Equality Impact Assessment

This toolkit will provide you with a comprehensive overview of what is required to carry out an equality impact assessment (EIA).

Firstly, it is important that you have completed the e-learning modules on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Equality Analysis. Both are available on My Dundee and will provide you with an awareness of different protected characteristics and types of discrimination which is important to know as you will not be able to conduct an EIA without this knowledge.

What is an Equality Impact Assessment

Equality Impact Assessment is an evidence-based process that the university uses to consider the impacts (likely or actual, and both positive and negative) of key decisions about our university and its activities that affect our people – our students, our colleagues and our service users. It is effectively a business tool that we can use to ensure that our decisions, policies, procedures, practices and activities (strategic and operational) do what they are intended to do, are fair and inclusive to everyone (e.g. do not present barriers to participation, or disadvantage anyone). Wherever possible EIAs proactively advance equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Why is an EIA important?

When we design, plan or implement something new, or make changes to how we do things or what we provide, it is easy to assume that these are fair and apply equally to everyone.

It is also all too easy to make decisions or create policies processes / activities that have unintended consequences, differential impact, or are not inclusive of everyone. We may find that a particular group is impacted more than others, may be put at a disadvantage, or may not be able to access or benefit equally from it.

By embedding EIA in our planning and decision-making, we can minimise the risk that the key decisions we make do not unintentionally exclude or disadvantage anyone.

What are the benefits of doing an EIA?

• Ensure that when we make decisions, or develop policies, that we have objectively tried to remove any negative impact on our students, staff or visitors.
• Any potential adverse impact can be identified early, and we can implement mitigating actions to minimise this.
• It helps to create a more positive and inclusive working and learning environment.
• It evidences that the university is meeting our legal duties to eliminate discrimination, promote equal opportunities and foster good relations.

When should an EIA be completed?

Equality Impact Assessments should be carried out whenever you are developing or reviewing policies, practices or projects that will affect either staff, students or visitors to the university.

The primary purpose of an equality impact assessment is to inform decision-making as early in the process as possible to enable the university to be as inclusive and equitable as possible. EIAs should not be regarded as a ‘rubber-stamping’ exercise after a decision has been made but should be an integral part of reaching that decision.

All papers that are submitted the university governance committees need to record if an equality impact assessment has been completed. It is therefore important that an assessment is completed prior to the committee meeting where your proposals will be discussed.

If your policy, practice or project will not impact upon people then it doesn’t need an equality impact assessment. However, you should still record the reasons for this in the documentation that is required as part of any governance process.

Who should carry out an EIA?

The person responsible for conducting an equality impact assessment should have a detailed understanding of the policy and should also be able to ensure changes can be made where needed. Usually, this is the person responsible for developing the policy, practice or project.

Whilst the EDI Team are happy to provide support and advice when you are conducting an equality impact assessment, they are only responsible for carrying out EIAs for policies, practices and projects within their own remit.

Conducting an EIA

Is an EIA necessary?

You need to ask yourself whether the proposals that you are developing will either directly or indirectly affect students, staff or visitors to the university. If the answer to this question is ‘yes’ then you should complete an EIA. If the answer is ‘no’ then you should record the reasons behind this decision in any governance documentation that you are required to complete.

Copies of the EIA template form can be accessed on SharePoint. It is good practice to let the EDI Team know that you will be doing an EIA to discuss any potential support that you may need.

Data and Consultation

A key feature of an equality impact assessment is that it needs to be evidence-based. This requires you to gather both qualitative and quantitative data as the grounding for any decisions that you make. It’s recognised that you may not be able to collect relevant data as some of it may simply not be available.

Some sources of data are listed in Appendix 3. Another source of data is to consult with relevant stakeholders. This may include staff who are directly affected by a policy, practice or project, or it can be groups who have specialist knowledge of issues facing specific protected characteristic groups such as the university’s staff networks.

The law talks about public bodies demonstrating ‘due regard’ to the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) when carrying out equality impact assessments. This means that we need to look at the evidence in such a way to demonstrate rigour and having an open mind when using the data to make a decision. Due regard has been described as more than just “a consideration”.

The key principle of an equality impact assessment is to consider whether a policy, practice or project will either negatively or positively impact upon each protected characteristic group. As a reminder, the general duty of the Equality Act states that the university must have due regard to the need to:

• Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation or any other conduct that is prohibited
• Advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it
• Foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it

It would be rare for there to be instances of direct discrimination when developing a policy, practice or project within the university (Age is the only protected characteristic where you can objectively justify direct discrimination in limited circumstances). When carrying out an equality impact assessment, you will mostly be looking for potential indirect discrimination. As a reminder, this is where a policy, practice or project appears to be neutral in its application but has a disproportionate negative impact on one or more groups of people.

Any decision that we make needs to be proportionate to the potential impact that it has on people. The level of proportionality can be considered through the number of people who will be affected and/or the degree of impact on individuals. This is a decision that you need to make but your reasoning should be recorded.

There will be instances where the interests of different protected characteristic groups may be in opposition to each other. The law regards all protected characteristic groups as being equally valid therefore there isn’t an argument that the rights of one group are more important than those of others. If you face such a scenario then please contact the EDI Team for specific advice.

Equality impact assessments are not just about trying to understand where there may be potential discrimination. As noted above, the university also has a duty to promote equality of opportunity and to foster good relations. Where a proposal or revision to a policy, practice or project will lead to a positive impact for protected groups then this should also be noted.

Decision Making

There are four broad types of outcomes that can be made using an equality impact assessment. These are:

Outcome 1: No change required

There is no evidence of potential negative impact towards any protected characteristic group.

Outcome 2: Adjust the policy, practice or project

Where potential discrimination has been identified the policy owner should look to see if we can eliminate or mitigate the negative impact.

Outcome 3: Continue with the policy, practice or project and objectively justify the risk for negative impact.

The policy owner may want to consider this option where there is an identified negative impact and have tried to mitigate against this as far as possible. If this option is chosen, then the policy owner should record the rationale for this decision and should refer back to the evidence. There may be a risk that staff or students may raise a formal process, so the policy owner needs to be able to objectively justify our reasoning behind any decision.

Quality Assurance

Once you have completed the initial draft of the EIA, it is a useful step to get someone to look over it to mitigate against omissions or to sense-check what has been written. It is recommended that you send the draft EIA to the EDI Team who will look over it and provide any necessary feedback. Once this stage has been completed it will also give more confidence to the senior manager who is required to sign-off the assessment that it is has been carried out robustly.

Sign-Off

A senior manager should confirm that they are happy that the assessment has been carried out properly and that the university is complying with our legal duties under the Equality Act 2010. Once this has been completed then we need to publish the EIA.

Publication and Review

The PSED requires the university to publish equality impact assessments in an accessible manner. We use the university’s website to publish our assessments which are collated together within the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion pages. When you have completed an EIA and it has been signed-off, please forward it to the EDI Team who will arrange for it to be published.

Please remember that equality impact assessments are ‘living documents’ that should be reviewed periodically:

1. When there is a planned review date of a policy, practice or project; or
2. When new evidence is produced that highlights areas of concern that the policy owner was not aware of when completing our initial EIA. This may be through feedback, complaints or where scheduled reporting does not show anticipated improvements.