Supporting organisations with Equality Impact Assessment
Our experience has shown that equality impact assessment presents challenges for many key 'players' within public sector organisations.
Internal equality and diversity specialists face the task of persuading managers of the strength of the business case, and often feel uncomfortable 'falling back' on the legal imperative as a means of generating action. They also face the challenges of coordinating equality impact assessment activity across the organisation and of designing a process that can be implemented with consistency, yet which is flexible and fit-for-purpose.
Senior managers are wary of committing resources to impact assessment activity when there may be no obvious evidence or reports of discrimination, and when there are in fact already many examples of positive equality and diversity practice within their organisation.
Service or departmental managers will require information about impact assessment principles and process, and support with implementation. Many are likely to be committed to carrying out high quality assessments, but unsure how to achieve this in the most efficient way.
The scale of activity that equality impact assessment apparently requires can also be daunting and can make it difficult for organisations to identify or take the first steps.
Marshall ACM has extensive experience of working with NHS, HE, FE, and local government organisations on equality impact assessment, and building on this experience we are pleased to offer a package of consultancy and support activities incorporated within the key areas of learning, mentoring, planning, piloting and evaluation.