The Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2019: EQIA

Stage 4: Decision making and monitoring

Identifying and establishing any required mitigating action

Describing how Equality Impact analysis has shaped the policy making process

The policy is non-discriminatory and the scheme was developed in line with European and UK equalities legislation. No changes have been made to the policy as a result of the impact analysis.

This policy is to continue the existing SRDP for a further two scheme years. During this period the impact will continue to be monitored through stakeholder engagement and by working with partners to best utilise and collect data on rural Scotland through changes to the household survey, census and by equality data collected on scheme beneficiaries as part of the monitoring and review process.

There are no implications of the EQIA on costs or resources to the LFASS scheme.

The EQIA has confirmed there has been no significant change to the demography of rural Scotland in relation to the protected characteristics and the scheme is not discriminatory as the eligibility criteria relates to land rather than personal factors.

Monitoring and Review

Changes to data collection in relation to equalities, for example the inclusion of sexual orientation in the Scottish Household Survey and the intent to include questions in the upcoming census, will help to inform future policy.

The National Council of Rural Advisers have proposed a new blueprint for Scotland's rural economy that will involve alignment with the National Performance Framework. This will enable us to better evaluate programmes based on national performance indicators.

The monitoring and evaluation framework developed for the SRDP and the Annual Implementation Report which is submitted to the European Commission will monitor and evaluate the outcomes.