Residential tenants keeping pets: equality impact assessment

The Scope of the EQIA

The EQIA considers the impact to give private and social housing tenants greater flexibility to have a pet against the protected characteristics: age; disability; sex (including pregnancy and maternity); gender reassignment; sexual orientation; race; and religion or belief.

Potential impacts have been considered in the context of the public sector equality duty, which requires public bodies to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different people, when carrying out their activities.

As part of our considerations and policy development of the measure, a formal public consultation was carried out as part of the Scottish Government’s New Deal for Tenants: Draft Rented Sector Strategy^[5]. Independent analysis^[6] of responses to the consultation was published in August 2022. Further targeted stakeholder engagement with tenants, landlords and other relevant stakeholders has taken place to inform the development of the measures and a landlord and tenants questionnaire seeking views on particular aspects of the policy has also been carried out. Independent analysis^[7] of responses to the questionnaire was published on 8 March.