High Hopes? The Gender Equality Duty and its Impact on Responses to Gender-based Violence

From 2007 until 2011, legislation in the form of the Gender Equality Duty (GED) required public bodies in Britain to take gender equality into consideration in all their policies and services. This article traces the development and implementation of the GED in Scotland, following a period of constitutional reform. It outlines its scope and focuses on its perceived potential as a policy tool for driving practical and cultural change in the way public bodies, particularly those responsible for the delivery of criminal justice, respond to gender-based violence. In so doing, it highlights the distinctive approach taken to gender-based violence in Scotland, and argues that despite some evidence of mainstreaming, the real potential for change afforded by the (short-lived) GED was never fully realised.