Equality Analysis (EA) Case Study
2)
PeopleView
The peopleview system is located through the BBC intranet structures and allows staff to
look up, locate and identify reporting structures for BBC staff, teams and divisions. This
Equality Analysis considered the impact of upgrading the system to eliminate accessibility
issues for visually impaired staff.
This is a good example of taking a reasonable and proportionate approach to resolving
equality issues. In particular, a solution was agreed through consultation with BBC Ability
Forum and the Access Technology teams to resolve outstanding accessibility issues with the
next upgrade of the programme.
PeopleView Equality Analysis
Title
PeopleView Upgrade
Aims / Objectives
When PeopleView went live in April 2010 there were some outstanding
accessibility issues, the plan then was to upgrade to Version 2.1 to deal with
these issues. We are reviewing the impact of the upgrade to latest version 3.
Outcomes outline the expected outcomes from the aims and objectives listed above
To make PeopleView fully accessible to staff using assisted technology.
Who will be affected? e.g staff, audiences, Indies
Staff
Initial assessment of relevance outline how relevant is the project, policy or
process is to any of the protected groups or to the three arms of the general duty – high,
medium, low.
It is relevant to staff with a visual disability who need to use a screen reader.
Evidence
Evidence considered List any evidence including monitoring data, research, reports
and other references used to assess the impact on diverse groups
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In April 2010 12 members of staff were identified as being users of
assisted technology and so there affected by the issues, they were
contacted individually at go live to explain the problems.
There are 98 staff members who have registered themselves as having
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a visual impairment on SAP, 6 of whom are line managers. Not all of
these will be users of assistive technology.
Quote for work from Steria is £70k to £80k for the upgrade, but this is
an initial quote, to carry on the work Steria will need to do a detailed
analysis, which will cost.
From SAP HR team it would involve around 8 weeks work for 2 people
to test the upgrade.
Evidence gaps List any gaps in evidence
Steps taken to address gaps detail any steps taken to address gaps in evidence
Analysis of Effects on Equality
Age consider the full range of age groups
Disability consider the full range of disabilities and assess environmental, social and
physical barriers
Staff who have a visual disability that requires them to use a screen reader
will not be able to access all functionality in PeopleView
There are four known issues shown in attached file:
Staff who are managers and have a visual disability will not be able to use
PeopleView to access details about the staff who report to them.
Gender reassignment (including transgender) include any assessment on
transgender and transsexual people
Pregnancy and maternity
Race assess impact on different ethnic groups and nationalities
Religion or belief assess impact on people with different religions or beliefs including
those with no religion or belief
Sex consider the impact on both men and women
Sexual orientation consider the impact on heterosexual, gay, lesbian and bi-sexual
people
Other identified group including socio-economic groups and rationality
Engagement
Which stakeholders have you engaged with? e.g. staff forums, staff, HR,
audiences
Access Technology team
Technology Group
Technology Controller Operations Group
Outline engagement activity with each stakeholder group
Technology Controller was part of the steering group for PeopleView
Access Technology team worked to highlight accessibility issues
What were the outcomes of the engagement?
We went live with known issues on the understanding that we would upgrade
Impact on General Duties
Eliminate discrimination, harassment & victimisation Provide evidence
against each protected characteristic as appropriate (age, disability gender reassignment,
pregnancy & maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation)
Advance equality of opportunity Provide evidence against each protected
characteristic as appropriate (age, disability gender reassignment, pregnancy & maternity,
race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation)
PeopleView is an information tool that allows staff to access the organisation
structure of the BBC, search for other staff to see where they work and who
they report to, see contact details, and for managers they can see additional
details about staff e.g. salary.
Managers can access these details by contacting HR Direct.
Promote good relations between groups Provide evidence against each
protected characteristic as appropriate (age, disability gender reassignment, pregnancy &
maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation)
Other considerations
Are there any other considerations to be taken into account? e.g.
organisational / divisional context
Who will fund the £80k ?
Work will need to prioritised within the SAP HR team, may impact on the delivery of other
projects, e.g. Freelance and Payroll projects.
Is there equality activity already in place that will affect the impact?
Overall Impact
Outline the overall impact
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The accessibility issues are an inconvenience for users of assistive
technology, but they would not need to use PeopleView very regularly
BBC People committed to an upgrade when the system went live
There are alternative ways of getting access to the data through HR
Direct
There are not high numbers of staff who are affected
Cost is relatively high
There could be Impact on other strategic projects
Action Plan
Is an action plan required to address the impact identified?
Overall assessment of action to be taken No major change / Adjust / Continue /
Stop & remove
On balance ……. Ask Steria to do full impact analysis and plan to do the
upgrade after April next year so as not to impact on other projects.
Review
Outline plans to review actual impact on protected groups post
implementation
Name of person responsible