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.

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 2026-29 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, purpose and corporate objectives.

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.

Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments (CRWIAs) help us understand how our work affects children and young people. They consider the potential impact of our policies, processes, strategies and services on children’s rights and wellbeing, and support us to take these into account when making decisions.

CRWIAs are completed for new policies, and when existing policies are reviewed or updated. They build on our wider impact assessment work and are usually undertaken after a full Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA).

Through this process, we support our commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) Act 2024.

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.

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 team using the details below:

Email: equalities@slab.org.uk.