FOREWORD by the Minister for Communities, Malcolm Chisholm MSP
In 2003, the former Minister for Communities announced the appointment of a small short-life group to take a strategic look at the varied and complex issues facing women in Scotland. The Group was also charged with proposing an agenda for action for the Scottish Executive. Following its deliberations, the Strategic Group on Women produced a report, Improving the Position of Women in Scotland: An Agenda for Action, which was published in November 2003. This report contained 77 recommendations for the Scottish Executive's action. The Executive's initial response was published in March 2004, accepting most of the recommendations either in full or in part and giving a snapshot of the Executive's activities - and planned activities - to implement them. A commitment was made to consult others about the Report and to produce a regular update on progress.
This update is the outcome of extensive consultation across the Executive and I am pleased to report real progress on many of the recommendations for the Executive's action since we reported in March 2004. In some areas, however, progress has been slower. Where this is the case, we will be working with our colleagues to facilitate further movement forward.
We fulfilled one of the recommendations of the Strategic Group on Women's Report almost immediately by setting up the Scottish Women's Convention in December 2003 to provide a more constructive mechanism with which to consult women and for women to have a more effective means of contributing to policy-making in Scotland. Although it is an independent body, the Convention was asked to consider the Strategic Group on Women's Report and what it could do to address the key concerns within it. In response, it set up four Policy Groups to look in detail at priorities for women in Scotland. Two of the groups are looking at key priorities of the Report - Women and Poverty and Violence Against Women. (The other two are looking at Women and the Criminal Justice System and Women and Health.) At the Executive-funded event to celebrate International Women's Day in March 2005, which the Executive hosted jointly with the Convention, the subjects of the Convention's Policy Groups were discussed more widely in workshops (and reports of the discussions were posted on the Convention's website).
Fulfilling another of the Group's recommendations, we started (in October 2005) a series of roundtable discussions with women who may experience multiple discrimination (for example, disabled women, older women, lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, minority ethnic women and women from different faiths). We are keen to gain diverse perspectives on the Report's recommendations and explore how we can deliver on these more effectively for the benefit of all women.
The Strategic Group provided us with a cohesive and strategic framework for taking forward the women's agenda in Scotland. I continue to be grateful to the Group for giving us such an effective tool with which to measure the extent of our progress. This update helps us assess what we have been able to achieve and where much work still needs to be done. I look forward to the continuing advancement of this important work.
Minister for Communities