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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO GENDER EQUALITY SCHEME ANNUAL REPORT 2008

Background

1.1 Equality legislation has developed significantly over the last forty years and has been extended in the last seven years to create a more proactive approach to addressing prejudice and discrimination through the public sector equality duties.

1.2 There are three public sector equality duties for race, disability and gender. They place a duty on public authorities to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment and promote equality of opportunity. These positive duties aim to ensure that public policies, practices and services take into account the different needs of ethnic communities, disabled people and women and men in their development and delivery and make real improvements to people's lives.

Gender equality duty

1.3 The Duty to promote equality of opportunity between women and men was introduced under the Sex Discrimination Act ( SDA), as amended by the Equality Act 2006, and requires all public bodies to have 'due regard' to:

1. the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment; and
2. the need to promote equality of opportunity between women and men.

1.4 This means that public authorities have a legal requirement to ensure that men and women, boys and girls are treated fairly, with their different needs being built into all public policies, practices and services.

1.5 In addition, Scottish Ministers placed specific duties on listed public authorities through the Sex Discrimination (Public Authorities) (Statutory Duties) (Scotland) Order 2007. These specific duties required listed bodies, including the Scottish Government, to publish a gender equality scheme by 29 June 2007 and to report annually. This document is our annual report.

1.6 Further information and advice about the gender equality duty, including the statutory code of practice, is available from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the enforcement body for the public sector equality duties.

Scottish Government gender equality scheme

1.7 We published our first gender equality scheme on 30 March 2007. It sets out the Scottish Government's commitment to progressing gender equality, its gender equality objectives and the steps that it has taken, and will take, across Government to implement the gender equality duty over 2007 to 2010.

1.8 The development of the scheme was led by the Equality Unit and supported by our Equality Scheme Implementation Group ( ESIG). It was also informed by our consultation with both internal and external stakeholders. Further details about our approach to gender equality and the development and consultation for our gender equality scheme are set out in the first three chapters of our scheme.

1.9 Our first gender equality scheme is available on the Scottish Government's website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/03/30095002/0.

1.10 As part of our gender equality duties we are required to publish an annual report containing a summary of the actions that we have taken towards the advancement of our gender equality objectives. This annual report relates to our first scheme.

Since the publication of our gender equality scheme the context for delivering our scheme objectives has changed. Following the Scottish Parliament election in May 2007, we now have a new administration with new policy priorities and organisational structure. We therefore intend to publish a revised gender equality scheme by the end of May 2008 to take account of these changes. Future annual reports will therefore cover the objectives and actions set out in the revised scheme. Further details about the revision are provided in Chapter 11.

Structure of our annual report

1.11 This report provides an overview of the actions that have been taken by the Government over the last year to progress our nine gender equality objectives. Our objectives are:

1. the gender pay gap;
2. violence against women;
3. occupational segregation;
4. childcare, caring and flexible working;
5. improve networks with men
6. transgender equality;
7. mainstreaming gender equality;
8. training of staff; and
9. data gathering.

1.12 Chapter 4 of our gender equality scheme sets out these objectives with a brief summary of what we know about them and our main actions for taking them forward.

1.13 These objectives were developed following consultation with relevant stakeholders, including women's and men's organisations, trade unions and staff, as well as the examination of the available evidence. As we set out in our scheme, many of our objectives are interlinked and progress or lack of progress in one will impact on the successful delivery of another. For example, closing the gender pay gap requires us to tackle occupational segregation and childcare, caring and flexible working issues.

1.14 Our annual report therefore contains 11 chapters, structured as follows:

• chapter 1 (this chapter) provides the background, context and approach to our gender equality scheme annual report.
• chapters 2 to 10 consider each of our gender equality scheme objectives, provide a summary of what we said we would do over the life course of the scheme and an overview of our activities and progress.
• Chapter 11 sets out our commitment to continuing to address the gender equality issues for these areas and our plans for the revision of our gender equality scheme.

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