Report of the City Solicitor

This report reviews a selection of the Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) produced in support of the Council’s business planning process for 2019/2020. It outlines the context of why the Council undertakes EIAs and some of the key themes emerging from the business priority-related analyses produced in the last year.  It also describes changes to the Council’s approach to business planning for 2020-21, and the implications for how equality impacts will be considered within the plan and how the process of producing EIAs will be managed moving forwards.

The Committee received a report of the City Solicitor which reviewed a selection of the Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) produced in support of the Council’s business planning process for 2019/2020.  It outlined the context of why the Council undertook EIAs and some of the key themes emerging from the business priority-related analyses produced in the last year.  It also described changes to the Council’s approach to business planning for 2020-21, and the implications for how equality impacts would be considered within the plan and how the process of producing EIAs would be managed moving forwards.

The report noted that EIAs would be produced if actions arising from the Council's Climate Change Action Plan had a disproportionate impact on certain communities. The plan would recognise that climate change would have differential impacts on communities across the city, for example in terms of poor air quality and more frequent incidences of extreme weather.

Officers referred to the main points and themes within the report which included:

• Update on 2019-20 EIA Activity;
• Refreshed approach to business planning and EIAs; and
• Strengthening the approach to EIAs.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

·        That an EIA had not been completed for the Peterloo Memorial and whether lessons had been learnt from the mistakes that were made in that case;

• Request for further information on the EIA process, including how officers were made aware of it and whether EIAs were monitored by the Equalities Team;
• The timing of EIAs in relation to when decisions were taken, including in the case of the proposed Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) for the city centre;
• The importance of having a framework for EIAs setting out when they should be completed and what they should include and how Members could access the EIAs;
• That levels of deprivation were not included in the EIAs; and
• That EIAs should focus on having a positive impact rather than solely on minimising the negative impact on particular groups.

The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager acknowledged that an EIA had not been completed in relation to the Peterloo Memorial and informed the Committee that work was taking place to safeguard against similar problems in future.  He advised the Committee that he would provide them with further information on this. 

The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager informed Members that EIAs were part of the Project Initiation Process for Council projects but that this practice was not always fully embedded in the process and one of the challenges for his team was to address this.

The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager confirmed that an EIA had been produced for the city centre PSPO and was expected to be signed off before a decision was taken.  He agreed that EIAs should be completed before decisions were taken and reported that his team needed to have influence across the organisation to ensure that this happened.  He advised that the best practice model was to complete the EIA at the earliest stage to identify any issues and give the relevant service the opportunity to adjust the proposal so that either the final proposal did not have this disproportionate impact or, if that was not possible, so that decision-makers could take this information into account when making their decision.  The City Solicitor advised that, as the Lead Officer for Equality within the Senior Management Team, it was part of her role to use her influence to ensure that this analysis was prioritised and factored into decision-making and that she expected her colleagues and peers to ensure that this was being done within their Directorates.

The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager informed the Committee that the part of the Equality Act 2010 which would have addressed socio-economic disadvantage was never enacted and that it had previously been decided not to include it in the Council’s EIAs on this basis; however, he advised that this would be given further consideration as part of the review of the EIA Framework.  He advised Members that there was also an opportunity to make the process more meaningful and to engage with key stakeholders over this.

Decision

To note the report and to ask the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager to consider the comments made by Members.