human rights training may form part of the induction of senior civil servants who are in charge of leading policy development? We are looking very closely at how we can do that. There is a lot of skill and expertise in government right now. It may be making sure that that is crystallised and brought into focus. We are doing a bit of work on how we can understand that now. We are obviously working very closely with some of our key partners, the Quality Human Rights Commission, the Scottish Human Rights Commission and, of course, on this particular topic on human rights budgeting and some of the work that we funded the Scottish Human Rights Commission to do that. They are coming back and doing some additional work on that in the new year to inform the work that we do, to inform the officials and to ensure that what we are doing here makes a difference there. On a completely unrelated area—well, it is not unrelated, but it is a separate area—could you possibly provide us with an update on progress, on matters that were raised in the committee's report that I think you signed off on, as chair of the committee, which was looking ahead to Scotland's Government's draft budget 18, 19, making the most of equalities in human rights levers. Can you tell us where we are on that? There are a few updates on all the sections of the questions that were asked. Obviously, the equality budget advisory group was a specific ask about how we can ensure that we make that function more effectively and ensure that we are better informed on all of that. That was the reason why I felt that an independent chair would be the way to go with that, because an independent chair can bring a very different perspective into Government on their thoughts and their feelings, on many of the aspects of how we do budgeting, how we respond to the budget and how we ensure that we mainstream equality in human rights across that budget. That is why Angela Hagan was a perfect example of that. That was one of the questions, and that was the update on that. The chair of eBag, I know, has written to all of the subject committees in October reminding them of their responsibility to ensure that mainstream and public sector equality duty and how we work on that. We would welcome the continued support of this committee to work with Angela Hagan to ensure that we can make that progress that we want to see equalities in human rights mainstreamed across the whole of Government. That is two aspects of the asks that were in the progress report. The other aspect of eBag is that they have now submitted a work plan. I think that maybe you have already had sight of that. That is due to be more informed by the work of the human rights advisory group and how we take some of those recommendations forward. We are looking to get together in the spring in order to do that. I know that one of the asks of the committee was to have a tri-partite meeting. I am very, very happy to be part of the tri-partite meeting with the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the committee. All of the recommendations in the advisory group and some of the recommendations from eBag will all be taken forward in that process at that point. There are a few other updates on some of the other work that you commissioned or we asked for at the time. I think that maybe I have covered just a bit all of that as far as eBag in the human rights advisory group goes. The other updates were around about some specific areas in some of the areas that we were focused on about gender and child poverty. You will know that we are working very closely with stakeholders in order to develop a gender index in government so that we can match everything to make sure that it makes that difference. We can see where the intersectional data takes us and where the gaps are and where we can focus our attention, but also where we are doing some really, really good work that we can highlight and share. That was an example of the Hillary and Harry situation where we have done great work with gypsy travellers. We can use that to inform the other work that we are doing in government. We are working closely with stakeholders. I have had lots of meetings, introductory meetings over the summer and then follow-up meetings over the last week period about how we take forward some of that work. All of that is being informed by our stakeholders is real proper partnership work in here. Good morning and thank you for coming in today. I would like to ask a couple of questions. One on the committee's letter to the Scottish Government, which outlined the four key areas that we would like it to address. The question is, can the minister update the committee on any work that is being undertaken in terms of developing such equalities data and whether the Government intends to publish additional equalities data in advance of summer recess 2019? There is quite a lot of information in that. The gender index is one of the key pieces of work about how we identify the information that we need. There is obviously some work in how we develop and use equality impact assessments in order to have data. There are new points in the national performance framework. We can put specific questions into the Scottish household survey, which we are intended to do and have done as well. There is a whole host of areas where we can gather all of that data. It is then how we use that that is important. That is where the gender index will really come into play and ensure that we can end some of the inequalities in gender and how we do that. However, some of the intersectionality of that—whether you are a woman in poverty or you are a disability or you are from a minority ethnic background—we are really trying to drill into some of that rich data because it is some of those areas where we need to make some of the progress. I have a small supplementary on that. Back in the draft budget and our comments on that last year as a committee, one of the statements was that we asked the Scottish Government to maintain a focus on addressing known systemic equality issues across Government portfolios while collecting robust evidence. I have been contacted by Crier to ask the question about what the Scottish Government is doing about gathering race equality data to identify existing disparities and track the progress to address them. I might need to come back to you on the actual detail of that, because we have been talking to Crier about some of the work that we are undertaking right now. Obviously, the race equality action plan is at its first anniversary. We had a really excellent conference in conjunction with Crier just last week on some of the learning from that and some of the information that we still need to take forward. We are working very closely with Crier on being missing other organisations in order to get there, but let me get you the actual detail on some of that and come back to you. It will be clearer than we try to pull it out of the back of my head for the purposes of the committee today, but I will be able to get you a very clear update on where we are with that. To reassure you that that work on the race equality action plan, the data that we need from it and how we use that data is incredibly important in the work that we are doing. All of that has been informed by super organisations like Crier. Actually, in your opening statement and some of the answers that you have given the colleagues already, you have more or less covered some of the areas that I was going to ask about, particularly around the FM's advisory group and taking on both the recommendations. I wonder if you can just expand a wee bit on what the Government is doing to develop the equality data sets and indicators. I would follow on from Annie Wells' question just there. It is much the same as the answers that I have just given. It is the work that we are doing in order to gather that data using the stakeholders. It is the gender index. It is the recommendations for the advisory group. It is also the recommendations that we expect to see from the First Minister's advisory group for women and girls, which I believe that they have big asks to. A lot of work is going on to identify where we need to make progress, where have we already made the progress and how we can make that progress, especially how we can make that progress by working in partnership with the people who are asking us to make that progress to ensure that we see it coming. All of the things that I have already mentioned are the ways in which we are doing that. I appreciate that. That was quite a little bit. Thank you. Were you not going to ask about the human rights report as well? No, I don't think I was. No? I'm just going to ask those questions. I'm sorry. We'll move on to Linda Fabiani then. Okay. I've got a couple of things I'd like to ask. It may be that the committee has covered some of it before. It's a substitute. I'm not always up to date. I'd like to go back to what Alex Cole-Hamilton was talking about, and what you described, minister, is intersectionality, which is always absolutely super in theory, and that's what we all strive for. You may be aware that I did quite a bit of work with a young woman lead project. Those young women chose to investigate and do an inquiry on sexual harassment in schools. I know that the committee took evidence. Yes. It was a very, very good piece of work, but what struck me very strongly about it was there were all sorts of elements in there. The sexual harassment and school element was sometimes informed by disability as well, sometimes informed by race, and there wasn't always a pickup of that in the opinion of the young women who gave evidence, and indeed some of the teachers who gave evidence and experts. I know that it's a difficult thing to do, but it also became quite clear to me in some of my own investigations that, when we then had the bullying policy that came from the education side of Government, there wasn't always a recognition in there of sexual harassment, for example, as a kind of bullying of racial abuse as a very distinct kind of bullying. I certainly don't have the answers, but I wonder, as Equality Minister, and the effort that Government is making to do all that cross boundary stuff, how you feel that's going. I'm aware of the Equally Safe Initiative, and again, having looked at that, I know that it's only a pilot to start with, and it may well be rolled out, but are we really pulling in all the intersectionality that's required amongst the themes and amongst Government departments? Thanks for that very detailed question. I can assure you that the Equally Safe and Skills has been rolled out to all 32 local authorities. That's a commitment that's being made in order to ensure that we take forward some of the work that we do. Some of us has cross-cuttened with my education colleagues, and it's a very clear example of the work that I spoke about earlier, about how we're working together to realise all this. We know that the committee had made some very, very clear recommendations around about prejudice-based bullying and how we tackle that. One aspect of that was—I have reflection on a number of the questions this morning— was the data and how we collect the data and how we break that data down into a format that shows us that intersectionality issue. There's been a few million pounds, I think about £4 million investment in the CMIS programme in schools, in order for the better data collection of the types of bullying, so it wouldn't just be bullying, it would be bullying based on race, gender, disability, religion, whatever it was, and then there'd be some subsections in that as well. I've not seen the template for this yet, but I believe that's the type of data that the committee looked for at the time, but also the type of data that we now need in order to deal with some of the challenges in schools. You're absolutely right about equally safe in schools. Equally safe in schools also takes forward some of the work that Rape Crisis Scotland has been doing around about stamp and consent education and how we deal with consent, how young boys view consent, how young girls view consent and how we can educate them more to understand that, and there's a lot of work going on in that right now. You're absolutely right that the Scottish Government's policy didn't settle down on some of the terms like sexual harassment in school, because I think when children are under 16 it's a very different prospect of what that means and some of it is about education and not criminality. So there's a very, very sensitive position around about how we handle that and how we handle it effectively for both the perpetrator and the victim. So there's a bit of sensitivity and it's very, very individualistic as well, which makes it difficult to have a sort of a homogenous type policy that would deal with everything. I know that the Cabinet Secretary is working very closely with Respect Me and other organisations who have raised some of the issues around about sexual harassment in schools and maybe how we define that and how we work on that, and that works out on-going as we speak. So that's already on-going too. I know that the Young Women Lead programme has some very, very clear recommendations in this, and I'm sure for my education colleagues that will help inform the work that they're currently doing on that. On equally safe in a wider context, we spend about £11.7 million from the Equalities Budget. There's budgets, I think, about £8.5 million from health. There's about £2.5 million from justice. So there's a very, very clear focus on ending discrimination against women and girls, and all of these issues all fall within that umbrella and the work that we're doing there. Very, very clear working relationship with COSLA. Everything we do in equally safe is a partnership approach, and that ensures that when we do do work in schools and in local authorities that it gets right to the front line and we do make that change. But we're still some challenges ahead of us, but I believe that the work that I've seen some of the young women and young men in schools that I haven't been undertaken in the equally safe project will be transformational for schools, and for some of the work that we've seen when I was on the committee about that whole-school approach, you're really making that difference. It's difficult to always legislate away discrimination and bullying harassment, but we're making some great progress on this, with overarching policy and some direct policy, too. Okay, can I go on to the next one? Yeah, thanks for that, and yeah, that's very positive. It was interesting to hear that equally safe, for example, is getting rolled out across 32 local authorities, and that's good news. But back to that initial question that was asked by Mary about who's in charge. There's an issue for me, which is that the theory is always very good, but sometimes when it disseminates down, the practice doesn't quite match the theory, and there's different levels of application across local authorities, for example, but also other public bodies, whatever they may be. So is there discussion, whether with COSLA or whether with individual local authorities, about making equalities and human rights as important within each of the public authorities as it obviously is for government, and who is going to lead on this? Because, again, I would quote bullying policy, for example, and I'm sure everybody in this room has constituency cases about bullying. I'm also pretty sure that if we compared experiences of how it's dealt with by the various local authorities, each case would be different, and it's not about laying down laws to local authorities. The example of human rights and equalities is a great way to be saying to people, cross-cutting intersectionality right across your public body and getting that understanding there, so that everyone does it automatically. Who's in charge? Equally safe, me. I chair the joint strategic board, co-chair it with COSLA, with Kelly Parry, who is the equalities spokesperson for COSLA. So we both co-chair the joint strategic board. The strategic board is made up of some government officials, but the majority of it is made up of stakeholders. Individuals working across other disciplines, health, education and justice, including the Crown Office and the police, are all represented on that. Some of the main drivers, stakeholders like Marsha Scott, Sandy Brindley and people like that, who have got real investment and real drive on all of this. The joint strategic board is the work that we do. We are working very closely with COSLA as our partner in this, because we realise that we can make all the policy that we like here that is a local delivery that matters. The magic of this is both having continuity of the application of that policy, but also flexibility enough for local authorities to have it flexible enough to address their individual needs. Nobody is saying that we have solved this at local authority level by any stretch of the imagination, but there is a huge amount of work going on in order to make sure that equally safe means what it says in the tin, especially for our school kids. The work that is being undertaken to realise that is a huge investment in government. About half of the quality budget goes to equally safe programmes that we are currently running. That budget was set for three years, so there was continuity within the budget as well. There was safety and security within the budget, and that budget set until 2020. Although we are having some negotiations on the overall budget here, as far as those programmes go, that budget is safe, it is set and it is working. Can I ask what progress has been made on developing a human rights-based approach to budgeting? Is that something that you will oversee or does that set elsewhere in the Government? Again, at some of the work that is cross-cutting, we are working very closely with the Scottish Human Rights Commission. We obviously funded some work for them to do some analysis on human rights budgeting, and they had their human rights budgeting masterclass, which I attended on behalf of the committee. The plan is to do that again to mark progress. Part of the work that we have done is obviously understanding human rights budgeting, how that has an impact on what we do, how, when you do that, especially in times of austerity, you protect the most vulnerable in that sense if you apply that approach. That work has been undertaken right now. It is working alongside our colleagues in COSLA again because it is fine having the policy, but it is the local delivery that really matters. We obviously are supportive of the work that the Scottish Human Rights Commission is doing. It is an independent body that can give us advice and information, but it is also a challenge in how we can step up another step forward in order to make that difference when it comes to how we do human rights budgeting. In the spring, we are planning another masterclass that we are fully in support of. We are taking some information from across international bodies and how we do that better too. Some of the UN treaty obligations are about how we make sure that we spend money in the right places too, and we are looking at all of that. Linda Fabiani touched on local authority input there. One of the things that we took evidence from local authorities that we spent a bit of time talking about was equality impact assessments and the varying degrees of quality of them, I suppose, and whether they were being done or not. We also touched on cumulative equality impact assessments. I know that the cabinet secretary touches on that on her letter, but I wonder if, for the record, you would like to comment on that. If anybody knows me, you know that I have always had a hobby horseman that comes to equality impact assessments. I think that the officials were quite sick hearing from me over the summer when I was appointed to say, what are we doing about equality impact assessments? Part of the gender index and all the work that we are doing about data collection and the intersectionality work that we are doing in the data analysts side of government, equality impact assessments, is forming a huge part of that. We are identifying, there is a bit of work going on right now to identify the gold standard equality impact assessment and how we can use that as a template in order to ensure that other people follow that work, that high standard of work. To make sure that the equality impact assessment is not just about ticking the boxes and getting the bits of paper filled in and sent away, it is about actually making that difference. I know that the quality of equality impact assessments vary, so that is why we decided to undertake the piece of work about finding the gold standard. Let us get a few equality impact assessments that are the best ones that are on some national policies. We are looking at some of the work that we do in government in order to do that. That works on going to identify that. The other piece of work that is on going is a review of the public sector equality duty, which has a whole aspect to involve in equality impact assessments. The work that we are doing in setting that gold standard will inform that work going forward about what we would expect from public authorities going forward when it comes to equality impact assessments. The data that should be included in that and the action that should come from that to make sure that we are making that difference. It is done at the earliest stage of any development. We do not want silos of things and nothing is done in isolation, so what about that point about the cumulative ones? It seemed like everyone felt that it was a good idea and some local authorities had tried to do it. Certainly when I was a councillor we spoke about it, but it is hugely complicated. Do we have people looking at how we could do that? It feels that if we could get to the point where that was happening, we might be cracking it. It is all forming part of the work that we are doing in order to inform the review, but in order to inform the data collection that the Government is currently undertaking, because we are very, very clear that we have made progress in lots of areas, but there are areas where there is that intersectionality, where there are additional barriers for people and it is about making sure that we have that data collected properly. We are working very closely with local authorities. The last thing we want to do is to give them another onerous exercise in order to undertake, and I know that many of them felt cumulative impact assessments did that. However, my argument would be that if you do an impact assessment well at the beginning, then having to go back and fix it retrofit it at a later stage is much more onerous on a council, so we are hoping that the work that we are doing and making sure that we have the gold standard equality impact assessment will inform their work at the early stage, especially in budget setting, in order to ensure that they do not need to go back and fix it at a later date, which just uses up more resources, more time and makes the whole process onerous. I suppose that I would be lacking evidence. What is the timescales for this work when we are likely to see changes and improvements? Let me go and check on the timescales specifically for you on that and I will come back to you on that one just to see where we are at. I will get an update. I wonder if the minister had taken note of the recommendation in the committee's Getting Rights Right report, which seeks additional resources to allow the third sector to engage in the international treaty process. If the minister had any comment on that. Yes, we have taken note of all the recommendations in the report. We are currently making some headway in how we understand some of that, what it means, where that responsibility would lie and how we can take that forward. There will be a more formal response to the committee report on that, but that work is being undertaken. I would not have accurate information to give you on the specificity of that right now, but we probably would have in the new year. I look forward and I am sure that other committee members will be able to see that information. There will be a full response coming back to every recommendation in the report. I would be annoying then to ask you about another one, but it was just about increased funding for advocacy support, which is something that, as you will know, the committee has highlighted in several areas of its work. I know that you are going to come back with a substantive response in the new year, but is there an agreement in principle that that is an area that does need additional resourcing? Whilst we are in the midst of a committee budget negotiation, I probably would not be in a position to commit anything that costs anything at this point. That is my very honest answer to you, Mr Mundell. I think that the substantive response from the Government, along with the budget process, will be a way to answer your question, but not quite right now. Okay, but you will make the case within the Government for additional resources. I have just seen Sean taking a note of what you have just asked for, and we will make sure that we can ask the question on your behalf. Thank you very much, and thank you for your candidness. The new national performance framework included the human rights national outcome that we respect, protect and fulfil human rights and live free from discrimination. Can I ask how the Government is measuring that outcome? You will know that, in addition to the headline human rights outcome, there are seven other national outcomes in the NPF that map directly to all of the international human rights framework treaties. It is also linked specifically to sustainable development goals, so that links straight to the work that I know that you want to ensure that we are doing with international bodies and treaties. All of the eight outcomes are supported by 31 national indicators, which shows you how it is all built. Those new outcomes and indicators were developed in very close consultation with our colleagues in the Scottish Human Rights Commission and wider civil society and stakeholders who had plenty to say on that in its informed all of our work. The combined outcomes and indicators provide a very sophisticated means of tracking that progress, which is the substance of your question, and Scotland's overall performance on a human rights basis. For example, the national performance framework directly addresses a number of rights. Right to life is a clear one health. A adequate standard of living, including food and housing—we are doing some work on food and housing right now—just in favourable conditions and work, which is the gender pay gap and the fairer work that we are doing, and cultural life is all of the work that my colleague Fiona Hyslop is doing in her portfolio. The national performance framework ensures that we have all of those eight and then the 31 embeds human rights principles into everything that we do. It probably answers everybody's questions this morning on how we can ensure that dignity, gender, equality and public services treat people properly, that people are treated with dignity and respect, that the gender balance and the gender pay gap is dealt with, the disability pay gap is dealt with, the disability employment stats are indicated and dedicated and we have a way of tracking progress on that. We have made a commitment to half the disability employment gap, which is a huge undertaking, and we are also very, very specifically dedicated to children's rights and how we change that as well. The eight outcomes, the 31 indicators, all tie in to the work that the committee has worked on for the past few years and where you want to see that progress. We would hope that by using those indicators and those outcomes that we can track that performance and whether we have made progress, I suspect that we have. Finally, the fairer Scotland duty has been enforced for nine months now. Are you seeing differences in terms of budget making decisions, can you point to? The green shoots of hope. It is very early doors and we know that we put a lot of pressure on public authorities to step up and take on some of this work and make sure that we see that progress. It goes back to the point that I made earlier about if we can do that at the earliest stage. It informs the whole process as well, but it is quite early doors on this. I am seeing some good progress in hearing, because you start to hear some of the language being engaged in the work that other public authorities and local authorities are doing and you start to hear that now, and I am very, very sensitive and alert to hearing some of the keywords and thinking, oh, they have listened. We are seeing some of that now, but we can certainly get a further update. Maybe once it is a year in, it would be a better time to look at that progress and give you some of the data on that. That would be helpful. Thank you very much, minister. Thank you for your evidence this morning. Our next meeting is on Thursday 10 January and will be our first meeting of 2019. We will take evidence on the Age of Criminal Responsibility Bill at stage 2 from the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration. I am moving to private session now and we can clear the gallery.