[Courtney Brightwell]

Hi Ed,

We're doing some work around Equality Imapct Assessments at the moment, as our scrutiny committees are seeing more and more of them, particularly in reports on service redesigns. I think this publication could be very helpful.

Our work on EIAs has two main strands at the moment:

- workshops for elected members on how EIAs should be carried out
- our lead Committee on equality looks at a range of EIAs and comments on their thoroughness, evidence base and whether mitigating action goes far enough.

Happy to provide more information.

Courtney

[Ed Hammond]

I've done the first draft of this now. If you want me to send it to you for comments, please let me know - I'd appreciate some practitioner views.

[Tracey Tiff]

Hi

Each of our Scrutiny Panels when undertaken Reviews carries out an EIA at commencement of Review I draft this in conjunction with the Chair and the Scrutiny Panel then adds further value at the next meeting.

Details of our EIA are published on the O&S page on the Council's website:

http://www.northampton.gov.uk/site/scrip...eNumber=11

Three more will be added by the end of September

Tracy

[Earl Piggott-Smith]

Ehammond Wrote:In early September, we'll be publishing the next in our series of policy briefings. Number 12 will look at the role that scrutiny can play in influencing, examining and using equality impact assessments in its work.

EIAs are now carried out on a regular basis in local authorities, and in partner organisations, whenever major policy changes are planned. However, in many places they are viewed as an add-on, retrospective process, not a means by which thinking about equality can be "mainstreamed" into substantive policy-making. As such, councils and their partners risk making decisions which, which they may not be prima facie illegal under the Equality Act, still unnecessarily disadvantage certain sections of the community.

The briefing will look at the role that scrutiny can play in emphasing the importance of equality in policy-making.

I know that there are some good examples in a number of authorities of scrutiny reviews which touch on this issue, but I thought I'd take this opportunity to ask if any of you have any other examples or thoughts on the matter that I can feed in.

Hi Ed, we have had discussions about the role of EIA during scrutiny discussions on planned budget changes - it would be helpful if your briefing could provide guidance to members about how they should look at the information as part of their scrutiny role and in particular the level of detail they should expect to see - but without creating too much work for the officers involved