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Three MSPs on the committee cover Aberdeenshire, so we will try to not pick on you, Martin.

We know that the Scottish Government is in the process of reforming the equality duty, and you have all mentioned, in slightly different ways, crossovers, the regulatory landscape and the need to reconnect some of the pieces—I think that Nareen used the word “harmonising” when talking about the regulatory landscape earlier. Do you think that some of that work is under way as part of the Scottish Government’s proposed reforms of the PSED, or do you think that those reforms do not go far enough? Do you see that harmonising in those reforms, or is there still work to do? I will come to you, Nareen, and then go around the table.

Thanks—that is helpful. Alyia, do you want to come in on that?

That is helpful. I will take you up on that offer, minister.

The next chunk of my questions are about human rights budgeting more generally. You will remember from your time on this committee all the challenges and questions about data: who has it and where it is available. A substantial amount of data is available. We think that it informs budget decision making, but the EFSBS does not describe how it does so. Can you say more about the data—which sometimes is really good and sometimes has a lot of gaps—and how it informs your and your colleagues’ decision making?

Thank you, Matthew. That is helpful.

Minister, you mentioned the relationship between the budget planning work, national outcomes and human rights principles. What role does the equality data improvement programme have in supporting the direct read-through to national outcomes and sustainable development goals, which open up the human rights space a little bit more broadly than the national outcomes do?

Good morning to the minister and her officials. Thank you for joining us this morning and for your comments so far.

I will follow on from Marie McNair’s questions on mainstreaming and ensuring that equalities and human rights are everybody’s business. The Scottish Human Rights Commission chair was clear that they should not be only in the remit of this committee. You have described the work that you have done with Government colleagues. I am interested in exploring how we can ensure that equalities issues, perhaps specifically in relation to autism and neurodivergence, are taken seriously by portfolios across Government and public bodies that the Scottish Government funds.

We have probably all heard too many stories of autistic people being fobbed off, not listened to, misdiagnosed and given treatments that do not work and could cause further harm. We have also heard about autistic people being arrested or being made homeless. All that costs the taxpayer and departments across both central and local government much more money. That is before we even consider the life-changing impact and detriment to those individuals and their families. It is even more galling that when those harms are brought to light, public bodies close ranks and do not take the human rights and equalities agenda seriously.

Minister, how have you worked with colleagues to try to ensure that that kind of waste of resource and human potential does not happen? How can we minimise that, and how can we get away from the stress and the detriment that it causes? I have a follow-up question on the issue, but I am interested in your comments on those points first.

Thank you, minister—that is helpful. In your opening remarks, you talked about the competence and capability training that is happening. At the heart of what we are talking about here is prevention—that goes back to Campbell Christie’s principles of prevention, which are now more than 10 years old but which still require a lot of work to be implemented.

You also talked about the need for cultural and behaviour change. I suppose that there are some challenges in that regard because when people are at a point of crisis, and they are being made increasingly ill, homeless or worse, there is not always a mechanism for saying, “We can see exactly what we need to do—how do we do that?” That is not necessarily about resource but about transparency and accountability, which you also talked about in your opening comments.

Maybe we can pick the subject up after the meeting. There are some specific questions that it is not appropriate for me to ask here, but I would be interested to pick some of them up with you after the meeting.

Thanks. Can I have a final question, convener?

This will be the last one from me. Given what you have said about the value of quantitative and qualitative data and lived experience, can you explain why engagement and participation were largely absent from this year’s budget process?

When we debated the original statutory instruments last autumn, I moved a motion to annul them all, because of the barriers that Citizens Advice Scotland and others said that increased fees would create. Given that the order will amend one of those instruments and my motion to annul clearly did not go anywhere, I am not going to challenge it at this point.

I will leave it there, convener.