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MINISTERIAL FOREWORD
The Scottish Executive believes that equality needs to lie at the heart of everything we do as an organisation. Equality is key to the delivery of public services that are efficient, effective and above all fair. Achieving this makes good sense for our society, our businesses and our economy.
Despite thirty years of legislation and the progress that has been made to achieve equality between men and women, we still have much to do. We know that all too often women still come second in the workplace and in many other spheres of life, but we also know that men too experience disadvantage. This is particularly acute where they wish to play a full role as fathers and achieve a balance between work and family responsibilities. The implementation of the gender duty in Scotland is a further step towards achieving gender equality.
The public sector is the lynchpin for securing the improvements and opportunities that women and men in Scotland want and need. This will be achieved through a better understanding of how those services can be continuously improved and shaped to meet the differing needs and experiences of men and women. The Scottish Executive has a pivotal role in ensuring that the frameworks it creates help to deliver gender equality and the policies which it develops take account of the different needs and experiences of women and men.
The Executive is working to ensure that the needs and experiences of women and men are understood together with other key factors such as disability, race, age, faith, sexual orientation, geographic location and income. Not all women and not all men have the same needs and experiences. Understanding these, taking account of these and creating flexible and robust frameworks for policy and action is key to delivering the improved outcomes across our public services where women and men are both recipients of services and employees of those organisations delivering those services.
This new duty hinges on the delivery of real and meaningful outcomes. The proof that we are collectively delivering on this duty will be in collecting and publishing the evidence that we have improved the lives of women and men across Scotland, in all facets of their lives and day-to-day experiences. This means we should expect to see improved outcomes across everything we do.
We want to see a Scotland where women do not face discrimination in the workplace because they are pregnant or because they work part-time; a Scotland where health outcomes for men are improved and where men are better able to achieve a work-life balance; a Scotland where no woman faces the threat of domestic violence, a Scotland where both young men and women are able to make choices about their education and their careers that are not restricted by gender stereotyping.
We have much to do to realise this vision. We have come a long way over the past thirty years, but we can always do better. This scheme outlines how, as an organisation, we intend to approach gender equality in the coming period. This scheme emphasises that we need to fully consider and understand the needs and experiences of women and men in our policy development. I am very much looking forward to following the scheme's implementation and seeing the fruits of our collective labours in its life-time and beyond.
RHONA BRANKIN, MSP
MINISTER FOR COMMUNITIES
March 2007
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