Stirling Council

Equality Impact Assessment Toolkit (June 2014)

Contents

Introduction...... 2

Section 1: Background...... 3

What is an EqIA?...... 3

Why equality impact assess?...... 3

Who is the focus of an EqIA?...... 4

What is an impact?...... 6

When to carry out an equality impact assessment...... 7

Section 2: The EqIA Process...... 8

Consultation...... 9

Making modifications to a proposal ...... 9

Example of the EqIA process in action ...... 10

Section 3:Practical Guidance ………………………………………….. 11

Step-by-step guide to doing an EqIA ...... 11

Summary Details 11

Outcomes, Aims & Objectives 12

Gathering Evidence 12

Assessing Impact 12

Mitigating Potential Negative Impact 14

Monitoring & Review 15

Publishing Results 16

Introduction

This toolkit, and the “How to conduct an Equality Impact Assessment” elearning course on the Council’s Intranet, The Source, have been developed to help Elected Members and Council Officers place equality at the centre of their thinking and understand the process of undertaking an Equality Impact Assessment.

Using the guidancein the toolkit and the elearning course will enable you to carry out a robust Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) on the Council’s existing and proposed functions, polices and practice as well as on any proposal or new or revised policy. By completing EqIAs, the Council demonstrates how it maximises opportunities to eliminate unlawful discrimination, promotes equality and fosters good relations between individuals and groups as required by the Equality Act 2010.

EqIAs enable us to fully consider the potential impact of our current practice and future proposals, including budget proposals,andhelp us to reduce any resulting potential inequalities arising from these. They also support more informed decision making on behalf of our communities and service users.

This toolkit covers:

  • Background information
  • The EqIA process
  • Practical guidance on completing an EqIA

Key Terms used in this toolkit

Council Decision: a decisionmade within the Council (by an Elected Memberor
Officer) that results in the selection of a particular course of action, opinion or view.
Council Function: this term covers the full range of the Council’s duties and powers i.e. the services we deliver and the practices associated with providing these.
Council Policy: this term covers the Council’s plans used as the basis for making formal and informal decisions on how it carries out its duties and powers.
Council Proposal: this term covers any policy , strategy, service , function, procedure
or project delivered by or proposed by the Council

An EqIA isnotrequired for every decision made by the Council.Completing an EqIA Relevance Checkwill let Services determine when an equality impact assessment is required and provide a record of that decision.

All reports to Council, Council Committees, Planning Panel and the Provost’s Panel require to be accompanied by an EqIA Relevance Check. Reports to the Petitions Panel do not need to be accompanied by an EqIA Relevance Check as this Panel cannot make policy decisions.However, where a decision by the Petitions Panel is subsequentlyreferred to a Committee of the Council, an EqIA Relevance Check should be completed.

Guidance on completing an EqIA Relevance Check is included on the form itself.

Where an EqIA is required, this must be included as an appendix to the report enabling it to be considered as an integral part of the Council’s decision making process.

Section 1: Background

What is an EqIA?

The purpose of an EqIA is to ensure that the Council does not discriminate in the delivery of services, the design of its policies and practices or any proposed changes to these. EqIAs can also identify opportunities to promote equality and good relations between individuals and groups.

An EqIA involves anticipating and identifying how ourproposals will affect different sections of the community. We can then take steps toeliminate any negative impact on any group and maximise opportunities for promoting equality, as far as possible.

Assessment extends to monitoring the actual effects of implementing the change to a policy, practice or proposal and requires the Council to act if there are any concerns that these are having a detrimental impact on any of theProtected Characteristic Groups (See pages 5-6). The Council also has a statutory duty to publish the results of any EqIA where the policy/ change considered will be implemented.

Why Equality Impact Assess?

Equality impact assessment is a tool to help the Council take effective action on equality on behalf of its communities, citizens and employees. It does not prevent the Council from having to make challenging decisions but does support informed decision making.

The benefits to the Council of doing EqIAs include:

  • Ensuring the Council identifies and counters direct and indirect discrimination
  • Helping the Council to promote equality of opportunity and foster good relations between individuals and groups
  • Enabling the Council to mainstream the principles of equality and diversity into our everyday work and take effective action on equality
  • Helping the Council to deliver Best Value
  • Promoting the development of customer-led services
  • Ensuring our policies and practices are responsive to the needs of our citizens and communities
  • Supporting decision making in a challenging operational environment
  • Improving transparency about our decision making

Underlying principles of equality impact assessment
These are not interchangeable and must be progressed together for the Council to comply with both the spirit and the detail of equalities legislation
Equality: Eliminating disadvantage, discrimination, deprivation and creating a fair society
Diversity: Respecting and valuing difference
Equity: Being fair, reasonable and just in all activities and dealings
Quality: Working for the highest achievable standards in our decision-making, functions and polices

Under the Equality Act 2010, the Council has a general duty to:

  • Eliminate discrimination (including harassment and victimisation)
  • Advance equality of opportunity (between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not)
  • Foster good relations (between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not)

These are the three “needs “of the general equality duty. To help it meet these, the Public Sector Duty requires the Council to:

  • Assess the impact of applying a proposed new or revised policy or practice against the needs of the general duty (listed above)
  • In making the assessment, consider relevant evidence relating to people with protected characteristics, including any evidence received from them
  • In developing the policy/proposal take account of the results of any assessment of thatpolicy/practice
  • Publish, within a reasonable period of the decision, the results of any assessment where it decides to apply the policy/proposal in question
  • Make arrangements to review and where necessary revise any existing policy or practice to ensure it complies with the equality duty

Who is the Focus of an EqIA?

The EqIA process focuses on people who are at risk from discrimination and disadvantage. Legislation affordsthem a degree of protection and their specific and special characteristics are regarded as Protected Characteristics. These are:

Age#

A person belonging to a particular age (e.g. 32 year olds) or range of ages (e.g. 18 – 30 year olds).

Disability

A person has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

Gender reassignment

The process of transforming from one gender to another.

Marriage and civil partnership#

Marriage is currently defined as a ‘union between a man and a woman’. Same sex couples can have their relationships legally recognised as ‘civil partnerships’. Civil partners must be treated the same as married couples on a wide range of legal matters.

Pregnancy and maternity

Pregnancy is the condition of being pregnant or expecting a baby. Maternity refers to the period after the birth, and is linked to maternity leave in the employment context. In the non-work context, protection against maternity discrimination is for 26 weeks after giving birth, and this includes treating a woman unfavourably because she is breastfeeding.

Race

Refers to the protected characteristics of race. It refers to a group of people defined by their race, colour, and nationality (including citizenship) ethnic or national origins.

Religion and belief

Religion has the meaning usually given to it but belief includes religious and philosophical beliefs including lack of belief (e.g. Atheism). Generally, a belief should affect your life choices or the way you live for it to be included in the definition.

Sex

A man or a woman.

Sexual orientation

Whether a person’s sexual attraction is towards their own sex, the opposite sex or to both sexes.

(#Age and marriage and civil partnership are NOT protected characteristics for the schools provisions.)

The focus of anEqIA is to determine whether a function, policy or proposal has or could have, a negative impact on and in particular discriminate against anyone within a protected characteristic group. However, it is also important to remember that people within these groups are individuals with differing and very individual needs who may also fall into the category of more than one protected characteristic group. In addition, as individuals, they will have multiple roles and responsibilities in their everyday lives e.g. as a resident / employee / parent / carer. The impact of a function or policy on them will therefore require to be considered from more than one perspective.

Poverty

Stirling Council and Stirling Community Planning Partnership approved a Tackling Poverty Framework for Stirling in 2011. This is intended to take a holistic approach to addressing the factors that increase the likelihood of poverty and to take action to minimise its impact on individuals, families, households and communities. The Framework included a commitment to further develop socio-economic factors within our Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) process, and to:

  • Make poverty sensitive budget and service planning decisions, and to screen proposals for any negative impact on geographical communities or on groups of people in Stirling
  • Act as a fair employer and assess the impact of employment decisions on the wider community
  • Raise awareness of poverty and inequalities in the Stirling area and ensure that Elected Members, managers, officers and others understand their responsibilities in tackling poverty

Assessing the impact of proposals on communities or individuals vulnerable to poverty through EqIAs helps us meet our commitments to poverty sensitive decision making. It encourages a decision-making environment in which the impact of proposals on those experiencing or vulnerable to poverty must be considered, evidenced and justified and where plans can be put in place to lessen or avoid any negative impacts.

What is an Impact?

An Equality Impact Assessment considers three types of impacts: positive, neutral or negative.

  1. Positive Impact: will reduce discrimination against people in a protected characteristic group, improve equality of opportunity for them as individuals or a group,or improve relations between people in different protected characteristic groups. A proposal may have a greater benefit for one protected characteristic group in comparison to another.This is permissible but any positive impacts justifiable in law must not amount to discrimination for any otherProtected Characteristic Group.

Examples of positive impacts:
  • A targeted health improvement campaign for young men between the ages 16 to 24 would have a positive impact on this age group, compared with its impact on other age groups and women. It would not however have a negative impact on other age groups or women.

  • A local authority decides that based on the small number of women in senior management positions, it will promote leadership and development training to increase the number of women in senior management positions within the organisation. This is an example of legitimate positive action designed to encourage women to apply for jobs in which they are historically under represented.

2. Neutral Impact: this describesa proposal with neither a positive nor negative impact on those in a protected characteristic group. It is acceptable for a proposal to have neutral impact but consideration should be given to developing the proposal so that it has a positive impact on the Protected Characteristic Group/saffected.

3. Negative Impact: an impact that could disadvantage one or more Protected Characteristic Groups. A proposal may result in greater disadvantage for one protected characteristic groupin comparison to another. Where any negative impacts are identified effort should be made toassess the level of the negative impact and as far as possible, the number of people affected or likely to be affected.

Examples of negative impacts:
  • Holding a public meeting as a part of a consultation exercise in a building that does not contain an induction loop system is likely to have a negative impact on people who use hearing aids

  • A policy that the Council will only accept complaints in writing could have a negative impact on several Protected Characteristic Groups including, for example, people with learning disabilities, people with some sensory impairments and people for whom English is not their first language.

Consider the following factors when assessing the potential impact of a proposal on any particular group or individual:

  • their health
  • their income - from employment, pension or benefits
  • the nature of their employment – full time /part time/ temporary
  • where they live - including geographic location - urban/rural
  • whether or not they are homeless
  • their responsibility for others e.g. as a carer

When to carry out an Equality Impact Assessment

Decision Making

Elected Members and senior managers must consider the impact of their decisions as an integral part of their decision-making. Knowing what impact your decisions are likely to have means that an informed decision can be made to either go ahead with the proposal as planned or change it – both decisions will be based on a sound understanding of their implications.

Policy Development

Impact assessment should be seen as an integral part of policy development and should not be an add-on or used as a last minute check. Service and policy designers need to be open to revising their policy or proposal during its development if the EqIA identifies potential negative impacts, particularly if these are likely to be unlawfully discriminatory.

Policy Review

EqIAs should also be integral to reviewing functions, policies and practice,particularly where this may change the way in which the activity concerned is delivered. It is also important when reviewing a function or policy to use any equality monitoring data about the function or policy being reviewed - this is likely to highlight any areas where discrimination may be occurring, allowing steps to be taken to reduce or remove this disadvantage.

In all cases it is essential that the EqIA process is used right from the start, whether developing or reviewing a policy or proposal or considering budget proposals. This will ensure equality and poverty considerations are at the centre of our thinking about potential changes affecting people – as service users, members of our communities, our employees or prospective employees.

Whilst each proposal must be considered individually it is anticipated that an EqIA will essentially always be required in relation to the following:

•introducing a new policy/strategy/service/function

•reviewing a current policy/strategy/service/function

•reducing / discontinuing an existing service

•budget proposals resulting in any of the above

Section 2: The Equality Impact Assessment Process

There is no legally prescribed equality impact assessment process, and different organisations will have different ways of approaching it.

Stirling Council follows good practice, and its equality impact assessment process focuses on seven key stages, with each stage building on the one previous and feeding into the next. The diagram below shows the key stages of the EqIA process:

(The colour coding used for each stage of the process is also used in Section 3 of this guidance.)

1

Consultation

The EqIA process should ideally be informed by consultation and involvement of those likely to be affected by the policy, proposal or change being developed. Where recent relevant consultation data and/or research evidence is available this should be used. Where this is not available good practice should prevail and we should consult those likely to be affected by the proposal.

This is one of the most effective ways to obtain information on likely impacts and helps us to meet our obligation to “consider relevant evidence relating to people with protected characteristics, including any evidence received from those people”.

Points to think about when consulting:

  • What consultation or additional consultation is needed to investigate the potential impacts of the proposal?
  • Who needs to be consulted?
  • Are there any experts or relevant local groups that can be consulted?
  • What methods can be used to ensure full participation in the consultation process e.g. use fully accessible venues and avoid religious festivals
  • How will the results of the consultation be fed into EqIA process?

If consultation provides information that means the proposal needs changed, it must go through the EqIA process again to ensure there are no unexpected negative impacts on any other Protected Characteristic Group.

Making Modifications to a Proposal

If the EqIA process finds that the proposal under consideration is likely to be unlawfully discriminatory, we must modify or reject it to ensure the Council acts lawfully.

The following questions should be asked when modifying the policy/ proposal:

  • How could the proposal be changed to reduce or eliminate any potential negative impactsidentified?
  • If modifications are made could there be any unintentional negative impact on other protected characteristic groups or those at greater risk of experiencing poverty?
  • Is there enough evidence to assess the impacts on other Protected Characteristic Groups?
  • Have external expert groups or organisations been consulted?
  • Would the proposed modifications compromise the purpose of the policy?
  • Can the function or policy be delivered differently to prevent negative impact?

Any modified proposal must go through the EqIA process again to ensure no additional and/or unintended discrimination has occurred as a result of the changes proposed.