A New Era for Equality Impact Assessments

At The Equal Group, we have spent years supporting public sector and public sector adjacent organisations to embed equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) into their decision-making. Throughout this work, one recurring and significant challenge has emerged: the struggle to conduct effective Equality Impact Assessments (EQIAs).

This is not just an administrative inconvenience. It represents a fundamental barrier to building a more equitable society.

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The Problem with the Traditional Approach

We have seen first-hand how the traditional approach to EQIAs has fallen short. Processes across organisations are often inconsistent, overly time-consuming, and widely perceived as a “box-ticking exercise”, completed as an afterthought once the policy decision has been made.

Staff frequently express frustration with the lack of clear guidance on:

• When an assessment is required
• The scope it should cover, including relevant data sources
• The appropriate level of detail needed

This ambiguity results in wide variations in the quality and rigour of assessments, leaving organisations vulnerable to non-compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) and the public at risk of disproportionate and negative outcomes.

The challenges extend further. Organisations often lack access to disaggregated and intersectional data, and even where data exists, staff frequently do not have the expertise to conduct a meaningful analysis. Community engagement—a critical part of a robust assessment—is also difficult to achieve effectively. Too often, organisations struggle to engage effectively with marginalised and underrepresented groups.

In practice, this means the focus shifts from identifying and addressing significant equality impacts to simply completing the EQIA form itself. As a result, the assessments lack the necessary scrutiny, often fail to drive positive change and are unlikely to influence outcomes in any meaningful way.

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The Unspoken Pain Points

These are not isolated problems but systemic challenges across the public sector. We found in our work that EQIAs were widely regarded as an administrative burden that hindered genuine engagement and did nothing to change organisational outcomes.

The quality and depth of assessments were often dependent on the expertise, interest, or capacity of the individual completing them, rather than a consistent process. The consequences were clear:

• Compliance gaps and equality risks
• Weak or non-existent follow-up on mitigation strategies
• Limited learning from past projects or engagement activities

This lack of a robust and repeatable process leaves organisations at risk of repeating mistakes, while undermining the intended benefits of the EQIA process.

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Introducing the EQIA Tool: A New Approach

In response to these challenges, The Equal Group has developed the EQIA Tool—a digital platform designed to transform how public-facing organisations conduct equality impact assessments. It provides a guided, end-to-end process that replaces fragmented, manual approaches with a consistent, collaborative, and strategic system.

Key features include:

• Guided EQIA Wizard: Step-by-step prompts that ensure consistency, consideration, and thoroughness.
• Integrated Learning: Built-in guidance to support those less familiar with equality issues, reducing reliance on over-stretched specialists.
• Real-Time Collaboration: Enables multiple internal and external team members to work on the same assessment simultaneously.
• Mitigation Monitoring: Tracks implementation and effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies to ensure assessments lead to tangible action.
• Advanced Analytics: Dashboards to monitor trends, measure impact, and demonstrate accountability.
• Template Library: A central repository of standardised templates to improve efficiency and consistency.
• Audit Trail: A transparent record of decisions and inputs, supporting accountability and scrutiny.
  
  

From Tick-Box to Transformation

The EQIA Tool directly addresses the key challenges organisations face. It provides clarity where there has previously been ambiguity, introduces a consistent methodology, and integrates equality considerations into the earliest stages of project design rather than treating them as an afterthought.

By offering a more nuanced, tiered approach, the tool ensures resources are allocated proportionately to the scale and materiality of each project. It simplifies data access and analysis, while empowering staff across departments to deliver more rigorous and meaningful assessments—without placing unsustainable pressure on equality teams.

Ultimately, the EQIA Tool moves equality impact assessments away from a compliance exercise and towards a transformative process that drives fairer outcomes for the public.

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Join Our Pilot Programme

We are inviting public sector organisations to join our pilot programme, designed to refine and customise the EQIA Tool to meet the diverse needs of the sector. The pilot will run for a limited period and is open to a select number of participants, with organisations gaining the opportunity to:

• Shape the tool’s features and development roadmap
• Ensure alignment with their compliance requirements and internal processes
• Position themselves at the forefront of best practice in equality impact assessment

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Ready to Transform Your Approach to EIAs?

Now is the time to move beyond compliance and embrace equality impact assessments as a foundation for better decision-making.

Visit www.eqiatool.com to find out more.
Email contact@theequalgroup.com to express your interest in joining the pilot.

The time for change is now. Join us in building a future where inclusion is a fundamental part of every decision we make.