Commission publishes Annual Report 2023-2024

The Scottish Human Rights Commission has laid its Annual Report for 2023-24 before the Scottish Parliament.

The report highlights our work to engage with people’s lived experiences of human rights, including a series of spotlight projects focused on monitoring and reporting to deliver improved accountability across Scotland.

The Commission’s work this year included meeting with more than 140 people in the Highlands and Islands, to explore human rights concerns in areas such as healthcare, housing and transport.

We also collaborated with human rights defenders to call for faster progress toward independent living for people with learning disabilities held in institutions.

And we delivered a major report on places of detention in Scotland, assessing 29 human rights recommendations and finding the majority of them have not been met.

As Scotland’s National Human Rights Institution, we also delivered major reports measuring Scotland’s progress on human rights to international treaty bodies such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe. 

You can read the Annual Report on our website at www.scottishhumanrights.com. The Annual Report is also available in an accessible Word version, as an Easy Read and in BSL.

The Commission continued to fulfil its mandate to promote and protect human rights across Scotland in other ways in 2023-24, including:

  • New research into Attitudes to Human Rights in Scotland.
  • Calling for improved access to justice for human rights, in a major report and in ongoing research.
  • Public consultation on our Strategic Plan 2024-28.
  • Research, fieldwork, engagement and participation work on our new Spotlight projects, designed to shine a light on key human rights issues in Scotland.
  • Presenting written and oral evidence to the Scottish Parliament on themes such as human rights within social care and human rights budgeting.

Professor Angela O’Hagan is the new Chair of the Commission. She said:

“Our 2023-24 Annual Report is a snapshot of the work and impact of the Scottish Human Rights Commission.

"I am delighted to have joined the Commission at this time, with a clear direction from our new Strategic Plan, and strong evidence base from our spotlight research series.

"Working with members of the Commission, the staff team and all our stakeholders, the SHRC is committed to realising rights for all in Scotland”.

Ends

Notes to editors:

  1. The Commission is Scotland’s National Human Rights Institution. We are set up in law to protect people’s rights and to hold government and public bodies to account. The Commission is accountable to the people of Scotland through the Scottish Parliament. We also report directly to the United Nations on human rights issues in Scotland.
  2. You can read our Strategic Plan 2024-28by clicking this link or it is available on the publications page of our website at www.scottishhumanrights.com
  3. The publication of this Annual Report meets Section 15 and 16 of the Scottish Commission for Human Rights Act 2006, which requires the Commission to lay an Annual Report before the Scottish Parliament and to publish it more widely.