[Family Impact Assessment Checklist Tool]-The User Manual


Contents

Introduction / 1
Part I- Understanding Family Impact Assessment
What is a family and family diversity? / 3
What is policy and family policy? / 6
What is family impact and family impact assessment? / 7
Four basic dimensions of the Family Impact Assessment Checklist / 12
Frequently Asked Questions / 15
Part II- Using Family Impact Assessment Checklist / 18
How do I identify and assess family impacts of a policy proposal?
Step 1: Completing Form A_ Family Impact Assessment Initial Screening / 21
Step 2: Completing Form B_ Family Diversity and Contexts / 26
Step 3: Completing Form C_ Family Impact Assessment Checklist / 31
Step4 : Completing Form D_ Family Impact Assessment Summary / 35
Step 5: Completing Family Impact Statement / 36
Frequently Asked Questions / 39
Part III- Procedures of family impact assessment for different types of policies
  1. New/revised policies or legislative proposal involving public consultation
/ 41
  1. New/revised policies ordinarily treated as confidential in formulation
/ 42
  1. Subsidiary legislative proposals involving primarily technical amendments
/ 43
Annex A- Family Impact Assessment Checklist Tool
Annex A1: Form A_ Family Impact Assessment Initial Screening / 48
Annex A2: Form B_ Family Diversity and Contexts / 49
Annex A3: Form C_ Family Impact Assessment Checklist / 50
Annex A4: Form D_ Family Impact Assessment Summary / 59
Annex B- Examples on application of Family Impact Assessment / 60
Annex C- Quiz- How much do you know about FIA? / 87

1

[Family Impact Assessment Checklist Tool]-The User Manual

Introduction

  1. This manual facilitates policymakers to know how to find answers to this question: “what is the possible impact of this policy on families?” when proposing a new policy initiative or a legislation.
  1. First developed in the United States and Canada in the 1980s, Family Impact Assessment (FIA) promotes a specific checklist approach to analyze policies on families. This approach has been proven to be useful in identifying the potential impacts of public policies on families, including those positive and negative impacts, direct and indirect impacts, and intended and unintended consequences of policies.
  1. Hong Kong policymakers, professionals and the public alike endorse the importance of families as the basis of a strong and vital society. With effect from 1 April 2013, the family implication assessment has been made mandatory in all policy papers submitted to the Executive Council and the Policy Committee, as well as Legislative Council briefs.
  1. While the mandatory assessment of family implications has achieved its objective in fostering family awareness amongst bureaux and departments (B/Ds) in the policy making process, there is still room for a more systemic approach to assess family implications as the impacts of policy on families are not always obvious. The Central Policy Unit commissioned the research team at The University of Hong Kong to develop a FIA Checklist Tool to examine how policy may benefit families or produce unintended negative consequences. Through the use of the Checklist Tool to anticipate the positive and negative effects of policies on families, our government can ensure that new policies or legislation will in no way undermine families without carefully weighing their costs and benefits and will help strengthen families.
  1. This manual elaborates the FIA Checklist Tool for Hong Kong. With reference to the family impact guiding principles and checklist, which was originally developed by the Coalition of Family Organizations[1] and the Family Impact Institute, and the family core values (i.e. “love and care”, “respect and responsibilities”, and “communication and harmony”) identified by the Family Council, the set of principlesare formulated in light of the diversity of contemporary families in local context. The FIA Checklist was developed via an extensive literature review of both local and overseas research and refined through interviews with local government officials with reference to their experience of conducting family implication assessment.
  1. For ease of reference, the principles are numbered but not rank-ordered. Depending on the issue, one principle may be more highly valued than another and not every principle will apply to every issue. The FIA Checklist Tool is not an instrument to criticize policies. The use of the Checklist Tool is to provide the policymakers with opportunities to mitigate potentially negative effects and maximize positive effects in the early stage of policy development.

Part I- Understanding Family Impact Assessment

What is a family?

  1. According to the Family Status Discrimination Ordinance (Cap.527) (the Ordinance), “immediate family member”, in relationship to a person, means “a person who is related to the person by blood, marriage, adoption or affinity.” The Family Council does not attempt to give a strict definition, but would continue to adopt a common sense understanding of the concept of family, which defined family with reference to relationships that pertain to or arise from blood, marriage, adoption or affinity, all of which are regulated by law or customs.[2]
  1. No single and one-size-fits-all definition of a family will suit all types of families in Hong Kong as families encompass a myriad of structures (e.g. cohabiting families, foster families and stepfamilies) and engage in multiple functions (e.g. caregiving and providing economic support). However, the absence of a single definition of a family does not mean that there should be no definition.
  1. Two main ways of defining family can be categorized[3] as:
  1. Structural definitions that specify family membership according to certain characteristics such as blood relationship, legal marriage, adoption or affinity.
  1. Functional definitions that specify functions that family members perform, such as sharing economic resources, and caring for the young, elderly, sick, or members with disabilities.
  1. Both types of definitions have strengths and limitations. Family is a socially recognized group (at least two people in a relationship, usually joined by blood, marriage or adoption) that forms an emotional connection involving care, responsibility and commitment. For the purpose of FIA, the meaning of family as adopted by the Family Council will be used, i.e. a common sense understanding of the concept of family, which defined family with reference to relationships that pertain to or arise from blood, marriage, adoption or affinity, all of which are regulated by law or customs.
  1. While the above definition of family is very general, for any policy or program, specific definition of a family may vary according to the objectives and principle considerations of the policy or program.

  1. In Case 1, cohabitee is regarded as a member of family in this Ordinancewhich aims at providing support to families facingcrises.

  1. In Case 2, the CSSA system assumes that family members will look after each other and share resources in the same household. It also assumes that the applicant will responsibly use the CSSA for the benefit of the whole family. Under the system, the co-residence element is considered to be an important aspect of a family and the discharge of family responsibilities. However, there are always exceptions and there can exist certain conditions where such family responsibilities cannot be fully discharged and some support to these families to strengthen such families in performing other family functions. For instance, though in policy an elderly person has to apply with their family members living together, if it can be established that the family cannot provide the necessary financial support to the elderly, yet co-residence would enable these families to perform other support functions of a family to the elderly, it is up to the discretion of the Director of Social Welfare to grant approval of CSSA to such application.

Different types of families

  1. Public policies affecting individuals and community will impact families. Given the wealth of roles and functions performed by families today, Family Impact Assessment Checklist Tool facilitates policymakers to consider Hong Kong families in terms of their contemporary diversity and their dynamics.
  1. Family diversity suggests that there are many types of families in terms of their structure (i.e. with or without children, single parent, blended family, old-old couples, and foster family) and their socio-economic, ethnic and local contexts. The implication of family diversity is that policymakers need to be aware of how policies affect different family types.
  1. Family dynamics suggests that families are always changing. They may be at different stages in the life cycle; they may be going through transitions with the permanent or temporary addition or loss of family members, or a change in structure with a divorce or separation. Depending on their situation, families will have different needs and may be affected by policies in different ways. Family with dependent children, for instance, may differ considerably from families caring for older family members.
  1. Regardless of differences in family structure and life-stage, families share ten core functions including family formation, partnership relationships, economic support, childrearing, caregiving, reproduction, emotional support, provision of safety, education and socialization.
  1. An important objective of assessing impacts of policies on families is to understand how policy affects the capacity of families to fulfill these core functions, and the extent to which policies have differential impacts on families according to their structure and life-stage.

What is policy?

  1. Policyis a plan or course of action carried out through a law, rule, or other mechanism in the public or private sectors. Family Policy aims to protect, promote and strengthen families by addressing on or more of the five explicit functions families perform, including family formation, partner relationships, economic support, child rearing and caregiving. Many other policies that do not explicitly address families or family functions (e.g., housing, employment, poverty, and healthcare) affect families in different ways.

Different types of policy proposals

  1. With regard to the FIA process, there are three main types of policy proposals, including
  • New/revised policies or legislative proposal involving public consultation[4]
  • New/revised policies ordinarily treated as confidential in formulation
  • Subsidiary legislative proposals involving primarily technical amendments
  1. Different types of policy proposals involve different approaches to gather information about family impact. For instance, policy proposals involving public consultation will allow policymakers to collect views from families and stakeholders in the early stage of policy formulation (please refer to Part III for further elaboration).
  1. Given the large number of public policies that could be assessed for their impact on families, applying family impact assessment across all policy proposals holds two risks. First, policymakers might trivialize the family impact concept. Second, policymakers might become tired of conducting the family impact assessment. In combination, this does a disservice to the purpose of assessing unintended consequence of policies on families. Form A: Family Impact Initial Screening and the option of applying exemption in the future from conducting FIA on certain types of policy proposals are used to reduce the possibility of FIA fatigue. Details are elaborated in Part III of this manual.
  1. The Home Affairs Bureauwill serve as the key gatekeeper/quality control agent on FIA in all types of policy proposals.

What is Family Impact and Family Impact Assessment?

  1. Family Impact refers to the probable effects of a policy or program on family stability, family relationships, families members’ ability to carry out their responsibilities.

Different types of policy impact

  1. Policies can have different kinds of impacts on different types of families. First, they can have positive and/or negative impacts.
  1. In view of the long waiting time, many families in the waiting list will be benefited from this policy as it helps freeup units from relatively better-off tenants for re-allocation to those families who have greater need for PRH. However, the “Well-off Tenants Policies” may induce negative impact on families. Members of PRH households may split from their existing households in order tomaintain the family’s PRH tenancy without paying additional rent.This may involve giving grown-up children one reason to move out of PRH byremoving their names from the household registration of the PRHtenants, while leaving their parents to stay in the PRH units.This may be inconsistent with the Government’s policy to encourageyounger members of a family to look after their parents when they grow old.
  1. Second, their impacts can be direct or indirect.In some cases, policies can have direct impacts on one type of family and indirect impacts on another type.
  1. In Case 3, the direct impact of this policy on families with a household income exceeding the prescribed income limits is increasing their rental expenses and financial burden. If certain percentage of matured families with working adult children moved out of the PRH because of the policy in Case 3, the indirect impact would be creating additional demand for private rental housing, in particular, sub-divided flats and subsequently an impact on private rental housing prices.
  1. Third, policies can have intended and unintended consequences for families. While all policies are formulated with good intentions, one key purpose of FIA is to avoid or to reduce the possible impact of unintended consequences.
  1. Under the Low-income Working Family Allowance Scheme, which encourages self-reliance and reduces inter-generational poverty, single parents living with at least one child aged below 15 who works more hours will be eligible for applying for higher allowance. The intended consequence is providing economic support for low-income families. However, the unintended negative consequence might be inducing childcare issue. The demand for child placement services may also increase.
  1. Fourth, the duration of the policy impacts on families is important to take into account since some impacts are one-off or short term and others are ongoing and long-term across a family life cycle.
  1. In Case 5, the impact on families was one-off and short term. On 3 September, 2015, most employees would benefit from the proposal and could participate in various commemorative activities with their family. As the proposal was alsoapplicable to foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) currently working in Hong Kong,the household support for some FDH employers could be affected by the additional holiday.
  1. On the contrary,the impact on families in Case 6 is on-going and long-term. Five-day working week policy allows employees to spend more time with their family and facilitate employees to have a better balance between work and family in the long run.
  1. Fifth, the scope of the policy impact on families is also crucial. Some impacts will be systemic affecting most families while others may have significant or severe effects on a small number of families. For instance, a policy to provide free early childhood education would have an impact on many families with infants whereas a change to the immigration criteria for family reunification would most likely have a policy impact on a relatively smaller number of families.
  1. Family Impact Assessment (FIA) refers to a method of critically examining the probable future effects of a policy on family stability, family relationship, family engagement and family members’ ability to carry out their responsibilities. It facilitates the policymakers to adopt a family perspective in policymaking in order to analyze the consequences of any policy and determine its impact on family wellbeing, regardless of whether it is explicitly aimed at families.
  1. There are many different types of impact assessments. FIA as a policy tool is primarily a priori in nature, i.e. assessment taken place before the implementation of policy. It is not the type of impact assessment that is used to evaluate or measure the actual impact of a policy after a period of implementation. FIA is best if, but not necessarily, evidenced-based, i.e. based on prior empirical evidence of similar prior policy experience or other research evidence on similar policies in other countries.
  1. The Family Impact Assessment checklist approach is a first step in making an assessment of the impact of a public policy on families. Ideally, it should be used as early as possible in the policy process, preferably when policies are first being drafted and / or considered. The proposed checklist can be used to readily assess whether such policies are likely to have any family impacts and to identity what those impacts might be. Addressing the checklist questions is intended to raise policymakers’ awareness of the diversity of family and various family needs in a policy domain where they are not typically incorporated into policy decisions.
  1. Using the proposed checklist can generate more family considerations and insights in the policy formulation process. Completing the checklist can reveal what family impacts are and what data are inaccurate or unavailable. It can also help policymakers to decide whether or not further consultation or impact analysis is needed.
  1. The questions set out in the checklist could be used in all policies proposals. Keep in mind that not all principles and questions will apply to every topic, so it is important to select those most relevant to the issue. The decision about which principle(s) or question(s) to value more highly should be left to policymakers or key stakeholders. The intention of the checklist is not merely to tick box. It is a task of evaluating a policy against the set of family-centred questions,in order to improve the quality of policy proposal.

Four basic dimensions form the core of the Family Impact Assessment Checklist