Equality Impact Assessments help us design and deliver fairer and more inclusive work.
An Equality Impact Assessment provides a structured way to consider how different groups of people may be affected by our work – be it a policy, process, service, project, etc. Thereby enabling us to identify any potential barriers or disadvantages and make changes or take mitigating action to remove them.
By checking the impacts of our work, we’re driving structural change to create a culture that truly thrives on difference.
Download the form you need and find more information to support completing an Equality Impact Assessment...
Equality Impact Assessments are a proactive way to ensure our work is fair and inclusive. They also show how we are meeting our Public Sector Equality Duty to consciously consider eliminating discrimination, creating equality of opportunity, and fostering good relations.
The key thing is that an Equality Impact Assessment is a tool for thinking about equality, not just a form; it's a process of trying to uncover any impacts, not a tick-box. The EIA should explain how the equality impact has been assessed and how any conclusions have been reached - transparency of reasoning is key to a robust assessment.
Whoever owns the work is responsible for the Equality Impact Assessment and it should come at the formative stage of work, so that the assessment can influence how the work is designed and delivered.
Additional resources
Alongside the main Equality Impact Assessment guidance linked above, find additional resources to help you use Equality Impact Assessments in your work:
Our Values-Based Equality Impact Assessments guidance outlines how to apply our values and behaviours to Equality Impact Assessments. By embedding these values into this process, we ensure that our policies, decisions, and actions not only meet legal requirements but also align with our vision for a better world.
Our Equality Impact Assessments and Freedom of Speech guidance outlines how to use an Equality Impact Assessment as an opportunity to think about how work impacts both inclusion and freedom of speech. By identifying risks in both areas and, if appropriate, weighing them carefully, an Equality Impact Assessment supports balanced, fair, and legally compliant decision-making.
This LGBTQ+ Considerations for Equality Impact Assessments resource from the WIHEA Queering University project offers a set of reflective and practical question prompts to aid you in identifying risks and mitigating any negative impacts of your work on LGBTQ+ people.
Let us know any other resources you'd like included in this list - email us at .
Equality Impact Assessments make our work fairer and protect us from legal challenge.
They are a proactive way to ensure our work is fair and inclusive, helping create a culture that truly thrives on difference.
They show how we’re meeting our Public Sector Equality Duty to consciously consider eliminating discrimination, creating equality of opportunity, and fostering good relations.
Consider doing an Equality Impact Assessment if:
You are starting/changing/stopping work.
The work, and your decisions about it, could affect people’s access, experiences, or outcomes, especially if differently.
It would be difficult to reverse the work/ decision(s) and the consequences of it.
You can’t demonstrate a confident and informed understanding of the impacts.
Once you've determined a piece of work would benefit from an Equality Impact Assessment, start it early in the process. An Equality Impact Assessment’s value is when it’s used as a tool to help you spot potential issues while you can still do something about them. As such, they should be started in the formative stages of the work and updated throughout so that it can inform how the work is designed and developed. They absolutely shouldn’t be used to justify a decision after it’s been made.
When completing an Equality Impact Assessment, look for implications of the work for different groups which might be:
Discrimination – The Equality Act prohibits discrimination. Direct discrimination is when someone is treated less favourably because of a characteristic. Indirect discrimination is when a policy/practice is the same for everyone but has a worse effect on some.
Inaccessibility – We take an ‘inclusive by design’ approach, meaning our services, environment, and processes should create dignified, equal, and intuitive use for all. Inaccessibility occurs when everyone’s needs aren’t considered, meaning a policy/practice/service is not right for or can’t be accessed by some people.
Positive impact – Don’t forget to consider any ways in which the work contributes to the aims of the Social Inclusion Strategy and helps advance equality, diversity, and inclusion.
An Equality Impact Assessment should be:
A substantial, rigorous, and open-minded consideration, not a tick-box.
Able to evidence a thorough process of inquiry and give clear reasoning for the conclusions drawn.
A continuing exercise, not a one-off.
Accurately recorded and kept up-to-date.
There is more on how to complete an Equality Impact Assessment in the guidance linked above.
The owner of an Equality Impact Assessment (usually the person leading the work being assessed) is asked to keep a copy of the completed form to produce on request. As such, if you would like to see an Equality Impact Assessment for a piece of work, feel free to contact people directly to request it. If the work is presented at a committee meeting, findings from the Equality Impact Assessment should be referred to in the paper.
The Social Inclusion Annual Report highlights the work that has been taking place across the University over the last year, and how it is helping us to meet our Social Inclusion Strategy objectives to increase the diversity of our staff and student communities, develop an inclusive culture, and become an internationally recognised leader in inclusion.
