Last week, we hosted an engaging roundtable debate with organisations who are embroiled in completing Equality Impact Assessments. The discussion was led by our delivery partner, the highly respected lawyer Dianna Yach who has been advising the public and private sectors on equality and diverssity issues for a number of years now.

What was striking were the common themes that emerged and were shared by the people taking part, many of whom, felt it important that we need to move towards a system that:
·         De-mystifies the EIA process

·         Simplifies the mechanics of doing EIAs

·         Integrates EIAs into other business processes
Dianna outlined some key factors about EIAs. They need to be robust and to show evidence – a paper trail – about what had been done. She made mention of a recent court case which showed that courts would look for documented evidence that a good EIA had been carried out.
 

This makes the quality assurance of EIAs vital for any organisation. It is good practice to integrate EIAs with existing risk management and business planning processes so that it was not an add-on or an afterthought. The process of asking questions involved in an EIA helped to improve delivery of services overall. EIAs could have a significant impact on institutional practices though it was not always easy to change the organisational culture.
 

EIAs should cover all equality strands: race, gender, disability, transgender, sexual orientation, faith and age – not just those currently required by law. It is also good practice to take human rights more broadly into account and consider socio-economic factors. Finally, EIAs needed to be proportionate to their relevance for equality.

In our discussions, participants stressed the need to ensure Board level understanding and commitment and to build EIAs into performance management.  Once an initial screening had been done of all policies and procedures, which required collection of evidence in order to assess priority, the process would be much simpler the next time round. What mattered after that was monitoring and review of how the policy or practice actually worked in reality.

Some organisations carried out very detailed initial screening so that a full EIA was almost completed; others asked some very simple screening questions and found that most of their work areas did need the full EIA.

Some organisations struggled to understand the concept of valid data. In some cases, the lived experience – qualitative – was all that would be available at the time. The EIA action plan could then set out how to collect quantitative or further data as needed. Not having hard data could never be a reason for not doing an EIA. It was better to do something than nothing and leave the organisation open to legal challenge. Often there was plenty of available data such as service user surveys, but it was not matched into the EIA process and used effectively.

There was also a need to improve people’s confidence and skills, for example in collecting data by running a focus group. It was important to know what questions to ask, who to engage and not to overburden people with consultation.

So what are the key ingredients of robust and compliant EIAs? Our discussion identified:

·         The need to win “hearts and minds” of everyone so they understand the benefits for the core business rather than see it as additional bureaucracy

·         To know when to do it – how to balance the need to have something on which to consult and not leaving the EIA to become an add on at the end

·         To realise EIA is a circular and continuous process which fits neatly into business planning cycles

·         Not to focus only on negative impacts, but on positive and not to miss opportunities to improve things

·         To have union and staff association involvement in reviewing EIAs and getting EIA training to play a QA role

·         To involve and engage people early to help identify barriers

And how do we best identify and reach diverse stakeholders? The key points raised here included:

·         A lack of staff confidence in going out to consult, resulting in an over-reliance on staff networks and the “usual suspects”

·         Not to assume people are “hard to reach” – it is rather that it may be hard to hear what they have to say

·         To know what’s going on locally and tap into that

·         To pool consultation with similar organisations in a region, for example by setting up a wide ranging consultative group

·         To remember that one single person cannot speak on behalf of entire groups

·         Independent Advisory Groups can quality assure EIAs but should not be expected to do the work themselves

·         To hold a series of focus groups on different aspects of three-year business plans

·         To find ways to involve staff who might not want to disclose personal details such as sexual orientation or disability

·         It is important that staff networks for particular groups are open to all who are committed to the aims of that network, to avoid a “them” and “us” problem

·         The value of a human rights approach in being inclusive about everyone’s needs

·         To recognise that the aim is to engage people with real experiences and that there is no single “right way” to do this

 
Procurement will be a strong element of the new Equality Act currently going through Parliament.

Contractors employed by public sector organisations which take public funds and perform public functions are covered by the legislation and it is the responsibility of the public authority to quality check and ensure compliance among those it contracts with. This requires more searching questions than simply asking if the contractor has an equal opportunities policy. This is likely to be an increasingly important area in the future.
 
Our symposium concluded by looking at how the EIA process could be built into core business procedures.  Suggestions made here included:

·         Including EIA in the risk register

·         Quality assurance

·         Making EIA a vital part of performance management

·         To relaunch EIAs to highlight the benefits to core business – they had been badly introduced at first as “must do by yesterday” and walls had come down

·         Linking EIAs with human rights to embrace everyone

·         Integrate into project management procedures and budgets

·         Add to project initiation process

·         To ensure all Board papers have an EIA attached

·         To involve Audit and Risk departments in checking EIAs

·         Among contractors, to build a network of contractors and show them how EIAs are what public authority clients value – use a carrot and not a stick

·         To make senior management attend EIA training so they understand the risks and the benefits
 

In conclusion, Dianna said it was essential to make EIAs manageable; to break large scale policies or projects into bite sized chunks or work streams and assign groups of staff to work on them rather than trying to tackle everything all at once. A team approach was also vital – no one person working in isolation can possibly recognise all the barriers and challenges that could occur. 

Building EIA into project management and budgeting meanwhile helps to ensure scarce public resources are targeted and not wasted.

We’re planning a series of half day coaching sessions around the delivery of EIAs. If you are interested in attending a session, please send an email to susannjerry@bdpmedia.com