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Managing Equality Impact Assessments effectively

Overview

The Equality Impact Assessments (EIA) are a legal requirement for all public sector organisations under current equality legislation and should be an integral part of all policy management processes.

EIA is a systematic ongoing process to evaluate the impact of business policies on the employees, service user and/or customer.  The EIA process is about gathering evidence to answer 2 basic questions to assess whether the policy or practice has a positive or negative impact on some groups.

What are the aims and objectives?

Aim: To introduce participants to the concept of EIA and the use of tools to ensure best practice in policy, practice and procedures.  To use EIA as a tool to review, create, implement and assess the impact on the organisations delivery of services.

Participants will have a common understanding of equality and diversity in relation to organisational development and policy management.

Objectives: By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Define and demonstrate an understanding of the context of equality, diversity in  impact assessment – both tangible and  intangible and an understanding of the difference this will have on delivering business objectives
• Demonstrate an understanding of the key issues around managing equality and diversity in the context of policy review and implementation
• Understand the purpose of impact assessments and the implications and consequences of non compliance for all stakeholders
• Understand the importance of gathering relevant information to measure current impact of existing systems, processes and procedures
• Demonstrate an understanding of the processes for policy review, including the  application and use of the tools
• Understand how to set SMART goals to deliver policies, practices and procedures which are fit for purpose

Areas covered

• Defining and understanding the terminology associated with Equality Impact Assessments (EIA)
• Overview of why the EIA process and  outputs are important
• Understanding the stages of the EIA process and how to implement
• Understanding what is involved and how to do it

Who should attend?

Employees who have lead responsibility for a policy area and senior managers with an overall responsibility for policy delivery.

Benefit

The introduction and implementation of a comprehensive EIA strategy for the organisation will ensure that all business priorities are delivered with a commitment and assessment of the needs of all groups, users and employees, including:

• Supporting strategic goals
• Eliminate discrimination by identifying existing and potential inequalities
• Identify opportunities to actively promote equality
• Make sure that policies are responsive to the needs of diverse groups
• Provide information to support decision making
• Comply with statutory duties
• Provide trust and confidence among different equality groups – population and workforce
• Identify and mange legal, organisational and reputational risk
• Respond more easily to Freedom of Information requests in relation to equality issues

Evaluation and Action Planning

Impact evaluation will also support the concept of sustainability by using a 3 stage model of evaluation.

• Immediate reaction
• 3 month review – progress against objectives, issues raised and experiences
• 6 month review – measures of success
  • has the attitude and behaviour of the workforce changed,
  • is diversity an integral part of business activity

The organisation can choose how it evaluates the impact of the programme across the organisation.  In addition to specific impact and evaluation, questions can be built into to other organisational reviews such as Employee Surveys to measure the impact of the Equality Suite on your organisational culture.