Seòmar agus comataidhean

This is not to pick on you, Danny, but I wish to ask you a slightly different question. After you brought up a point about infrastructure projects, something occurred to me about what we do here in Parliament. In the most recent couple of committee sessions, we have been talking about how human rights budgeting works, and it got me thinking.

Under our just transition fund, the Scottish Government is giving £500 million to the north-east region and Moray. The oil and gas industry has traditionally been a white and male-dominated industry. I have been trying to ensure that we have a gender balance when the money is dished out in that area; I want to ensure that women are getting a fair share. Where do the intersectionality and protected characteristics come in? What do you think we can do here, as parliamentarians, to ensure that such projects are equalities driven?

Good morning, minister, and thank you for the evidence thus far. I have often thought that fiscal management can be a bit dry and boring, but this is really not boring. It is quite exciting to be able to discuss how we follow the money and ensure that, when we do that, the outcomes that we see are embedded with regard to equalities and human rights. It is a really exciting time. As you say, we are quite world leading in a lot of this work.

You hit the nail on the head when we were talking about the fact that it is almost an eternal progression. There probably never will be an end point. Nothing can really be set in stone as the world moves and as we realise people’s needs and understand their human rights, particularly as we move towards a wellbeing economy, which we are focusing on in Scotland. It is crucial work, and it is particularly interesting in this committee, of course.

Last week, we discussed the duty and accountability of public bodies—local authorities—and the need to ensure that their equalities duties are not just an afterthought. In a previous life, before I was an MSP, I was a councillor. In my work, I often found that equalities duties were at the end of documents. Whether that was the same in practice, I do not know, but that is where they sat in documents. It seemed that certain things were just ticked off. How do we ensure that public bodies take into account core values and that equalities issues run through everything that they do, like a thread?

That is really helpful to know. It is perhaps helpful that they have been forthcoming in saying that it has not been clear enough for them. After all, we can provide as many tools as we want but they need to know how to use them. How do we ensure that the core priorities of local authorities are what we really want to see nationwide, without overstepping our mark into their autonomy?

Good morning, minister. I had a question about the EU, which you have answered quite comprehensively. Where else do you see the powers of clause 42 being used?

I have a quick question about outcomes. I feel that my questions around participation and suchlike were answered but a key point that was raised was about that outreach to the public and the idea of starting with outcomes and tracing the money backwards. How do we ensure that the outcomes that we are looking at are representative?

I think that Clare Gallagher spoke about how we had a demographic, for example, where a particular race was interlinked with a religion, but that was not necessarily the case. How can we ensure that the outcomes for that group, which are not interlinked with religion, are being met? What can we do to improve the information in relation to the outcomes? Can the Scottish Government do anything more in that regard?

Thank you, Clare; that is really helpful.

I thank the witnesses for their evidence, which has been really informative. Angela O’Hagan spoke about making budgeting more accessible to people. She has made it more accessible to me, so I appreciate that. Your evidence has been really helpful.

In relation to flipping the position and tracing money backwards from the outcomes, I found interesting what was said about how we can do that in a more meaningful and progressive way. In my previous life, when I was a local councillor, information on the public sector equality duty was always at the back of our papers. In relation to how that was used, I do not know whether it was seen last or first but, for me, that was a symbol, which made me ask whether the duty was an afterthought.

We have a lot of tools, but are they being used in the right way and at the right time when decisions are made? Have there been any missed opportunities in the Scottish Government’s approach? Could things be more measurable? We talked about outcomes coming first. How do we measure those outcomes? A lot of the time, it seems to be a case of the cart coming before the horse.

If you could tidy things up a bit, what would be your preferred system? What opportunities are there?

That is helpful—thank you.

The issue is that the priorities can often become subject to the push and pull of politics.

It is quite exciting to see how we are progressing this and to have it moving forward. Have there been any challenges along the way in planning for and organising it?