Equality and Human Rights Mainstreaming Strategy
Proposed vision and objectives
Vision
To support the continued growth of strong communities across Scotland, built on a solid foundation where everyone enjoys realisation of their human rights. These communities will be diverse, inclusive, empowered, resilient and safe. We are committed to tackling the persistent and entrenched systemic inequalities that still exist in Scotland.
Through this we will advance and improve Scotland’s position as a global leader in equality and human rights.
Objectives
In order to achieve this vision, the Strategy objectives are to:
- remove systemic barriers;
- improve how policy decisions are made and delivered;
- establish the leadership, capability, capacity, culture and practice that ensures Government and public sector policy and service delivery are focused on equality and human rights.
- embed transparency so it is easier for those affected by decisions to hold Scottish Government and the wider public sector to account.
Expanding on our vision and objectives
This includes informing the direction and development of policymaking at all stages, especially early stages of influencing and shaping planning and outcomes.
To achieve this vision and objectives, the Strategy will support Scottish Government, and the wider Scottish public sector, to focus on and achieve mainstreaming equality and human rights. The framework laid out in the Strategy will support all Scottish public sector organisations to play their role in this ambition and to use the toolkit to develop their own mainstreaming plans and take action to reduce inequality and uphold human rights.
This will be achieved by successfully focussing on the knowledge, experience, priorities, concerns and contributions of everyone in Scottish communities. This will include those with protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act, and others experiencing systemic discrimination and poorer life outcomes. This includes taking an intersectional approach. This information will become an integral part of the development of all policy creation and review processes. This will partly be achieved through the Impact Assessment process and taking a human rights-based approach but will also require a change of culture and skill. Therefore, we will strive to promote, protect, and uphold human rights through everything we do. This means ensuring people’s rights are at the centre of policy development and implementation, using the PANEL principles. These are underlying principles which are important in applying a human rights based approach in practice. PANEL stands for:
- Participation: Active, meaningful involvement in decisions affecting human rights.
- Accountability: Effective monitoring and remedies for rights violations.
- Non-discrimination and Equality: Prohibit and eliminate discrimination, prioritise marginalised groups.
- Empowerment: Understand rights, participate in policy development, and assert rights.
- Legal: Recognise rights as legally enforceable entitlements, linked to human rights law.