Information relating to LGBT+ 2015-2019

Date published: 11/02/2026

Under the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) Act 2002, I would like to request the following information held by you:

 

1) Actions that you have carried out for women (as defined by the supreme court ruling in the case of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers)1

in the calendar years 2015 to 2019? (please break that down by each calendar year ideally or fiscal year, and only if achievable within cost limit, the action taken and the amount spent on each action).

 

2) Actions you have carried out for (each and separately) lesbian2

, gay and bisexual people (each term as defined by the supreme court ruling in the case of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers) broken down in the calendar years 2015 to 2019? (please break that down by each year, for these years) and only if achievable within cost limit, the action and the amount spent on each action.

 

3) Copies of any funding agreements, or contracts, or other documents held by your organisation in this time period (2015-2019) with any LGBT organisation or organisation that has LGBT+ issues as its main focus, specifying the purpose of the funding.

 

4) The total amount of spend in this time period (2015-2019) for grants, funding, donations, contracts, or any other financial support, membership fees or subscriptions to LGBT diversity schemes or programmes provided by your authority to organisations that work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, ace, pan or intersex people or any other related or associated equality issues.

 

5) A breakdown, where held, of this spend for each year from 2015/2016 to 2018/2019 that you have on file. Ideally, please provide this broken down by calendar year. Please provide by fiscal year if you do not have it in calendar format.

 

6) A breakdown, where held, of this funding by recipient organisation, including their name, amount provided per year and a brief description of what it was for (including, but not limited to: mental health support, equality training and education, awareness raising initiatives, youth projects, sport or health services).

To emphasise: in each case for each of the above please only provide that which is achievable within the cost limit.

Please note: if your organisation does not categorise specifically for ‘LGBT’, then please include any funding to charities and third sector bodies where they have supporting LGBT people as a prime or major objective or where the spend might reasonably fall into this description from the above questions.

 

Examples of such organisations are, but are not limited to:

 

- LGBT Youth Scotland

- Equality Network

- Scottish Trans (Scottish Trans Alliance)

- Stonewall Scotland

- Any local LGBT groups and projects

 

Format

If the requested info is already available (in annual accounts or previous FOI requests) please can you direct me to it?

 

1 On 16th April, 2025, in their ruling: ‘For Women Scotland Ltd vs The Scottish Ministers’, The Supreme Court concluded (at paragraph 264): “the words ‘sex’, ‘woman’ and ‘man… mean (and were always intended to mean) biological sex, biological woman and biological man.”

2 On 16th April, 2025, in their ruling: ‘For Women Scotland Ltd vs The Scottish Ministers’, (at paragraph 206) “a person with same sex orientation as a lesbian must be a female who is sexually oriented towards (or attracted to) females, and lesbians as a group are females who share the characteristic of being sexually attracted to females

1 Our actions for women between 2015 and 2019 were carried out with regard to sex as a protected characteristic under The Equality Act (2010). They are publicly available on our website using the following link: Equality, diversity and inclusion - SQA

This includes information on equality impact assessments : Equality impact assessments - Qualifications Scotland and the following:

Workforce equality monitoring report: 2019-2021 workforce-equality-monitoring-report-2019-2021.pdf

The SQA Equality Strategy SQA Equality Strategy 2013-17

Equality Outcomes 2017-21:  Equality Outcomes.pdf

Gender Pay Gap reported 2015-2019

SQA Equality Mainstreaming Report 2017-19 Equality Mainstreaming Report 2017-19 FINAL 300419.docx

We have a number of employee networks, including a Women’s Network which was launched in 2019.  Information on the networks is available publicly here: Working for us - Qualifications Scotland

2 Our actions for lesbian, gay and bisexual people 2015-2019 were carried out with regard to sexual orientation as a protected characteristic under The Equality Act (2010).  It is not possible to break down actions separately for each type of sexual orientation.  This information is available publicly on the our website here: Equality, diversity and inclusion - Qualifications Scotland

This includes information on equality impact assessments: Equality impact assessments - Qualifications Scotland

The following is also relevant.

Workforce equality monitoring report: 2019-2021 workforce-equality-monitoring-report-2019-2021.pdf

SQA Equality Strategy 2013-17

Equality Outcomes 2017-21:  Equality Outcomes.pdf

Microsoft Word - Equality Mainstreaming Report 2017-19 FINAL 300419.docx

LGBT inclusive education - Qualifications Scotland

We have several employee networks, including a Rainbow Network (LGBT+ Network) which was launched in 2017.  Information on the networks is available publicly here:  Working for us - Qualifications Scotland

3) We have invoices that relate to membership Stonewall Diversity Championship memberships for the years 2017/2018 to 2019/2020 and also attendance at the Stonewall Scotland Workplace Conference in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Please note that The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act provides the right to information, not documents. So, we have provided the information that is contained within the relevant documents to the request.

4) The total Spend: £15, 966

5) A breakdown, where held, of this spend for each year from 2015/2016 to 2018/2019 that you have on file. Ideally, please provide this broken down by calendar year. Please provide by fiscal year if you do not have it in calendar format.

The breakdown of the spend by year is below.

15/16 - £3740

16/17 - £3730

17/18 - £3336

18/19 - £5160

6) The breakdown by recipient organisation is below.

15/16 - Stonewall Diversity Champions Membership  £3740

16/17 - Stonewall Diversity Champions Membership  £3730

17/18 - Stonewall Diversity Champions Membership £3336

18/19 -Stonewall Diversity Champions Membership £5160

The cost of Stonewall membership was £3000 in each year. Any additional costs relate to conference attendance and training.