The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) was introduced as part of the Equality Act 2010, which protects people from discrimination in the workplace, in the provision of services and in wider society.
The duty requires all public bodies to have due regard to the need to:
- Eliminate discrimination.
- Advance equality of opportunity.
- Foster good relations between different people
Public bodies demonstrate this due regard in different ways, including producing robust equality impact assessments when considering changes to policies, services and developing projects.
An Equality Impact Assessment enables checks to take place concerning the potential impacts on those affected by policies, services and projects. It’s an opportunity to challenge business as usual approaches.
The purpose of an Equality Impact Assessment is to take account of equality as plans develop, to promote and assist the consideration of equalities issues arising in plans and proposals and to ensure that where possible adverse or disproportionate impacts are minimised, and positive impacts are maximised. An Equality Impact Assessment should be used to ensure decision makers have all the information they need regarding potential impacts to ensure they have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty when making judgements.
As Project Groundwater is a community-focused partnership, it is therefore imperative that the project team ensure that there is a true representation from the whole community to account for as many different opinions and perspectives as possible, as well actively seeking to engage with those who have, traditionally, been hard to reach.
The Equality Impact Assessment will be the responsibility of the Project Groundwater Engagement Workstream as they will have the most contact with communities and stakeholders. An Equality Impact Assessment should be completed at every milestone, large scale engagement activity, or periodically to ensure that any future risks can be mitigated.