Information relating to LGBT+ 2020-2025

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) What your organisation understands the word ‘woman’1 to denote.

(2) What your organisation understands the terms: lesbian, bisexual and gay to denote?

(3) 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) in the last 5 years. Please break that down the amount spent by each calendar year, please provide by fiscal year if you do not have it in calendar format please include data for 2026.

(4) 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) in the last 5 years? (please break that down by year, for the last 5 years and this calendar year) and only if achievable within cost limit, the action taken and the amount spent on each action.

(5) Copies of any funding agreements, or contracts, or other documents held by your organisation in the last 5 years with any LGBT organisation or organisation that has LGBT+ issues as its main focus, specifying the purpose of the funding.

(6) The total amount of spend in the last 5 years (from 2020 up to the present day) 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.

(7) A breakdown, where held, of this spend for each year from 2020/2025 to 2025/2026. Ideally, please provide by calendar year. Please provide by fiscal year if you do not have it in calendar format.

(8) A breakdown, where held, of this funding by recipient organisation, including their name, amount provided for each year from 2020/2025 to 2025/6 and only if achievable within cost limit 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

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’, The Supreme Court concluded (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 oriented towards females

(1) We understand the word woman under the protected characteristic of sex to denote a female of any age as defined in The Equality Act 2010 section 212.

We also have the following documents, which are attached:

Equality Diversity and Inclusion Policy,

2830001101 Appendix 6 – EqIA Guidance,

The Equality Impact Assessment Template

(2) What your organisation understands the terms: lesbian, bisexual and gay to denote?

We understand these terms as laid out in The Equality Act (2010) section 212 under the protected characteristic of sexual orientation. 

We also have the following documents, which are attached:

Equality Diversity and Inclusion Policy,

2830001101 Appendix 6 – EqIA Guidance,

The Equality Impact Assessment Template

(3) Our actions for women in the last 5 years were carried out with regard to the protected characteristic of sex as defined in The Equality Act 2010 section 212.

As a public sector organisation in Scotland, we must continue to uphold our duties under the Equality Act until any changes are made to this legislation by the UK/Scottish parliaments.

The actions are available publicly on our website here: Equality, diversity and inclusion - Qualifications Scotland 

This includes information on equality impact assessments: Equality impact assessments - Qualifications Scotland and  the following which we feel is relevant:

2021-2023 Equalities: SQA workforce monitoring report 2021-23

Equal pay audit 2023 https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/sqa-equalities-2023-equal-pay-audit-summary.pdf Gender Pay Gap information recorded since 2008.

Equality mainstreaming report 2023-2025 SQA Equality Mainstreaming Report 2023–25

Equality Outcomes 2025-2029 https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/2025-29-equality-outcomes.pdf

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

Guide to inclusive language, attached

(4)  Our actions for lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the last 5 years were carried out with regard to the protected characteristic of sexual orientation as laid out in The Equality Act (2010) section 212.  However, it is not possible to break down actions for each type of sexual orientation.

As a public sector organisation in Scotland, we must continue to uphold our duties under the Equality Act until any changes are made to this legislation by the UK/Scottish parliaments.

This information is available publicly on our website here: Equality, diversity and inclusion - Qualifications Scotland 

This includes information on equality impact assessments: Equality impact assessments - Qualifications Scotland and the following which we feel is relevant:

Equality mainstreaming report 2023-2025 SQA Equality Mainstreaming Report 2023–25

Equality Outcomes 2025-2029 https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/2025-29-equality-outcomes.pdf

Equal pay audit 2025 SQA Equal Pay Audit summary - Sexual Orientation Pay Gap information recorded since 2022.

2024 Scottish set text list for English courses updated to include more modern and diverse works - 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 

Guide to using inclusive language, attached

(5) The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act provides the right to information, not documents. Whilst we are not obliged to provide copies of documents, we will provide the information that is contained within any relevant documents. The attached document, Breakdown of Payments, provides the information that is contained within the invoices that we hold relating to the request.

(6) The attached document, as mentioned in Q5 contains the amount of spend.

(7) The attached document, as mentioned in Q5 contains the breakdown of the spend.

(8) The attached document, as mentioned in Q5 contains the breakdown by recipient organisation.

Guide to Using Inclusive Language Redacted (1.54 MB)

EqIA Guidance (166 KB)

Breakdown of Payments (115 KB)

Equality Diversity and Inclusion Policy (230 KB)

Equality Impact Assessment Template (154 KB)