SWBG blog
Women's Budget Groups in Glasgow
Last month, the four Women’s Budget Groups (WBGs) from Wales, Scotland, UK and Northern Ireland travelled to Glasgow Caledonian University to participate in a two-day workshop on gender budgeting. Organised by Dr Angela O’Hagan, of the Scottish Women’s Budget Group and Glasgow Caledonian University, the workshop represented the first opportunity for all of the Women’s Budget Groups to meet in person and share updates on the current state of play within our respective nations. As well as advancing our collective gender budgeting agenda, we also discussed how to further bolster our cross-nation working, including expanding onto a 5-Nation basis by incorporating colleagues from the Republic of Ireland. Through fruitful and stimulating conversations, we were able to identify commonalities and nation-specific differences in the gender budgeting context, as well as develop a number of exciting plans for our upcoming collective endeavours.
Read below for the reflections of each of the Women’s Budget Groups, as well as an overview of what was highlighted in our cross-nation state of play discussions.
Scottish Women’s Budget Group (SWBG)
We were delighted to welcome all the Women’s Budget Groups to Glasgow. It was great to meet in-person after solely working online together and build on these relationships over the 2 days. We engaged, participated, and actively listened to one another as we spoke about each nation’s current progresses and challenges with gender budgeting. From the Scottish Women’s Budget Group, we discussed existing challenges in the political changes that occurred earlier in the year. However, our context remains comparatively stable with elements of progress, such as positive ministerial meetings, compared to other nations. We were also able to highlight our work with local authorities, an area of work that may be expanding for other WBGs in the future too. It was a very useful exercise to discuss with each other how we address and tackle common barriers we all face, especially around political will and receptiveness. These workshops created more cohesion amongst the 4 nations and a greater sense of togetherness, making sure we support one another in the overall goal of embedding gender budgeting in budgetary processes.
UK Women’s Budget Group (UKWBG)
Meeting with colleagues from the four nations plus the Republic of Ireland was an energising and inspiring experience despite the challenges we each face. The political instability in Westminster politics in recent years has made it harder to hold the Government to account for the lack of pre- and post-budget scrutiny. While we have had some significant policy successes, such as the expansion of the Conservative’s childcare offer in Spring Budget earlier this year (which requires significantly more funding than currently budgeted for), there remains a stark lack of engagement from the Treasury on the impact of budgetary decisions on gender equality and little regard paid the Public Sector Equality Duty. This was highlighted by the engagement our colleagues are able to have with the budgetary processes particularly in Scotland and Wales which, while far from perfect, put the lack of transparency of the UK Government to shame.
Wales Women’s Budget Group (WWBG)
It was a privilege to attend last month’s gender budgeting workshop in Glasgow. We were delighted to finally meet our sister organisations in-person and to participate in such interesting and productive conversations with colleagues and esteemed academics. The workshop’s state of play conversations proved particularly valuable, highlighting common problems and nation-specific differences with regards to embedding gender budgeting in budgetary processes, within the wider political context of a continuing cost of living and worsening housing crisis across the UK. From a Wales perspective, the WWBG was able to highlight that despite a comparatively stable political context and a continued commitment to gender budgeting within the Welsh Government’s Budget Improvement Plan and individual governmental departments, significant challenges remain. For example, a lack of capacity across Welsh Government and the public sector in Wales represents a crucial barrier to embedding gender budgeting, as does the complex legislative and regulatory landscape of Wales, which makes it harder to use certain levers to drive changes in behaviour. As the WWBG we will continue to work to address these issues and very much look forward to realising the exciting cross-nation plans developed at the Glasgow workshop.
Northern Ireland Women’s Budget Group (NIWBG)
After nearly three years of the 4-Nations project, it was an incredible experience to bring together the Coordinators and a few members of each of the WBGs in Glasgow to discuss how we can promote gender budgeting across the 5 Nations. While the current political and budget crises in Northern Ireland have brought serious barriers to furthering gender economic equality, gaining insights into the experiences of Scotland, England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland is crucial to our ability to apply examples of best practice and circumnavigate shared struggles. The main focus of the two-day meeting were the discussions around greater joined-up working across the 5 Nations through both academic and civil society channels. This would be a great asset to the NIWBG, as many decision-makers in Northern Ireland look to neighbouring jurisdictions for guidance and/or policy ideas. It is important that the NIWBG uses the insights provided through the 5 Nations connections to advocate and advise decision-makers in Northern Ireland, and guide them in the best direction for gender budgeting implementation.
Women's Survey 2023 Findings
Earlier this year we launched our Women’s Survey 2023 to find out more about women’s experiences of the cost-of-living crisis, transport and housing in Scotland.
We heard from 871 women across Scotland, receiving responses from every local authority area.
Cost-of-living crisis
It was evident from last year’s Women’s Survey that the cost-of-living crisis was a key concern for women, with 32% saying they were unable to manage energy costs before the increase in April 2022. Following this survey, our detailed qualitative research with the Poverty Alliance late last year highlighted powerful testimony about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis for women on low incomes in Scotland. This research highlighted that urgent action was needed as some women reported deepening experiences of poverty to the level of destitution by going hungry and cold. This year we’ve heard more experiences from women as costs continue to rise for households.
We hope this survey will highlight some of the intersectional, diverse lived experiences of women across Scotland as particular groups are more likely to be disproportionately impacted by poverty and insecurity such as disabled women, women from ethnic minority communities and single parents.
Some key findings:
- 70% of women have not been putting heating on to reduce costs, rising to 80% for women who earn under 20k
- Almost 20% are skipping meals entirely, which increases to almost 34% for disabled women and 46% for single parents 
- 65% of women said the cost-of-living crisis has impacted their mental health
- 41% of women are using their savings to manage rising costs, rising to 46% of women from ethnic minority communities and 47% for single adult households
- 53% of women in rural areas struggle to manage social care costs
Energy and food costs were the costs women struggled to manage most with 46% of our respondents struggling with energy costs and 37% are struggling with food costs.
The struggle of managing such costs has had a clear impact on women’s mental and physical health. In total, 65% of women said the cost-of-living crisis has impacted their mental health while 47% of disabled women are facing an impact on physical health conditions: “My stress levels have increased which puts an increase on my disability”
Many women reported instances that we would understand as acting like shock absorbers for poverty in their household. These include supporting family who are also struggling, making home adjustments to cut back on costs, and managing household budgets. In response to this, women in the survey called for lower energy, food and housing costs as well as consistent, targeted support for particular groups that are most affected by this cost-of-living crisis.
Women are also reporting taking on more debt and using their savings. This can result in a lack of financial support or buffer to help cope with rising costs. This experience of debt and savings is more exacerbated for particular groups of women such as women from ethnic minority communities, single parents and single adult households. Other impacts to women’s economic situation included changes to employment and retirement, with some women stating that they have had to take on more work to manage rising costs or feel they are unable to retire.
Social care provision in Scotland has been hugely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and has not been immune to recent rising costs. For women who had social care costs, 44% struggle to manage these costs. Other women have been faced with services not returning to pre Covid-19 levels. Women’s experience of accessing childcare is similar with rising costs and limited provision as 28% of women struggled to manage childcare costs, increasing to 60% for women from ethnic minority communities.
Recommendations in this report are informed by women’s responses, understanding that the response to the cost-of-living crisis is not short-term and will require longer-term action from both the Scottish Government and Local Authorities.
Some recommendations include:
- Increase level of all Social Security Scotland payments by at least inflation annually;
- Provide an urgent cash injection to support social care in the short-term while working towards a comprehensive; investment in care as set out in our report on social care;
- Continued delivery of progressive income tax reform;
- Invest in local authority council services and provide longer-term funding for third sector, community organisations; who provide critical financial wellbeing advice and support women in local areas.
You can access the first of our three reports, 'Experiences of rising costs across Scotland', here: SWBG-Cost-of-Living-report-proof-06.pdf
Transport
A key topic we wanted to explore in this year’s women survey was transport. As highlighted in our other Women’s Survey 2023 report, the cost-of-living crisis is impacting women hard. Transport is one of the rising costs that women are currently having to manage. In the survey, women told us about the challenges they face due to these costs, as well as the suitability of public transport and active travel, and safety concerns for travel in general.
Key findings include:
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28% of women said they were struggling to manage transport costs, rising to 41% for disabled women and 54% for single parents;
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53% of women stated they were very dissatisfied or dissatisfied with the cost of public transport;
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48% of disabled women were either very dissatisfied of dissatisfied with the safety of walking and wheeling routes in their area.
We asked women about their main mode of transport and followed this up with more specific questions about their experiences as well as suggestions to improve public and active transport in their area. It became clear that many respondents’ main mode of transport was driving due to caring responsibilities, mobility issues, mental health needs, rurality, and employment needs:
“After school club ends at 5.30, I can stay at work until 5 if I drive. If I got the bus I’d need to leave at 4.30. This would mean reducing my hours and therefore income”.
However, some women, such as disabled women and women earning less than £20k, were more reliant on bus services and less likely to own a car than the overall respondent group.
Transport costs have not been immune to the impact of the cost-of-living crisis. 37% of women responding to the survey said that they had to change travel plans due to the cost of public transport. This rose to 42% for disabled women and 53% for women from ethnic minority communities.
When asked about if any of the women had changed their travel plans due to costs, some women reported increasing isolation and missing health appointments. One woman noted:
“I simply cannot afford to take public transport. Travelling to a medical appointment means skipping meals to afford the fare”.
Many women also told us that the cheaper and more reliable option for them was traveling by car.
There was an overwhelming message of dissatisfaction with public transport beyond rising costs due to lack of frequency, disjointed services with other modes of transport, inaccessibility, and safety. We were given plenty of suggestions for improving public transport in Scotland that included more regular buses and trains, more bus routes connected to amenities/services and an integrated system that includes ferries between all modes of public transport. Alongside issues with ferry timetables, long, indirect journeys provided barriers to accessing public transport for women living in rural communities. If you’d like to read more about the experiences of women from rural communities from our Women’s Survey 2023, read our Rural Briefing here: 1691675193_Womens-Survey-2023-Rural-Briefing.pdf (swbg.org.uk)
Physical barriers also existed for women travelling with wheels, either a pram or wheelchair:
“Public transport is not very accessible and mobility issues mean it is exhausting and painful to get around train stations”.
Overall, 47% of disabled women were very dissatisfied or dissatisfied with safety on public transport. These experiences are two-fold for disabled women due to physical safety onboard as well as personal safety due to fear of assault. From our overall respondent group, some women reported instances of assault or harassment, with fear of current services and provisions not protecting women enough. We were given suggestions about improving this safety with ideas such as guidance on report instances and more conductors or wardens to increase safety.
Active travel is also gendered as 59% of women who responded to the survey felt questions on access and safety of cycle routes was not applicable to them and 34% felt the same for walking and wheeling routes. Many women reported concerns about safety and routes for active travel that included a lack of dedicated cycling infrastructure and poor maintenance of cycling routes and pavements.
Recommendations are informed by women’s responses to the survey. These will require considered development and implementation from both national and local government in Scotland.
Some recommendations include:
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Increase the use of intersectional gender budget analysis on transport decisions at national and local level. This recommendation cuts across both public transport and active travel planning processes to broaden and build equality into transport systems;
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Widening access to free public transport provision to those in receipt of benefits including asylum seekers and cap the cost of public transport;
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Improve safety awareness amongst transport staff including violence against women training for bus drivers and train conductors. As well as piloting schemes such as the ‘Between Stop Services’ in Montreal for women travelling alone, often at night.
You can access this report, 'Women's experiences of travel and its cost', here: Womens-Survey-2023-Transport-Report.pdf (swbg.org.uk)
Priorities for the new First Minister in building a gender equal economy
With many reflecting on the challenges ahead for Scotland’s new First Minister, this blog shares some of SWBG’s priorities for building a gender equal economy in Scotland.
During the leadership campaign Humza Yousaf made important commitments to expanding Scotland’s childcare offer to 1- and 2-year olds, starting from his first budget. Investment in childcare is a critical part of building a caring, gender equal economy. The UK has amongst the highest childcare costs across OECD countries. These costs keep parents, mostly mothers, out of employment; place huge financial burdens on families and are a driving factor in high poverty rates amongst single parents.
We look forward to seeing these commitments delivered within the next budget. We’ll be looking to hear from women across Scotland to support with our pre-budget advocacy later in the year. We’ll be running an update on last year’s survey that looked at how delivery of the 1,140 hours childcare commitment for 3- and 4-year olds was working for women, which showed that lack of flexibility in how these were delivered impacted on how beneficial they could be for women.
On top of this, urgent investment is needed in social care, formerly under Mr Yousaf’s Cabinet Secretary brief. The new First Minister declared that recovery and reform of the NHS and vital public services was an immediate priority in the job. Substantial investment in Scotland's social care support services needs to be part of this priority. As news recently broke of cuts to social care services funding in Glasgow and moves to outsource staff in West Lothian, the urgency of this is increasing if we are to address Scotland’s already crumbling social care services. A long-term strategy to further invest and improve social care support services to meet currently unmet needs; provide fair and well-paid work; and support people to meet their human rights is essential. The proposal made by the Scotland that Cares Campaign for a national outcome on care within the National Performance Framework to ensure action is driven to fully value and invest in care is one part of long-term change. Proposed cuts to services will make it even harder to create a National Care Service that transforms delivery of social care. SWBG research shows how much investment we believe is necessary to transform social care support in Scotland. Investing in care is about political decisions and we hope to see the new First Minister and his Cabinet take bold action to value, recognise and invest in Scotland’s care support services.
When dealing with the cost of living crisis, recognising the unequal impact of rising prices is critical. Our recent research with the Poverty Alliance on the impact of rising costs for women on low incomes highlights some recommendations needed from national to community level. These not only include short term relief measures but longer-term investment in areas such as care which are necessary to support long term recovery for people, communities and the economy. As debt rises for people the long-term outlook on how to provide solutions will be critical.
Humza Yousaf’s commitments to championing the rights of women and girls need to extend to how budget decisions are made. Bringing gender analysis into the process of budget setting and economic planning will help to tackle entrenched gender inequalities.
During the leadership contest SWBG joined with partners across the women’s sector in Scotland for candidates to commit to a range of measures to build a fairer more equal Scotland. Including investing in areas outlined in this blog, as well as, key commitments on ending violence against women and girls, protecting women’s right to abortion and incorporation of international convention, CEDAW, into the Human Rights Bill in Scotland. See more detail on these commitments in the full letter.
Along with our partners across the women’s sector we will continue championing these areas and seeking change to build a gender equal economy in Scotland.
Women's Survey 2023 Launch
We have just launched our Women’s Survey 2023!
Following on from our first survey last year, we are asking women across Scotland about their spending priorities during the cost-of-living crisis. This year we are also interested in hearing about women’s experiences of transport and housing. We ask questions related to cost, energy efficiency, and safety. As well as providing a space for women to share other priorities they think need to be considered by decision makers across Scotland.
For us, it was important to continue asking questions about the cost-of-living crisis and its impact on women in Scotland. Following last year's survey, we undertook a research project with the Poverty Alliance which highlighted the accumulating burden of the cost-of-living crisis on women on low incomes in Scotland. Many impacts included deepening experiences of poverty and hardship, and negative effects on mental and physical health. These impacts were intersectional with asylum seeking women experiencing food insecurity, women with caring responsibilities reporting that they were struggling to afford essential items, and lone parents facing further pressure to support households financially. Experiences shared in our 2023 survey will help us call for greater action and support through government budget processes.
Transport is another key issue for us this year. Similarly, our research with the Poverty Alliance found intersecting issues with rising costs and transport. Women in this research reported unaffordable and unreliable public transport. Women shared experiences of not being able to travel to health appointments and reducing social activities due to such high costs. We want to understand the potential scale of this challenge across Scotland as women are more likely to use public transport and 'trip-chain' due to the structural inequalities of caring responsibilities and managing households. We also ask questions about long-standing issues around safety and the suitability of active travel routes.
Rooted in rising costs are questions about housing, particularly around energy efficiency which we know also intersects with responding to climate change. Women in our research with the Poverty Alliance reported that they were limiting or going without energy in the household. Our report on 'Women, Work and Wealth in Scotland's changing economy 2022' also highlights how rising energy bills are disproportionately impacting low-income households and those in rural Scotland. We hope to find out more about the overall picture of housing for women in Scotland.
This survey is crucial to us at SWBG as our work is driven by women’s economic experiences in Scotland. Information provided in the survey will be used in developing campaigns, highlight issues affecting women in the media, inform government consultation responses, and as part of our training. Last year’s survey provided crucial feedback to support our work through the year.
How can you help us?
We’d like to hear different views from women across Scotland as this is pivotal to reflecting the intersectional and diverse realities of women in all local authorities. We are particularly interested in hearing from more ethnic minority women, women that are carers, and women who are single parents.
We are also offering a £25 voucher to 10 people who complete the survey, this will be selected at random. 
If you haven’t done so already, we’d like your support to share this survey to help us reach a diverse range of women across Scotland. You can do this by: 
- Sharing the survey through your social media account (if possible)
- Sharing amongst your networks
- Sharing with any women’s groups you might work with 
The question should not be “what is the cost of creating transformation?” but rather “what is the cost of not doing so?”
Guest blog by Fiona Collie, Carers Scotland
What do we want to see for ourselves and loved ones? To be nurtured, to have friendships and connections, to enjoy our lives and the ability to fulfil aspirations.
Too often these things are unattainable, especially for people with disabilities, older people, and unpaid carers. Not because they cannot be reached but because they are simply seen as too costly. The lives, hopes and dreams of people who use or need social care, and their carers, are not seen as of sufficient value. Carers are a resource to be drawn upon; disabled and older people: a cost to be borne.
The Independent Review of Adult Social Care talked of a need to think of social care differently – “to stop seeing funding social care support as this burden but rather as an investment in the economy and our society”. To truly transform we need to be far more ambitious about investing in social care than currently proposed for the National Care Service.
The proposals are, however, positive. They offer a much-needed shift in how we view social care. The principles underpinning the legislation; focused on early intervention, ensuring human rights, enabling people to thrive and co-producing solutions are, if delivered, transformational. However, all of this relies on ambitious investment.
Fundamental change is critical to enabling carers and the person they care for to thrive. There remains, however, a huge gap between warm words and effective support for this to happen.
One example is hospital discharge, often dehumanizingly characterised as “bed blocking” to grab political headlines. When Carers Scotland asked[1] carers about their experiences of hospital discharge; nearly two thirds were neither involved nor consulted, and only 15% were given any choice about providing care. Few got the support they needed to care safely with less than a fifth (18%) saying they received sufficient services. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, over a third (37%) said they felt pressurised to take time off work to care, creating or exacerbating financial insecurity. Some even had to leave work altogether. This is despite the Carers Act 2016 enshrining carers’ right to be involved and placing duty on the NHS to involve them.
Too often carers are seen as the easiest, and certainly the cheapest, option while insufficient thought is given to their health, finances or employment, nor the wider economic impact, when considering the impact of caring. But this lack of support is not simply a symptom of current pressures. Research on the lives of carers, over several decades, finds that they and the person they care for cannot get the level of support they need and the impacts of this are significant.
Poverty is consistently higher for carers than non-carers[2] and the cost-of-living crisis has been devastating. More than a quarter of carers have had to cut back on food or heating, and more than 10% have had to use foodbanks.
Nearly 7% of carers are forced to give up work to care with a further 5% reducing their working hours[3]. A similar proportion cannot take up paid employment because of caring4].
This comes with both economic and personal costs. In 20175] estimated found 345,000 working age carers in England left work and remain out of employment costing £2.9 billion in taxes on lost earnings and replacement social security payments. Employers are losing talented people after investing significant resources.
Those at the peak age of caring (45-66 years) lose on average £6,300 a year because they must stop/reduce their hours[6] creating a financial penalty for carers.
Carers are also more likely have a long-term poor health condition than non-carers[7] and 16% more likely than non-carers to live with two or more long-term conditions[8.
Two thirds of us will be carers at some point and most of us will feel this impact. We must be more ambitious – for current and future carers. More carers are being lost into chasms, emerging with their financial security in tatters and health so poor that they need immediate and more expensive crisis support.
The SWBG transformative approach can change this picture. The question should not be “what is the cost of creating this transformation?” but rather “what is the cost of not doing so?”.
Fiona Collie is Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Carers Scotland
Read the SWBG research – Towards a transformative universal adult social care support service for Scotland
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