Equality Impact Assessments

The philosophy behind the Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) process is to ensure that every service and policy for, or delivered to, the general community is appropriate and accessible and does not, however unwittingly, disadvantage or discriminate against any group.

EIAs are necessary because "equality" is not about treating everybody the same. For example, providing a public service only on a Friday will adversely affect certain religious groups.  Similarly, altering funding arrangements for community and voluntary sector groups would disproportionately impact on particular communities. Equality means making sure that the individual requirements of different people and different communities are taken into account.

Under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, Local Authorities are required to identify all of the services, policies, plans and strategies which have a race equality dimension and to carry out an EIA against these. The Herefordshire Council has built on this requirement, and has extended its assessments across the areas of religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation and age.  It then goes even further, to assess the impact of services and policies on the basis of geographic location and income.

Where a policy or service is found to have a potentially adverse impact for any particular group, the policy or service will be changed.  Those that are found to have a positive impact will be kept under review in order to ensure that its potential is fulfilled.