Equalities Impact Assessments (EIA)

Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) are a self-assessment tool to help us look at the likely positive and negative impact of our work on staff, citizens, partners and communities with regard to equality of opportunity, and promoting diversity in employment and service delivery.

Cumulative EIAs

*There wasn’t one in 2013 this is the text from the budget report…

Lambeth Council takes its equalities responsibilities very seriously. It is vitally important as the council is forced to take difficult decisions about reducing resources that the impact of these decisions is fully considered.

Lambeth Council is committed to targeting its resources as far as possible to those most in need and to reducing inequality of opportunity in our borough. Therefore the council’s approach to delivering a balanced budget has equalities considerations at its core. The council’s commitment to equalities is detailed in full in our Corporate Plan.

8.2 It should be noted that full EIAs have already been undertaken and considered by the council’s Equalities Board and Corporate EIA panel in respect of high risk proposals which were agreed last year in February 2012 for the 2013/14 budget (amounting to some £12.5m of already agreed savings).

8.3 In this report Cabinet is being asked to agree an overarching approach to delivering target savings to relieve pressure on the budget. In line with our equalities processes, the Corporate EIA panel will consider detailed equality impact assessments (which should be informed by coproduction and consultation with citizens) before these proposals are put to Cabinet. It is proposed that any specific proposals which arise as a result of the decisions in this report will be formally agreed and endorsed by Cabinet through the July Finance Review (see Section 4 for more information).

Therefore the council is committed to undertaking detailed EIAs on these specific proposals before they are discussed at the July Cabinet meeting. This will likely take place in May and June 2013.