Infographic from the Scottish Government’s consultation document
Consultations towards our 2016 Manifesto for Community Regeneration highlighted a strong SURF network demand for the Scottish Government to address increasing inequalities by:
“introducing a statutory duty for reducing socio-economic disadvantage across all public policy… this would embed anti-poverty considerations across all public sector activity in Scotland.”
This was one of just two key policy recommendations presented in our final manifesto. SURF was therefore pleased to hear the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Angela Constance MSP, announce a commitment to introduce a socio-economic duty on public bodies in last year’s Fairer Scotland Action Plan.
This month, the Scottish Government has opened a consultation on the socio-economic duty, requesting views on draft definitions, which public bodies the duty should apply to, and how organisations can show that they are meeting new obligations.
SURF will be making a formal response to this consultation, and SURF members are warmly invited to contribute. Please send any comments to SURF’s Policy Manager, Derek Rankine, by email to derek@surf-old.local by the end of August.
