Equality impact assessments
An equality impact assessment is a process to help ensure that the Department’s services are free from discrimination and promote equality of opportunity. Procedures are built into the Department’s policy development and change management activities and consist of two stages.
Stage 1 – initial assessment
The initial assessment looks at the scale and significance of the function, policy or service and if there is likely to be a need to carry out a full equality impact assessment.
Stage 2 – full equality impact assessment
A full equality impact assessment questions all aspects of the proposal and forecasts the likely effects on different groups. There are four elements to stage 2:
- collect information and data (including consultation and involvement)
- review the information and assess the impact
- draw a conclusion
- document the decisions.
