Jan Savage

The decision follows a report which identified areas of concern in rural areas of Scotland, including lack of affordable and quality housing, limited access to sufficient and nutritious food, inaccessible healthcare services and food poverty.

The report, presented by the rights institution to the UN in Geneva in March this year, also highlighted issues around access to technology or poor internet connectivity, the poverty-related attainment gap in education and transport connectivity to essential public services and supplies.

The new project will take a deeper look at these potential human rights denials to understand more about how economic, social and cultural rights are being experienced in the Highlands and Islands.

The project will involve four stages:

1. desk-based research and literature review of existing published evidence;
2. community visits to speak directly to people and learn about their experiences;
3. accessing information on trends of complaints made to MSPs and the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman; and
4. analysing all the information under human rights obligations and issuing a final report with recommendations to the relevant authorities.

The SHRC will be collecting new data and visiting communities, third sector organisations, local authorities and MSPs in Lerwick, Kirkwall, Thurso, Wick, Dingwall, Inverness, Elgin, Stornoway, Tarbert, Ullapool, Portree and Dunoon in a series of face-to-face meetings during October and November 2023.

The SHRC will present its final spotlight report on the Highlands and Islands to the Scottish Parliament in spring 2024.

Jan Savage, executive director of the SHRC, said: “The Commission wants to understand the human rights issues affecting people in rural areas across the Highlands and Islands.

“We are focusing on economic, social and cultural rights, which includes how the government provides essential services to people for things like housing, health, education, culture and environmental rights.

“We have been approached by members of communities in the Highlands and Islands who are concerned about lack of affordable housing, high levels of food insecurity and difficulties in accessing medical services in rural areas.

“Through our treaty monitoring work to the United Nations, we have found that there is a lack of information and available data, specific to the Highlands and Islands, in comparison to the rest of Scotland.

“As part of our monitoring role on human rights, we will be investigating this situation further and establishing if public authorities are doing enough to provide essential services and support for people in rural areas to access their economic, social and cultural rights.”

More information on attending the community sessions is available by emailing research@scottishhumanrights.com.