 Sgwrth gynllun. Welcome to the sixth meeting of 2024 in session six of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have no apologies this morning. Our first agenda item is to agree to take item three, which is consideration of today's budget evidence in private. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The second item on our agenda is our final evidence session on budget scrutiny i ddweud i gweithio honi i siaradwyr i ddechrau ein pan oedd, a gwyfodd gyfodd mewn gweithio am eich cyfnodau, y bod gennym ni, allanol, i'n mynd iddyntfawr i fynd wedi'i cyfnodau, i ddweud i gael cefnodau ar y ddiolch, lleiwyr mwy o'r unrhyw rhai, yn jeimlo i Dygol, ddiwethaf, dyfodig, â'r ddafoddy, pan lleio i ddweud i ei ddweudio i gweithio. I invite now the minister to provide an opening statement before we move from questions from the committee. Thank you very much, convener. Can I congratulate you on your appointment to the convenership for this committee? I look forward to working with you and you leading the scrutiny of work across my portfolio. I do want to emphasise first of all the positive spend and the commitment to delivering equality and fairness within the budget. I point to the increased spend on the Scottish child payment, the reopening of the independent living fund and an increase to the equality's inclusion and human rights budget. We are committed to improving participation in the budget process and we know that it is important to make sure that every consideration that should be taken is and that people can feel that the budget is relevant to them. It was very insightful to hear your session last week. I was pleased to note the continued improvement that is reported every year in this area of work. There was shared recognition from those providing evidence to the significant changes that we made to the internal process for the budget last year, including our new case study approach for the Equality and Fairer Scotland budget statement and the first ministerial workshop that specifically looked at that statement. We do acknowledge that there is a lot of work still to do but I want to remain mindful of the considerable progress being made along the way. We are providing accessible and inclusive forms of communication and documentation to support public understanding of the budget. I appreciate fully that there is more work that needs to be done to increase that public engagement in the budget and support better understanding and I know that this is something that your committee is also keen to ensure. The financial year is extremely challenging. It is the most challenging environment for a budget since devolution. On top of UK Government under investment of over a decade, our Barnett funding, which is driven by UK spending choices, has fallen by 1.2 per cent in real terms since the 2022-23 budget was presented. The UK Government did not inflation proof its capital budget, which resulted in a nearly 10 per cent real-term spoil in our capital funding over the medium term. UK decisions such as that to prioritise national insurance cuts rather than public service investment makes it difficult for us to deliver a budget that reflects our priorities but that is what we have done here. We have taken every opportunity that we have to mitigate the worst impacts of those cuts. We have invested in public services. We have put money where it will have the greatest impact on the delivery of our priorities of equality, opportunity and community. We have put money directly into the pockets of those who are experiencing poverty. We have put money into the realisation of and upholding and protecting human rights. That is in stark contrast to the £240 million that has already been spent down south on the Rwanda Bill and a further £50 million that has already been committed to do the opposite and to allow human rights breaches. We have funded human rights and tackling poverty regardless of who is responsible for the difficult situations that many find themselves in. For example, we are looking at how we will spend money that is allocated to refugee integration in light of the illegal migration act and its potential impacts. We know that many people who are benefiting from our social security programme have only had to do so due to the cost of living crisis that has been pushed on Scotland and the rest of the UK by economic mismanagement elsewhere. Our approach to considering equalities in the budget has involved extensive engagement with experts and our stakeholders. We published our response to the Equalities and Human Rights Budget Advisory Group and I will be joining the group to discuss further on Thursday. I was the First Minister to attend a meeting of the group and I now plan to continue that engagement throughout the year. The Deputy First Minister will also join me at a meeting of the group later on in the year. There were improvements made during the budget process, which I hope has been evident to the committee through the Equalities and Human Rights and Human Rights Budget statement. Alongside changes to the document itself, we held a ministerial workshop with a case study approach challenging ministers across government to show their working on decisions that they had used equalities and human rights budgeting to achieve. We want to ensure that the wider mainstreaming agenda is reflected in everything that we do and that the impact of the mainstreaming strategy, the public sector equality duty improvement activity and our forthcoming human rights bill can be seen throughout government processes. I work closely with colleagues across the Government to advance equality and the progressive realisation of rights for people in Scotland, ensuring that this is a priority that can be seen in every portfolio. I look forward now to taking your questions on the budget. Thank you, minister. I welcome your statement. I would like to kick off the questions myself here before we go on to the other members. Looking at the level four figures, I was wondering if you could explain why the equality's budget has fallen and the human rights budget has increased. The human rights budget increasing is a reflection of the activity that we are doing to invest in progressive realisation of human rights. The 2 per cent change in equality is due to project delivery review, so things coming to an end and timings of particular project deliveries being slightly different to what we anticipated. Can I ask—there was no explanation in regard to the Connecting Communities funding that has now been integrated into mainstreaming and inclusion. We are just wondering why that was. Connecting Communities is not a budget line. I have information on that. Some of that reflects a restructuring of the directorate where that funding sits rather than actual change in lines. It is just an adjustment, so that mainstreaming and inclusion line includes teams that were previously highlighted as connecting communities. Can I ask the minister—could you talk us through the decision making process used to set the qualities in human rights budget? Much of it is designed in partnership. You will be aware, convener, that many of the recipients of funding within the Equalities and Inclusion human rights budget line are long-term partners that we have developed really good relationships with who can evidence that they are able to support us in delivering on our equality community opportunity. Much of it is reactive to changing inequalities. You will be able to, hopefully, within the budget line to see the overtime reactions to which groups have been under threat or have particularly been able to highlight that they are the victims of systemic inequality. I think that, hopefully, within the human rights equality line, you will be able to see those strong partnerships that have been developed over time. Thank you. We are now going to move on to questions from Megan. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning. I would like to focus on the equality impacts on the back of the budget. The Scottish Government has chosen to cut council budgets year on year, and that has undoubtedly had impacts on equality portfolios. Examples of that include the threats that we have heard about potential closures of leisure sports facilities, as well as budget cuts to our school learning environment. Although those decisions were taken out with your portfolio area minister, they will have severe consequences across your brief. I would like to ask if you were consulted on any of those decisions before they were made and if you had contact with your other ministerial colleagues regarding those budget cuts. I have lots of engagement with ministerial colleagues, as I outlined in my opening statement, in terms of individual decisions for ministers. Those are still individual decisions for ministers to make the objective of mainstreaming and the work that I am doing within equalities and mainstreaming to try and make sure that equalities in human rights budgeting is taken into consideration across Government is that other ministers are able to apply that thinking and that process to their decision making in the same way that the Equalities Committee would not scrutinise every piece of policy and legislation in the Scottish Parliament, it is about everyone being able to take that equalities in human rights lens and be able to apply it to their own work. Okay, thank you for your answer there. Just to be absolutely clear, issues such as education and skills and council tax, you have not been involved in those discussions with your ministerial colleagues? Those would be for education and for finance colleagues to take decisions on. Okay, thank you very much, convener. Thank you, and we move on to Paul. Thank you very much, convener and convener and minister, and to the panel. I suppose I'm interested in a similar theme and that's about assessing the impact that decision, budgetary decisions have in terms of equalities and human rights. When I asked this question of other ministers in other committees, there wasn't a consistency around the use of equality impact assessments. While I may be doing that, my question is if it's all right to start with that broader equality and fairer Scotland statement and then maybe come on to talk about equality and impact assessments. In terms of that equality and fairer Scotland statement, that was offered by other ministers as an indication of the entire budget being looked at in the round in terms of the impact that it has, but I think it's fair to say that there are inconsistencies in the way that different portfolios have provided detail to that. I'm interested in what guidance is given to ministers around how they complete that, and what is your view? Do you feel that you have a role as the minister with responsibility for equalities to support your colleagues in order to be able to give as full a picture as possible? I think that the expectation that's been set for ministers, regardless of portfolio, that we have a focus on tackling inequality has been very clear. I doubt that there's a single minister who is unaware that the First Minister expects us to be thinking about inequalities when we take all decisions and throughout our work making sure that efforts to reduce inequality is evident. I think that that instruction side of things has been very clear. The target to end poverty, to reduce inequalities, is absolutely clear to everyone. In terms of me having a role, absolutely. I think that you can hopefully take reassurance from the fact that we're in the week of stage 3 of this year's budget. I'm already meeting with Equalities in Human Rights budget advisory group this week to talk about next year's process, how we can improve things. I appreciate that this budget has been the first process that I've been directly involved in, so I don't have a comparison to previous years. All I know is what we could have done differently this time. I've been very clear that I'm willing to listen to the budget advisory group, to evidence to this committee and to others, to make sure that we are continually progressing and improving. I appreciate what you said there in terms of the aspiration of Government. However, I think that we can evidence some of those inconsistencies. Do you feel that there has to be a better standardised format perhaps given to ministers in order to ensure that everyone reports in the same way, or do you feel that it is up to individual ministers to interpret that in their own way? I think that there has to be some leeway, and I accept that in different portfolios decisions are being made for lots of different reasons. What I'll be doing this year is looking at examples that have worked from last year's ministerial workshop using the best examples of ministers applying equalities in human rights budgeting to share that with other ministers and set the expectation for this year. An example is that it's my plan to continue that workshop idea, but I have it much earlier on in the process and be clear with ministers about what was received well in the previous process and what was maybe not as helpful. On the point about individual equality impact assessments and the use of that as a tool, if we look at individual budget decisions, there have been calls from organisations, so if we look at the reduction in the housing capital budget, many organisations have said that that decision should have been subject to an equality impact assessment. I put that to the cabinet secretary for social justice, and she pointed to the broader piece of work that we've just discussed there. However, as I say, organisations feel that the ramifications and the understanding of the impact that cut will make should have been subject to an equality impact assessment. Is it your view that there should be individual equality impact assessments on specific decisions? That's the point in them. I'm hopeful that ministers who maybe don't have as much of an idea of when to apply assessments will take the opportunity, as we are developing a better in-the-round process for the budget, to make sure that they are familiar with the need and when to look further at what the impacts on particular groups would be on decisions that are maybe being recommended by others, or in the case of housing, that we're having to do due to extreme financial difficulties. I refer back to my opening statement. We're in a very difficult position. A 10 per cent cut to medium-term capital spend is a huge thing that we cannot simply absorb without anybody seeing impacts. I wouldn't say that equality in human rights budgeting is about never making cuts, but it's making sure that they're proportionate, that there's a reason for them, and that all of the spend that you are doing is directed towards progressive realisation of rights. That's what we've done. Can I infer from that answer that your view would be that the decision on the 27 per cent reduction should have been subject to the quality impact assessment, and that it would have, perhaps given a more rounded consideration of that decision? I'm not familiar enough with that decision to know whether an EQIA would have been helpful, and I certainly doubt that it could have made a difference to the outcome given the financial situation that we're in. I mean, everybody wants to support people who are facing housing issues, so it's all about making sure that cuts are reasonable, that they are proportionate, that they are time limited, that they are a necessary thing that we have to do, and not harmful to human rights. Part of your job is challenging ministers in terms of ensuring that equalities in human rights are embedded in everything that they do. You've talked about the workshops that have taken place, and I know that there are many other fora where those issues come to the fore. How do you feel about where we're at in terms of mainstreaming equalities and human rights in all that Government does? I feel that we're at a very good point around mainstreaming in general, because we've got to a stage where there's general acceptance across Government that this is the right thing to do and that it is beneficial to good decision making in every single portfolio, which is not a given being at that point where we've got the opportunity with everyone agreeing that progress is a good thing and that mainstreaming is the right way to go about it. That's a real opportunity and it has so much potential, so I'm happy with where we are. I'm excited about the improvements being made to the public sector equality duty and the consultation that we'll be doing on our mainstreaming strategy, because it has impact on absolutely everything, it has impact on how we are engaging with the public, how we are offering opportunity to them and to stakeholders to feed into the process and it changes the way that all ministers by default will be making decisions. I think that that broader culture change is going to be as impactful as individual policy changes. Those changes, often in the past, I've experienced not only here in the Scottish Parliament but also in councils that equalities and human rights was seen as an add-on, something that was added on to any report, to any decision making that was taking place, and often we were told that those things, particularly when I was in the council and probably you too, were rather costly. That mainstreaming has saved money in terms of getting those things right and it's also saved money over the course and whole budgetary terms because we are taking account of the impact of some of those budgetary decisions on equalities and human rights. It is hard to prove the impact of spend-to-save processes but we do know that inequalities drive public spending, whether it's social security, health spending, education, criminal justice, people who are subject to the worst barriers to accessing human rights, people who are suffering the worst inequality are more likely to have to use those public services. By putting money into making sure that services are designed with them in mind, that public services are flexible enough to react to people, regardless of their background or protected characteristics, will undoubtedly save us money and save a lot of hassle and potentially trauma for those who are trying to access those services. I have no doubt about that. In terms of the equalities being an add-on at the end, that is absolutely the attitude that all of the work that's going on around mainstreaming is seeking to challenge. It absolutely still exists in many minds in public life but what we need here and what I referred to in my previous answer is that culture change because it's not just about having a mainstreaming strategy, it's about people thinking about equalities and thinking about impacts on individual groups of people subject to inequality when they are taking decisions about where to prioritise their spend. Do you think that the Scottish Government has done enough work in terms of equality and human rights impact assessments of the cuts to budgets that have been imposed on us by the UK Treasury? I think that's a fair question and there's probably quite a lot that we could look into there. We see every day the impact of cuts by the UK Government on protected groups in Scotland. We see every day the need to put more of our budget into social security, into the Scottish child payment, into those schemes that, as I mentioned, are being accessed by people who only require to do so due to the direct impact of UK cuts. I'd be very interested to see such an impact assessment in terms of the Scottish Government. I think that we need to check our own work first, and that has to be the priority, but I would always highlight why we are in this situation and why people are so reliant on our budget spend. Maybe that's something you could bring back to colleagues because I would be very interested in seeing that assessment and what damage those cuts from the UK Treasury have done. Minister, I'm very interested, as you well know, in ensuring that the voices of lived experience are at the heart of policymaking. I think that when that happens, we are much better at taking care of equalities and human rights impacts. I know that it is difficult at points with one-year budgeting to allow for all of that, in particular when the Government is unaware of the block grant until very late on, even if an indication is given. Can I ask you how you feel across portfolios about listening to those voices of lived experience when it comes to budget making? I'm not talking about the large stakeholders here. I'm talking about the average Joe and Josephine and their input into all of that. I would encourage engagement with lived experience throughout the year at all stages of any process within Government, because it's absolutely correct to say that lived experience is valuable and something that should be taken into consideration when we are making decisions that impact people's lives. Earlier on, you mentioned that part of my job is going to speaking to other ministers and supporting them, pushing them to take into consideration equalities and human rights. Part of that has been making sure that lived experience within my portfolio is so groups like disabled people, older people and those who experience racism have direct access to other ministers, because it shouldn't be the case that it's the equalities minister that those people see every time, because they have issues with health and transport and education. I have been facilitating that contact. An example right now is ensuring that voices who are feeding into the immediate priorities plan for disabled people are able to have that engagement directly with other ministers. We now move on to questions from Annie Wittes. Thank you, convener, and good morning, minister and dear officials. Just a quick question following on from Kevin Stewart's and Paul Cain's line of questioning. Just to ask the minister when we're talking about equalities and inequalities and human rights, what conversation she's had with the minister, the previous minister for drugs, and now, obviously, cabinet secretary Angela Constance, on the availability or rehabilitation for those who are addicted to drugs and alcohol? To my recollection, I don't have any current work going on in the portfolio that would involve those conversations, but I'm more than happy if there's a particular need for input around mainstreaming and inequalities and human rights budgeting to go and have a conversation with those ministers. Thank you very much, minister, because I do think that it's important that we look at all areas where people feel disadvantaged and that they're not getting their voices heard sometimes. I appreciate that, and I'd like to have further conversations with you on that aspect. The substantive part of my question today is roundabout accessibility and participation in the budget process. Just to ask you, minister, why was the easy-read version of your Scotland, your finances not published at the same time, as a standard version of the budget documents? Just to fully answer the previous query, again, I would just point to mainstreaming and the objective of that being that people are able to apply equalities and human rights budgeting to their own portfolios. It's not about me making decisions for any other minister, but again, I'm more than happy to have those conversations about mainstreaming and about equalities and fairer Scotland budget statement and how to best, throughout the year, prepare for that and make sure that the equalities and human rights are visible throughout the process. In terms of your Scotland, your finance, I'll pass over to Rob. Yes, good morning. I think that there's two points here. Your Scotland, your finance is a condensed simplified version of the current budget, and that's had a number of improvements made to it over the last period, particularly aligning it to the best practice principles of citizens budgets and international principles of citizens budgeting. I'm wondering the document that we're waiting to publish is the easy read version of the Equality and Fairer Scotland budget statement that should publish, or will publish this week, potentially published today. The reason that's been delayed, that's the first time we've published an easy read version of the Equality and Fairer Scotland budget statement. I'm aware in previous committee discussions, there's been discussions on just how much information is contained in the Equality and Fairer Scotland budget statement with some comments of too much information being provided. One of the key discussions that we've been having is how far does the easy read go in explaining that content. Annex B is 150 pages plus. I think that the learning from this year's EFSBS, it's not ideal that we've not published at the same time, will inform better practice next year about publication timings. So, we have the two things going on at the same time, your Scotland, your finance and then an easy read version of EFSBS. Thanks very much for that answer, Rob. My final question, Minister, is what can you do to better help citizens understand how the Scottish Government's spending and taxation plans will impact on their communities? I think that the work that we're doing around the EFSBS is exactly for that reason. And I'm hopeful that the changes that we've been making, because since the statement was introduced, the content has not been the same every year because we are taking on-board feedback and we are reacting to the input of the budget advisory group and of those who have given over the years evidence to this committee, to social justice committee, to say what they would find more helpful. So, it's a constantly evolving piece of work, but the objective of it is exactly, as has just been described, is to help people understand the impact on them, of budget decisions, to bring politics and the decisions that we make in this place closer to the lived reality of people everywhere in Scotland. Thank you very much, minister. Thanks, convener. Thank you very much. We'll now move on to questions from Maggie Chapman, please. Thank you very much, Karen. Thank you, minister, for being with us this morning. Welcome to you and your officials. I've got some questions on accountability for equalities in human rights, and in some ways this follows on from some of the questions, some of the points Kevin Stewart was picking up, but it's really about how we understand the impact of the decisions on people who use the services, whether they are vulnerable and marginalised or not. I suppose one of the questions for us is how we track analysis of impact from previous decisions into future decisions. Could you just say a little bit about what you feel we need to be doing better in terms of how we understand impacts from past decisions before we even begin to think about future decisions? I think I would just follow on from a previous answer is that what we are doing is the right thing to do. Reviewing the budget and asking ministers to report why they have made decisions, how they used equalities in human rights budgeting is the right thing to do. I think that the question is how effective it's been and whether we are going far enough or doing it effectively enough each year. The fact that we are being so reactive and changing the process and changing the documents that we put out, the format of the information and the type of information, and as I said earlier to Paul O'Kane, me looking at the ministerial workshop and other points that we've got for showing our work and scrutinising each other as well as our own decisions is what's going to strengthen the process year on year. You're never going to get this right in the first year and be absolutely perfect because we are tackling ingrained systemic inequalities and changing attitudes in a very large institution and a representative body. That's a hard thing to do but we are making improvements every single year and I think that's what I would focus on is yes, the need to improve but that what we are doing is the right thing to do. Thank you minister. I appreciate that we're at the beginning of this process and that mainstreaming as you say we've done quite a lot of it but there's still quite a lot of work to do but I suppose one of the challenges when we look at what's happening in communities in neighbourhoods around Scotland we see rising inequality, we see more people being threatened with exploitation at work, modern slavery type situations, all of these things and I'm wondering do you think we are on the way to better understanding, to following the pound I suppose, to understanding that an investment over here will mean that this person over there does not fall into modern slavery. Do you think we actually have mechanisms for understanding for tracking those kinds of quite specific impacts? So the process of equality impact assessments and the work that goes into the equality and fairer Scotland budget statement do allow for that kind of tracking within Scottish spend but as Kevin Stewart pointed out earlier much of the impacts that we're seeing, much of the growing inequality is impacted by or even driven by decisions that we have not made in this place so it is difficult then to be able to track how our spend is rebalancing cuts that were made by a different government because there are two separate institutions with separate reporting mechanisms and availability of reasons behind decision making. Whether we can do more on that particular tracking is something that I will look at. We do have information such as from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others who do look into the impact of UK decisions on Scotland and it is something that we are trying to be more alive to and I would point to the debate last year that I took part in with Christina McKelvie who was at the time the culture minister when we looked specifically at the impact of UK decisions on asylum and immigration on Scotland and how that was impacting where we needed to put our budget and our spending so there is tie in but I would say it's far more difficult to track between the two governments where decisions have been made and where spending has been put when they are so opposed. No no I appreciate that and I mean the other thing to say is I think if impact of spending was easy to track we would have been doing it by now you know so I do appreciate that this is it is not not always it's not easy it's not an easy process but I wonder sometimes if we kind of look at equality and human rights accountability from the wrong end of the telescope in some ways there's an interesting discussion on poverty in the Scottish Parliament last week and on different strategies of tackling poverty and somebody posed the question you know what if our starting point for every budget was looking at everything through the lens of eliminating or reducing child poverty you know if that's your starting decision whether you are the transport cabinet secretary whether you are you know the cabinet secretary for next area whatever if your starting point is every decision I make needs to address child poverty and issues around that then I think we start getting very different types of decisions and I'm just wondering if over the course of the coming year because in some ways next year's budget process starts right now as as we conclude this year's budget process whether you see their space for those conversations not only with your government colleagues but also with external stakeholders who have who maybe have some of the the routes into understanding those impacts and also the the experience of assessing every decision they make from from that right space lens because it really is about rights realisation I wonder what your thoughts on that are. Absolutely and as I say I am already feeding into next year's budget process I've already had written notes of things that I've felt went well and and didn't and also as I said a meeting with the Equalities and Human Rights budget advisory group again this week we will probably talk about how the budget has gone but we're always looking forward and seeing what we can do better next time and what needs to change because that is why we are all here and in terms of every decision starting with how does this reduce child poverty that is what the First Minister has challenged all his ministers to do we have to think when we are making spending decisions about the impact on tackling poverty, reducing inequality, wellbeing economy and growth that is not contributing to further inequalities I think the challenge comes from and I would use last year as an example we looked at the impact of spend that has taken place in Scotland specifically to reduce child poverty like the Scottish child payment and other schemes and the information that we got is child poverty is increasing at a slower rate in Scotland than in the UK and that brings us back to mitigation and it is difficult then to be positive I suppose and optimistic about a budget that is so focused on mitigation rather than thinking if we had control over the whole lot and weren't reacting to cuts in other places how much more of an impact would those measures have had on our goal of tackling child poverty? No, I understand that and I appreciate your openness to looking at how we can get better at this because I think everybody would probably agree that nobody does this right and I think we're trying to do something quite important in Scotland in how we focus on rights realisation in our budgeting but my final question and I suppose it's linked to some of what you said in there with reference to Scottish child payment and tackling child poverty specifically how confident are you that when we're thinking about gendered inequalities and inequalities related to other protected characteristics how confident are you that these are being considered by the government and the strategic leadership team in ways that are more than just looking at economic poverty and economic inequality? Do you think we've got the right are we asking each other the right questions? Have we got the right information? Are we collecting the right kind of data for us to understand the more than economic poverty? I think we are yes and there are opportunities for improving that within the review of the public sector equality duty but also importantly in the conversations around and the introduction of the human rights bill because that will bring into scots law not just economic rights but social and cultural and the right to a healthy environment and having those conversations before the bill even gets through that will undoubtedly have an impact on the culture of considering human rights and equality throughout government and hopefully certainly my hope throughout the whole public sector. All duty bearers there'll be work to be done to ensure that they are aware of the duties that we are putting on them and then hopefully once the bill passes subject to Parliament's approval we will then see a real change on the ground for people in terms of being aware of their own human rights, economic, social, cultural and being able to challenge it when those rights are not being realised. We now have questions from Fulton MacGregor, please. Thank you, convener. Good morning to the minister and your officials. It's just a really brief question then because I think that even though it's been short it's been a pretty full session today and I think that the minister has given some quite detailed answers but it's on the area that other members particularly Kevin Stewart has already went on and that's how the Government makes sure that you capture the views of those with lived experience when you're making budget decisions. I wonder if you could elaborate on that a wee bit, minister, about how that's done and also perhaps put it into the context of the work of this committee. I know that you take a great interest in the work of this committee and always have done probably even prior to your appointment as minister and you'll be aware of the recent experience panels that this committee has engaged in and what we feel is the success of those. Do you, when you're answering that question, do you take into account some of the work that the committee is doing in engaging with those with lived experience when looking at budgets from a Scottish Government point of view? Absolutely, and that's why in my opening statement I did talk a little bit about the work that this committee is doing to bring that lived experience into the process of scrutiny because it's important not just that ministers are speaking with lived experience throughout the year and getting that feedback on policies that we're introducing, listening to feedback from individuals and communities through consultation processes but also just face to face. My portfolio is very people-heavy. I speak to people every single day because it's equalities and we have to really think about people by default when making decisions and my challenge and the challenge of everybody working on mainstreaming is to make sure that other ministers feel that need as well and that their diaries, their engagement processes throughout the year on their bills, on strategies that they're coming out with forces them also to go and speak to individuals who are directly impacted by the things that they are doing. What the committee is doing in bringing forward citizens panels specifically when you're doing it to find questions to put to ministers is very helpful because it does the same thing and it's not a part of the process of government so it's not what I'm working on and trying to work into to every minister's routine but it does have the same outcome and that is that people are more engaged with the process and you can see the impact that lived experience and things that people are giving in evidence is having an impact on on what the government's doing. I think he's done, thank you minister. We now have two members have indicated that they would like to come in with questions so we'll go to Annie Wells first and then Kevin Stewart. Thank you very much convener. Just one quick question. I was part of the Equalities Committee in 2016 when I first joined the Scottish Parliament and was on the committee for about four years and I think the thing that we heard was equality impact assessments where a tick box exercise. Does the minister think that that's changed over the last eight years or do we think there's still more work to be done to ensure that these equality impact assessments are carried out correctly? I think there's more work to be done across the board on equalities and mainstreaming and I think I've been pretty open about that throughout the whole session is that we recognise there's more work to be done and we look at specific instances where say the qualities and human rights budget advisory group has said we can't see you're working here we can't tell how you reached that decision and taken that on board and it's that that I'm trying to kind of target here and throughout this coming year in the run-up to the next budget process I'll be working hard to make sure that we are reacting to that and that ministers are able by the next budget process to explain fully as many are able to with decisions that have been taken in this budget but more widely how they came to decisions and how they engaged equality impact assessments, equalities and human rights budgeting and all other considerations that can help them to make a better well-rounded decision that completely takes into consideration the impact on those with protected characteristics in particular. Thank you very much minister, thanks convener. Thank you Annie, we'll now go to chemistry. Thank you very much convener for allowing me to come back in. The minister said earlier that she looks at everything through an equality lens and I don't think that anyone could really doubt that at all. We've also had some lines of questioning today around about what would you do if you were starting from scratch in terms of compiling a budget. Could I ask the minister if she sees a bigger role in future for priority-based budgeting not only within her own portfolio but across Government to ensure that those priorities are at the very forefront of budget work? I don't pretend that the systems and the policies in place are the problem so I think even if we started entirely from scratch we're still dealing with what needs to change in terms of attitudes, in terms of what is just habit. We're trying here with mainstreaming to make equalities and thinking about impact on groups and human rights progressive realisation, a habit. That takes time and it takes work so we could start from scratch right now and still have to do all of that work in changing attitudes and changing the wider system. I think that the learning that we're doing right now through feedback from the advisory group from scrutiny that's coming through from this committee and the social justice committee in particular on equalities and human rights budgeting will be very helpful as will the learning that we can do from the likes of the Covid inquiry because we need to ensure that our processes are resilient enough that we still can spend on priorities when reacting to emergencies and in the case of this budget reacting to significant cuts by the UK Government and a very challenging financial situation overall. I'm just seeing if there's any more indications to come in and there is not so thank you minister. That concludes our formal business this morning. I want to thank the minister and her officials for their attendance today and we will now move into private session to consider the remaining items on our agenda.