HR, finance and purchasing system replacement: equality impact assessment

Executive summary

The aim is to provide a modern IT system that will be fully integrated and incorporate all the functions HR, Finance and Procurement. It will replace existing systems for core Scottish Government and around 20 Customer Organisations such as Social Security Scotland.

This EQIA provides an overview of the implementation of what is a vast and complex IT system. It does not look at detailed functionality. A number of other journey specific EQIAs have been drafted to look at this. As such, the approach to the EQIA was to identify and examine any high level issue which might prevent the desired outcomes.

Priority parts of the system has been reviewed and tested with users for accessibility. Through this work, we have identified some issues that may create barriers for users. This may in particular impact those who use assistive technology like screen-reader software. To mitigate these impacts, specific guidance, demo videos and Masterclasses have been developed to support users, should they experience barriers to using the system. An enhanced support model has also been put in place to troubleshoot issues with users.

Accessibility specialists will continue to work with the vendor, third party supplier, and other Government departments to address issues as part of our commitment to achieving accessibility standards.

The SG are working through these and embedding a culture of continuous improvement. User experience will be monitored on an on-going basis and to ensure that barriers experienced by users are continually identified and reduced.