Equality impact assessments

We use equality impact assessments to help us understand the equality implications of the following issues:

• the decisions we are taking
• policies we have
• services we provide or commission
• our major support functions

Equality impact assessments help us to understand whether any of these issues have different impacts on people with protected characteristics or other EDI groups within the community. Where potentially negative impacts on certain groups are identified, we will consider what actions we can put in place to address these disadvantages, or whether plans should be amended to remove the disadvantage.

To make the assessments we use:

• an equality impact assessment template
• with supporting equality impact assessment guidance
• data held by council services and within the Cumbria Intelligence Observatory