Initial Equality Impact
Assessment
Department
Customers, Communities and Learning
Service Area
Community Services
Date
18th July 2012
This Initial EqIA will help you to analyse equality in the context of your policy, practice or function.
The assessment is a useful method to document your equalities analysis in a transparent manner, as well as to consider whether there are
opportunities to advance equality in relation to your proposal. Even if there are no adverse impacts, it is essential to ensure that we meet our
equality duties in The Equality Act 2010 by considering whether we have had ‘Due Regard’ to:



The elimination of discrimination, harassment and victimisation
The advancement of equality of opportunity between and for different groups of protected characteristics
The fostering of good relations between and for different groups of protected characteristics
The ‘Protected characteristics’ we must consider in terms of the above duties are referred to in the Equality Act 2010 ‘Public Sector Equality
Duty’ and are:
 Sex
 Sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, etc)
 Gender reassignment (i.e. transgender individuals),
 Religion or belief (including no belief)
 Age (young and old),
 Pregnancy and Maternity
 Disability (mental, and physical)
 Marriage and Civil Partnership Only applies to the first aim of the
Public Sector Equality Duty above
 Race and ethnicity,
For more information about analysing equalities and to view the Equality Impact Assessment Toolkit, please visit the County Council
Equalities pages: http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/en/councilservices/community/equalities/pages/toolkit.aspx
Equality Analysis
1. Who is responsible for equality analysis?
All officers and members of Northamptonshire County Council, have some degree of responsibility for ensuring that EqIAs are conducted. You
need to identify the people who will lead and be responsible for this EqIA.
Title of policy, practice, service or function to be changed or
implemented
Is this a new or existing policy, practice, service or function?
Troubled Families Programme
Persons undertaking assessment (please also state name or
contact of lead officer)
Paul Phillips (Troubled Families Project Manager). Lead
Officer AD Janet Doran Community Services
A new approach to turn around ‘troubled families’ from DCLG
2. Details of policy, practice, service or function
What are the aims and objectives of the policy, practice or
function?
If this EqIA is assessing the impact of a proposed change please
describe the aims of the proposed change.
The aim of the programme is, during the time period 2012 –
2015, to turn around 1200 families in Northamptonshire who
meet at least two of these criteria:
1. Currently out of work
2. Children in the family are out of school
3. Family members are committing crime or anti-social
behaviour (ASB).
4. Another locally agree criteria if necessary and appropriate in
order to identify and work with the required number of families.
Who is intended to benefit from this proposal policy, practice or
function?
Beneficiaries could including individuals, small community
organisations or wider voluntary bodies.
Who are the main stakeholders in relation to the proposed
policy/service/function? (Partners, Community Groups,
Commissioned Services etc)
The beneficiaries of this will be the families themselves by
improving their quality of life, the people who are affected by
the behaviours of these families and the taxpayers and public
agencies that have to resource the needs of these families.
Stakeholders include NCC councillors, commissioned services
(e.g. CAN, Children’s centres), Responsible Authorities,
agencies (e.g. NCC, District/Boroughs, Schools, Health,
police, probation and DWP), other local and parish councillors,
Who implements the proposed Policy/Service/Function and is
responsible for it? (Lead officer, Head of service, Director etc)
appropriate third sector organisations.
Assistant Director Janet Doran Community Services
3. Data, Consultation, Feedback and Analysis
A variety of data sources can be used in Equality Impact Assessments, to provide an overview about the effect of proposed measures on groups
of protected characteristics.
Source
Reasons for using
e.g. statistics, demographics, indicators, partner data, consultation,
surveys, customer complaints and comments
Statistical data from Carefirst, Capita1, CareWorks, police
crime data, DWP data, partnership data e.g. ASB information,
nuisance reports, case conferences, diversionary activities,
housing history and other multi-agency working group data
Consultation has been undertaken by the Council in relation
to the development of the demand management and
prevention strategies of which TFP forms an important
element.
Troubled families programme research and consultation led
by Tsar Louise Casey for Central Government
http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/2183663.pdf
This data is required to understand and identify who the 1200 families
are and to monitor the impact of the work undertaken to ‘turn around’
these families.
The consultation on demand management and prevention is relevant to
some of the outcomes sought by the TFP i.e. reduction of costs
associated with high demand families by the delivery of appropriate
interventions to ‘turn around’ as many of these families as possible..
To understand the core drivers behind this national project, which is not
necessarily as portrayed within national media.
In response to the information above, please state whether there are concerns or evidence that the policy/ procedure/ function could
have a specific impact on people from the following groups?
Sex
Gender Reassignment
Age
Disability
Race & Ethnicity
Sexual Orientation
Religion or Belief (or No
Belief)
Pregnancy & Maternity
Human Rights (Please see
articles in toolkit)
Other Groups (rural
isolation etc)
Based on the above information, what impact will
this proposal have on the following groups?
Can the
policy/procedure/function
be altered to help mitigate
or alleviate a negative
impact?
Can the
policy/procedure/function
be altered to help meet
our Public Sector Equality
Duty to advance equality?
Positive
Unsure
Yes
Yes
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Negative
Neutral
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
No
Unsure
x
X (see 4)
No
Unsure
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Are there any gaps in information and understanding of your policy and services? If yes please include how you intend to fill these gaps in
the Action Planning section.
Gaps in data/ understanding
There is a potential issue in relation to identifying the
protected characteristics of people within the identified
families and thereby understanding the impact on these
groups of the work undertaken. Gaps will be identified and
solutions to these gaps will be designed as the database is
developed.
4. Action Planning
Analysing equalities should be a continuous process. Where a full assessment is not required, but minor changes or amendments to
the planned proposal can be made, please use the action plan template below.
Planned Actions
Identifying gaps in the data to enable a thorough
impact assessment to be undertaken.
Human Rights – ensuring that data is shared in a
necessary, lawful, proportionate and justifiable
way.
Responsibility
Paul Phillips
Timeframe
By 31/12/12
Paul Phillips
By 31/10/12
Success Measure
Protected characteristic can be
identified by the database
Protocols for data-sharing are
in place
Do stakeholders agree with your findings and proposed response? (Please explain your answer.)
An internal and external stakeholder meeting framework is in place to develop the programme of work and ensure that equality issues
are understood, shared and resolved.
5. Should the policy proceed to a full impact assessment?
Is there is evidence of a disproportionate adverse or positive impact on any groups of protected characteristic?
Are there concerns that there may be an impact that cannot be easily mitigated or alleviated through minor alterations?
Is there an opportunity to significantly alter your proposal to meet the positive duties?
If yes to any of the above then you must answer YES unless you can provide strong justification below.
Yes
No
x
Explain your reasons for your answer:
The key issues are:
 The quality and direct relevance of the data
 Understanding the impact of the programme on all the families identified and equality impacts
These will be incorporated into the programme, therefore a separate action plan is not required at this stage.
6. Authorisation and Review
Completing Officer (Name):
Paul Phillips – Troubled Families Project Manager
Completing Officer (Signature):
Authorising Assistant Director (Name):
AD Janet Doran – Community Services
Authorising Assistant Director (Signature):
Date
Review Date
18.07.12
18.10.12
Equality Impact Assessment Matrix
From time to time, random sampling of Equality Impact Assessments may occur. They will be scored and assessed for quality assurance in
terms of analysing internal and external impact. Internal impact is associated with employees of NCC, and external impact concerns external
customers (including community and voluntary groups as well as individuals.) This scoring analyses pre mitigation risk and post mitigation risk.
For more details associated with the Equality Impact Assessment Matrix, as well as specific queries about the general Equality Impact
Assessment process, please contact Equalities@Northamptonshire.gov.uk
Full Equality Impact
Assessment