The plan has as its three priorities:

• To use and extend our powers to make sure there are stronger human rights protections for everyone in Scotland. This means we can hold those responsible to account when things go wrong.
• To engage more people in communities across Scotland in our work, so that everything we do is informed by people’s direct experience of human rights issues.
• To monitor and report on how human rights are being experienced in Scotland and play our part in creating a stronger human rights culture.

Commission members Jim Farish, Shelley Gray and Claire Methven O’Brien said: “We have detailed our ambition to lead this organisation out into communities; to talk, to listen and find out how well human rights are being realised in Scotland. This will inform our decisions on how we will use our powers and resources over the next four years.

“The commission will focus its efforts on being a strong watchdog for everyone’s human rights in Scotland. This means holding power to account where things go wrong, and supporting public bodies to do better with our help. We have identified four areas where we believe stronger focus is needed – on poverty, in places of detention, in access to justice, and on the rights of groups of people most at risk.

“The development of a new Human Rights Bill presents a key moment in shaping how public services are designed and delivered to uphold people’s human rights. We will prioritise work to scrutinise and support that process to best serve the people of Scotland, and to ensure that as a Commission, we have the powers and duties to do the best job we can in upholding human rights.”