1 The Governments Purpose To focus Government and public services on creating a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish,

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The Government’s Purpose

To focus Government and public services on creating a more successful country, with

opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth.

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“Poor measurement and a lack of transparency have contributed to … governments being unable to tackle inequalities. The data available on inequality are utterly inadequate in many ways…... And even where data do exist, they are not consistently used well or published in a way that makes sense.”

Fairness and Freedom, The Final Report of the Equalities Review, February 2007

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Summary of National Performance Framework

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National Performance Framework

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Equalities and the National Performance Framework

• National outcome specifically on tackling significant inequalities

• Many of the strategic objectives are critical to equalities domains – eg longevity

• Equalities critical to delivery of Strategic Objectives – eg solidarity

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Of the 45 national indicators and targets, 29 relate to ‘people’ and in theory could be analysed by equality and poverty:

• 23 can be analysed by gender• 0 can be analysed by ethnicity• 5 can be analysed by disability• 22 can be analysed by age• 0 can be analysed by sexual orientation• 0 can be analysed by religion• 3 can be analysed by household poverty

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• Poverty is not evenly spread:

– 17% of all individuals in Scotland are poor

• 17% of White people are poor• 32% of Asian people are poor• 30% of remaining groups are poor

– 20% of all individuals in Scotland have a long term illness or disability. 28% of poor individuals do.

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Equalities and Income data: Problems

• Small numbers

• Partial data sets

• Incompatible data sets

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Equalities and Income Data: Solutions• Harmonisation of categories and questions• Guidance on collecting and using equality data• Combining datasets, e.g. across years • Equalities data from the Census• Work is underway to allow Census respondents

to be used as a sampling frame• Focus on using data we have better• Importance of Scotstat

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Equality and Human Rights Commission: Equality Measurement Framework:

What is it for?• Monitoring inequality and human rights in Britain

– EHRC triennial report

– GEO baseline evidence and possible annual report on equality

• To support analysis of causes of inequality and evaluation of interventions

Where does it come from?• Theoretical grounding in the capability approach (Amartya Sen)

• Equalities Review (2007) Steering Group on Measurement

• Developed subsequently by EHRC and GEO

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• • 3-5 ‘spotlight indicators’ to cover 10 domains• Web consultation on GB spotlight indicators• Scottish consultation event on 29 October• Development of EHRC Equality Performance

Framework• EHRC reports every 3 years, possibly GEO report

SELECTION OF EHRC GB INDICATORS

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Tick the equalities boxes in Scotstat’s “my areas of interest” to be kept informed

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CONTACT US!

[email protected]

Amy Wilson: 0131 244 7571 Anne MacDonald: 0131 244 3004Shona Rennie: 0131 244 7371Tom Spencer: 0131 244 0784Sue Warner: 0131 244 7561

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare