SEPA 2026–2030 Equality Outcomes
Introduction
As Scotland’s environment protection agency, we need to understand and support the rich mix of communities, cultures, and experiences of the people we work with and serve.
When we embrace what makes us different and celebrate what brings us together, we all benefit. This is what enables us to better deliver against our purpose: to protect and improve the environment in ways that, as far as possible, also create health and well-being benefits and sustainable economic growth.
Under the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 (“the Specific Duties Regulations”), the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is required to publish a set of equality outcomes every four years.
These outcomes aim to enable SEPA to better fulfil the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) set out in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 by addressing inequalities for people who share protected characteristics and advancing equality and human rights.
The PSED seeks to shift public authorities from reacting to equality issues to proactively addressing structural inequalities. The general equality duty requires public bodies to have due regard to the need to:
- Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation. This means making sure no one is treated unfairly or badly because of who they are. It includes stopping behaviours such as bullying, harassment, or treating someone worse because of their race, disability, sex, or any other protected characteristic.
- Advance equality of opportunity. This means addressing disadvantage, meeting different needs, and encouraging participation for people who share protected characteristics. Different people may need different types of support to have equal access to opportunities.
- Foster good relations. This involves tackling prejudice and promoting understanding between different groups. This means helping people from different backgrounds get along, understand each other, and challenge stereotypes.
The Specific Duties Regulations supplement this by requiring public bodies to publish equality outcomes every four years, report on progress towards these outcomes every two years and engage with stakeholders and consider evidence in developing outcomes.
Setting equality outcomes is a legal obligation and a strategic tool for addressing inequalities. It focuses organisational action on reducing disparities, promoting inclusion, and bringing meaningful change to people’s lives. Our new equality outcomes are informed by evidence, engagement with persons with protected characteristics and equality stakeholders who represent them.
We have taken a targeted and evidence-based approach, setting equality outcomes that speak to the specific issues that have been identified in our organisation. We have prioritised these to address the most pressing inequalities identified. Each outcome describes the desired result, the context and evidence and how we intend to measure progress.
We are developing an Equality and Human Rights Framework to set out how SEPA will effectively meet the needs of PSED and mainstream equality and human rights across the Agency. Our 2026–2030 Equality Outcomes will be a key driver. They should not be considered exclusive from our equality mainstreaming actions but instead seek to complement and mutually reinforce this work.
This report sets out our refreshed equality outcomes for 2026–2030.
2026–2030 Equality Outcomes
The purpose of our Equality Outcomes
SEPA is firmly committed to mainstreaming equality and human rights across all aspects of its work. This commitment ensures that fairness, dignity, and inclusion are embedded in our policies, practices, and decisions.
Our Equality Outcomes cover the period from 2026 to 2030. They build on the progress made and the lessons learned from our previous set of outcomes. Progress against these earlier outcomes are detailed in our Mainstreaming Report.
The purpose of these equality outcomes is to help us accelerate progress to tackle persistent inequalities experienced by people who share protected characteristics. They aim to ensure we’re creating fairer, more inclusive, diverse and supportive workplaces and services for people who experience inequality.
The process to develop our Equality Outcomes
To inform the decision about our equality outcomes, we completed a series of key steps. We designed the process to ensure it is evidence-based, inclusive, and aligned with both internal and external stakeholder needs, as well as Scottish Government guidance. These steps are detailed below.
Our evidence
We carried out a review of our Legal Duties. We reviewed the Scottish Government’s Equality outcomes 2025-2029 and mainstreaming strategy to ensure we are up to date with most recent legislative requirements and guidance.
We reviewed progress with SEPA’s current 2021–2025 Equality Outcomes. We considered findings from completed Equality and Human Rights Impact Assessments. We reviewed insight and feedback from recent customer or community consultations that are relevant to equalities.
We analysed SEPA’s people information report and pay gap to inform where there are inequalities in our workforce and where we could focus our attention and prioritise activity in response.
We reviewed relevant national evidence, consultations and equality and demographic data, including census information. We identified evidence about persistent inequalities and a broad picture of disparities across different protected characteristics in Scotland.
Our engagement
We completed the Onvero (previously Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion) talent, inclusion and diversity evaluation self-assessment tool. We used the findings to inform how we embed and sustain an inclusive workplace culture and drive continuous improvement.
We delivered extensive engagement with colleagues, our Digital and Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME1) lived experience groups, UNISON equality officers and external stakeholders. We aimed to gather insight to inform the draft outcomes as well as seeking feedback on the proposed outcomes once they were developed. Our ambition was to involve and hear from groups impacted by our outcomes as well as many diverse views as possible.
We carried out two internal surveys, four internal colleague drop-in sessions and an external survey aligned to ongoing customer experience work. This captured vital feedback, especially from people who share protected characteristics, about:
- Colleagues’ experiences of equality and inclusion working in SEPA. Their views on the draft outcomes proposed.
- External respondents’ insight into the services we deliver, including any accessibility barriers, and perceptions of our responsiveness and understanding.
We delivered specific engagement sessions for UNISON branch officers and our BAME and Digital Lived experience groups. We also contacted UNISON Scotland to increase the reach of our survey engagement across the public sector in Scotland.
We shared an overview of the evidence and insight gained through our engagement as well as the draft outcomes at our People and Resources Committee. This provided members of the Committee with an opportunity to share reflections on our development approach and capture their insight and perspectives at this point.
We engaged with equality groups who have supported on our equality mainstreaming activity to encourage wider participation from under-represented groups in the customer survey and strengthen our relationship with equality partners going forwards. We also sought feedback on our draft outcomes and used this to refine our proposals.
1 Please note, BAME is the term the group has agreed for themselves.
Our learning
Key lessons learned from the review of our current outcomes included:
- Focus and prioritisation: Our previous outcomes were broad and in places duplicated our other PSED duties. By narrowing the scope of outcomes, we can enable measurable progress. More targeted actions can drive effective delivery.
- Improved data, monitoring and reporting: Clear accountability. Clear success measures over both short and long term. A consistent, standardised approach to capture equality data across our services. These areas enhance transparency, keep progress on track and will help us better evidence change.
- Collaboration: Our work to develop and deliver against our new equality outcomes requires a coordinated approach across the Agency. This helped strengthen alignment and maximise our impact.
As per the Scottish Government’s mainstreaming proposal, to deliver the meaningful change requires leadership, accountability, transparency, evidence and sustained focused action. These reflections guided our approach to the upcoming 2026–2030 Equality Outcomes, informing a more strategic, focused, and impactful approach.
Overview of the 2026-2030 Equality Outcomes
Outcome 1: Inclusive recruitment and progression
By 2030, we will better reflect the communities we serve. Colleagues and applicants, in relation to young people, disabled people and people from minority ethnic communities, will have increased representation, retention and progression across the Agency.
Outcome 2: Inclusive leadership and improved colleague experience
By 2030, colleagues do not experience inequality or exclusion because of their sex, race or disability and will have a better experience at work.
Outcome 3: Inclusive customer service
By 2030, SEPA’s customers and service users do not experience inequality or exclusion because of age, race or disability and will have a better customer experience.
Outcome 4: Data and lived experience
By 2030, we will have stronger and more complete equality and intersectional data and evidence, particularly in relation to disability and race.
Outcome 1: Inclusive recruitment and progression
By 2030, we will better reflect the communities we serve. Colleagues and applicants, in relation to young people, disabled people and people from minority ethnic communities, will have increased representation, retention and progression across the Agency.
This outcome will predominately aim to advance equality of opportunity.
Why we chose this outcome
We do not reflect the ethnic diversity of Scotland in our workforce. When compared to national figures, we have fewer young people and fewer colleagues reporting having a disability or long-term health condition. These groups continue to be under-represented at SEPA. We also recognise the need for an intersectional lens on these matters.
We are seeing an increase in the diversity of people applying to work for SEPA in terms of younger people, disabled people, and people from minority ethnic communities. However, this is not yet translating into new colleagues and there remain inequalities in our workforce.
Our engagement and evidence from lived experience groups highlighted barriers to progression for ethnically diverse, disabled and neurodivergent colleagues. Our internal colleague surveys highlighted that 85% either strongly agree or agree that Inclusive recruitment and progression is a highly relevant equality outcome for SEPA. It aligns with the Our Career and Our Values pillars of our People Strategy.
We aim to build and maintain a diverse workforce that better reflects the modern demographics of Scotland. We are focusing on engagement and retention in addition to recruitment. We want to create a workplace where all colleagues can fulfil their potential at work regardless of their backgrounds or characteristics. This outcome will help us to address underrepresentation of applicants, colleagues and promoted colleagues from the identified target groups.
We will do this by:
Building partnerships with equality organisations to:
- Better connect young people, disabled people (including neurodivergent people), and people from ethnic minorities to our recruitment opportunities.
- Determine ways to improve the accessibility of our recruitment processes.
Strengthening our refreshed employer brand and developing a new candidate attraction strategy to enable a wider, more diverse range of potential applicants to get to know what we do, our values and what is important to us.
Developing an action plan with Close the Gap to support reducing the pay gap in relation to ethnicity (race) and disability.
Developing inclusive recruitment training and onboard training for hiring managers, with a focus on accessibility and unconscious bias, as part of organisational roll out of learning plans for all colleagues.
Developing clearer information and guidance on internal progression and development opportunities.
Exploring and encouraging more early career opportunities for younger people and building experience levels.
The above have been identified as initial areas to explore to support this outcome. Further work is planned to develop and confirm the final set of contributing actions.
Measuring progress
We will see positive annual changes in the annual Onvero talent, inclusion, and diversity evaluation (TIDE) assessment across the following sections: inclusive recruitment, talent management and development, and wellbeing and belonging.
We will see an increase in the completion rates of inclusive recruitment and onboarding training by hiring managers.
For young people, disabled people (including neurodivergent people), and people from minority ethnic minorities, we will see positive changes in the:
- Recruitment: Proportion of applicants from identified focus groups.
- Recruitment: Conversion rate of applicants from identified focus groups who proceed to interview and offer stages.
- Recruitment: Proportion of successful applicants from identified focus groups.
We will see improved satisfaction with our recruitment process from applicants from identified focus groups.
We will see improved applicant feedback on accessibility of our recruitment process from identified focus groups.
Longer term
We will see an increase in the:
- Retention rate for identified focus groups following successful recruitment.
- Retention rate for colleagues from identified focus groups after promotion.
- Proportion of colleagues from identified focus groups at all levels and by senior roles.
- Proportion of colleagues from identified focus groups applying for promotion (senior roles / higher grades).
Our success measures above describe our initial proposals for measuring progress. Further work will refine this, including scoping annual objectives and key results. We will ensure our measures are aligned with the finalised set of contributing actions.
Outcome 2: Inclusive leadership and improved colleague experience
By 2030, colleagues do not experience inequality or exclusion because of their sex, race or disability and will have a better experience at work.
This outcome will predominately aim to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity in the workplace and foster good relations.
Why we chose this outcome
Colleagues and customers who have experienced inequality or exclusion due to their sex, race or disability continue to report barriers that affect their ability to feel included, respected, and supported.
Evidence from equality impact assessments and national research shows that sex, racial inequality, and disability-related disadvantage persist across workplace culture and access to services. These inequalities impact not only people’s daily experience at work, but also their sense of safety, belonging, and trust in the organisation.
Our engagement also highlighted barriers as well as specific needs that have not been consistently recognised or addressed in the workplace for female, ethnically diverse or disabled colleagues. This included areas such as caring responsibility or family-friendly provisions, accessibility needs, personal protective equipment, or digital technology. Our internal colleague surveys highlighted that 85% either strongly agree or agree that “Inclusive leadership and improved colleague experience” is a highly relevant equality outcome for SEPA. It aligns with the Our Culture, Our Career and Our Values pillars of our People Strategy.
Strengthening the equality, diversity and inclusion capability of our leaders is central to addressing these issues. Leaders shape organisational culture, set expectations, and influence how decisions are made and communicated.
We want to create a workplace where all colleagues can be themselves and fulfil their potential at work regardless of their backgrounds or protected characteristics.
We want to ensure that our leaders behave more inclusively and understand our colleagues’ diverse needs more effectively. We want leaders and colleagues to be empowered to challenge discrimination and promote equality through their decisions, actions and behaviours. This outcome will help us to address the barriers highlighted by the identified focus groups.
We will do this by:
Building and maintaining inclusive leadership skills and behaviours across the Agency. This will ensure equality and human rights are a priority at all levels of the organisation.
Creating Equality and Human Rights Impact Champions across the Agency to act as advocates and to positively influence an inclusive culture and behaviours.
Continuing to support and strengthen our Digital and BAME lived experience groups, supporting their focus on equality issues which are important to our colleagues. We will also explore additional colleague lived experience groups set up for disability, neurodiversity, young people, carers etc. where there is colleague appetite.
Reviewing and embedding improved workplace reasonable adjustments process to ensure consistency and increase responsiveness.
Reviewing the expenses policy and travel hierarchy to ensure our disabled and neurodivergent colleagues needs are understood and respected. This will enable managers to have the ability to support travel needs appropriately.
Reviewing and improve equitable access to equipment, including personal protective equipment and provisions for those experiencing barriers due to sex, race, or disability.
Raising awareness of the appearance and impact of discrimination, bullying and harassment on colleagues and strengthening guidance around raising concerns.
Ensuring equality, inclusion and accessibility considerations are built into our ongoing People Strategy review and the development of our new Digital Strategy.
The above have been identified as initial areas to explore to support this outcome. Further work is planned to develop and confirm the final set of contributing actions.
Measuring progress
We will see positive change in the annual Onvero talent, inclusion, and diversity evaluation (TIDE) assessment across the following sections: inclusive leadership, working practices, employee voice and engagement, and values and behaviours.
We will look to achieve the Bronze TIDE award by 2028. Longer term we will look to achieve the Silver TIDE award by 2030.
We will see positive feedback from the identified focus groups through our colleague survey that they have a better experience at work / feel respected, understood, and supported.
We will see a decrease from colleagues reporting through our colleague survey that they have been bullied, harassed, and/or been discriminated against.
We will see increase in positive feedback from our colleague lived-experience groups that they have a better experience at work / feel respected, understood, and supported.
We will see improvement in the timescales to attend to reasonable adjustments – average time from request to adjustment implemented.
We will also see improved positive feedback on satisfaction with the process.
Our success measures above describe our initial proposals for measuring progress. Further work will refine this and ensure it is aligned with the finalised set of contributing actions.
Outcome 3: Inclusive customer service
By 2030, SEPA’s customers and service users do not experience inequality or exclusion because of age, race or disability and will have a better customer experience.
This outcome will predominately aim to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations.
Why we chose this outcome
Older people are at greater risk of vulnerability to extreme weather events and are less prepared for flooding. Disabled people may face greater risks from air pollution, especially those with lung or heart conditions. Air pollution levels in Scotland are disproportionately higher in neighbourhoods with greater ethnic diversity and socio-economic disadvantage.
Disabled people, older people, and people who do not speak English are groups most affected by digital exclusion. Disabled people and people from minority ethnic communities are also more likely to experience socio-economic disadvantage. A lack of non-digital access can in turn limit access to services, opportunities, and quality of life. This affects the social, economic, and financial wellbeing of these groups, and can reduce trust in public services.
Our engagement highlighted specific barriers experienced by customers / service users. Feedback noted need for improved inclusive communication and improved accessibility and/or alternative for digital services. Our internal colleague surveys highlighted that 85% either strongly agree or agree that “Inclusive, accessible communications and services” is a highly relevant equality outcome for SEPA.
This outcome will help us to address the barriers highlighted by the identified focus groups.
We will do this by:
Improving the accessibility of our customer services, ensuring that people of all ages, disabled people, and people from minority ethnic communities can engage with SEPA through channels that meet their needs, including non‑digital options.
Ensuring consistency across our customer‑facing processes, policies, and guidance to identify and remove barriers linked to age, disability, language, or cultural background.
Strengthening inclusive communication, including producing information in plain English, British Sign Language, alternative formats, and translated materials where appropriate.
Providing supportive services for our customers who request reasonable adjustments.
Embedding accessibility and inclusion into our digital transformation work, ensuring new systems, tools and platforms are designed with and for people who experience digital exclusion using the Digital Scotland Service Standards.
Building staff capability and confidence, through training and guidance focused on inclusive customer service, cultural competence, accessibility, and understanding the impacts of inequality.
Working with lived experience groups and equality partners to test, refine and improve our services, capturing insight from people most likely to experience exclusion.
Strengthening partnerships with organisations that support older people, disabled people, and ethnically diverse communities to improve reach, awareness, and trust in SEPA’s services.
The above have been identified as initial areas to explore to support this outcome. Further work is planned to develop and confirm the final set of contributing actions.
Measuring progress
We will see improvements in customer satisfaction levels amongst our diverse groups of customers and service users, specifically regarding age, disability, and race.
We will create a baseline data set to monitor and analyse customer complaints for equality related issues. Our customer complaints related to equality will be reduced from 2026 to 2030.
We will see improvements in the support for our customers who request reasonable adjustments.
Our success measures above describe our initial proposals for measuring progress. work will refine this and ensure it is aligned with the finalised set of contributing actions.
Outcome 4: Data and lived experience
By 2030, we will have stronger and more complete equality and intersectional data and evidence, particularly in relation to disability and race.
This outcome will predominately aim to eliminate discrimination and advance equality of opportunity.
Why we chose this outcome
We chose this outcome because we have incomplete equality data for our colleagues and customers, particularly for disability and race but across other protected characteristics. Our current equality and intersectional evidence does not yet provide a complete or consistent picture of the experiences of our colleagues and customers.
Gaps in data make it harder to understand where inequalities exist, how they affect different groups, and what targeted actions are needed to address them. Evidence from lived experience groups, equality assessments and national research shows that incomplete or inconsistent data can limit our ability to identify barriers, monitor progress and make informed decisions.
Strengthening the way we collect, analyse, and use equality and intersectional data is essential to improving how we design policies, deliver services, and evaluate impact. High‑quality evidence helps us identify where inequalities exist earlier, respond more effectively, and focus our efforts on where they can make the greatest difference.
We also believe that when we develop policy and services alongside people, we are more likely to get it right. Taking an informed approach by involving people in the decisions that affect them is an essential step in developing policies and services that meet the needs of everyone in Scotland, particularly those with experience of inequality and exclusion.
Our engagement also highlighted the importance of making sure these processes are representative of the communities we serve and need to improve how we amplify lesser heard voices. Our internal colleague surveys highlighted that 70% either strongly agree or agree that “Lived experience and data informed policy and decision making” is a highly relevant equality outcome for SEPA.
This outcome will help us to address the completeness and reliability of our data from the identified target groups. In turn this will help build greater confidence and transparency and ensure that our actions are guided by the lived experiences, needs, and insights of the people we serve and employ. This outcome can be considered a facilitator to the delivery of Equality Outcomes 1, 2 and 3.
We will do this by:
Improving the accessibility and consistency of our data collection processes, so colleagues and customers / service users feel confident in sharing information and understand how their data will be used.
Strengthening our systems and governance for collecting, storing, and analysing equality and intersectional evidence, ensuring robust, reliable, and consistent use of data across the Agency. This will include strengthening the equality data tracked through our recruitment system.
Embedding equality evidence into policymaking, service design and decision‑making. This will ensure that Equality and Human Rights Impact Assessments (EqHRIA), operational planning, and development work consistently draw on high‑quality quantitative, qualitative, and lived‑experience insight.
Enhancing how we publish and communicate equality information, ensuring that updates are accessible, transparent, meaningful and demonstrate how evidence is shaping our actions and improvements.
Monitoring progress regularly, using diversity data reviews, intersectional insights, feedback from colleagues and customers / service users, and external evidence to track improvements, identify emerging issues and refine our approach.
Co-designing our refreshed colleague survey with input and testing from identified focus groups, including incorporating equality specific questions and insight from equality outcomes engagement. This will be informed by an EqHRIA.
Ensuring equality, inclusion and accessibility considerations are built into our Community Engagement and Public Participation framework and the implementation of our new Data Strategy.
Embedding good practice as a member of the Scottish Government’s Equality Data Improvement Programme (EDIP) project board from 2026 to 2028, through the NDPB Equality Forum. Promoting the Scottish Government’s Equality Evidence Finder and make better use of its evidence.
The above have been identified as initial areas to explore to support this outcome. Further work is planned to develop and confirm the final set of contributing actions.
Measuring progress
We will see positive change in the annual Onvero talent, inclusion, and diversity evaluation (TIDE) assessment across the following sections: diversity data monitoring.
We will see an improvement in the equality data tracked through our recruitment system.
We will see an increase in colleague declaration rates against the protected characteristics of disability and race.
We will see an increase in response rate of disabled and ethnically diverse colleagues to our colleague survey.
We will see an increase in the diversity of respondents to our community engagement and consultations for the protected characteristics of disability and race.
We will use real examples to demonstrate how quantitative, qualitative, and lived experience evidence has influenced policy design, monitoring, and evaluation.
Our success measures above describe our initial proposals for measuring progress. Further work will refine this and ensure it is aligned with the finalised set of contributing actions.
If you would like this information in an accessible format, such as large print, audio recording or braille, please contact SEPA by emailing equalities@sepa.org.uk.