Mainstreaming equality in community planning, developing practice from Community Planning Partnerships in Scotland
CONTENTS
1. Introduction and Context – the three public sector duties and the Equality and Human Rights Commission
2. Evidence/data collection
3. Consultation/Community engagement
4. Monitoring
5. Equality Impact Assessment
6. Useful References
Community Planning Partnerships are grappling with a range of policy and legal requirements with a view to regenerating local areas and to delivering better services to communities in Scotland. A key requirement is to mainstream equality considerations in all aspects of regeneration including in Regeneration Outcome Agreements.
The following examples or illustrations are principally drawn from a number of CPP’s and partner organisations in across Scotland. The illustrations represent examples of what CPP’s and partner organisations are doing to respond to the equalities agenda in ROA’s and in wider regeneration activities.
The first section provides an introduction to the illustrations including some information on current developments including the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the expectations in respect of CPP’s and the public sector equality duties.
The next few sections draw out examples and learning in respect of building equality into regeneration, data collection, consultation, monitoring, and equality impact assessment. Issues such as the creation of equality forums and examples of inter-agency working are used to provide relevant illustrations of developing practice.
Process/cycle
Policy-making and service design and delivery are not undertaken in ideal conditions. There are financial, people, expertise issues and time constraints that mean that CPP’s and partners are under considerable pressure. Nevertheless, in order to draw out useful practice, these illustrations follow a cycle of intervention from evidence gathering through consultation to monitoring. The illustrations then focus on tools like Equality Impact Assessment looking at a set of questions around
ü WHO should do it
ü WHAT it entails
ü WHEN it should be done
ü HOW best to undertake it
Context
The legal and policy context in which the public authorities work has changed fundamentally in recent years. Alongside Scottish legislation in respect of the operation of Local Government, Best Value and the development of CPP’s, the public sector duties now extend to Race, Disability and Gender Equality. The use of positive legal duties began in 2000 when the Race Relations Act was amended to require public authorities, as a statutory duty, to promote race equality. Additional, new positive duties came into force for disability equality in December 2006 (known as the Disability Equality Duty and introduced through the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 – which amends the 1995 Act). In April 2007 duty in respect of gender equality (known as the Gender Equality Duty came into force.
From passive to active
The key requirement of the duties is a pro-active approach to equalities, not just tackling discrimination but also mobilising all policies and services to promote equality.
The three duties have a set of requirements to which public authorities must comply. Most of the partner organisations in CPP’s are subject to both the general and specific duties. Compliance with the duties requires a systematic approach to building equalities into mainstream activities.
The role of Partnership Working
In a paper on Community Planning and the Public Sector Duties produced in January 2007, and presented at joint conferences with Communities Scotland in Edinburgh and Inverness, the three equality commissions in Scotland clarified their view on the obligations of CPP’s.
While acknowledging that Community Planning Partnerships are not specifically covered by the duties, they make the point that public bodies that are involved in partnership work are still responsible for meeting the public sector duties within their partnership role. This is because partnership activity is one of their functions and therefore covered by the duties. The relevant section is quoted below:
‘Most public bodies will be involved in partnerships in order to better plan and deliver their services – for example, police and fire joint boards, community planning partnerships or regional transport partnerships.
Those partnerships which have a separate legal identity will be bound by each of the public sector equality duties. For example, police and fire joint boards are specifically covered by all three duties and will be legally required to publish equality schemes. In contrast, community planning partnerships, for example, are not specifically covered by the public sector duties.
However, public bodies that are involved in partnership work are still responsible for meeting the public sector duties within their partnership role, because partnership activity is one of their functions and therefore covered by the duties. ‘
The paper is available at on the website of the Equality and Human Rights Commission at
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/pages/eocdrccre.aspx
A further significant change of legal context is the establishment of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The EHRC takes over the work of the three equality Commissions - the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC). The EHRC also assumes responsibility for promoting equality and combating unlawful discrimination in three new anti-discrimination strands -- sexual orientation, religion or belief, and age.
These, in combination, are the six equality strands outlined in the Equality Act 2006. In addition, the EHRC will have responsibility for promoting human rights and will operate at GB level1.
Mainstreaming is the Method
The common requirement of both the policy and legal frameworks is that equality is treated as integral to mainstream policy formulation, to workforce issues and service design and delivery. This means building in equality considerations from the start of policy and planning cycle and making it explicit in all activities through to delivery.
The starting point for mainstreaming and for planning is availability of disaggregated data. It is also important to have evidence of different patterns of response, participation or usage.
The next step is the analysis of this data to inform target setting, indicators the desired outcomes. Data can be drawn from statistical sources, surveys on usage and experience and citizen’s panels or, where information is more problematic from targeted focus groups. In compiling evidence, the issue is about identifying need rather than identifying individuals.
The Scottish Government has a number of publications on the website with targeted information to support the duties. The most recent publication on gender statistics is at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Research/Research/17692/SocialResearchPubs/SocialJusticeEqualities
Collecting Equalities Data– The Dumfries And Galloway Experience
In response to prompting by Communities Scotland and recognising the need to have equalities data, the CPP set about establishing baseline equalities data. While data exists at Scotland level and various types of data are available at different levels, e.g. regional level, health board area, small area statistics. There is currently no comprehensive baseline of disaggregated equalities data that would support and inform the work of CPP’s.
Participants
The CPP set out gathering information through a snapshot survey that was undertaken in January 2007. Participants in the survey were all clients/customers who used the Community Regeneration Fund or the New Futures Fund.
Methodology
The CPP produced an information booklet on equalities monitoring – making the case for monitoring and explaining why the survey was being undertaken. The leaflet was clear that participation and response was voluntary and that if people were uncomfortable they did not have an obligation to respond. The leaflet also provided some useful definitions related to terms used in respect of the equalities strands. The equality strands covered in the survey were race, disability, gender, age, religion and sexual orientation.
Questionnaire
1213 monitoring forms were distributed to the projects funded through the Community Regeneration Fund or the New Futures Fund. 553 were returned. This was a very good return representing over fifty percent of the target participants. 25 projects took part in the survey. While two other projects are funded, the CPP considered that because in one case they work with under 12’s and in the other they have no direct beneficiaries. Twenty one projects returned forms – this was a very positive return for an initial monitoring exercise.. Where project did not return monitoring forms, the reasons ranged form lack of service users that week, lack of staff resources, redundancy and in one case the project not responding.
Children/young people
One question that emerged was about monitoring projects with young people or children. As mentioned earlier, the project whose beneficiaries were under 12 was not monitored because of concerns about how to go about this. While there is considerable literature about engaging with children and young people, monitoring this age group in respect of the equalities agenda is more complex.
This is an area for further development and clarification from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and other public authorities. However, there are some existing ethical guidelines for research or consultation and some good practice suggestions for engaging with young people. Some of the guidance and guidelines will be included in the reference section.
Building gender equality into mainstream programmes: South Lanarkshire
South Lanarkshire Council entered into a partnership with Oxfam's UK Poverty Programme and Engender to pilot a project on gender and regeneration, within the context of community planning. The Project aim was to maximise the positive impact of regeneration activities on the lives of women and men in South Lanarkshire who are living in poverty (as determined by the Scottish Executive’s data zone deprivation rankings). This is being done by taking a gender perspective on or ‘gender mainstreaming’ areas of regeneration work and then disseminating the learning’s and benefits.
The focus taken was employability projects. In South Lanarkshire, five employability projects were identified for implementation of the gender mainstreaming methodology. These five projects are:
• Routes to Work South;
• Pride of Place;
• What’s with Work;
• Work Experience; and
• Skill Force.
The project has now concluded and Guidance is available that draws on the learning. It is called: Tackling Inequalities: A Guide To Planning Better Services. The booklet provides an approach to mainstreaming based on the project cycle that most organisations utilise. It provides a step by step approach including local context information in respect of inequalities. It is available from Changing Places, South Lanarkshire Council, David Dale House, 45 St John Street, Blantyre, G72 0JG.
All of the equality duties require consultation with communities of interest. In particular, there is a legal requirement to involve disabled people in aspects of the development and implementation of the Disability Equality Scheme including the Equality Impact Assessment process. In relation to race and gender, the duty is to consult widely on the scheme. In relation to the other equality strands there is not a legal requirement to consult but it would be good practice to do so.
Lessons from focus groups undertaken by Communities Scotland underline the fact that consultation should be done across all the issues in community planning and regeneration and not just in respect of the equalities agenda. In other words, people want to be consulted as citizens across the range of issues in their area.
West Dunbartonshire using local race forums and working strategically
West Dunbartonshire CPP have agreed a focus an specific actions for the next period. They are conscious of limited resources and the challenge of being a small town and are concentrating on work with LGBT and race communities. A key piece of work is the commissioning of the West of Scotland Race equality Council to host an event that will look at inter-authority working across race and regeneration.
South of Scotland Network SOSNET
This forum of CVS’s provides capacity building and community development support to relatively disadvantaged communities and social economy organisations working with socially excluded groups. SOSNET works to assist community engagement in the community planning processes by working with partners to ensure strategic inter-agency co-operation in the delivery of support to social economy organisations and effective representation and public involvement in decision-making.
Equality Forums
For many CPP’s, equality forums provide a strategic approach to inter agency co-operation to deliver across the equalities agenda. For example, Highlands and Islands Equality Forum (HIEF), which is funded from a range of sources including EU funding and Communities Scotland. HIEF acts as a resource for public authorities in the Highland and Islands area and provides both a forum for exchange and a source of equalities expertise. Highland’s has also combined to resource translation services for public authorities in the area, recognising that resources are limited and that sharing this facility is both efficient and effective.
Another example is Edinburgh Council that has set up forums for the various equalities strands. There are now six Equality Forums that assist the Council and its partner organisations in their work to tackle prejudice and end discrimination. Individual forums cover the issues of disability, gender, older age, race, religion and belief and sexual orientation/gender identity. The forums exist to enable equalities communities to bring issues of concern to the Council. They are also a resource the Council can call upon to ensure an equalities perspective is included in the development of policies, strategies or services.
Multi- agency working
As well as equality forums, many CPP partners are involved in multi- agency working in respect of economic development activity. Examples of projects funded through ESF or other EU funding provide some learning in respect of strategic focus and the equalities agenda. This is relevant as the current Lowlands and Uplands Scotland funding will be made available to support a selection of Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) in implementing integrated social inclusion and regeneration action plans. The funding will come from the allocations of Priority 1 of the ESF Programme (Progressing into Employment) and Priority 3 of the ERDF Priogramme (Urban Regeneration).
Routes to Work- North Lanarkshire Council
RTW is the implementation arm of the Routes to Economic Inclusion strategy for North Lanarkshire (a model which applies pan-Lanarkshire). The strategy was established by members of the Local Economic Forum which comprise, North and South Lanarkshire Council, Scottish Enterprise Lanarkshire, Careers Scotland, Jobcentre plus, the consortium of local colleges, the SIP and the voluntary sector.
The project has considered equal opportunities from the outset building it into employment practice and the delivery strategy. RTW seeks to ensure and facilitate full involvement making sure that there are no in built barriers/constraints preventing individuals accessing employment and personal development opportunities. RTW offers its services to all clients within its target areas irrespective of gender, age, ethnicity, disability, religion or sexual orientation.
More details are available at: www.routestowork.co.uk
Consultation and Involvement
In respect of consultation and community engagement, as indicated earlier, it is important to note that the Disability Equality Duty places a duty on public authorities to consult people with disabilities directly and to involve them in policy-making and service design. In addition, consultation is a key requirement of the race equality duty and the gender equality duty. Consultation is a resource for public authorities to get feedback and to provide updates to their local people.
The Positive Duties and Consultation
The guidance on meeting the disability equality duty states that public authorities must involve disabled people in the development and implementation of their Single Equity Scheme. Therefore, involvement of disabled people in specific aspects of the Scheme – including EQIA – is essential to ensure the successful achievement of the disability duty.
The guidance on meeting the race equality duty also requires public authorities to set out in its Single Equity Scheme the arrangements for consulting the people who are likely to be affected by our policies. Therefore, we are required to involve people from different racial groups in the EQIA process.
The guidance on meeting the gender equality duty recommends that public authorities should consult with key stakeholders when setting criteria for EQIAs and during the process of full EQIA.
It is important that this consultation and involvement is timely and takes at the start of the design of policies or strategies. If you are developing an anti-social behaviour strategy on something like dog fouling and introducing an on the spot fine, it will be critical consult with people with disabilities to identify issues or unintended consequences. For example, this early consultation can identify the need to allow exemptions for people who are blind or people with motor disabilities. Early consultation will avoid making mistakes and will ensure compliance with the duty.
Overcoming consultation fatigue
One problem that has been faced in the implementation of positive equality duties in Northern Ireland is 'consultation fatigue', with community and voluntary groups being overloaded with lengthy consultation documents. In its review of the implementation of the duties, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) stated that there was "consensus that blanket mail shots to everyone on a public authority's consultation list are rarely appropriate and should not be routinely advocated".
One means of tackling 'consultation fatigue' is to ensure that consultation is 'joined-up' within organisations, so that there can be one consultation exercise on related policies with affected groups. The ECNI has also recommended that "a number of public authorities should consolidate consultation exercises where possible on the same, or similar, policies".
Health authorities in Northern Ireland undertake a region-wide equality impact assessment (EQIA) timetable so that each policy area is subject to equality impact assessment by all health authorities at the same time. This joined-up approach enables one consultation exercise for each EQIA.
Monitoring is important for a number of reasons: it tracks progress and participation and provides data about who is participating in programmes and projects. Monitoring provides a way of supplementing existing data and crucially an indication of whether programmes or services are meeting target groups.
An example of a practical approach to monitoring data on sexual orientation and needs is North Lanarkshire Council. They currently fund consultative arrangements through an agency in Glasgow and tracks service use by North Lanarkshire residents. It was agreed that this is a practical and appropriate way to gather information.
Qualitative data
CPP’s and public authorities have found monitoring in respect of race, disability, gender, and age are more clear-cut. On the other hand, they have found both sexual orientation and religion/belief both complex and difficult. Data sets at national and local level do not routinely provide disaggregation across the six strands – race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation and religion/belief. It is worth considering how qualitative information based on surveys and questionnaires can provide useful data that can supplement quantitative information.
While CPP’s are involved in many innovative practices, monitoring across the equalities strands is not routinely built in to the initiative. For example, some CPP’s are providing leisure cards for all 17 year olds in areas covered by the CRF. This is a positive provision but, take-up needs to be monitored as a minimum, in respect of gender, race, disability, and where possible, in respect of sexual orientation and religion/belief. As indicated above, it maybe that a survey of experience can capture qualitative information in respect of the experience of young LGBT people or young people from faith groups.
Much of the burden of monitoring has been taken up by projects. However, there is a need for a strategic approach to monitoring that ensures that specific data is collected in order to meet the requirements of the public sector equality duties.
Learning from structural funds projects identified the need for qualitative monitoring. In particular the benefits of mid term evaluation. Perhaps projects could be asked to do some pilot mid term evaluations in a small number of areas. The evaluation could cover quantitative and qualitative information in order to ensure that targets are being met and that the data being monitored is adequate.
This section looks at EQIA addressing questions around who, what, and when. There is already considerable learning in CPP’s and partner organisations in respect of the design of pro-forma, lessons about the need for at least two or three people to undertake EQIA, and some experience from a range of policy areas in health, education and service provision.
In some CPP’s, the lead on EQIA is taken by the Council, there is also considerable experience in NHS Boards utilising the heath assessment tool. Dumfries and Galloway and West Dunbartonshire, EQIA began at CPP level. WDCPP have developed an Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) tool. Guidance on this was developed in September 2006. More information at: http://www.wdcweb.info/equality/displayarticle.asp?id=11143
Who, What, How, When
Who should do it?
Experience and practice from South Ayrshire suggested that at least two people should be involved. They have developed a pro-forma and tested it on a range of polices and programmes.
In Highland Health Board the current stipulation is for involvement of three people – the person responsible for the policy/service, the person who knows how it works on the ground and, in order to build capacity in the short term, someone with equalities expertise
What does it entail?
The purpose of EQIA is to ensure that policies and activities do not disadvantage people because of their race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation or religion/belief. It is a tool for identifying differential impact in respect of polices, service delivery or employment issues. The process entails working out potential impacts and identifying actions for change. An impact assessment is not an end in itself. It is simply the process that public authorities must go through in order to identify any aspects of policies and functions that may need to be changed in order to tackle discrimination or to better promote equality of opportunity.
How should it be done?
The Scottish Government have revised their EQIA pro-forma and it is available online. This provides the method or form for working out the impact.
According to the Executive’s model, a successful EQIA will look at 4 key areas.
These are:
1. Policy – a clear definition of your policy and its aims;
2. Collecting evidence and engagement with equality groups;
3. Differential Impact – reaching an informed decision on whether or not there is a differential impact on equality groups, at what level and what you will do to address any adverse impact;
4. Measuring outcomes – stating how you will be monitoring and evaluating the policy to ensure that you are continuing to achieve the expected outcomes for all groups.
The model provides prompt questions and a data page for each of the 10 Steps outlined.
The ten steps are:
Step 1 Define the aims of your policy
Step 2 What do you already know about the diverse needs and/or experiences of your
target audience?
Step 3 What else do you need to know to help you understand the diverse needs and/or experiences of your target audience?
Step 4 What does the information you have tell you about how this policy might impact
positively or negatively on the different groups within the target audience?
Step 5 Will you be making any changes to your policy?
Step 6 Does your policy provide the opportunity to promote equality of opportunity or good relations?
Step 7 Based on the work you have done – rate the level of relevance of your policy –
High, Medium or low
Step 8 Do you need to carry out a further impact assessment?
Step 9 Please explain how you will monitor and evaluate this policy to measure progress
Step 10 Sign off and publish impact assessment
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/18507/EQIAtooldoc
The impact assessment is complete when the policy, employment practice or service delivery has been either modified or found to be in order.
When
EQIA is designed to be carried out at the beginning of planning policies and services or when reviewing an existing policy. It is predicated on data and evidence being available. If data is not available, it may still be possible to move on with implementation if a rigorous monitoring system is in place and an action plan for collecting data is agreed.
EQIA is most effective if it is if carried out at the start of the planning, policy or budgetary cycle but it may also need to be carried out in response to monitoring data, following a review or as a result of research findings.
Nevertheless, it is recognised that it is not always possible to do this as policy and programmes are often ongoing and policy-making takes place in a number of ways. Prioritisation is an important step, the legislation mentions relevance and proportionality. Public authorities and Partnerships should consider undertaking EQIA on major areas of policy, a programme or intervention that affects a large number of people, an area of high expenditure or strategic importance. For example education and skills development, areas of national strategic importance like tackling health inequalities, programmes that attract substantial expenditure or areas where targets are not being met. For example, it may be that monitoring information demonstrates that a broad range of people is not accessing the service or programme. In that case, an impact assessment can assist in identifying possible barriers and suggest some modifications.
LEARNING and EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCE
CPP’s and partner organisations have experience of and learning from undertaking EQIA both in pilot work and on major areas of policy, programmes and functions. EQIA is a relatively new tool and it is useful to exchange experience and share learning across Scotland.
For East Ayrshire, health impact assessment was undertaken on a breast-feeding programme. The learning from this underlined the diversity and between women and highlighted the fact that women are not a homogenous group, consultation with people is critical to understand the range of views and how information is communicated is critical to how it is received. Some women reported that they felt harassed or pressurised to breast feed and felt that they were judged in a negative way if they did not or could not.
In South Ayrshire, the Council is taking the lead on EQIA started with the health assessment and expanded it out to three pilots. This work identified complexity as a problem and the Council officers developed a simpler approach. Suggestions from their experience in respect of WHO should carry out impact assessment, the suggestion is for at least two people – the person responsible for major policy development or major revision of policy should carry out an IA and involve an outsider as a check.
The Council developed a checklist that sets out the key components of an impact assessment. Experience of utilising this suggests that it need none be a lengthy or complicated process. Depending on the policy, and the nature of information and evidence already available, EQIA can be a relatively straightforward process.
Further key learning points include the suggestion of sharing the impact assessment with stakeholders including affected communities, undertaking revisions based on feedback and finally, when satisfied, go to committee
Partner organisations can also learn from each other across a range of areas from consultations to how to build equalities into organisations. Structured sessions around exchange of experience provide a useful way to exchange and to actively engage with areas that are complex.
For example, NHS Orkney have personal objectives for senior management to include accountability for equality issues. This is also the case for NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde who in addition have a Corporate Inequalities Team operating at senior level within the management structure.
The issue of engaging or surveying young people and the need for monitoring data seems like a very timely area for exchange and learning.
The key issue is informed consent and this means consent from the children and in the case of survey work with young people under 16, the consent of their parents.
Other issues like confidentiality and anonymity are important for young people as well as involvement in the design and dissemination of research, surveys and consultation systems.
Most guidance on research or survey work with young people stresses involvement and engagement both in the design and in the presentation of findings. Suggested methods include small group discussions, individual interviews and self reporting. It is important to remember that the purpose of the monitoring is to identify barriers to participation and to see whether characteristics like race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion and age, affected how a service is utilised, how successful it is or why it might not be effective. The intention is not to label individuals but to ensure broad access, participation and beneficial results.
Responding to needs: making health promotion services more accessible to men
NHS Shetland tries to make its condom distribution service as comprehensive as possible and free condoms are available in a variety of places including GP practices and village halls. The latest venue is barber shops. The health promotion clinical specialist in sexual health explains; 'Availability and accessibility are what's important. Condoms are available in GP practices but how accessible are they to people like young men, who don't go to see their GP. So, we tried to be a bit more imaginative and make sure condoms were available where men actually go'.
Community Planning and the duties
3 Commissions paper on Community Planning January 2007
The paper is available at
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/pages/eocdrccre.aspx
Children in Scotland have ethical guidelines that sets out some key issues for researchers or for those who want to survey and consult young people. They are available at: www.childreninscotland.org.uk
The Communities Scotland website includes some tips for engaging young people at:www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk under the Equality heading.
Highlands and Islands Equality Forum (HIEF)
Scottish Government
Equality Statistics
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Research/Research/17692/SocialResearchPubs/SocialJusticeEqualities
EQIA
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/18507/EQIAtooldoc
The Scottish Government undertook a consultation on a Community Planning Advice Note on Engaging Children and Young People in Community Planning. The Consultation Report is available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/09/CYPConsultationReport
Routes to Work: www.routestowork.co.uk
SoSNet is a partnership project bringing together Councils of Voluntary Service (CVS’s) operating in Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders www.sosnet.org.uk
