What is an Equality Impact Assessment (EIA)?
An Equality Impact Assessment is an assessment which helps to ensure that proposals, policies, procedures and decisions are fair, promote equality and inclusion, and do not inadvertently discriminate against any protected group under the 2010 Equality Act.
An EIA ensures that public sector organisations meet the Public Sector Equality Duty and demonstrates that an organisation understands the impact of their activities on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
The assessment is also useful for private sector organisations who are subject to the general equality duties of their public functions. For example a private organisation providing a service on behalf of a local authority
Protected characteristics include, age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
Key questions to ask yourself
- Are there any inherent biases in your reward system?
- Do you monitor potential differences as a result of your pay structure?
- Can you justify differences in pay between protected characteristics at your organisation?
- Is the capability in place to understand the areas of risk and how to manage them?
- What is the level of risk – and is this risk individual or systematic?
What can we do to help?
QCG can conduct an EIA for you to;
- Understand the effects that current reward proposals, policies, procedures and decisions have on different groups with protected characteristics.
- Identify any disproportionately adverse impacts on these groups of both current and new reward proposals, policies, procedures and decisions.
- Draw up actions to remove or mitigate any identified adverse impacts.
- Ensure decisions moving forward are transparent and based on evidence with clear reasoning.
