Equality Impact Assessments
Equality Impact Assessments identify any discrimination against, or adverse impact on, people within any of the equality strands. This may be due to the policy, procedure, strategy, or delivery method. The discrimination, or adverse impact may have been entirely unintentional, but we still need to address it.
Why do we need Equality Impact Assessments?
- To make sure our decision making is informed by the needs our customers and workforce
- To contribute to service and organisational improvement
- To meet legal requirements and specific duties arising from equality legislation
- To identify areas of excellence and weakness
- To meet corporate and service inspection requirements
- To manage legal, financial and reputational risk
Equality Impact Assessments are not optional, the legal requirement and inspection expectation is that we do impact assessments on every policy and practice.
To meet this challenge all services must complete a series of Standard Equality Impact Assessments to identify issues around equality and diversity and devise action plans.
If a major issue is identified, or the service is new, then an Enhanced Equality Impact Assessments is needed.
All equality impact assessments will require consultation with the service user, community or workforce represented.
In addition, each year there will be two Directorate Equality Impact Assessments.
