In line with the requirement of the public sector equality duties on race, gender and disability, our organisation assesses the likely equality impact of relevant policies and strategies. By this we mean that when we propose a new policy or strategy, we ask questions to determine whether any group of people will be disadvantaged by the policy. For example, if we were designing a car parking policy for our employees, we would check whether this would have an impact on certain groups for example, disabled staff, shift workers etc.
At the time of publication, the Equality and Access Team is in the process of revising and enhancing our equality impact assessment tool with the assistance of external advice. We are aligning the tool with the Equality Scheme’s approach to multiple equality strands (including human rights) and will impact assess across the strands: age, disability, gender/gender identity, race, religion/belief and sexual orientation.
When our updated equality impact assessment tool is finalised and piloted, staff responsible for designing policies and strategies will be trained on how to effectively use the tool to ensure equality of opportunity for all. Following the pilot of the revised tool, we will publish the tool and results of our equality impact assessments.
