East Cambridgeshire District Council

Impact Assessments

Carrying out Equality Impact Assessments

As part of any effective policy development process, it is important to consider any potential risks to those who will be affected by the policy's aims or by its implementation. The Impact and Needs/Requirements Assessment process (INRA) - also known as an equality impact assessment - helps us to consider any potential risk on different groups.

Carrying out an INRA at the start of the policy development process allows the policy holders to identify, at every step, what the consequences may be to different groups, and whether a policy should adopt a certain direction/approach/criterion or eligibility requirement or whether there are any opportunities to promote equality.

The term 'policy' is used to cover policies, practices, functions, decisions and strategies.

What we Assess

How the Council's policies affect people from different groups and communities in respect of race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation and religion or belief.

Training for Staff

Through our internal training programme we offer short, bitesize workshops for staff on the Equality Act and carrying out impact assessments.

Quality Assuring our Impact Assessments

Executive Directors and Heads of Service are responsible for reviewing and signing off completed impact assessments relevant to their service areas. In addition to this, the Council set up Scrutiny and Verification Panels, comprising of three members from the Council's Equal Opportunities Working Group. The role of the panels is to:

1. Review and challenge completed impact assessments.
2. Ensure that all Council Officers, when developing/revising policies and practices, give appropriate consideration to how people access the services they provide and the implications of the policies they develop for all groups in the local community.
3. Challenge whether the Council is meeting all of the requirements of the Equality Act.
4. Challenge whether the policy/practice is seeking to improve the quality, responsiveness and accessibility of local public services.
5. Help to improve consultation, especially with hard-to-reach groups.
6. Help officers to step back from day-to-day service delivery, and to consider the impact of their policies/practices on the whole community.
7. Ensure that completed impact assessments are suitable for publication on the Council's website for public inspection.
8. Ensure that any differential impact is reported to the appropriate Committee before any changes to service provision are made.

Diversity Monitoring

The Council successfully monitors the diversity of its workforce. However, work is currently underway to improve systems for monitoring the diversity of its customers using the Council's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to confidentially collect and store the data.

New guidelines have been developed for Information Gathering and Diversity Monitoring. This demonstrates the Council's commitment to gather and monitor data, which will allow us to assess the impact of our policies on different groups.

Why Gather Information on Equality

In policy development equality monitoring can help us to understand:

• whether the policy is likely to have the intended effect;
• how proposed policies might affect particular groups; and
• how we can amend policies to eliminate discrimination and promote equality.

In service delivery, equality monitoring can help us to understand:

• the needs of service users;
• which groups are using our services;
• which groups are not using our services;
• how to reach under-represented groups;
• how satisfied different groups are with our services;
• differences in service outcomes; and
• how to use our resources better.

In employment, equality monitoring can help us to:

• measure the make-up of our workforce and compare it to national data;
• analyse HR practices and procedures to see how they affect different groups of employees; and
• understand the causes of any pay gap by group.

Publication of our Impact Assessments

The Council is committed to publishing the results of our impact assessments. These are available on the Council's website. Copies of impact assessments can also be made available on request.