SWBG blog
Reflecting on the Scottish Draft Budget 2025-2026
While it’ll take some time to go through all the budget documentation, including equality impact assessments, and delve into the detail of the Equality and Fairer Scotland Statement, our first take on the budget is that it offers glimmers of hope for women who are feeling the crunch of years of rising prices. Yet more still needs to be done to invest in care and raise further revenue to support public services.
Responding to news of the delay of stage 2 of the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill
The delay announced by the Minister for Social Care may not come as a surprise to anyone. The process for developing the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill has lost sight of the vision shared by those who use care services and carers in the development of the Independent Review on Adult Social Care.
Women and active travel: lessons from our work with Sustrans
Our Training Lead, Heather Williams, discusses why the work we did with Sustrans is key to reducing inequalities in active travel.
Women's Survey 2024 Launch
On Friday 1st March we launched our Women's Survey 2024!
The cost of funding tax giveaways. Reflections ahead of the UK Spring Budget 2024
Blog by Heather Williams, SWBG Training Lead
Reaction to the Scottish Budget 2024/2025
On Tuesday 19th December, the Deputy First Minister (DFM), Shona Robinson, published the Scottish Budget 2024/2025. As stated in our pre-budget briefing, we knew that this budget was coming at a time of increased pressure on public finances due to an estimated funding gap of over £1billion for the next financial year (Fraser of Allander, 2023). The Autumn Statement did not help ease budgetary pressures. Consequently, the Scottish Government had to make tough decisions to balance the books. What are these decisions and what do they mean for women and gender equality in Scotland?
Women's experiences of childcare shared through our survey
This is the second blog in our series by Heather Williams looking at what women told us earlier this year when we conducted a survey to find out more about their local public spending priorities, impact of the cost of living crisis and experiences of child and social care.
Responding to the Spring Statement
Blog by Heather Williams, SWBG Training Lead
Why gender budgeting matters
This month, the convener of the Scottish Women's Budget Group, Angela O'Hagan, appeared on the Scottish feminist policy podcast On The Engender to talk about gender budgeting. The podcast also features voices from SWBG members talking about why they are part of the group.
Equality must be at the heart of Scotland’s budget
In advance of the release of the Draft Scottish Budget, the Scottish Women’s Budget Group is calling for care to be included in the Scottish Government’s planned investment in infrastructure.
She works hard for the money
On Tuesday 7th June, the Scottish Women's Budget Group joined forces with Engender and Close the Gap to hold an event looking at gender budgeting.
Welcome to Scottish Women's Budget Group's new blog
We hope to use this space to share information about budgets and gender budgeting, our events and publications, and our semi-regular meetings. We're part of a vibrant women's sector in Scotland, and we'll be including voices from across the sector on women and the economy.
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