Professor Angela O'Hagan:

I was bound to forget something in the long list the Senator provide. My apologies for leaving out local authorities. It is well documented that the processes of equality impact assessment are limited in scope and quality across public authorities and that there is room for significant improvement in the application and use of equality impact assessment. Equality analysis overall involves equality analysis informing policy formulation and the options around policy interventions and then setting up measures to be able to capture the impact on different equalities groups. There is a limit in terms of the amount of time that officials are given to complete equality impact assessments and there is the stage of the process at which equality impact assessments are initiated. There is a sense that equality impact assessment is somehow a separate action within policy rather than the advancement of equality and the realisation of rights being the starting point for policy decisions. What is the "problem" that needs to be addressed and how might different interventions alleviate or eliminate the inequalities that exist? There are some problems with the tools and with the implementation and that is fairly well documented by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and other bodies.

Part of the problem is that the public sector equality duty needs to be viewed as a support to policymaking for improving policy and decision making, not as a further set of demands on already hard-pressed officials. It needs to be seen as an enabling platform. It is about making better policy to secure better outcomes for people rather than being an imposition on public bodies. We need that change in mindset across our public authorities. From that, we would see a better set of tools and better application of those tools in relation to equality and practice assessment. I have made some very general and critical comments there with which I am sure colleagues across public authorities in Scotland would disagree because of course there is some variance in what I have been saying. There are some examples of good practice and good guidance.

In relation to the sustainable development goals, the national performance framework in Scotland is structured around the SDGs. One of the SDGs that is sometimes overlooked in relation to gender budgeting and equalities budgeting is SDG 16, the need for strong institutions. In concluding my remarks, the recommendations from the OECD Scan report on Ireland offer some really positive guidance and steps for Ireland - I am learning a lot for Scotland as well - in relation to advancing gender equality within an inequalities and human rights budgeting framework. The recommendations there really help as regards how to secure a process whose outcomes better enable our governments to realise their commitments and the necessity to act under the sustainable development goals.