This guidance, funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), was developed by Advance HE in collaboration with several 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
Recommendations
A summary of key recommendations for a strategic approach to EIA is included below. These recommendations are based on a consensus of the EIA project team, developed over the duration of the project in conjunction with relevant Advance HE research.
General recommendations for colleges, regional colleges and universities
- Strategic embedding should take place by having institutional equality and diversity priorities clearly identified and at the heart of the process to inform EIA development.
- A strategic approach to EIA will ensure the greatest alignment and consistency between different institutional strategies and activities.
- Strategic and high-level EIA considerations will not necessarily identify specific actions but institutional direction and expectations for policy and practice should be clear.
- Identifying, understanding and referencing relevant data and evidence is key to informing direction; this should assist with understanding both your current situation and how outcomes and impacts in equality are created, and change in practice. Examples of relevant data and key evidence (much of which will be existing) might include; other EIAs, institutional public sector equality duty reports; staff and student surveys; widening access data, sector benchmarking data; complaints and feedback data etc.
- Aligning institutional processes should help to ensure that strategic intentions and direction are effectively cascaded and mainstreamed throughout the institution, co-ordinated and mapped through relevant operational plans, policies and respective EIAs.
Recommendations for monitoring and evaluation
6. Ongoing monitoring and review are essential to inform an understanding of whether intended direction works in practice. Approaches to monitoring should therefore:
- Prioritise and aim to embed equality.
- Include consideration of how equality impact will be evaluated, to help improve practice.
- Include consideration of longer-term monitoring and evaluation of equality impacts and outcomes resulting from the EIA process.
- Allow for ongoing iterative review and development of equality priorities and strategic direction.
- Be reflected in core processes such as institutional self-evaluation and review discussions.
Conclusions
EIA is an essential tool to support better decision making, equity and fairness; the EIA model suggested within this guidance provides a framework for adopting a strategic and integrated approach.
Culture, size, geographical location and focus of institutions may be an important factor contributing to how institutional processes for the development of strategy are shaped. The recommendations in this guidance may therefore align more closely with current operational practice in some institutions than in others.
Changing and adapting institutional culture, processes and mechanisms is accepted as being complex and longer term. However, as outlined throughout the guidance, there are some key benefits to adopting this approach linked to more consistent and aligned approaches to institutional equality.
Through the mechanism of a robust EIA linked to core institutional equality priorities, it should be easier to address equality in strategy and policy development, and to position and represent this work within a clear institutional framework. An approach focused on delivering a clear institutional strategy where equality is aligned and embedded, also reinforces the strong business case for effective EIA in helping to mitigate against a range of risks whilst positively addressing equality and access aims.
Colleges and universities requiring further help and support on implementing this model of EIA for their individual university or college context, or in relation to questions about change management or culture, should in the first instance contact David Bass at Advance HE by emailing david.bass@advance-he.ac.uk.