This guidance, funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), was developed by Advance HE in collaboration with Scottish college and university partners.
Map of Equality Impact Assessment content
Strategic Equality Impact Assessment
Equality Impact Assessment in Scotland
Practical guidance for Scottish colleges and universities
How to use the guidance
Key information for leaders and other specific staff groups
A model process for undertaking strategic EIA
Summary of conclusions and key recommendations
Practical tools and information
The suggested model for strategic EIA prompts institutions to consider:
- How institutional equality priorities are identified.
- How strategic EIA takes place and effectively embeds these priorities within institutional strategic commitments and other areas of strategy and related activity.
The model will help institutions to address and enhance their approaches to meeting and representing equality and access requirements within strategy. The suggested model should also help to ensure wider institutional equality aims are met and legal public sector equality duty (PSED) obligations more effectively considered, aligned and mainstreamed. A simple overview of the model is included below.
More detailed process maps of this model linked to a generic approach to strategic EIA are included in the practical tools and information section.
The starting point and rationale
It is important to note that for this model to be effective, it requires institutions to:
- Adopt a ‘strategic embedding approach’ by having institutional equality and diversity priorities clearly identified through the process of institutional strategy, development and review.
- Regard EIA of high level strategy and policy as a fundamentally strategic process, with EIA undertaken and embedded as part of strategy or policy development and decision making, within the framework of agreed and identified equality aims.
- This will help to ensure:
- EIA is informed by strategic equality aims and priorities (including institutional equality outcomes) within strategy development and provides greater alignment and consistency between institutional equality strategy and other equality work and activities;
- There is a robust framework for identifying and understanding high level equality risks, impacts and opportunities to further advance institutional equality priorities and address mitigation to deal with any negative impacts or unintended consequences identified;
- More effective alignment of institutional processes that enables strategic intentions and direction to be effectively cascaded, mainstreamed, co-ordinated and mapped through relevant operational plans and activities and other institutional EIAs.
A strategic model for EIA
A detailed process map of the model, a checklist of key good practice principles for strategic EIA and set of reflective questions are included in the tools section.
A full process map can be found below along with links to each stage of the process.
Process Map for Conducting Strategic Equality Impact Assessment
Download the full process map
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EIA Stage One: How to scope the EIA
Timing: at the start of the strategy or policy development and review process.
Scope and identify core institutional equality priorities and drivers for the strategy or policy.
Scope and identify core institutional equality priorities and drivers for the strategy or policy.
EIA Stage Two: How to assess impact within the EIA
Timing: at the start of the strategy development and review process, following the scoping stage.
Understanding, judging and assessing high level risks, impacts and opportunities.
Understanding, judging and assessing high level risks, impacts and opportunities.
EIA Stage Three: Embedding
Timing: from early in the strategy development and review process following on from the scoping and assessment stage and through to initial strategy negotiation, followed by first draft and then to finalisation of the strategy.
EIA Stage Four: Ongoing monitoring and evaluation
Sufficiently robust processes should be put in place to support the ongoing strategy development process and related activity.