Back to the practical guidance
Firstly, a series of conversations took place with stakeholders likely to be familiar with good practice on EIA in Scotland and their use in strategy. Stakeholders included Scottish university and college Equality Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) leads and practitioners, the Equality & Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) policy team, the Scottish Government’s National Equality Improvement Project (SNEIP) group, and equality leads from Police Scotland and NHS Scotland. The second phase of the research included desk based research using a google keyword search to locate published EIAs that related to and considered organisational strategy. An initial, in-depth search used the following keywords: ‘equality impact assessment strategy’, ‘equality impact assessment strategy human rights’, ‘strategic impact assessment’. A follow up search focused on specific policy areas likely to produce strategic impact assessments: ‘single outcome agreement impact assessment’, ‘Community Planning partnership impact assessment’, ‘Scotland city deal equality impact assessment’. Finally, given the relevance to the project’s aims, a search was undertaken to find literature and examples of Strategic Environmental Assessments, using the following keywords: ‘environmental impact assessment’, ‘strategic environmental assessment’, ‘strategic environmental assessment case study’. Over one hundred individual impact assessments were analysed and 10 case studies produced for discussion and consideration by the project team.
The 10 selected case studies linked to some of the key challenges identified by the project team in conducting EIA at a strategic level within colleges and universities. Discussion and examination of the case studies explored alternative approaches to addressing the key perceived challenges.
A case study exemplar is included in the tools section. (Creative Scotland)
The key findings from the research are incorporated in the recommendations and conclusions section.