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I would encourage engagement with lived experience throughout the year, at all stages of any process within Government, because it is absolutely correct to say that lived experience is valuable and should be considered when we are making decisions that impact on people’s lives.

You said earlier that my job involves speaking to other ministers and supporting and pushing them to consider equalities and human rights. Part of that has involved ensuring that the lived experience of groups that fall within my portfolio—such as disabled people, older people or people who experience racism—have direct access to other ministers. It should not be the case that those people always see the equalities minister—they also have issues with health, transport and education. I have been facilitating that contact. One example is that I have been ensuring that the voices that feed into the immediate priorities plan for disabled people are able to engage directly with other ministers.

Absolutely. I am already feeding into next year’s budget process. I already have written notes on things that I felt went well and things that did not. As I said, I will meet the equality and human rights budget advisory group again this week. We will probably talk about how the budget process has gone, but we always look forward and think about what we could do better next time and what needs to change, because that is why we are all here.

The First Minister has challenged all his ministers to think about how every decision will reduce child poverty. When we make spending decisions, we have to think about the impact on tackling poverty, reducing inequality, creating a wellbeing economy and providing growth that does not contribute to further inequalities. There is a challenge. Last year, for example, we looked at the impact of Scottish Government spending specifically to reduce child poverty, such as the Scottish child payment and other schemes. The information that we got is that child poverty is increasing at a slower rate in Scotland than in the UK.

That brings us back to mitigation. It is difficult to be positive and optimistic about a budget that is so focused on mitigation, instead of thinking about how much more of an impact those measures would have on our goal of tackling child poverty if we had control over the whole lot and were not reacting to cuts in other places.

We recognise that more work is to be done across the board on equality and mainstreaming, and I have been pretty open about that throughout the whole session. However, if, for example, the equality and human rights budget advisory group tells us that it cannot see our workings out or how we have reached a decision, we take that on board.

I am trying to target that approach. Throughout the coming year, in the run-up to the next budget process, I will be working hard to ensure that we are reacting to such feedback. I want to ensure that ministers are, by the next budget process, able to explain fully—as many are able to now in regard to decisions that have been taken in this budget—and more widely how they came to decisions and how they engaged equality impact assessments, equality and human rights budgeting and all the 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.

Much of it is designed in partnership. The convener will be aware that many of the recipients of funding in the equalities and inclusion and human rights budget line are long-term partners with whom we have developed good relationships and who can evidence that they are able to support us in delivering on our equality and community opportunities. Much of that budget is reactive to changing inequalities. The committee will be able to see in the budget line the over-time reactions to groups that have been under threat or that have particularly been able to highlight that they are the victims of systemic inequality.

Within the human rights and equalities lines, the committee will be able to see the strong partnerships that have been developed over time.

Those matters would be for education and finance colleagues to take decisions on.

A very clear expectation has been set that ministers—regardless of portfolio—should have a focus on tackling inequality. I doubt that there is a single minister who is unaware that the First Minister expects us to think about inequalities when we take all decisions, and to ensure, throughout our work, that our efforts to reduce inequality are evident. That instruction has been very clear, and the target of ending poverty and reducing inequality is absolutely clear to everyone.

As for my having a role, that is absolutely the case, and I hope that you can take reassurance from the fact that we are now in the week of stage 3 of this year’s budget, and I am already meeting the equality and human rights budget advisory group to talk about next year’s process and how we can improve things.

Of course, I appreciate that this year’s budget process has been the first one that I have been directly involved in, so I am not able to make a comparison with previous years; all I know is what we could have done differently this time. I have made it clear that I am willing to listen to the budget advisory group and to evidence that is given to this and other committees to ensure that we are continually progressing and improving.

I am not familiar enough with that decision to know whether an EQIA would have been helpful. I certainly doubt that it could have made a difference to the outcome, given the financial situation that we are in. Everybody wants to support people who face housing issues. It is a question of ensuring that cuts are reasonable, proportionate, time limited and necessary things that we have to do, and are not harmful to human rights.

That is a big question. I feel that we are at a very good point in relation to mainstreaming in general, because we have reached a stage at which there is general acceptance across Government that mainstreaming is the right thing to do and is beneficial to good decision making in every single portfolio, but it is not a given. There is a real opportunity in our being at a point at which everyone agrees that progress is a good thing and that mainstreaming is the right way to go about it. It has much potential, so I am happy with where we are.

I am excited about the improvements that are being made to the public sector equality duty and about the consultation that we will do on our mainstreaming strategy, because they will have an impact on absolutely everything: they will have an impact on how we engage with members of the public and how we offer opportunities to them and to stakeholders to feed into the process, and they will change the way that all ministers make decisions, by default. I think that the broader culture change will be as impactful as individual policy changes will be.

I do not recollect any current work in the portfolio that would involve those conversations, but if there is a particular need for input regarding mainstreaming or equalities and human rights budgeting, I am more than happy to have conversations with ministers.

Yes, I think that we are. There are opportunities for improving that in the review of the public sector equality duty and, importantly, in the conversations around and the introduction of the human rights bill, which will bring into Scots law not only economic but social and cultural rights and the right to a healthy environment. Having those conversations even before the bill’s introduction will undoubtedly have an impact on the culture of considering human rights and equality throughout Government and—I certainly hope—throughout the whole public sector. There will be work to be done to ensure that all duty bearers are aware of the duties that we are putting on them.

Once, as I hope, the bill passes, subject to the Parliament’s approval, we will see change on the ground for people in terms of their being aware of their economic, social and cultural human rights and their being able to challenge when those rights are not being realised.