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I have a quick supplementary on that point. I acknowledge what Mariam Ahmed said about the lack of BME counsellors. We do not train a diverse range and community of counsellors in Scotland—we just do not do that.

I am interested in hearing from those of you who provide direct support. Pervin Ahmad spoke about complex cases requiring much more support. From the point of view of your staff and volunteers, what more needs to be put in place to ensure that we minimise vicarious trauma? I can imagine that some of the stories that your workers hear, and the things that they have to deal with, can be pretty extreme.

I thank everyone for coming in today and for what they have said so far. To use Jatin Haria’s word, I find some of the “disagreements” quite interesting, because I think that those tease out the complexity, as well as some of the structural and systemic problems that we face. No single Government department can solve those problems. Education cannot solve this. We are dealing with deeply ingrained cultural racism across all sectors.

Jatin made a distinction between a lot of the activity that is going on and the need for implementation and action. Farah Farzana also mentioned that. You have cautioned us against treating minority ethnic communities as homogeneous, for a whole range of reasons, including whether people were born or brought up in Scotland.

We know about inequality in employment, which we have talked about and which Rachael Hamilton and Pam Duncan-Glancy have asked questions about. We know about the unequal impacts of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. We also know that very little changed before Black Lives Matter. Farah said that there was a lot of talk, and that if we had implemented some of those policies 10 years ago, we would be in a different position.

What is the barrier that the Scottish Government or Scottish Parliament is coming up against? We should not always rely on you and your organisations to fix the problem—that is not where we should be—so how do we overcome that barrier of deeply ingrained, systemic racism?

I appreciate that. You have shown clear intent to make those connections, which was clear from last week’s evidence session. There was a question about the ability to know what a figure in a column means for people on the ground. Everything in between is important, but it is the outcome that matters.

Following on from that, you talked about meaningful and lasting change. We need to track the figure on the spreadsheet to the outcome on the ground, but we also need to make sure that everybody who needs to be involved in those decision-making processes is involved.

Rachael Hamilton mentioned siloing, and Rob Priestley talked about portfolio analysis. I understand why analysis is done in portfolios; you have to choose some way to chunk it up, tease it apart and make sense of it, but how do we ensure that we guard against the right hand not knowing what the left is doing in relation to decision making that leads to outcomes?

Thank you for what you have said so far, minister. I am interested in exploring a couple of issues of accountability and in making connections between how decisions are made and the evidence that is used to make those decisions. I would like to know how those decisions are both linked to projected outcomes and tracked to ensure that those outcomes are delivered. I am interested in both equalities objectives and rights realisation.

Last week, Angela O’Hagan spoke about the need for greater clarity about the relationships between allocation, spending and outcomes and for greater clarity about the relationship between equalities objectives and rights realisation. Alison Hosie spoke about the need for evidence in that decision-making process.

Can you give us more detail about both the pre-budget phase and during the budget? I know that budgeting is a constant process, although there are points in the year when we publish certain papers and documents. How do you ensure that we get consistency and acknowledgement across the different areas? Where, in your view, are we not doing as well as we should be?

That is just a little question for you. Sorry.

Thanks—that is helpful. You will be aware of conversations that we have had in this committee around the need to identify the minimum core obligations and what we actually mean by the universal rights that we want to enshrine in Scots law. That is a question with regard to the work that you and your officials are doing. As we do some of the work around the minimum core obligations, what points will it be necessary or important to bear in mind, particularly as we think about how that work can link to budget scrutiny, ensuring that we get that accountability connection with the minimum basic level of rights, whether those rights are being delivered and whether the resources exist to deliver those?

Good morning, minister. Thank you for being here and for your answers so far.

My question is on exactly the same line as Pam Duncan Glancy took. I will make a final point in that regard. I hear what you said about the training and support that the members of the chamber will have. However, if they identify a potential issue, will there be the opportunity for them to signpost people to further support and advice from Social Security Scotland? From the information that they have, they might identify opportunities for the individuals to apply for benefits that they are not claiming, even though they are eligible for them. How do we close the circle by linking what is, as you said, a taxation system with the social security system, which should provide support?

I apologise if I missed you talking about this, minister, but can you give us an update on the regulations to introduce our own public sector equality duty, which the Scottish Government has been talking about? How do you see that work progressing over the next two years? We want the regulations in operation in 2025.

It is a communication issue; we need to ensure that people are aware of what is out there. Thank you.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us and for the information that you have given us so far. I have two broad areas of questioning, which touch on things that Colin Smyth and Fiona Hyslop have picked up on.

Emma, you mentioned the strategies and plans that we have and you said that the “No one left behind” scheme was seen as an answer to all questions and challenges. Your October 2021 report contained key recommendations on ensuring that reforms of strategies, plans and social security benefit design and the national care service all work together. Over the past 18 months, have you seen the progress that you expected to see in that linking, overarching and working together at that level?

It makes me wonder what the follow-up strategies are based on, if not that solid scrutiny. It comes back to collecting data in the first place and then its interpretation.