Equality impact Assessments

What is an Equality Impact assessment (EIA) ? 

An equality impact assessment (EIA) help organisations ensure that their management policies, services and practices are fair and offer equality and most importantly do not present barriers to participation or disadvantage for protected groups under the Equality Act 2010. 

The purpose of the EA is to examine the extent to which a policy, strategy including strategic decisions, service or function may impact, either negatively or positively, on any groups of the community and, where appropriate, recommend alternative measures to ensure equal access to services and opportunities.

The Equality Act 2010 provides a framework to ensure that unlawful discrimination is eliminated, and equality of opportunity for protected characteristics, including: age, reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion and belief, sex/gender and sexual orientation.

When do I need to do an Equality Impact assessment (EIA) ? 

Whether an EIA is needed or not will depend on the likely impact that the change in policy, strategy, service or function may have and relevance of the activity to equality.

The EIA should be done when the need for a new policy or practice is identified, or when an existing one is reviewed. Depending on the type of policy or activity advice can be sought from either your inclusion and diversity lead or HR or equivalent.

An EIA should form part of any new policy, event or funding activity and be factored in as early , at CAE we have been involved in EIA’s for public sector and part of the design brief for public buildings assessing the impact of every stage of design development to ensure equality is considered throughout.

CAE offers equality impact analysis (EIA) for clients to support you to meet your public-sector equality duty set out in Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, this requires due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics.

CAE can support you with training to build capacity to undertake EIA’s or we can carry this out on your behalf and this may include consultation with users who may be impacted by the change in policy, strategy, service or function. 

Contact us for further information