Fairer Futures Partnerships: equality impact assessment

Equality Impact Assessment for Fairer Futures Partnerships

Title of policy:

Fairer Futures Partnerships

Summary of aims and desired outcomes of Policy:

The Fairer Futures Partnerships (FFP) aims to reduce child poverty through local initiatives focused on small scale tests and service reform, with a view to long term scale and sustainability of approach.

Directorate: Directorate for Tackling Child Poverty and Social Justice / Directorate for Public Service Reform

Division: Place Based Social Justice / Public Service Reform

Team: Place Based Delivery Unit / Place Based Service Change and Delivery

Executive summary

The FFP aims to reduce child poverty through local initiatives focused on small scale tests of change and service reform, with a view to long term scale and sustainability of approach. The FFP is intended to support families experiencing child poverty and is likely to affect the six priority family types at greatest risk of experiencing child poverty. It aims to enable these individuals to access services they may not have otherwise, providing holistic support and lift them out of poverty over the long-term. Also likely to be affected by the programme are local authorities, health boards and third sector delivery partners.

While the FFP is supporting different approaches to delivery, rather than establishing a new policy, an EQIA will be undertaken. This decision has been taken given the level of expenditure of this work and the impact on groups with protected characteristics. It is worth noting that the FFP is part of the Best Start, Bright Futures Tackling Child Poverty delivery plan which underwent a thorough EQIA and is supported by a wealth of evidence, including data on the priority groups. Given this overarching EQIA and the localised nature of this work, which is driven by partners, this EQIA will be light-touch, assessing the possible impacts of the FFP and complementing the existing impact assessments and evidence on tackling child poverty.

It has been determined that the impact of this work on the groups considered within this EQIA will be positive or neutral. Given the cross-over between the protected characteristics and the priority family groups, many of these initiatives are likely to target support to many of the equalities groups. There has not been any evidence found of potential negative impacts. However, given the localised and dynamic approach to this work we will keep this assessment under review as the partnerships progress.

Background

The Scottish Government's second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan - "Best Start, Bright Futures" - set out a commitment to work collaboratively with partners to ensure that the child poverty support system works for the people who need it most. 

In conjunction, the Scottish Government's approach to Public Service Reform sets out an ambition for people's experience of services to be efficient, high quality and effective for all, with a focus on early intervention, positive relationships and partnership working to meet needs identified by citizens. Core to this approach is prioritising prevention, having services shaped around what matters to people and communities, and removing barriers to holistic support.

Adopting a place-based approach to tackling child poverty through reform approaches recognises the different challenges experienced across Scotland, and offers a promising avenue for creating more equitable and resilient communities and transforming service delivery, while developing and sharing the learning which is key to whole system change. 

The FFP is an overarching programme, with several individual initiatives with a number of local authorities. Whilst there will be variation between the different partnerships based on local need, all the initiatives will be:

• Relational and person led, not service driven
  • Placing people at the centre of the design and delivery of coherent and seamless services to support immediate needs with a view to lifting families out of poverty over the long term, we will ensure that those engaging in these initiatives will participate on a no detriment basis
• Pull not push
  • Using data and community engagement to proactively identify individuals and priority families who could benefit from the initiatives, we will listen to the views and needs of citizens and tailor support offers accordingly.
• Empowered by local decision makers
  • Recognising and building on existing strengths of local delivery and good practice across all sectors working in our communities, we will take responsibility for clear governance and evaluation of our initiatives.
• Focused on a No Wrong Door approach
  • Delivery of excellent public services at the point of need, avoiding repeat asks, duplication and complexity in provision, to ensure services are accessible and timely.

The Fairer Futures Partnership is intended to support families experiencing or at risk of child poverty. It is likely to affect the six priority family types at greatest risk of experiencing child poverty:

• lone parent families
• minority ethnic families
• families with a disabled adult or child
• families with a younger mother (under 25)
• families with a child under one
• larger families (three or more children)

The policy aims to enable these families to access services they may not have otherwise, providing holistic support and lift them out of poverty over the long-term.

The Scope of the EQIA

The scope of this EQIA is to consider the impact of the FFP on individuals with protected characteristics that are likely to engage with the local initiatives in this programme. As the focus of this work is to support those experiencing or at risk of poverty, this is a particular focus of the scope. While the work of the FFP may engage with individuals without any protected characteristics, evidence demonstrates the likelihood of priority family groups experiencing poverty (which has cross-over with the protected characteristics under consideration) means these groups are very likely to be targeted for support in this work.

This EQIA has been informed by detailed analysis of existing evidence and data in order to draw out the potential impacts of poverty and in turn the work of the FFP on people with protected characteristics as set out in the Equality Act 2010. This includes the consultation with our local authority partners and a range of published research papers, reports, studies and surveys.

Specifically, this EQIA assesses the impacts of applying a proposed new or revised policy or practice against the needs relevant to a public authority's obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty. The needs are to:

• Eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation;
• Advance equality of opportunity; and
• Foster good relations.

The evidence-gathering exercise has highlighted areas where there is limited evidence on certain groups in relation to poverty, in particular for religion or belief, gender reassignment and sexual orientation.

Key Findings

Through undertaking this EQIA for the FFP we have identified where there are potential direct and indirect impact on people with protected characteristics. This process has demonstrated that across many of the protected characteristics (age, disability, sex, pregnancy/maternity and race) we expect that the FFP initiatives will have a positive impact in terms of eliminating unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and advancing equality of opportunity. Given the clear cross-over with priority family groups, which are a target for the support offered across these initiatives, it is expected that these groups will be positively impacted by the work through greater access to services, more person-centred and tailored support.

In relation to remaining protected characteristics (gender reassignment, sexual orientation and religion or belief), it was found that there would be no or a neutral impact on these groups given that the FFP does not specifically aim to target based on these characteristics. Similarly, the FFP is not focused on promoting good relations between protected groups, however, as the various initiatives develop, we will keep this under review.

Recommendations and Conclusion

The assessment has reinforced the importance of considering and targeting support to priority family types and the importance of identifying and testing approaches that respond to different needs. This learning will inform discussions with partnerships and the monitoring systems that are established to support this work. As the FFP progresses and more evidence is gathered, this document will be reviewed and updated to help ensure proper measures are in place to understand who is engaging in this work.

The FFP has several forms of evaluation underway or planned. This includes evaluations of three current projects (Dundee, Glasgow and Clackmannanshire) which are set to report March 2025. In addition, plans are in place to evaluate and link learning from across new partnerships.

The principles of this programme commit to identifying and providing support for families in need, specifically those in priority family groups. There is a clear cross over between the priority family groups and the protected characteristics considered in this EQIA. By building this into the principles of the FFP which partners will agree to, it will enable the Scottish Government in collaboration with partners to continuously consider how this programme is engaging with supporting families possessing protected characteristics. In particular, one strand of the evaluation will include supporting partnerships to set up monitoring and evaluation practices that will allow them to report on project delivery, engagement with families and outcomes. Being able to report on engagement with and outcomes for priority family types will be an important element of this. This EQIA assessment will be a useful tool in informing this work and will be considered as part of the joint oversight board of the partnerships at appropriate points. Similarly, we will look to utilise opportunities, such as our learning events, to consider how specific aspects of place based delivery is working for the priority family types.