Equality and Diversity

Equality Impact

What is an Equality Impact Assessment?

The public sector equality duties for race, gender and disability require Comhairle nan Eilean Siar to equality impact assess. It is a legislative requirement. More importantly, however, at the end of most policies, there are people. If your policy affects people you will need to consider undertaking an equality impact assessment. People are not the same and policies should reflect the fact that different people have different needs.

Equality impact assessment (EQIA) is all about considering how your policy (by policy we mean activities, functions, strategies, programmes, and services or processes) may impact, either positively or negatively, on different sectors of the population in different ways.

Equality impact assessments offer an opportunity for Comhairle staff and their teams to think carefully about the impact of their work on local people and other members of staff and take action to make improvements. They can then take action that will promote equality for all.

Why do Equality Impact Assessments?

There is a legal requirement to do so in terms of race, disability and gender. Other equality strands are included as part of the process (age, religion and belief and sexual orientation). As good practice (and in anticipation of further legislation) other equality strands will also be taken into consideration.

Conducting impact assessments are important because:

They are helpful in identifying improvements to services;
They help avoid adopting harmful policies or procedures;
They help to make better decisions;
They will help to identify how services can be made more accessible and appropriate

The templates that the Comhairle uses for conducting its Equality Impact Assessments are included below. There is an Initial Impact Assessment that assesses the policy for its impacts and determines whether the policy should go forward to a full impact assessment.

The document below gives guidance on the EQIA process and how to complete the Equality Impact Assessment forms:

EQIA Guidance (PDF, 65K)

The Comhairle is also is required to make available and publish all the results of its Equality Impact Assessments, we have conducted the following Equality Impact Assessments:

2012

Initial Impact Assessment - Documents/Recruitment Portal 2012 (PDF, 80K)

2011

2010

2009

For any queries on Equality Impact Assessments please contact equalities@cne-siar.gov.uk

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