Equalities and diversity

We are committed to equality of opportunity and a culture that respects individuality.

The Equality Act 2010 and Scottish specific equality duties provide a clear planning and reporting framework to help us achieve this.

1.  Create the conditions to narrow the gender, disability and ethnicity pay gaps.
2.  Gather and use equality data to inform our policies and improve our services.
3.  Gather and use equality data to advise Ministers as part of our advice on legal aid reform and work to monitor availability and accessibility of legal services.
4.  Make key information about our work and legal aid accessible to those who need our help.

We want to help people access the legal support they need and empower our people to shape and deliver a legal aid system that supports a just, safe and resilient Scotland.

Our new Equality Outcomes Plan 2023-26 provides an overview of the work that we are going to undertake to achieve our outcomes and how we will measure the impact on relevant equality groups.

The plan is aligned to our corporate plan and contributes to our vision, mission, purpose and corporate objectives.

We have published our Year 1 and Year 2 Progress Report in the Reporting section below as well as our Equality Outcomes Progess Final Update for 2021-23 .

Transparency in our decision-making is supported by our equality impact assessment (EqIA) process.

Our approach to this ensures we consider the impact of new and current policies or projects on protected equality groups.

It also helps us meet the general public sector equality duty to have due regard to the need to:

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
• Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not.
• Foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not.

We seek to collect equality monitoring data on applicants to help with our strategic development and for routine monitoring of our decision-making.

We publish the information we collect in line with our value of transparency. Please see the appendix ‘Age and sex profiles of legal aid applications’ that is published with our Annual Report.

A Criminal Justice Disability Project (CJDP) was set up by the Justice Board to promote and enable accessibility of service across the criminal justice sector in Scotland for people with disabilities.

In 2013, the Justice Board within the Scottish Government asked its Equality Diversity Sub Group to address the contents of three reports:

• Justice Disability Steering Group report – Capability Scotland 2009
• Hidden in Plain Sight report – EHRC – 2011
• Out in the Open Report – EHRC – 2012.

The Sub Group created a project team to take this work forward and also address the actions arising from the Keys to Life report from SOLD (Supporting Offenders with Learning Disabilities) and the recommendations arising from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

The member organisations published a final report of the CJDP in June 2018.

A large print version is also available or you can view a BSL version of the Executive Summary.

The intention of the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 is to make provision about gender representation on boards of Scottish public authorities.

Legislation is just one measure the government is taking towards a more equal society in Scotland and it is vital that work to ensure participation and representation of women from diverse backgrounds and with intersecting identities creates lasting changes to cultures and the structures.

The “gender representation objective” for a public board is that it has 50% of non-executive members who are women.

We are keen to hear your views about:

• The priorities we have identified.
• How you think our policies or functions impact on equality.

Please provide feedback or let us know if you would like to get involved in our equality work by contacting our Corporate Policy Officer (Equalities) using the details below:

Direct dial: 0131 240 1981
Email: equalities@slab.org.uk