Gender budgeting is growing in prominence. Sara Cowan from The Scottish Women’s Budget Group sets out her reflections on Scotland’s journey to embed gender budgeting
Advocating for gender budget processes is a long slow process, with small steps along the way. It can be hard to remember that progress is being made. Taking time to reflect on what works within gender budgeting in Scotland we see important gains along this journey, although it very much remains a work in progress.
Two functions stand out as key developments for gender budgeting in Scotland. The establishment of the Equalities Budget Advisory Group (EBAG) emerging in 2000, now chaired by gender budgeting expert Angela O’Hagan. This group consists of a mix of government officials and independent members, including SWBG. Through deep dive sessions on departmental planning, reflections and analysis of the budget process and consideration of particular policy areas, it provides analysis and reflection to improve the equality budget processes in Government.
Most recently independent members of the group published a set of recommendations for wider systemic improvements in how processes of equality and gender budgeting can be better integrated into Government. The Scottish Government intends to respond to these recommendations in spring this year and this presents an opportunity to build in the next steps of systemic change in delivering gender budgeting in Scotland.
Ten years on from the creation of EBAG the Equality Budget Statement was first published alongside the Draft Budget (now the Equality and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement). The EFSBS is an important statement of intent and commitment to equality analysis within the Budget process. However, the statement is the final product of the analysis that has gone into the budget and only ever as good as this analysis – linking back to the need to implement the recommendations from EBAG.
Scotland has set important targets for the reduction of child poverty, to reach a net zero economy, and ambitious plans for a National Care Service. All of which will require significant public spending. As Government faces the challenge of meeting these targets the role of gender budget analysis is crucial step in the decision-making process to ensure that in delivering these important targets Government also works to tackle systemic inequalities.