In 2017, Scotland will become the first part of the UK to introduce the socio-economic duty to tackle the inequalities of outcome caused by socio-economic disadvantage.
The Scottish Government has published a July 2017 consultation paper (pdf) asking for views on how public authorities can meet the requirements of the duty. This consultation closes on 12 September 2017.
The consultation asks for your views on the following issues:
- Whether you agree with definitions of key terms
- Which public authorities the duty should apply to
- What public authorities could do to show they are meeting the duty
- How public authorities could sensibly approach the links between different duties with a socio-economic focus.
The Scottish government would particularly like to hear from people with direct experience of poverty, from public authorities likely to be affected by the duty, and from organisations and individuals working on issues of poverty and disadvantage.
In order to meet legislative timescales and enable the socio-economic duty to be introduced in 2017, a shorter eight week period has been set for this consultation process.
Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities, said:
‘Over a million people are living in poverty in Scotland, including one in four children; and inequalities of income and wealth are far too wide. This unfairness simply isn’t acceptable in a country as rich as Scotland – so I want to make sure that, wherever we can, we are taking action across the country to reduce poverty and inequality in a systematic way.’
