SWBG blog
Can we achieve equality, provide opportunity, and create community by freezing Council Tax?
Our Coordinator, Carmen Martinez, reflects on the gendered implications of the First Minister's recent announcement about freezing Council Tax.
On Tuesday, the First Minister (FM) Humza Yousaf announced that council tax rates are to stay at current levels during the next financial year 2024/2025. As a feminist organisation focused on promoting women’s equality using gender budget analysis, we are concerned about the FM’s decision. Firstly, because there is plenty evidence pointing to the regressive nature of Council Tax overall, which is at odds with the Scottish Government’s commitments to progressive taxation. Secondly, freezing Council Tax will deprive Local Authorities of much needed revenue at a time when most are struggling to run public services, due to increasing costs and real term cuts to local government funding.
But… how does this affect women?
We know that taxation can play an important role in tackling inequalities. Regressive taxes place greater pressure on those on lower incomes… and, yes, women make up a higher proportion of those on lower incomes (SWBG, 2022; Close the Gap, 2023). According to data from the Office of National Statistics, households in the bottom quintile pay 4.6% of their income on Council Tax, whereas those in the top quintile pay just 1.4% of their income on this tax (ONS, 2020). If we are to achieve greater (gender) equality outcomes, we should be seeing stronger commitments to reform Council Tax into a progressive form of local taxation instead of freezing Council Tax rates. What’s more, Council Tax reform could deliver more revenue[1] to fund local public services of which women depend most. This leads nicely on to my next point, which is about the implications that shrinking local budgets have for women’s equality.
Local authorities play a key role as service providers which benefit women hugely, such as Early Learning and Childcare provision, social care services and others. Funding these services is therefore crucial from a gender equality perspective. Yet, analysis by Audit Scotland has highlighted that revenue funding for local government has not kept pace with other parts of Scottish Government revenue spending. COSLA analysis of last year's budget indicates that there has been a £71 million cash increase once all national level government commitments are covered (COSLA, 2022). With high inflation rates, increased costs of energy and fuel, increasing demand on some services and higher than anticipated pay rises in 2022/23, this level of cash increase means most local authorities are still struggling to cover costs and have sought to make savings within the 2023/24 budget (Audit Scotland, 2023). Past experiences of ‘public savings’ have taught us that it is usually women picking up the slack. For example, research by the Urban Big Data Centre with North Lanarkshire revealed that austerity cuts to environmental services were felt most by women living in the most deprived neighbourhoods. Due to a decrease in provision, women ended up making most street cleansing requests, contributing to their invisible ‘third shift’, instead of the council scheduling routinely services as had previously been the case. (UBDC, 2022). By freezing council tax next year, it is unclear how Local Authorities will be able to properly fund some key public services and social infrastructure (such as care and childcare) of which women rely on most unless this commitment is fully funded by the Scottish Government. It is even more unclear how the Scottish Government can justify this measure from a gender equality perspective.
It is also worth noting the importance of local governments as a source of women's paid employment. According to figures from the Women’s Budget Group (2020), 78% of council employees are women. As already discussed, freezing Council Tax rates will only create more problems for Local Authorities trying to balance their budgets. However, part of this balancing act includes reviewing and negotiating pay offers for council workers. By restricting Local Authorities’ ability to increase their revenue, it is hard to see how any new pay offers will reach a level deemed fair, particularly when considering the challenges brought up by the cost-of-living crisis.
Ensuring implementation of policy objectives.
In light of the above evidence, we would urge the FM to reconsider whether freezing council tax rates is the answer to the problems created by the cost-of-living crisis. It is time to build cross-party consensus around Council Tax. If the Scottish Government is to deliver on the equality, opportunity and community missions, we need to see a fair approach to local budgets with financial settlements that allow for the continuation of key public services for women while guaranteeing fair pay for local government workers. We hope to see these calls reflected on the upcoming Scottish Budget 2024/2025.
References
Audit Scotland (2023) ‘Local government in Scotland. Overview 2023’. Last accessed 18/10/2023: Local government in Scotland: Overview 2023 (audit-scotland.gov.uk)
Close the Gap (2023) ‘Scotland’s gender pay gap continues to fluctuate as women’s labour market inequalities remain unchallenged’. Last accessed 18/10/2023: Close the Gap | Blog | Scotland’s gender pay gap continues to fluctuate as women’s labour market inequalities remain unchallenged.
COSLA (2022) ‘Local Government Settlement 2023/2024. #BUDGETREALITY’. Last accessed: 18/10/2023 Budget-Reality-23-24-UPDATE.pdf (cosla.gov.uk)
Office for National Statistics (2020) ‘Taxes as a percentage of gross income, disposable income and expenditure for all individuals by quintile groups Scotland 2018-2019'. Last accessed: 18/10/2023 Taxes as a percentage of gross income, disposable income and expenditure for all individuals by quintile groups, Scotland: 2018 to 2019 - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
Scottish Women's Budget Group (2022) ‘Women, Work and Wealth in Scotland's changing economy 2022’. Last accessed: 18/10/2023 Women-Work-Wealth-in-a-changing-economy-report.pdf (swbg.org.uk)
Urban Big Data Centre (2022) ‘Using council data to reveal the invisible ‘third shift’ done by women from poorer neighbourhoods’. Last accessed 18/10/2023: Using council data to reveal the invisible ‘third shift’ done by women from poorer neighbourhoods | Urban Big Data Centre (ubdc.ac.uk)
Women’s Budget Group (2020). ‘Local government and Gender’. Last accessed 18/10/2023: final-local-gov-2020.pdf (wbg.org.uk)
[1] For more information on Council Tax reform options, check out this joint briefing created alongside IPPR Scotland, Oxfam Scotland, Poverty Alliance, CPAG in Scotland, One Parent Families Scotland, and the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland.
Childcare Survey 2023 Launch
Our Coordinator, Carmen Martinez, discusses the launch of our Childcare Survey 2023.
Earlier this week we launched our Childcare Survey 2023!
The Scottish Women's Budget Group (SWBG) are seeking the views of women in Scotland who have direct childcare responsibilities at present. We would like to understand the impact of managing childcare on families and particularly, the effect that the 30 hours of funded childcare is having, and whether this meets families' needs at a time of increasing energy prices, more expensive basic goods, and higher mortgage repayments and rental costs.
Our Women’s Survey 2022 showed the disparity in responsibility for childcare arrangements with over 80% of women who responded having made some change to their paid work arrangements to manage childcare while less than 40% of their partners made any changes. Considering this trend along with the latest evidence on the impact that the cost-of-living crisis is having on women, we want to know whether this crisis is also impacting on childcare responsibilities, and what effect this is having on women's health, finances, and overall wellbeing.
Our previous survey also revealed the difficulties encountered by some groups of women in accessing the 30 hours of funded childcare. Women working in sectors that do not adhere to the traditional 9-5 office hours, such as care, retail, and hospitality, found themselves unable to use this government funded initiative. Based on this, there is an argument to be made about the need to change the delivery of this scheme, to make it more flexible, so it can bring about fairer and more equitable outcomes. Care, retail, and hospitality are sectors more likely to offer precarious conditions with low pay and part-time hours, leaving workers more exposed to the financial pressure of inflation or any economic shocks (SWBG, 2022). As women tend to work in these sectors in high numbers, the lack of flexibility linked to the government’s childcare scheme could be doing nothing to alleviate the squeeze felt by those women already managing tight budgets.
Share your views with us!
We’d like to hear views from women across Scotland to understand the extent to which the current childcare system is impacting on them.
Have your say for a chance to win a £25 voucher and help inform our work!
We’ll also be grateful if you could support us in sharing the link to our survey on social media, so we can reach as wider audience as possible. Get involved and help us call for greater equality in decision making.
References
Scottish Women’s Budget Group. 2022. “Women, Work and Wealth in Scotland’s changing economy 2022”. Last accessed: 17/08/23. https://www.swbg.org.uk/content/publications/Women-Work-Wealth-in-a-changing-economy-report.pdf
Building a better Scotland requires a Feminist Just Transition
Beth Cloughton, Freelance Researcher, discusses the need for transformative change that can be achieved with a Feminist Just Transition.
Many view gender equality and climate justice as separate problems. However, they are consequences of the same system and must be remedied in unison for genuine, tangible, thorough, and improved change. Such a change can happen through a Feminist Just Transition (FJT).
The system responsible for the ecological, racial, and gender harms of today is capitalism, which in its contemporary form of neoliberalism, has led to an intensification of pursuing profit over the wellbeing of people and planet. When profit reigns supreme, gendered, racial, classed, and ecological harms are overlooked in favour of continued financial expansion of a minority of people, primarily men (for instance, 22 men in the world have more wealth than all women in Africa[i]).
In light of this injustice, the Scottish Women’s Budget Group (SWBG) undertook a scoping review at the start of 2023 to investigate a Feminist Just Transition here in Scotland, reviewing both Governmental and Civil Society approaches. We published a longer discussion paper outlining in more detail the relationship between gender inequality and climate injustice, while looking at specific policies, funding approaches, and global relationships required for climate and gender justice to emerge. What we found was that across both Government and Civil Society, there was limited integration of enacting climate justice alongside eradicating gender inequality.
Scottish Government addresses climate justice mainly via Just Transition policies generating Green New Jobs (GNJ). These GNJ, though important, replicate existing gendered labour disparities as the most polluting industries transition. Such jobs are male-dominated while female-dominated forms of employment are already low-carbon work, like care and education (Diski, 2022). This means women miss out on funding, which perpetuates underinvestment in women overall. Consequently, gender inequalities become entrenched rather than remedied.
From a global perspective, the Scottish Government has a more interlinked gender and climate policy approach. A global perspective is an essential move to address colonial powers and intersecting oppressions. This is seen in things like the Glasgow Women’s Leadership Statement, Climate Justice Fund, Women in Conflict 1325 Fellowship, and undertaking research with ClimateXChange on international climate justice, conflict, and gender, adopting a feminist approach to foreign policy.
However, the Government fails to look domestically at the relationship between climate justice and gender. Existing domestic policies do not thoroughly consider the global impact of at-home transitions. For example, promoting the adoption of clean energy via batteries has devastating ecological and social impacts outwith Scotland. Batteries require the mining of high-value minerals, found in places such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo which has the largest reserves of materials used in ‘green’ solutions. This mining devastates social and ecological environments and perpetuates exploitation of landscape and locals. As we look forward, incorporating a global outlook is crucial to any feminist approach to prevent exacerbating harms to women elsewhere.
For Civil Society, our sisters at the UK Women’s Budget Group, produced a core report about a ‘Green and Caring Economy[ii]’ with the Women’s Environmental Network. The report outlines how a radical shift to a gender and climate-just society could look and routes to achieve this aim. Of central importance is the promotion of a caring economy.
Beyond these ideas, a FJT challenges deeply rooted, powerful and stereotyped understandings of what it means to be ‘strong’ (Meyer, 2021; Nagel & Lies, 2022). ‘Strong’ and ‘strength’, synonymous with powerful, are associated with traditionally masculine ideas, often relying on tactics of extraction. It is unsurprising that approaches centred around care, interdependence, and cooperation have been side-lined, considered unrealistic and weak because of a ‘naturalised’ association to femininity (Aggestam et al., 2019; Robinson, 2019; Sultana, 2021). Yet, recognising our mutual dependency and enhancing communality, globally, reorients the economy as benefitting all people justly, not for the few.
To end, a Feminist Just Transition is an intersectional and transformational approach to build a sustainable, green and caring economy. The proposed approach prioritises care for people and planet. Working to build equality of women and marginalised groups domestically and globally, a FJT disrupts patriarchal and colonial power structures. A FJT is accountable, transparent, and timely, and allocates significant resources to achieve equity-based goals. The longer discussion paper hopes to provoke debate and generate conversations about these themes, in the hope of making the Feminist Just Transition a reality in Scotland, for women here and elsewhere.
References
Aggestam, K., Bergman Rosamond, A., & Kronsell, A. (2019). Theorising feminist foreign policy. International Relations, 33(1), 23–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117818811892
Campbell-Stephens, R. M. (2021). Introduction: Global Majority Decolonising Narratives. In R. M. Campbell-Stephens (Ed.), Educational Leadership and the Global Majority: Decolonising Narratives (pp. 1–21). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88282-2_1
Diski, R. (2022). A Green and Caring Economy. UK Women’s Budget Group & Women’s Environmental Network. https://wbg.org.uk/analysis/greenandcaringeconomy/
Nagel, J., & Lies, T. S. (2022). Re-gendering Climate Change: Men and Masculinity in Climate Research, Policy, and Practice. Frontiers in Climate, 4. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fclim.2022.856869
Robinson, F. (2019). Feminist foreign policy as ethical foreign policy? A care ethics perspective. Journal of International Political Theory, 17(1), 20–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088219828768
Sultana, F. (2021). Climate change, COVID-19, and the co-production of injustices: A feminist reading of overlapping crises. Social & Cultural Geography, 22(4), 447–460. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2021.1910994
Budgeting for equality, opportunity and community: the SWBG's asks for the Programme for Government
Our Coordinator, Carmen Martinez, reflects on how the Programme for Government 2023 to 2024 could work for women in Scotland.
The impact of the cost-of-living crisis has dominated the public debate for over a year. Individuals and communities have felt the consequences of increasing energy prices, more expensive basic goods, and higher mortgage repayments and rental costs. The problem, far from being resolved, threatens to deter progress towards agreed national and international goals, but most importantly, it threatens to erode the work towards women’s equality that organisations across Scotland have contributed to for so long.
Amidst the economic context and finance projections in the medium term, the Scottish Government’s missions for 2026,detailed in the new First Minister’s strategy, ‘A fresh start’ (Scottish Government, 2023), recognise three critical areas to improve the lives of people across the country:
- ‘Equality': 'tackling poverty and protecting people from harm’
- ‘Opportunity': 'a fair, green and growing economy’
- ‘Community': prioritising our public services’
We welcome the Scottish Government’s vision and commitments to these areas, as well as their approach to delivering these, including the acknowledgement of how these areas intersect and can feed into the Cabinets’ policy work. However, to ensure that this strategy works for women, this blog explores what the Scottish Women’s Budget Group (SWBG) would like to see as part of the next Programme for Government, and how this could be achieved.
1. Equality and the cost-of-living crisis.
Mounting evidence reveals the difficulties encountered by women as they navigate the current cost-of-living crisis. Women are more likely to work part-time and have caring responsibilities, which explain why they also have lower levels of savings and wealth compared to men (WBG, 2022). This is particularly true for women from Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black ethnic groups, disabled women, single parents (of which at least 90% are women) (OPFS, 2020), survivors of abuse, unpaid carers, and women with no recourse to public funds (WBG, 2022). Our Women’s Survey 2023 exposed the implications of rising costs in Scotland and some of the mechanisms that women are currently using to cope with these. Some of the key findings showed us how:
- 23% of women respondents are taking on more debt. This figure rises to 40% for single parents.
- 41% of women stated that they are using their savings to make ends meet.
- The areas with the greatest impact of increased costs for women were energy and food costs with 46.3% of our respondents telling us they are struggling with energy costs and 37.1% with food costs.  For disabled women, these figures are even higher, with 56% and 51% respectively.  
An intersectional gendered analysis of these figures makes it obvious that women, especially disabled women and single parents, are at the losing end of the current economic crisis. In this context, and in line with the Scottish Government’s mission on equality, the SWBG would like to see the Programme for Government making explicit calls to prevent further inequality and increasing poverty rates amongst women by prioritising the following measures. First, the Scottish Government must widen eligibility for cost-of-living support and consider the additional costs that disabled people experience. This should be done in conjunction with any retrofitting and other energy efficiency measures targeting the poorest households, particularly those of disabled women and those with children. These actions would also prevent these households from getting into debt, while creating better living conditions for women and children. As an additional advantage, this action would have a positive impact on health outcomes.
We would also welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to reducing transport costs. This is an important area for women as primary users of public transport, making shorter and more frequent journeys than their male counterparts. Our Women’s Survey 2023 also looked at women’s experiences of public transport and associated costs and found that 28% of respondents were struggling to manage transport costs, rising to 41% for disabled women and 54% for single parents. Furthermore, 53% of women stated being very dissatisfied or dissatisfied with the cost of public transport. Measures such as introducing price caps, widening access to free public transport provision to those in receipt of benefits, and investing in community transport schemes would have a great impact on women’s lives while contributing to Scotland’s commitments to Net Zero by 2045. Finally, the SWBG would urge the Scottish Government to invest in childcare. The average cost of full-time nursery for under two-years old represents 42% of the average wage in Scotland, or £1,106.52 per month (Daily Record, 2023), a substantial amount for any household, and especially for those already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. Of the 199 women responding to our Women’s Survey 2023 who had childcare costs, almost 28% stated they struggled to manage childcare costs. This figure increases to 60% for women from ethnic minority communities. On top of the difficulties that this may pose to many parents, increasing evidence suggests that the lack of holiday childcare for children with disabilities is pushing families into poverty (ITV news, 2023). From this perspective, implementing a flexible childcare system that works for people, particularly mothers, is a key step to tackle poverty, and an obvious one to ensure that Scotland meets its gender equality goals (Scottish Government, 2020) as part of its 2030 Agenda.
2. Creating opportunity in a fair, green and growing economy that works for women.
The SWBG is supportive of Scotland’s Just Transition to a Net Zero and climate resilient economy and is aware of the opportunities that this transition could bring to communities across the country. In line with this argument, we are calling on the Scottish Government to make this transition feminist by recognising the role of care as essential social infrastructure and the untapped potential that the care sector has in delivering fairness and dignity while contributing to a low carbon economy.
Placing care as social infrastructure at the core of the Just Transition is also a key step to ensure gender equality, as women make up most of the care workforce, and most of unpaid carers. From this perspective, care can also be seen as a cross-cutting issue with implications for equality. Any economic strategy looking at creating opportunity in a fair economy must consider care work, so this is valued and compensated for, either through greater provision or through the support of a social security system which acknowledges the role of carers in society.
The challenge remains how to guarantee that appropriate levels of investment match the policy ambitions for a care system in urgent need of reform. Our care cost modelling research found that an increase in social care funding of £3.3bn is vital to realise the ambitions of a transformative scenario which would see:
- Increasing access to free care to those with critical needs and moderate needs.
- Increasing qualifications and pay to Nordic levels, with care workers paid an average of £15.21 per hour.
This scenario assumes that higher take-ups would relieve informal care needs further and eliminate unmet needs.
Most importantly, however, our care cost modelling research draws attention to the potential that investing in care has for revenue generation. For example, it calculates that additional direct and indirect tax revenue would yield an estimated additional £1.5bn annually (or 46% of the estimated additional investment required in the transformative scenario).
The SWBG would therefore like to see social care funding reach a total £6.8bn to make this transformative scenario a reality as part of Scotland’s approach to a Just Transition, while also contributing to the FM’s missions on opportunity and equality, in a fair, green and growing economy.
3. Building community via a caring social security system and a tax system designed to tackle inequality.
Public services, including social security, play a key role in women’s lives. Due to pre-existing inequalities and their role as primary carers, women are more likely to rely on social security for their income. Perhaps no other event has made the case for a gender-informed Welfare state than the austerity policies introduced in the UK in 2010, which has seen a wide range of organisations across the country reporting on the devasting effects for women ever since. Fast forward thirteen years, the harmful results of such an egregious set of measures are certain: greater inequality, increasing child poverty rates, and worsening health outcomes among others (Fawcett Society 2012; Marmot et al 2020; Social Mobility Commission, 2020). In the current context of cost-of-living, the need for strong public services is greater than ever, and as such, the SWBG believes that this should be reflected in this year’s Programme for Government. We would like to see the beginning of a caring social security system prioritising the following measures:
- Increase level of all Social Security Scotland payments by at least inflation annually;
- Mitigate the young parent penalty and the two-child limit through additional payments as part of the Scottish Child Payment;
- Ensure adequate funding for the Scottish Welfare Fund so there are sufficient resources to meet the demand and increase funding for promotion of the fund;
- Widen eligibility for cost-of-living support;
- Investment in a comprehensive programme of benefits take up.
Parallel to creating more robust public services and a social security system designed to protect people from the uncertainties of life, the Scottish Government must seek additional forms of revenue to build a fairer economy and to finance the (Feminist) Just Transition. We’ve previously mentioned how our care cost modelling research underlines the potential of investing in care for the wider economy, including for revenue generation. Yet, additional receipts derived from job creation within the sector would fall short when considering the cost of financing more comprehensive public services, including a fit-for-purpose security system. Therefore, we would invite Scottish Government to explore and pursue the following measures:
- Kick-start the long-stalled process to reform or replace Council Tax to raise more revenue in a fairer way;
- Commit to reviewing how new local taxes could be used to target wealth and make polluters pay;
- Lay the groundwork for more progressive Income Tax later this year, including by considering the introduction of new tax band;
- Develop carbon taxes, including use of powers on Air Departure Tax.
Putting it all together
‘Equality, opportunity and community’ are important missions covering key policy areas with the potential of making a huge difference in Scottish people’s lives. By using an intersectional gender analysis of the current economic environment, we have made the case for how these missions can better work for women. Inevitably, we contend that this analysis and calls made are critical to deliver fairness as well as greater equality outcomes. As such, we would urge the Scottish Government to include these as part of the next Programme for Government.
We understand the Programme for Government as an opportunity to correct the unwanted effects of a cost-of-living crisis preying on the most vulnerable, particularly women. On a more hopeful note, however, we see it as an opportunity to pave the way towards a more just, caring and resilient Scotland, ready for the challenges of the future.
REFERENCES
Fawcett Society. 2012. The Impact of Austerity on Women. Last accessed 26/07/23: The Impact of Austerity on Women | The Fawcett Society
ITV News. 2023. Lack of holiday childcare is pushing families with disabled children into poverty. Last accessed 26/07/23: Lack of holiday childcare is pushing families with disabled children into poverty | ITV News Granada
Marmot, M et al. 2020. Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On. The Health Foundation. Last accessed 26/07/23: Health Equity in England_The Marmot Review 10 Years On_full report.pdf
One Parent Families Scotland. 2020. The impact of poverty on single parent families Stories of Lived Experience 2019- 2020. Last accessed: 26/07/2023: OPFS-briefing-on-single-parents-lived-experience-july2020.pdf
Daily Record, 2023. Top 10 cheapest places parents pay for nursery costs in Scotland - and most expensive. Last accessed: 26/07/2023: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/money/nursery-care-costs-scotland-regions-29330714
Scottish Government, 2023. Equality, opportunity, community. New leadership – A fresh start. LAst accessed: 26/07/2023: https://www.gov.scot/publications/equality-opportunity-community-new-leadership-fresh-start/
Scottish Government, 2020. Scotland and the sustainable development goals: a national review to drive action. Last accessed: 26/07/2023: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotland-sustainable-development-goals-national-review-drive-action/pages/8/
UK Women’s Budget Group. 2022. The gendered impact of the cost-of-living crisis. Last access 26/07/23: https://wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-gendered-impact-of-the-cost-of-living-crisis.pdf
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.
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