 Welcome to the third meeting of 2023 in session 6 of the Qualities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee with no apologies this morning. Our first agenda item is to ask to agree to take item 6, which is consideration of today's budget evidence in private. Our next item is consideration of an affirmative instrument, the draft first-year tribunal for Scotland transfer of functions of the council tax reduction review panel regulations 2023. I welcome to the meeting Elena Whitham, MSP minister for community safety and her officials Lisa Davidson, civil justice senior policy officer and Martin Brown, solicitor legal directorate in the Scottish government. I refer members to paper one. I invite the minister to speak to the draft instrument. Thank you, convener and good morning members. The regulations before you are the first-year tribunal for Scotland transfer of functions of the council tax reduction review panel regulations 2023. Those regulations will, if passed, transfer the functions of the council tax reduction review panel into the Scottish Tribunal's structure created by the Tribunal's Scotland Act of 2014. The 2014 act created a new, simplified statutory framework for tribunals in Scotland by establishing the Scottish Tribunals, which brings together existing tribunal jurisdictions together and provides a structure for new jurisdictions. The functions of the council tax reduction review panel, valuation appeals committees and certain functions of the land's tribunal for Scotland are to be transferred into the Scottish Tribunals on 1 April 2023. The regulations covering the transfer of the valuation appeals committee and land's tribunals for Scotland were considered at a previous meeting of the committee. The instrument before you for consideration today is the first-year tribunal for Scotland transfer functions of council tax reduction review panel regulations 2023. The council tax reduction scheme provides lower-income households with a reduction in their council tax liability. An applicant who is unhappy with a local authority decision in relation to council tax reduction can ask for a review. If they are still unhappy following the review, they can apply to the council tax reduction review panel for a review of the local authority decision. Those regulations transfer the existing functions of the council tax reduction review panel to the first-year tribunal for Scotland local taxation chamber and abolish the council tax reduction review panel. Going forward, appeals of local authority decisions in relation to council tax reduction will be heard by the first-year tribunal local taxation chamber. The regulations also make consequential amendments to primary and secondary legislation resulting from the transfer functions into the Scottish tribunals. I understand that the DPLR committee considered those regulations on 10 January 2023. The DPLR committee identified an incorrect cross-reference in the regulations. The incorrect cross-reference is an error. Officials have proposed that the instrument is amended prior to signing to correct the erroneous reference. The DPLR committee noted the proposal for rectifying the error and agreed that the instrument should be drawn to the attention of the Parliament on the general reporting ground. I am happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. It is always good to see the DPLR committee doing its work so diligently. Those are often very technical matters and it is good that the process works. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the minister and your officials. I note from the submissions from CPag that they believe that they welcome, obviously, Clements being able to make challenges to their council tax reduction through the tribunal system, but they suggested that putting it in the first-year tribunal for social security would be a more appropriate place. Has the Government considered that? Why did they not make amendments to the regulations with that regard? Thank you for that question, Pam Duncan-Glancy. The Government was very aware of CPag's response during the consultation process. If we think back to the United Kingdom's welfare reform act of 2012, which abolished council tax benefit, that removed the support for council tax from the benefits system and then responds to the Scottish Government introduced the council tax reduction scheme, which creates a scheduled means-tested reduction to an individual's council tax liability. It is important to point out that council tax reduction is not a benefit that is administered by Social Security Scotland, which the Social Security Chamber deals with. What it does is reduce applicants' liability for council tax. It was a matter of policy that the decision was made that all appeals relating to local council tax, including council tax reduction, should be heard by the local taxation chambers as being issues relating to local taxation. It is important that we note that officials and Government when drawing this up were very mindful of the complexities around about council tax reduction and the people who may be bringing those cases into the local taxation chamber. I do not know whether any of the officials want to elaborate a little bit on that. I am happy to say a few words anyway. Some of the aspects that we took into account is the obligation to treat people coming before the tribunal in accordance with the overriding objectives. I think that that is set out in the regulations that you will be looking at after us, but the overriding objective requires that people are treated fairly in the course of the tribunal proceedings. That would be the case whatever chamber it came into. In relation to council tax reduction, in particular, we took steps in the procedures to ensure that, if there were failure to comply with the rules for any reason, that that would not be the end of proceedings and that that could be forgiven in certain circumstances. In line with what was just said, we took into account those concerns as those things were being drafted up. Is there anything else that you want to add to that, Lisa? Thank you. I appreciate that. I am content with that description and answer. On the basis of doing so, what can the Government set out in terms of training or support that will be provided to the members who sit on the tribunal that this has been allocated to to understand some of the complexities? I appreciate what has been said around social security and that this is a council tax reduction, not a benefit. I appreciate that. Thank you for that. What specific support have they been given to understand the complexities that some families may experience as part of that? It is a very probing question and one that requires a good answer. Those who are going to be transferring into the local taxation chamber will carry that really good working knowledge that they have with them. There is a thorough training package that is in place for any new members of a chamber, regardless of which chamber that would be, but with regards to that, I think that that is something that we will absolutely make sure that people that are appointed to the chamber understand the very issue that you have raised and the complexities around about the cases that come and where that needs an element of discretion and understanding and dealing with those to make sure that people actually get the access to justice that they are looking for. I have no further questions. Maggie Chapman, please. Good morning, minister. Thank you for being here and thank you for the answers. My question is along exactly the same lines as Pam Duncan-Glansy's. I suppose just a final point on that. I take what you say about the training and the support that those officers will have. Will there be an opportunity for them if they identify a potential issue to not advise but suggest, I suppose, signpost the people who are before them to seek further support or advice from Social Security Scotland because they may identify in the information that they have, they may identify opportunities for benefits perhaps that those individuals are not claiming, even though they are eligible for them. I am just wondering about how we close the circle between what is, as you say, a taxation system with the Social Security that should be there to provide support. Thanks, Maggie Chapman, for that question. I think it is important that we recognise that this tribunal chamber will not be dealing with anybody who is underlying entitlement to anything but I think the signposting element of anybody's work is really important and that is something that perhaps I need to come back to the committee with a fullsome answer to that but I am definitely hearing what you have said and also what Pam Duncan-Glansy said round about that. It is a communication thing, is not it? It is making sure that people are aware of what is out there. No further questions or comments. That being the case, we will move straight on to item 3, which is the formal business in relation to the statement. To move the motion for approval of the affirmative instrument, I invite the minister to move the motion S6M-07224. That being the case, are we all agreed? That concludes consideration of the affirmative instrument. I thank the minister and our officials for attending. The clerks will do a short factual report on our deliberations on the affirmative SSI that we have considered today, if you can just get agreement for that. That is great. In that case, thank you very much minister and officials. We will pause briefly before we move on to item 4, which is consideration of two negative SSIs, the first-tier tribunal for Scotland local taxation chamber, rules of procedure, regulations 2022 and the upper tribunal for Scotland regulations 2022, and I refer members to paper 2. Do you have any members have any comments to make on either of those instruments? That being the case, though there will be no reporting from those instruments, which are negative. I move on to item 5 and I will suspend the meeting briefly to allow the minister and officials to take their place at the table. We will resume with item 5 on our agenda, which is budget scrutiny 2023-24. I refer members to paper 3 and welcome to the meeting Christina McKelvie, minister for equalities and older people. The minister is accompanied by Rob Priestley, head of mainstreaming and strategy unit in the directorate for equality, inclusion and human rights and Ben Walsh, head of budget improvement at the Scottish Exchequer. I invite the minister to provide an opening statement before we move to questions from the committee. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning everyone. Thank you for inviting me to the second budget scrutiny session. I always welcome the opportunity to give further evidence to the committee on one of the most challenging budget rounds since devolution. 2022 was an exceptional year for public finances throughout. We focused on analysing the equality implications of budget decisions. In May, we published an equality and fairer Scotland analysis of the resource spending review. In November, we published an equality and fairness evidence summary alongside the emergency budget review. In December, we published our equality and fairer Scotland budget statement alongside our main budget document. A busy few months, the equality and fairer Scotland budget statement sets out how the Government has assessed the impact that the budget makes on equality and fairness and how those considerations influence our budget decisions. It is a vital piece of the budget jigsaw—a complicated jigsaw—helping to ensure that we both understand the impacts of budget decisions and have the relevant analysis to support the difficult decisions that we must take. Over the last decade, we have worked to continuously refine and improve our processes, remaining committed to embedding the principles of transparency, participation and accountability in those. Those improvements have been recognised by our stakeholders, including the Equality, Human Rights Commission and the Scottish Women's Budget Group. Those stakeholders welcome the inclusion of more detailed analysis by portfolio and protected characteristics. I really welcome stakeholders continued help in pointing to further areas of improvement. I listened to some of the committee last week and took some notes on some of the proposals then. We will continue to work on those areas, drawn on the expert guidance of the Equality, Human Rights Budgetry advisory group and its chair. I know that you had Professor Angela Hagan here last week. I was pleased to note that she commented on the significant improvements in the multiple documents that are part of the budget suite during her evidence last week. I am meeting with her in February, and we will discuss our forthcoming formal response to the recommendations made by the Equality and Human Rights Budgetry advisory groups. I will update the committee on that when we get that. We remained absolutely committed to advancing Equality and Human Rights through our continued financial support for organisations who work with disadvantaged people throughout Scotland, such as the Glasgow Afghan United. Last week, I was hosted by Glasgow Afghan United at their Burns and Rumi supper night. Glasgow Afghan United, who are supported by the Scottish Government funding, is one of our partners in delivering the new Scottish strategy. They do incredible work, and if you have not seen the work that they do, please go and have a look at it. Most recently, they were a partner in the Afghanistan relocation and resettlement schemes, helping people to relocate to Scotland from Afghanistan. We are also providing up to £1.5 million for the establishment of a race observatory on ethnicity and racial inequalities, providing a range of functions in relation to anti-racism. It is a significant step towards bringing about systemic change to help to create equity in Scotland's communities. This is just one part of our £48.9 million commitment to work with Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights directorate. I will give you a quick list of some of the things that include £19 million per year to support our 100 organisations to eradicate over 100 or 112 organisations—to eradicate violence against women and girls through our delivered and uniquely safe funding. The £971,000 emergency winter funding package to tackle social isolation in Longland—we have just announced that this week—and £205,000 of funding to Age Scotland to help to keep the doors open for older people's community groups. I know that that was something that many MSPs were concerned about in the report that they published at Christmas. Dedicated funding should ensure that the consultation of the forthcoming human rights bill is as inclusive and wide-reaching as possible. We are working with many key partners on that. The money that we are investing will also contribute to both our short and long-term goals. I am focusing on the implementation of the Hate Crime Act 2021, prioritising funding for violence against women and girls, progressing the national advisory council for women and girls' recommendations, legislating to end conversion practices, implementing the social isolation loneliness fund, furthering the work of the interim governance group to develop anti-racism infrastructure and progressing engagement with our faith and belief groups on our new strategy for that. We cannot do any of this in isolation, convener, so I also want to implement effective and fair grant funding approaches to our third sector partners. I am also working to increase the pace and effectiveness of mainstreaming—that is why Rob Smith is here today—and supporting the embedding of equality in human rights. It is only by working across Government and the public sector that we can create real change. As I said earlier, we have had to make some difficult decisions this year in relation to the budget. Government has a duty to direct our limited funding to where it can have the most positive effect on people to advance equality in human rights, and we remain committed to doing so. I will continue to listen to the diverse needs. I do not make any decisions in my portfolio, convener, without speaking to stakeholders and folk who are impacted, but I am seeking to create meaningful and lasting change in this space. I look forward to the year ahead and continue to work with the committee on many of the issues that I have on my agenda. I am happy to take questions, convener. Superb. Thank you very much and thank you for that slightly wider introduction there. We might have one or two questions around some of the wider matters. First of all, we want to focus on the budget. One of the themes that came up in our early state pre-budget meetings with stakeholders and also the meeting yesterday was about accessibility to the budget in, for instance, easy read versions. Last week in particular we heard just how welcome your Scotland, your finances document was, but there was a little concern that that document, which did make the budget much more understandable and more accessible to more people, was not available at the same time that the budget was launched. I wonder if you might be able to comment on that and maybe Rob can give us a little flavour of what works going on to try and make sure that, at all times, when these kind of budget decisions are being made, that accessibility is at the fore? No, thanks very much, convener. It's a great question and it's one of the aspects that we've been working very closely on. I remember doing budgets when I first came into this place. We would do an analysis of how many times women or disabled people were mentioned in a budget and now we have much more deep and detailed data to pull on now from the improvements that we've been doing so far. You may remember that your Scotland, your finances are published alongside the last part of the budget, whereas this time we published it at the first point of the budget. The budget was published on the 22nd and we published your Scotland, your finances the very next day. We're always looking to ways to improve all of that. As I said, it will be published alongside the draft budget going forward from there. Around accessibility, easy read and taking all of that into account. We've taken a number of other aspects into account and one of the things that we did do was create a lot of infographics, but from consultation with stakeholders they felt that that was not as accessible as it could be, so we now do a plain English easy read version of that statement as well. Hopefully those two measures are bringing it at the beginning and not at the end, but we will also publish an updated one at the end so that people can see the distance that we have moved from the beginning of the budget process to the end of the budget process. Did you want to add any role in terms of the wider work that's going on? No, I think that the other point that we would add would be around the Equality and Fairer Scotland budget statement, which I'm sure will explore, which also gets published alongside the draft budget. That includes, as highlighted by witnesses last week, extensive analysis, but it is also presented in a short 30-page summary form to improve that accessibility over that particular aspect of the budget. That's great. It's language week, so I think that my colleague Pam Gossel wants to just probe a little bit further into this area. Thank you, chair, and good morning, minister, and good morning. My question is around in the back of what the chair spoke about languages. Obviously, welcoming language week this week as well. There are no versions of the equality and fairer budget statement in other languages, and so many communities and individuals will be unable to see for themselves whether or not the Scottish Government is delivering on these priority areas. Has there been any community outreach work initiatives, engagement that you've done to speak to those communities and about the language other than English? Great question, because we always think about accessibility, about easy read, about BSL, and about all of these, but other languages are also a key part of that. We speak to stakeholders all the time. I'm not sure whether we picked up any huge issue about language accessibility during the process, but we should be in languages week, and we will. I'll have a look at how and what we produce it. We tend to use the great organisation, iTranslate, which a lot of the grassroots organisations access in order to get good translations of different documents and budget documents in their technical way are pretty difficult to do that, but given that we now have the fairer Scotland statement and your finances, we will go and have a look at how we can make that much, much more accessible, as you say. I welcome the minister if she does look at that, because obviously it's so diverse Scotland is, and many people are coming from different countries as well. Not everybody can speak the language English, and it's important that we set an example in the Scottish Parliament that it's accessible to all, even those who don't speak it and understand how budget setting is done. We fund a lot of minority ethnic organisations who do some work of their own in translating budgets out and translating consultations and everything else that comes from a government that will be of interest to them. The process will be there. I will just make sure that it's as sharp as it possibly can be. Thank you for setting out the priorities that the Government has and for sharing the information that you have about the budget. There's a couple of things. I take the point about the fairer budget statement being a huge improvement, and we have heard that from witnesses, but we did also hear witnesses say that it was still a bit of an art form to navigate. We heard language like vague statements, no substance, hard to find the data in the annexes, insufficient clarity on the impact of decisions. So I do still worry that if people whose job it is to analyse the budget in terms of equalities are still struggling to navigate it in that sense, I do worry about the wider public in terms of accessibility. Would the minister agree then that information is not quite there yet and that there is still quite a bit of work to do so that organisations and individuals can look at the budget and follow it through in a transparent and accountable way? I heard some of those comments from witnesses last week as well. I also heard the positive progress that's been made as well. I think that we view all of these documents and the processes that we go through as a continuous improvement process. So it's never actually ever going to be finished because we want to always continually improve it in that. Every time we have a budget round, we learn new things like bringing your Scotland, your finances statement at the beginning of the budget process and then analysing that and publishing something at the end that tells you where we are. We hear a lot about language and jargon, but some budget documents are technical documents and it's really hard to translate that into something that's much more readable and accessible. We have an on-going piece of work in how we link all of our pieces together to make it easier to navigate. We publish all level 4 figures with the previous budget and the forthcoming budget and the difference in that as well. I know that some people are saying that you can't track the pound through and where that gets spent, but we are taking lots of measures to be able to do that. As I say, it's a continuous improvement project and it's something that we are working on every single time we go through a budget round. We learned such a lot last year because we had an asset RSR, an emergency budget and then a budget process as well. We learned so much from all of the quality work that we did. We have a bit more work to do about joining some of that up, so I'll take that on board. That's a fair comment, but I would say that we have came on leaps and bounds. There are ways to access budget documents that were never available to people before. The detail is there. There are loads of 30 pages, which seems to be a hefty document in the grand scheme of things, with all the budget documents there to page summary, which people have found to be really helpful. We are looking at ways in which we can use that and raise awareness of that much more effectively in order to address the issues that you raise. I appreciate that, minister. They follow the money all the way through so that people can understand what's happening as the budget line is going up and going down. How is it impacting on equality and human rights? We did hear consistently from witnesses that that's not an easy process. In some cases, witnesses, including Audit Scotland, said that there was a gap between what the aspiration was and the reality of what was being delivered. Can the minister set out what conversations she's had with other Government departments and other ministers with different portfolios about the impact of their budget lines on equality and human rights? Yeah, absolutely. You will see from the evidence and the stage 1 debate last week that all committees raised issues around equality and human rights, which is a huge step forward for when I chaired this committee. Other committees would say that that's not for us to look at and they're all now looking at it. That obviously gives us an excellent, although complex picture of what's happening across all of the areas in Government. Rob's here today because he's heading up our mainstreaming team and we're working very closely with colleagues right across the whole of Government. The equality and fairer Scotland budget statement is a joint piece of work between me and the finance minister, but it's the DFM, Deputy First Minister, right now. It's a joint piece of work. I'm at that at every step of the way and obviously picking up a lot of the issues and concerns. I have to say that I've been really gratified over the past wee while, multiple budget evaluations over the last couple of years to see other officials picking up on the importance of ensuring that budget decisions that have an impact on equality and human rights are made at the earliest stage. There's an understanding of that. We've worked with the women's budget working group to increase the capacity of officials right across the whole of Government. That's why Ben's with us today from We had a crack in round table event last week with the National Advisory Council for Women and Girls and they were talking about gender competence and having some of the intellectual competence that we all need in order to read across what needs to be done and an Exchequer colleagues have undertaken all of that now. When I see stuff coming in that's usually just plain figures, budget stuff, I now see attached to that much of the progress that's being made around about analysing and understanding if that pound is spent there, what impact does it have here and is that the impact that we want to see and I'm seeing that much better analysis of that and that's why I think making sure that we link up all of our documents in a way that gives people a pathway to see through the budget and then see where that pound initiated there and how it's spent there really matters and that's why I'm supported by officials from across Government today to do that. Are you confident that ministers in other portfolios are able to have the information and the data and the engagement that they need to recognise where their budget would have an impact on equalities? Again, like you know the whole budget process, everything's a continuous improvement and we're learning all the time and we learned some very key aspects from members of the National Advisory Council last week and how we can do this, you know they came up with some ideas now, we can do this better, how we can work together to do it better and I think that's the important part in all of this. I now have stuff coming into my box where I see other ministers are consulting very closely with stakeholders so the DFN for instance has met with the women's budget group and in Gender Scotland to talk about the gendered aspects of the budget as well so we've seen all of that collaboration going across the board and as I say I don't make any decisions now without stakeholders sitting at the table. Okay, thank you, that's all my questions at this moment. Okay, and Rich Hall Hamilton. Last week Professor Hagan said that the useful and important research came out alongside the budget so she was, most people, most witnesses were complimentary at where we are so far but they did highlight some gaps and deficiencies and holes and I'm sure that you've looked at that evidence. She said that the resources are not well used in Parliament, the Government or externally and I just wondered if you had an opinion on how those resources could be used better and also I wanted to get a better understanding of how the Scottish Government's policy thinking stems from the ERHBAG's group and how they draw recommendations to make improvements in the equalities budget. Yeah, I heard some of that last week and that's been a perennial problem not and the point was made it's not just the Government, it's the Parliament and it's other public authorities now how we improve that whole process in order to ensure that those resources go to the right place. For my point of view a lot of the work I'm doing around about equalities and human rights with stakeholders and the funding that we provide them in order to do their work is outcome driven, it's what differences it makes to people actually in their everyday life and a lot of that work now, especially around about delivering equally safe money, is about working in partnership so a great example of that is a searcher project that I visited in Blantyre where women are supported with domestic violence with mental health and with addictions but they go through one door and they tell their story once and all of those services click into place and seeing resources being utilised in a way that has that holistic successful outcome approach is really really powerful, I'm not saying we're perfect and the delivering equally safe fund is only about eight months old now and we're still learning from that and we published a six month report on that so I would commend that to you but the other pieces of information that you were asking about about the equality and human rights budget group there, I can't remember so many acronyms now that yes, so you know who I'm talking about so one of the things that I did when I first came into government was to make the chair of that independence so that they become a bit of a critical friend of government and they're not afraid, they're not afraid to tell us what they think anyway but they're able to be a bit more independent in their thoughts and all of this, we've got a number of recommendations from the work that they've done over the past wee while, they've done pretty detailed analysis in some international comparators as well, I'm meeting with Angela Hagan in February in order to pick up those recommendations, we're working through those, what are, I tend to look at recommendations right, what can we achieve quickly, what's a bit more midterm and what are the some of the long term goals and how do we work in partnership to meet that, I'll be meeting with Angela Hagan in February to discuss all of that, I'm happy to give the committee a much more detailed update on that because we're not quite finished the work of analysing the recommendations yet so I might be saying something that is maybe changed by the time we get to February. That's the area that I'm really interested in minister, is that we heard from Claire Gallagher who said that the Scottish Government could improve its understanding of the evidence that it gets from, particularly from the recommendations, the Fraser Allander similar vein of statement, it is not clear to the extent to which Equality's considerations influence budget decisions and also it's about the how evidence is used and how robust analysis is used so I wondered if furthering on from Pam Duncan Glancy's question could you give the committee an insight into how the Scottish Government looks at the evidence, the research and what analysis it does and how that's conducted to understand how the budget will impact on human rights in different portfolios. So there's a huge piece of work that goes on and I think we've got about 10 indicators that we use that produces hundreds if not thousands of pieces of rich data and we use that to analyse both the impact of budget decisions but more pushing towards using that to analyse the formulation of budget proposals in that sense we're shifting quite a bit towards that piece of work. One of the things that we picked up and many of you have asked before is about the quality of equality evidence and data and we've obviously been working through a major piece of work of equality improvement data plans so that the project set about a commission and a number of all of government essentially each portfolio to come up with an equality data improvement plan they're currently in the process of doing that so again you know once we're a bit closer to the completion I think it's springtime this year so the first quarter of this year we should be in a position to give you more information about how we've used all of that data in order to not just analyse what difference we've made but to look at how we use that to make decisions for the future and that work is what essentially has informed the work that I've taken around about how funding and grant funding is distributed now and that project that I mentioned is a perfect example of how can we get more for the small bits of money that we've got but actually delivering a much better outcome for people. So on the back of that following that piece of work will the Scottish Government commit to expanding the equality statement so that alongside the publication of the budget so that there is an understanding better understanding how the money follows the outcome? Well that's what we're working on and that's that process of continuous improvement that we want we want to see and you know that route map that allows people to to read the numerous layers of budget documents in a way that gets in the information that they want as well. We do have work to do and I know that Exchequer have been working on some aspects of this because obviously you know these are the folks that are looking at right what's our top line, how much have we got to spend, where do we go and I'm the person that's pushing it to say this is where you should spend it so maybe Ben will give you the updates to the work that Exchequer's doing around about this. Oh excuse me sorry choking away. So we are embedded in the Equal and Fear Scotland budget statement process so it informs the budget process when it starts to finish, the work in tandem to make sure that the process follows through. As part of that work we've expanded the annex A of the Equal and Fear Scotland budget statement which provides an overview of how we've embedded, excuse me, equality and human rights analysis into budget decision making. I suppose the minister is saying that it's a process of continuous improvement. We're working on updates in line with both the equality human rights budget advisory group and in line with the open government partnership and our commitment fiscal transparency and openness sorry I'll put my teeth back in and as part of that we are actually looking at what can we do in a more public space to ensure that you can follow the money through and we can provide a bit more detail to the committee on that if that would be obvious around the I think particularly around the open government partnership. That would be very useful. Thank you. If you don't mind Rob, I'm going to come in and do answer your question around about the analysis as well. I just wanted to pick up your point about that analysis that's done at portfolio level. I think it's important to highlight in the equality and fear Scotland budget statement process it's not done from a central team so each individual portfolio conducts analysis at an initial level first and that initial analysis is what's outlined in annex D which is the very lengthy annex that witnesses referred to last week. That's done at portfolio level supported by the central AFSBS team so we're not starting from either extract or a quality in human rights doing analysis to portfolios it is done in the portfolios initially and that collates into the budget statement and that I think leads to some of the points that are made about repetition the length of that annex is because it's pulling together all of the all of the work done by different portfolios and rather than collating and summarising that it's more transparent to publish that in full which leads to that slightly difficult very long but underused as Angela Hagan said I'm 200 page resource that publishes alongside it. Thank you and described maybe a siloed but thank you for that that's really okay thanks very much and Maggie Chapman please thanks very much so good morning minister thank you for for being here and for what you've said already so far I'm interested in exploring a couple of issues around accountability and I suppose tying up the connections between how decisions are made what evidence is used to make those decisions and how those are both linked forward to projected outcomes and tracked back to ensuring that actually those outcomes are are what is delivered in terms of both equalities objectives and rights realisation. Last week Angela Hagan spoke of the need for greater clarity across the relationships between allocation spend and outcomes and greater clarity across the relationships between the qualities objectives and rights realisation and Ali Hozi spoke also quite clearly about the need for evidence in that decision making process I wonder if you could just give us a little bit more detail on on how in in both the pre and during budget phases and I I know that we it's a constant thing isn't it and these markers in the year where we publish certain certain papers and documents but how do you ensure that we are getting consistency and acknowledgement across those different areas and in your view where are we not doing quite as well as we should be doing just a little question for you sorry as always Maggie thank you yeah so I think the equality affair of scotland budget statement is a key primary to in all of this and obviously we have national outcomes national performance framework lots of other sort of a regulatory things that that fit into this and the implications of public authorities if they don't uphold some of that I think we have included more detail than ever in the equality in fairer scotland budget statement and Angela Hagan did say last week that that 200 page document is is underused and and that made me think about why is it underused so I'm having something about how we make it more you know courage more use of it in that sense and I think the points that both Ben and Rob made about how we use the detailed analysis and both now analysing what we have committed to and whether we have delivered those outcomes but how we actually make decisions going forward and how we work across other parts of not just government but public authorities in order to realise that I think one of the the gaps is as you would put it that I think that we are addressing in the human rights bill is to to bring about much more clearer understanding of what people government both government parliament and other public authorities responsibilities are to ensuring that equality human rights outcomes are the best that they possibly can be and if we look at areas where we where we spend money so I know that you'll be very pleased Maggie to hear about the funding that's going to clincherty in Aberdeenshire around about the gypsy travel accommodation fund now something that's basic is accommodation has an impact on all equality in human rights outcomes for gypsy travel community in scotland you know to see that money going and then to go and see the actual finished products of how it's going to look that's what's important to me is to see those people realising their rights and understanding that they do have rights because that's a community who felt as if they they didn't have any rights of work we're working from a very tough position for them but seeing where that money goes from this place to that place is incredibly important and I think that's that's why when we do all the analysis when we create all the documents when we have all the you know the links that we want to have it still concerns me that people are saying that that's underused and it's it's it's not not usable so that's that's something I I want to see because I want to see somebody able to read that document and realise the outcome for clincherty or you know a disabled people's organisation or whatever you know I want them to be able to be able to see that and I think that's where we've still got work to do and that's that's where if there's any I'll see work to do rather than that rather than you know gaps or anything I think we are we're and we're cognising all that and mindful of what we need to do to get there now I appreciate that and it is that there is the the clear intent from you to to make those connections and I think that that was quite clear coming out of last week's session was being able the figure in this column what does that mean put people on the ground you know everything in between is important but actually it's the outcome that matters I suppose following on from that there's something around how when you talk about meaningful and lasting change that there's something around how we don't only get the track from a figure in a spreadsheet to the outcome on the ground right but we also make sure that everybody who needs to be involved in in those decision making processes is involved and Rachel Hamilton mentioned the word siloing and I think when you talk about the portfolio analysis Rob that you were talking about earlier is there a I understand why I think why analysis is done in portfolios because you have to choose some way to chunk it up and and seize it apart and make sense of it but how are we ensuring that we guard against the kind of right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing for instance when we're talking specifically about decision making leading to outcomes so I think two things there Maggie the point needs about being siloed so one of the points that was raised with us last week at the national advisory council for women and girls was about the homogenisation of protected characteristics so you sit in a protected we all know that usually a person is not just one protected character there are a combination of them and Rob made the point about how we do that analysis portfolio by portfolio and if you read that that way that looks like it's siloed but actually when we draw on all of that it becomes much more joined up and deals with that issue there I think if we do and we tend not to do this but if it does look like we are looking at you know a homogenisation you know protected characteristic in one way that we are missing out you know in other ways and we are doing a lot of work across government and especially in among some of the departments that may be like x checkered and others who would not maybe have ordinarily been involved in some of this but looking at how do we develop capacity and competence whether it's gendered whether it's disability whether it's equalities in human rights competence and we've got you know experts right across the board now in this work and that can only grow and become much much better I think and I think that takes on that point about ensuring that we take an intersectional approach to everything that we do so although the national advisory council women and girls is women and girls it also deals with disability also deals with race also deals with gpti also deals you know so so when we take this an intersectional view we are taking a human rights inequalities approach and it's just making sure that we've got the infrastructure the capacity and the competence within our team in order to address that pick out the issues identify the gaps and then come up with the plans in order to to fix that and that's where that continues improvement the vein is all about no thanks thanks that that's helpful my final question if I can you'll be aware of conversations that we've had in this committee before around the need to actually identify what we mean by universal the sort of minimum core what we what do we actually mean by the universal rights that we want to enshrine into into scots law I suppose a question for for on-going work with with you and your officials as we as we do some of the work around minimum core what are the points that would be that would be necessary very important for us to bear in mind particularly as as we think about how that work can link to budget scrutiny and ensuring we get that that connection that accountability connection between what what is your minimum basic level of rights and are those being delivered or not are the resources there to deliver those yeah I think we're a bit more leading in some of this work in the proposals that are in our human rights bill and a lot of the work that we've been doing with stakeholders so we've funded a number of stakeholders organizations to both look at the bill look at the accessibility of the consultation look at you know what does it mean how do we make it plain language how do we make rights real for people so we're looking at all of that as far as core obligations goes and a lot of that feedback is coming back about what people expect to be the minimum you know housing food you know a job the right to education you know whatever whatever it is so that they're coming back with some of that that detail the consultation will be opened hopefully soon and we you know i'll be hoping for many people who will be looking at that particular aspect if not all of it but that particular aspect to come back with some of the ideas and resolutions that we need we have some of that in train already we I think we know where we're going with all of this but I want to hear you know quite conclusively from from stakeholders what they expect and whether we can meet that expectation because sometimes that's that's the tough part is the aspirations there the expectations there and whether we can actually make it you know align is sometimes the toughest part of all of that and be assured that it's stakeholders who are the drivers for changing this who are working with us in order to ensure that those core obligations that we can put into our new act will will deliver what they say in the tin and I think we're we should be quite proud both as a parliament and this committee's work in making rights real in the work that they did in the previous session but also you know working together to realise those rights too okay thank you okay thank you and Karen Adam please thank you thank you convener good morning minister and thank you um for the evidence thus far um I've often thought that fiscal management can be a bit dry and a bit boring but this is it's really not boring this is quite exciting to be able to discuss how we follow the money and ensuring that when we're following the money the outcomes that we're seeing are embedded in the qualities and human rights and it's a really exciting time as you say we're quite world leading in a lot of this and you hit the nail on the head when we're talking about you know that it's almost like an eternal progression it probably will never be an end point or nothing can be really set in stone as the world moves and as we realise the needs of people and human rights really and that understanding that particularly moving towards us well being economy that we're really focusing on in Scotland it's real crucial work in it and it's particularly interesting at this committee of course something that we were discussing last week really was that duty accountability that public bodies have local authorities and making sure that their equality duties aren't just an afterthought I was saying you know I used to be a councillor mother in my previous life before I was here as an MSP and often the equality duties would be at the end of documents and whether that was something that was perhaps done in practice I don't know but that's where they would sit and then it would just seem that certain things were ticked off how do we ensure that when it comes to these public bodies that they are taken into account those core values and equalities does run through you know a thread and everything that they're doing yeah no it's a great question I think human rights budget and there's a tool that government will use in order to realise some of that and I think the indicators that we have in the national performance framework is another example of that and I recognise completely your characterisation of equality human rights being a bolt-on at the end of a project you know a box that gets ticked at the end I've done that so let's move on that's not how we're seeing it now and I think the work that we're doing around about the public sector equality duty which we consulted on last year we had some very very strong evidence back from our stakeholders who I would be meeting with again soon to discuss some of the stronger proposals that they had in relation to what we were proposing in the consultation so again meeting the expectation and realisation being really important but I think the public sector equality duty alongside our mainstreaming strategy alongside national performance framework alongside the equality budget statement all have a key role to play in realising that the public sector equality duty more so in a sense that part of the criticism is about how maybe vague some of that is and we need more clarity around that that will obviously need to work with the human rights bill work that we're doing so we're thinking of these things in tandem not as two separate pieces we're thinking that one of them is all part of the jigsaw as a characterisation I used earlier and how we can use that to both put in stronger duties for public authorities in order to live up to the expectation that we all want to see but also to make that clearer and I think given that the work of the public sector equality duty and the bill is still taking you know some years to do that the reason for that is to work with public authorities to say this is what we want to achieve and this is how we'll achieve it and this is the way that you can achieve it as well but the criticism from them is vague and it's not you know we don't understand it so that's the work that we are doing now in order to make put much more clarity into what a public sector equality duty is what a Scottish specific duty is and how actually how third public authorities can use those tools in order to create better outcomes for the work that they do and their organisations. Yeah that's really helpful to know that perhaps there have been forthcoming and saying that it maybe hasn't been clear enough for them because we can provide as many tools you know as we want but it's how to use them but also their priorities as well as local authorities um how do we ensure that those priorities are something that is of a core and what we really want to see nationwide in Scotland but without overstepping our mark into their autonomy. Yeah Angela Hagan herself has done an amazing piece of work over the years speaking to local authorities and others around about human rights budgeting and gender budgeting so she's been you know working away doing that in the work that she does and so does a number of other organisations like making rights rules and other around about local authorities so we had a human rights advisory bill meeting last week so we meet very very frequently right now I chair that and last week we had councillor Maureen Chalmers who's the new chair of the wellbeing board there because we realised you know pretty quickly that actually local authorities are a huge and a key partner and all of this work and so is cosla and the work that they do so although the human rights bill will cut across many of those committees at cosla level Maureen's taken the lead on the work that we are doing around about the human rights bill so cosla and the leaders are involved in this these early development stages both to you know realise what will be their duty going forward but to understand why that duty is important and the reason why we need it to be there and the reason why we need better outcomes for people who have you know some of the the most deep and systemic structural inequalities that that we currently we know about so Maureen Chalmers was along at our first meeting last week I asked her I says how did you feel that regiment oh my goodness is so much work here but it will be incredibly important for all of the committees of cosla and so we're working on how we how we facilitate that with all the committees in cosla as well so that brings you know people in at the design stage and therefore local authorities will hopefully understand what what they need to be doing is that they move forward I'm sure they will that's great thank you thank you and Pam Duncan Glancy please thank you container just to take the local authority funding issue a little bit further we know that cuts to local authority budgets have squeezed council resources we also know that they've exacerbated inequality across scotland particularly in housing and education and social care which and community development areas that we know are really important for for equality and human rights and also the same is true for the third sector and I was struck by your comments about a commitment to fair grant funding last week the cabinet secretary for social justice said to the social justice and social security committee when I asked her what she would do to support third sector organisations to meet their commitments in terms of fair funding I was quite disappointed that she basically said do we tough to look at their assets and the resources which effectively meant there wasn't going to be additional funding to help them meet those those requirements so how how does that square with your ambitions to ensure that they can continue to deliver for equality and human rights so there is a couple of things there camp secretary was absolutely right it's up to the local authorities how they spend their money and if we started to tell them how to spend their money we would get criticism and if we don't tell them how to spend their money we would have the same criticism so that was about third sector not local authorities but I'll go back to local authorities as well you mentioned the local authority budgets and the impact on third sector so one of the things that we've looked at in this portfolio and it's now being looked across many portfolios now is as multi-year funding is given that sustainability and one piece of work we're doing right now around about the violence against women sector is a full review to look at how do we make that that sector much more sustainable when you see local authorities maybe taking decisions and an impact on on those services as well and maybe not for the better in some cases so we are looking at all of that so we're very mindful of some of those issues around about how we fund a have fairer funding sort of outcomes what one of the things is is about how responsive we can be as well so I've just announced just shortly a million pounds for a winter package around about social isolation and loneliness some of that money as you heard me 200 000 pounds going to age Scotland because they produced that report at Christmas about keeping the doors opened and keeping the doors open was about small grassroots organisations who were getting bits of funding from different places including local authorities and others finding that really a tight squeeze because of the cost of living crisis we've been able to to respond to that so fairer funding isn't just about sustainability in long term it's about whether you can react that's becoming much much much more tough and it was incredibly tough to do that and in this budget round we've had to you know think about things really really carefully about how we fund that but we felt that was important to fund age Scotland to do that piece of work to ensure that those organisations on the ground can keep keep going of course our argument would be local governments get more money this year than they've had although we all realise it is a very very tight budget situation we've got a you know a finite budget that we have to work work within as well and that's really tough so you know when you make decisions whether it's a local authority or a third sector organisation or whether indeed it's government if you make decisions based on tackling the the deepest and most challenging inequalities then you make the best decisions for those outcomes and that becomes tough when money starts to be squeezed very very tightly indeed and are you confident that local authorities have done that i probably couldn't speak for for local authorities to be honest and i wouldn't want to i don't think that that would be fair certainly my on-going work now with the new cosla chairs particularly of the wellbeing board i'm seeing you know it's absolutely superb work being done at local authority level that's notwithstanding the challenges that everybody's facing right now around about budgets around about inflationary squeeze and around about the cost of living that's its impact on everybody and every penny that they've got to spend i think that we mostly do the best as you know i think like the social care budgets for example and the education budgets are really really squeezed and we're hearing of disabled people struggling and we heard from people first that the people that they work with are having to choose whether to go and pay a bill get the shopping or have a bath or a shower those are choices that don't result in equality and human rights being the reality and yesterday i met with organisations working in autism and some of the experiences that they're having in the education sector and having to try and find support for people when they come out of school and into transitions it's just really difficult because those services either aren't there or the money isn't available for them what what conversations have you had with the minister for social care and the cabinet secretary for education and cosla on the implications for some of those settlements for local authorities and how that impacts on equality and human rights because ultimately it is about specifics in those areas as opposed to the broader 48 million that's going into sort of the structural inequality for me i think it's it's for other ministers to respond to the specifics and we can get your response on all of that and i think on the wider point that you make about the 48 million that i've got to spend and try and be as creative as i possibly can with that and the difference that we make it with that particularly around about disabled people's organisations that you've just mentioned gda who you'll know very well palm and you'll know the power of tressa and and how influential and insistent that she is absolutely rightly so because she's tackling these these decisions every single day cabinet secretary attended their conference last week and heard firsthand all of those challenges you just talked about heating or eating nutritious foods you know all of that and some of the issues that they face some you know positivity around about some of the support that we've put in place here and some of the support we've put in place around about a support in the organisations that support people as well and getting the right advice so on the back of that last week we've had a deeper discussion about the challenges particular challenges the cost of being a disabled person in the UK right now and the additional cost that that merits against you know a family a household and how they cope through a really challenging situation and we're working on doing some of that the reports that gda published you know the one that was um we're on the same storm but we're on the same boat type report that they did really powerful stuff in there so we're again looking at what what more we can do a big party is the reserved benefit situation and and where we are with some of that and hopefully some of that being alleviated as people transfer over to adult disability payment child disability payment you know warmer homes all all of that stuff it's a whole package so i'm now i'm now doing a bit of work in looking at all of that and that runs alongside and tandem with the development of our new disability strategy which we're working with stakeholders on so on the specifics that you mentioned there i'll get i'll get you updates from those cabinet secretaries but on the wider proposals i'll come back to you with where we have got around about the development of the the new strategy but taking into account the the real and today impact of the cost of living on disabled people and i think the points that you made made about autism in the education system and transitions are not lost on us at all you're doing great work yourself in this this area i've just read some of your your stuff in the last week around about the analysis of your consultation and you know i think and there's a recognition here that that there's more we can do here and and government are are looking at how we can work together on that thank you i appreciate that i have one further question if that's okay you mentioned the the cost of living and the extra costs associated with being a disabled person just just because you've mentioned it has the government considered whether or not they could update the research on the extra costs of being a disabled person the next scope the most recent research was done by scope in 2018 it would maybe quite timely to do that in scotland to look at what those extra costs are i will i think we are but i'll go and double check that permit and get back to you with a more substantive answer i think the work that we are doing around about the development of the new strategy is with stakeholders and some of some of the questions around about that is up-to-date analysis so some of that work was done pre-pandemic pre-cost of living you know we're in a different environment now and it's about how do we some it's about getting quick answers as well and quick resolutions as well so let me go back and look at all of that to ensure that that we're updating that update as well thanks okay thank you and full to McGeiger please thanks convener and good morning to the minister and your officials good to have you here and appreciated your responses so far minister i was going to ask about participation i know you've covered this a wee bit in the opening statement and and as you've answered the other questions because there is quite a lot of overlap here but so i wonder if you can you know let us know what the government are doing proactively to improve capacity around public participation and what i mean by that is is helping people to understand exactly the impact the spending decisions will have in their own lives yeah i think you'll have seen from the equality and human rights budget advisory groups recommendations that that they state that public participation is a key part of that and as i said a few times i don't make very many decisions in my portfolio at all without having stakeholders and public participation at the heart of that and i think that the integration of those thoughts experiences and understanding is incredibly important for us to do that i think we recognise that we there is more work to be done and if we look at social security scotland as an example and how we used lived experience boards we used lived experience boards and panels and groups and advisory groups across the whole of government now in that way which allows us to have at the heart of government people with our their absolute lived experience the challenge is getting that back out into wider networks and some of the work that i do around this is using those networks to get that information out so you know you'll have you'll have organisations you know like Senvo you had Senvo in front of you last week or B-Miss or you know the GDA or others who will have huge networks that older people strategic action forum my goodness if they got a massive network and it's about how we feed that information back out through to those people so one of the criticisms that we've had recently is that some of these organisations and the people that are involved in it have a consultation overload so we had to think a bit about how we maybe time consultations for specific groups in order to get the maximum participation for them to do that so again it's always about continuous improvement we're always asking people right you've just taken part in this piece of work to tell us your experience here and we've used it in this way what could what could we have done to make it better and we're working on on all of that as we move forward so but as i say participation is a key aspect here whether it's in budgeting decisions whether it's local budget decisions i've got a great you know local group in my constituency that do participatory budget budget and give out my my co-grants and my goodness what a difference they've been able to make in local communities with that because the folk who are living in those streets and villages and towns are saying this is what we need and this is how much we need to do it and this is the difference we can make make with it and i think that's very very important and how we track again you know that that pounds it's not just about saying oh you're at the table thanks very much for your comments and goodbye it's you know an ongoing relationship that allows us to understand what the next steps are and some of the bits of legislation i'm working on right now so for instance the conversion practices advisory group and the interim governance group for race and tackling racism both of those groups are still working with us as we move forward so we're going back and forward all the time and checking to make sure that that participation part of it is not just lip service it's actual you know it's actual commitment to make sure that those voices and those people are at the heart of that in your own commitment in in this area i don't think i've ever been outed minister so you don't mind me saying that and i was on this committee with you when you were chair as well so and i know it's something that you've always been very passionate about so moving on from that in terms of participation in probably a wee bit on parmdunk and glancy's point angelo hegan actually said this last week that that's a quote both the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government could do more today's public awareness of Scotland's finances and i wanted to ask a bit about that because it's a thing it's something that's been on my mind a wee bit even maybe come out a wee bit in the exchange between yourself and parmdunk and glancy a minute ago you know a lot of times when we're involved in politics it depends what political party you follow about where the state of the finances either in scotland or in the UK but a lot of people don't follow politics or they maybe vote but they don't maybe follow on social media etc so how can we work together because i suppose there's always an element of you can say figures either way and turn them round or whatever but how can we all work together not just the Scottish Government but parties across the Parliament to make sure that the public actually understand the current situation and the impact and how that's affecting decision making around budget and the impact in people's lives do you know what i'm saying and always work together and almost have a collective responsibility around that instead of you know what we sometimes see in the chamber which we're all guilty of i suppose is you know a particular narrative yeah no it's a it's a great point in this committee has done a lot of work in in bringing that forward and i think you know making the Parliament a human rights guarantor is is a key aspect of that because it is it's a people's parliament and therefore you know that our parliament are speaking with one voice around about guaranteeing people's human rights in scotland is really important the government take take that view as well and you might have picked up my comments earlier about recognising that all of the committees 12 i think raised issues around about human rights and equalities budget and and and their work which is a huge shift from where we were before we were very siloed as committees before so to see that i think it shows the parliament and its committees doing that work there you made a really key point and it's one of the things that obviously sticks in my head is there on a Roosevelt quote is human rights are for people in small places close to home and when something has an impact on an individual that's when they realise you know where you know maybe where the decision is made or you know the process that they went through to get there and they almost reverse engineer from their perspective back to well who takes the key decisions here and how much money was spent on it and why was i not recognised in this and and that's some of the work that i think we are we are doing around about creating an environment where we make it as plain and as accessible as possible when it comes to budget processes but any really parliamentary process lots of folk don't understand the steps that that are taken to get to it and many do i think given the amount of engagement work i do out there i'm always blown away by the competence the confidence and the understanding of the general population in a sense around about what what they see is is a good outcome and and that's about where well where's my council tax money spent where's my tax money spent where's this spent where's that spent and how how we articulate that and i think we all we've all got a job to articulate you know the positivity and that but also recognise the challenges and take those on boards and it's why that point about participation of stakeholders is incredibly important because that gives us a two-way street in order to share information out and to get information back and that hopefully addresses that issue of what's important to an individual in their community in a small place close stay home thank you thank you and Pam Groslaw please while i welcome some of the work involving women that the Scottish Government are doing that the minister mentioned today however we can't ignore the issues that we've heard in evidence in this committee in the pre-budget scrutiny last year we learned from Susan McKellar that women's organisations had asked to be involved in the budget process in more depth and we're told no because of time constraints around the budget we then learned from Professor Angela O'Hagan in the post budget scrutiny just last week that women were not heard in the budget setting process minister after hearing this evidence in this committee from last year and this year i'm extremely worried is the Scottish Government ignoring women i'm going to say no pam of course i'm going to say no and you may or not have picked up the point i may tell her about the deputy first minister meeting with the women's budget working group and in gender as part of the budget process so the women's voices we are there and if you get a chance even five minutes to spend any time with the national advisory council for women and girls you will see they are not silent in their both influence and impact on on government and and the work that they do they're just about to produce their next set of recommendations and many of the recommendations is around about where women are seen and where they're consulted and how they're consulted and in many ways that's the work that we're improving as well so we're we're we're you know absolutely clear that women's voices are at the heart of this i think you know we've got a gender balanced cabinet so there's women's voices around that table who are not shy about you know raising those voices when they need to but i don't see that characterisation i see a progress from it absolutely but i don't see the characterisation that women's voices were not heard because they absolutely were and i can give you that commitment and certainly the evidence to to justify that position thank you minister for that response but you're obviously we in this committee listen to evidence what comes before us and because that evidence was given to us last year and you know a big supporter of women just like many people in this parliament and um i just feel why would something be brought up last year and then i probed on it just last week again with dr angela and dr angela made it very very clear if you get a chance to listen to her response she was actually very articulate in delivering her response and quite detailed as well so uh you know i would hope that the minister welcomes that to go and speak to dr angela and speak to susan michella and see what the issues are even though i did say in the beginning i welcome the work you're doing but i feel that if these people are voicing it in our committee here and we are the people's parliament as you said we do really need to be listening to other people to see why they're thinking that the women have not been listened to okay i would say we are i am meeting with angela in febrile so i'll pick up this point with her and i'll arrange to meet with susan michella to pick up the point with her as well angela ohagan is an amazing champion for women's rights she's always going to try and push both this parliament and this government much much further than we're currently at we welcome that it's a good challenge to take on it's not an easy challenge to take on in some some respects but it's a good challenge to take on and we and that's why that's why she is in the position she's in i'm really grateful to offer her an extension of her position as the chair of the equality human rights budget working group and to create the independence of the chair so she's you know she uses that to great effect and i'm always in awe of angela and the work that she does i will be meeting with her in febrile i'll pick up those points i'll pick up the points with susan susan michella but i'll also pay tribute to angela and her um undiminished push to make this government work better um and i'll welcome that way a smile sorry to hear can i just add one more question if it's possible it's outside of the topic i've spoke about i was contacted by a bain woman's organisation that i won't mention and that they've highlighted that they feel as you know there is a lot of work going through with basically and a lot of issues when it comes to domestic violence and you talked about a lot of that stuff earlier on now i was contacted to say that funding has been cut and that not all the organizations get fair funding and sometimes some of them deliver in the most areas that you can't reach and i've seen that myself going out in those communities and so is there anything that you can highlight i mean i will have a meeting with them but to and come back to you further with that but is there anything you're aware of there that suddenly you know last week funding was cut and they got funding issues from the government and what the money you've given out to some of the bain communities i've not got open funding around right now so i don't know if it was from my portfolio but give me the details and it was to do with violence and equality yeah it might have come from a different part of government let me let me give me the details and i'll look at it i did have a visit with Shakti and i'll obviously speak to Sahelia and other women's organizations quite often and completely understand those issues around about multiple characteristics and i'm looking at that but get me the details palm and i'll look at it and i won't try and give you something off the top of my head until i know the details and we can we can address it head on okay i think that has concluded the kind of budget part of our meetings but there's one or two issues that maybe we want to just follow up on and we'll see if other members some of the issues you've covered so you mentioned particularly in relation to your answering Fulton McGregor i think it was around the the conversion practices working group and obviously this is an area that committee takes a very close interest on. The committee were very clear when we produced our report that we need this to move forward at pace so it would be good to get an update on terms of how what timings are looking like just to confirm that things were still expecting the bill by the end of this year and i guess the other thing we were very clear about was that the legislation in Scotland needs to be inclusive of all so trans inclusive in particular and we've seen a shift in the UK government towards that position which i guess just good to hear your your comment on that and i guess the other area where we were very clear on is that there shouldn't be loopholes and that it's not possible to consent to what is effectively torture and i guess that's an area where it looks like there is still a disparity between the Scottish position and the UK government's position so maybe if you want to just if there's anything you could comment around that whether there's any discussions with the UK government whether that's an area you think that they might be also moving on as well to be more aligned with the views expressed by this committee and this parliament. Yeah, yeah, no, no thanks, convener. First up, really welcome the UK bill and welcome that covers all areas in discussion right now about how the bills maybe look differently so we've got officials are working with excuse me a second UK government officials on both our approaches. I think it's important to do that and we were having you know some of those conversations are really welcome the UK government's commitment to consult on the principles around the bill and we'll be looking at them with interest it's a tricky area as we know so you know other parts of the world who have done this we are looking at what the same way that they committed and how they have created a proposed bill that covers as much as possible everything we want to cover so we're doing all of that we're on target to meet the deadline of introducing the bill by the end of 2023 there is a huge bit I actually have got an update this afternoon on where we are we are at the drafting point of the consultation and just working through what that means now and I will have obviously committed to give the committee regular updates on that and I'll do that once we move by this next step we decided to have a good look at what the UK government's proposed so we're taking about that time to do that and come back to you with with that then but we're on target and it's looking good okay thank you I'm just looking around whether any other members keen to pick up on Maggie thanks very much Joe just a quick question and apologies if I missed it earlier on the regulations that the Scottish government has been talking about introducing around public sector equality duty can just give us a bit of an update of where we are with that and how you see that going forward over the next two years because I know we want we want those regulations actually in operation in 2025 you'll know that the consultation closed in around about autumn time remember all the timelines in my head and we had a really helpful if not challenging letter from a number of organisations who said we think this doesn't go far enough so we're at the stage of consulting and talking to them about that right now to inform the next steps as well but the timetable for that I'm not wrong in saying is on schedule as well so it's sort of on the schedule we can see if I can share the schedule with you but we are looking at the analysis of the consultation and then you know the the challenge from civil society organisations who want us to to be stronger and go further so we're working on that now thank you thank you and I appreciate both of those updates that's really helpful thanks minister the UK government you'll be aware was due to publish its report on the convention on the elimination of race discrimination in 2020 as part of the universal periodic review but that was delayed until 2022 I think was the most recent update from the UK government about the report their drafting can you tell the committee about how involved you've been with that particular report and whether or not the Scottish government have engaged in that process so we had our own piece of work going on from the expert reference group in Covid ethnicity now the interim governance group on race and racism and the work towards observatory so we were already on a pathway of doing some of that anyway on the upr particular you'll know that the recommendations were issued by the UN in November I think we're currently in the process of working through those ones that are impacting us and working with the UK government at how we inform that of course we get a word limit on what we can contribute to to that so we always try to make it as concise as possible so that's a piece of work that we are working on and preparing right right now what we we tend to do and we will do in this case will be to publish your own Scottish specific statement as well and that gives much more detail about the areas that we are working on in regards to the recommendations from from the upr some of the recommendations to the UK government where we were a bit further ahead than maybe England and Wales and some of that so we will obviously want to highlight some of that but working very closely with our colleagues at Westminster to both mutually support the work that we are doing but also to ensure that Scotland's voice is heard when that report goes back to the committee I think in the spring this year March I think that's helpful and do you know when the the Scottish government will start engaging organisations in that report or are you already doing that well we're doing some of that through but let me get you let me get you some more info on how we're doing that specifically with with the upr okay good question thanks very much that's all okay thanks very much no further indications so that brings us to the end of a session I thank the minister and your officials for for attending we'll now move into private session for the remainder of the meeting thank you